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Men Without Work (2016)

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Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#31

Post by 13of40 »

bobkazamakis wrote: post #4
cs702 wrote: post #3

Many men who would have done well as labor or middle management in, say, 20th century factories, now find themselves the victims of a rapidly changing, ever-more-concentrated, ever-more-automated global capitalist economy that has less and less need for them. And to them it feels as if no one cares about them. To riff on Churchill[a]: Capitalism is the worst economic system ever invented... except for all others that…

"deaths because of communism are entirely because of communism, but deaths because of capitalism are because you didn't pull your bootstraps hard enough"

I'm struggling to interpret this. On the one hand it could be saying that from the perspective of a capitalist, we unfairly decline to assign the capitalist system blame when someone falls through the cracks. But the fundamental difference between the two systems is that the latter trades some amount of a person's autonomy for a better collective "deal". In other words, a communist society takes responsibility for the well-being of its citizens, so it also bears the responsibility when things go south and someone dies before their time. (Whether the system values that life to the same degree as the person and their family is a different question.)

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#32

Post by bee_rider »

cs702 wrote: post #3

Many men who would have done well as labor or middle management in, say, 20th century factories, now find themselves the victims of a rapidly changing, ever-more-concentrated, ever-more-automated global capitalist economy that has less and less need for them. And to them it feels as if no one cares about them. To riff on Churchill[a]: Capitalism is the worst economic system ever invented... except for all others that…

I think “riff off Churchill” or “borrow from” would be helpful instead of “paraphrase,” since the quote was originally about democracy, not capitalism (mostly wanted to note this because a couple people seem to have taken as a direct quote more or less).

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#33

Post by dbingham »

Octoth0rpe wrote: post #19
dbingham wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just a spectrum from Libertarian Free Market to State Socialism. There are many other forms of economic system. Capitalism isn't even synonymous with free markets. Capitalism just speaks to who gets to own the businesses (those with the capital). There are alternatives other than "the state". Worker cooperatives exist and are perfectly functional and successful. Which means one economic system that isn't oft…

I agree with everything you're saying. My reference to free market -> state socialism as a spectrum I think is still valid, but is only one axis upon which an economic system can be evaluated. Syndicalism, worker coops of course exist and are distinct from each other, but those both still exist on a spectrum from a free for all to state ownership. Admittedly I did conflate things a bit with my point about raising the…

Sure, you could have a Free Market Socialist economy in which there are sectors of the economy managed by the state. And that there's a lot to tease out in terms of what level of the state is doing the management (municipal utilities vs a national health care system, for instance). This is also true of Capitalism.

But it's not like Free Market Socialism sits in the middle of the spectrum from Capitalist Free Market to State Socialism. If anything it exists on a separate spectrum entirely where you're taken the variable "ownership of business" and flipped it to "workers". And then there's a different variable that forms the axis "how much of the economy is state managed".

But even the question of "how much" is the wrong one here. A much more valuable question is "which sectors" are state managed and why. And, as referenced above, at what level of the state.

And then there's the question of what kind of state we're dealing with (democratic or authoritarian) and how it's organized.

I think these sorts of things are why I don't generally find spectrums helpful when it comes to economics, politics, and policy. Then tend to boil down complex systems to single features of those systems. But the impact of those features depends heavily on the other pieces in the system. It's a feature of complex systems that tweaking a single variable can have unexpected consequences because it's heavily impacted by the state of the other variables in the system.

I think, in general, it's more useful to describe the systems as coherent objects with certain sets of features. Even trying a multi-dimensional map gets tricky fast.

