Earlier quoted context omitted.
Skills are not capital assets.
Okay, so what are skills if not capital assets?
Knowledge.
An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer
141–150 of 353 posts
Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer
#142> Engineering culture encourages workers to collectively improve the company’s effectiveness. It encourages them to share knowledge with one another. To train each other. To build tools for one another. To bring new workers up to speed, and review each other’s work. To speed the company up. To seek out weaknesses in the company and fix them. / Engineers do this while they’re doing their actual job, the one the compan…
Please note the topic is "Class _Warfare_ for the Software Engineer" and NOT "Fulfilling Your Expected Role as a Software Engineer"
This is the author's opinion of how Software's Labor can "fight back"
If you're not in an adversarial relationship with your employer then this advice will not be particularly useful/advantageous.
Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Process improvement: Is this your job? Then no. This remark from TFA at least implies when it "is" part of your job, go for it. Perhaps you have rejected, or simply not engaged with, the "call" to recognize class warfare, however, or if I can be silly I'll call you a "capital sympathizer". From the frame of recognizing workers vs capitalists, you can't just say write off being exploited as "well you were paid to be…
I think his point was that it's the job that you signed up for, so either do the job, or don't work there. > You can "well that's your job" all day long, and you're technically correct, but you're ...wrong. Working for minimum wage wasn't part of the contract you signed ("your job"), so your example isn't valid.
> I think his point was that it's the job that you signed up for, so either do the job, or don't work there.
The article is, ostensibly, a call to recognize class warfare, and certain elements of "engineering culture" as aspects of same. Did you sign up for class warfare?
If you simply refuse to participate in the notion of seeing this as class warfare, super!, but that's actively disengaging from the substance of the article.
Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer
#144The problem with this article is that one does not need capital to start a tech company. This very website, sneered at in the article, is littered with examples of people who have built something at the side. I'm not sure knowledge workers can make the same complaints about class struggle that mechanical labourers can. We tend to get more valuable with age and experience.
Sure, there exists a path towards success in tech without significant capital. That doesn’t mean it’s easy, or that it will be that way forever. At some point in the past a car mechanic could build a new engine from stock parts and make improvements they could monetize.
This is a new argument I have not heard before I am deeply curious about it but don't know how to interrogate it further. Is this original thinking or something you found in a book?
Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer
#145> Engineering culture encourages workers to collectively improve the company’s effectiveness. It encourages them to share knowledge with one another. To train each other. To build tools for one another. To bring new workers up to speed, and review each other’s work. To speed the company up. To seek out weaknesses in the company and fix them. / Engineers do this while they’re doing their actual job, the one the compan…
> Process improvement: Is this your job? Then no. This remark from TFA at least implies when it "is" part of your job, go for it. Perhaps you have rejected, or simply not engaged with, the "call" to recognize class warfare, however, or if I can be silly I'll call you a "capital sympathizer". From the frame of recognizing workers vs capitalists, you can't just say write off being exploited as "well you were paid to be…
(Process improvement is often part of the official job of Staff+.)
There seems to be lots of nasty class stuff going on, throughout society.
But TFA just seems to hurt legitimate discussion of class issues.
Imagine you're skeptical of the suggestion of class problems, but since a post about that was upvoted on HN, and you're open to being convinced, you took a look. Unfortunately, after reading it, you have to chalk it up as a data point: of someone who thinks there's class warfare on tech jobs also having very unfortunate idea of what the nature of that job is.
Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have any evidence that tech salaries were high in the 80s and 90s? I thought Apple, Sun et al conspired to keep salaries down. As the son of an electrical engineer with a 45 year career in software we never lived, and he doesn't have the pension, that a junior engineer at Meta or Google would be able to provide today.
There's plenty of evidence[1]; but more importantly, when putting stagnating salaries in the context of housing prices, CPI, and inflation, it becomes even more jarring. Today, as an engineer making 125-175k in LA, for example, you will literally never be able to purchase a home near to where you work. [1] https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/it-jobs-are-no-longer-exceptional
I thought this might be the trick that would get pulled. House price inflation is a completely inappropriate measure. House prices are not kept stupidly high by the 1% or capital class but by the 50.1% that vote against allowing any kind of building anywhere near an existing house, not near an existing house or that, heav'n forfend, might endanger the habitat of the lesser spotted newt.
Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
> While you don't get paid the exact revenue you generate If you did, why would a company hire you? The idea is the employee must create more value than he costs. And the employee gets more pay than his labor is worth to himself. That's why it's a win-win relationship.
Except the company cut has been getting bigger and bigger for the last 40 years. Productivity has increased and wages have not.
When you look at wages + benefits, the increase is more or less proportional.
Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
Capitalist vs laborer is a true dichotomy, in that one cannot be both simultaneously within one context. But it is important to remember these are embodied roles and not character traits . I.e., a laborer becomes a consumer when they leave their place of employment to drive to the grocery store.
> Capitalist vs laborer is a true dichotomy, in that one cannot be both simultaneously within one context. Sure one can. One can be a "laborer" in the sense of spending one's working hours doing work for an employer instead of starting a startup or owning your own company, and also be a capitalist in that same context in the sense of using your skills as bargaining power with your employer to get the best return on t…
You really don't understand what a capitalist is, do you? Fortunately, I have enlisted ChatGPT to help you!
p0pcult: Explain what Karl Marx would tell a five year old a capitalist is
ChatGPT: Karl Marx would tell a five year old that a capitalist is someone who owns a business and makes money by hiring people to work for them and selling the things they make for a profit. The capitalist gets rich, while the workers who make the things only get paid for their time and effort. This is what Karl Marx calls "exploitation."
p0pcult: What is a capitalist?
ChatGPT: Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production, such as factories and businesses, are owned and controlled by private individuals for the purpose of generating profits. In a capitalist system, goods and services are produced and distributed in a market economy, and prices are determined by supply and demand. The goal of a capitalist is to accumulate wealth and capital through ownership and investment in businesses. [Emphasis mine]
Capitalists acquire wealth, passively, by owning things.
Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer
#149Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer
#150I'll pass on all the class warfare melodrama, but it does seem a bit strange to be blasting tens of thousands of employees you paid through the nose to identify, recruit, and retain during a period of time when the biggest actors in tech are facing a level of competitive pressure that they haven't in a long time.
Maybe some cuts were needed to reassure the Street and support the stock price, and maybe that's easier to do with some air cover about interest rates and shit, but everyone remembers what happened the last time even one of the big actors broke ranks and started doubling people's salaries: Google has had a little problem called "Facebook" ever since. I'm not sure I'd be keen to repeat the experiment with OpenAI/ChatGPT and ByteDance/TikTok running around. FANG has had a good run but they're not invincible.
So I don't think they're going to be able to meaningfully depress big tech compensation for very long. But who knows, I've been wrong before.