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#34

Post by spacemadness »

afavour wrote: post #21
javajosh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that you need to apologize and explain why you care about issues that might affect men is telling in and of itself. The American Zeitgeist around gender issues is distorted to dehumanize men and alienate anyone who even dares to recognize this fact. I'm a pretty hardcore liberal and I I'm totally astonished on a daily basis at the hate in vitriol directed at men that go without comment, let alone castigation…

> The American Zeitgeist around gender issues is distorted to dehumanize men and alienate anyone who even dares to recognize this fact. I'm conflicted about that. Not denying that what you've said is true but I specifically chose the term "red pilled" because there are huge toxic (predominantly online) communities that are openly misogynistic. e.g. in theory I'd like and participate in the "men's rights" subreddit, i…

Yes, just as anti-feminist/pro-patriarchy behaviors can easily come from women. It’s part of our cultural programming and its very hard for people to sidestep that without a lot of self analysis.

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#35

Post by cs702 »

bee_rider wrote: post #32
cs702 wrote: post #3

Many men who would have done well as labor or middle management in, say, 20th century factories, now find themselves the victims of a rapidly changing, ever-more-concentrated, ever-more-automated global capitalist economy that has less and less need for them. And to them it feels as if no one cares about them. To riff on Churchill[a]: Capitalism is the worst economic system ever invented... except for all others that…

I think “riff off Churchill” or “borrow from” would be helpful instead of “paraphrase,” since the quote was originally about democracy, not capitalism (mostly wanted to note this because a couple people seem to have taken as a direct quote more or less).

Good point. I edited my comment. Thank you!

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#36

Post by hollywood_court »

afavour wrote: post #8

I'm very far from a red-pilled anti-feminist but I do think this is a hugely overlooked problem. Perhaps too much of an aside but I was lucky enough to be able to take an extended parental leave when my child was born, being a "stay at home dad" for the best part of a year. It was incredibly hard work, incredibly rewarding but also a real eye opener at how society still doesn't know what to do with a full-time parent…

Being a stay at home parent is certainly a lot of work. I did it for a while until my son started pre-k. However his school follows the schedule of the local university so it’s just been he and I for the past 3 weeks during the holidays and for 2 weeks recently before that during Thanksgiving break.

We quickly fell back into our same routine of taking walks and working on his reading and writing.

But I am definitely familiar with the questions from the mothers at the playground or the fitness class he attends.

I just tell them that I was fortunate enough to retire at 40 and I’m presently trying to reinvent myself as a web developer.

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#37

Post by verdverm »

jnmandal wrote: post #22
adolph wrote: post #12

In the transition to a post-scarcity world it may be that this crisis represents a transition in which people's mental wellbeing is less moored to earnings and oriented more toward value.

Are you implying we are approaching a post-scarcity world now?

we are not getting further away, closer, so this would be "approaching"

GP may be more referring to the reduction in need for physical labor based jobs as robotics and automation increase, more than "post-scarcity," a "post-labor-scarcity" should arrive beforehand

But to GP's point, transitions take a long time and we are already seeing the early changes. It's not like it has not started

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#39

Post by adversaryIdiot »

ianai wrote: post #2

In lieu of any particular review I’m submitting the Wikipedia page. I was unemployed for most of the Great Recession and can empathize with much of this book. I also just remember the “tragedy of my twenties” realizing society had basically no interest in me. Despite a math degree and IT/programming experience. Then the myriad people I’ve interacted with in the last decade plus who are in this situation. Luckily I no…

man I am so happy i heard someone else say it too. I seriously felt like "society had no interest in me". Not being able to find a job and getting no matches on things like tinder left me devastated. I am on anti depressants and fear that time to this day.

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#40

Post by mschuster91 »

LightHugger wrote: post #28
afavour wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The American Zeitgeist around gender issues is distorted to dehumanize men and alienate anyone who even dares to recognize this fact. I'm conflicted about that. Not denying that what you've said is true but I specifically chose the term "red pilled" because there are huge toxic (predominantly online) communities that are openly misogynistic. e.g. in theory I'd like and participate in the "men's rights" subreddit, i…

Just like how a lot of the societal pressure causing womens issues comes from women. There's no difference between genders in this aspect. Though for some reason, i see some feminists trying to blame men exclusively for men's problems. I have never seen a man blaming women for all women's issues the same way.

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