Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 353 posts

Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

#311

Post by Karellen »

xg15 wrote: post #139
neilv wrote: post #39

> 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…

Found that part odd as well. I think this would be the first labor movement I ever heard about that argues for less solidarity with your fellow workers. Protip: Organising collective action will become impossible if everyone hates each other and keeps information from each other for fear of their own job security. That will help capital in the end.

I think it's worth highlighting that the author explicitly treats the idea of forming/joining a union with sarcasm:

> Oh, yeah, we should also have a union. Sure. Let’s get on that one of these days.

It seems like a how-to guide for how you as an individual can push the value of your labor down to match the price that capital wants to pay for it, rather than trying to find a way to gain some leverage over capital in order to raise the price of your labor to reflect the value you currently provide. (Leverage like, say, collective action.)

> Once the company reaches the bottom, and capital starts suffering from the damage it is inflicting on the company, it will turn around.

Well, good luck surviving the extra rounds of layoffs between now and then if you're the one who stands out as not working well with others, I guess.

Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

#312

Post by [deleted] »

treeman79 wrote: post #50
bediger4000 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Offshoring and H1-Bs have definitely kept programmer wages lower than they would have been otherwise.

I make better than 3x times my wife’s teacher salary. If I really pushed hard career wise I could probably get to 6x.

[deleted]

Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

#313

Post by phist_mcgee »

qualudeheart wrote: post #75
Animats wrote: post #23

Earlier today I wrote on HN: "We can see it coming now - the Final Solution to high tech salaries. Expect to see a huge downward salary trend in the web front end/back end sector. That stuff is a solved problem. Expect salaries for new hires to drop below $100K and old hires being gradually pushed out." This new post says that's already happening.

That’s easily viewed as a pricing in of automation. Amjad Masad of Replit is predicting fully automatic software engineer bot by end of year. Me and my girlfriend were ahead of the curve and are high enough up the ladder that we won’t be effected. Others will have a harder time.

>effected Yeah sounds about right for a middle manager.

Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

#314

Post by kiviuq »

neilv wrote: post #39

> 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…

People are social creatures. It is very easy to take advantage of that.

And actually, the best thing that can happen to you as an investor / capitalist. Let employees create their own peer pressured environment. The same phenomenon how coal miners used to conduct.

You just lean back and enjoy the benefits of them controlling and supporting each other

Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

#315

Post by carlosjobim »

pdonis wrote: post #266
carlosjobim wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good to hear, but it's still a huge stretch to call skills capital - what does any of us gain by redefining words in free conversation? When arguing for or against communism (as is the theme of the article and thread) we need at least to have some common understanding of what a word means. "Capital" is generally understood as exclusive ownership. > In the sense that most of their pay is return on capital, not "labor"…

> "Capital" is generally understood as exclusive ownership. Sure, and you exclusively own your skills, so they meet this definition. > Applying your skills is still labour. The time you spend applying them is labor, yes. The knowledge on your part of how to apply them to produce much more value in that time than a unskilled worker could produce, is capital. And the fact that you can get paid much more than an unskill…

> Sure, and you exclusively own your skills, so they meet this definition.

You can never exclusively own skills. If somebody else achieves some skill or knowledge that I have, I cannot use the force of the government to stop him from having those. A capitalist can and will use the force of the government to stop others from using the things he has laid claim to: Land, natural resources, equipment. A capitalist can create capital out of thin air by making money, and use the force of the government to stop others from making money.

That's the difference that matters.

> Try doing that as an unskilled worker and see how far you get.

Right now I think it is mainly unskilled workers who are changing sectors, as they are the ones who can benefit most from it. If your job cannot get worse, there is no reason not to change. As for skilled workers, they have already climbed a few steps on the ladder.

Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

#316

Post by etothepii »

pdonis wrote: post #270
etothepii wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the point was more that those who write articles like this one are borrowing heavily from communist ideas. If you aren't a communist, there's a good chance that you don't think that skills are capital and the rebuttal was along those lines.

> If you aren't a communist, there's a good chance that you don't think that skills are capital The post I responded to (GGP of this one) said "skills are not capital in the communist vocabulary". Did you mean that if you are a communist, there's a good chance you don't think that skills are capital?

No. My limited experience with the hard left at university is that those who call themselves communists today typically mean, "I'm against bad things like exploitation, I am for the weak against the strong, I am on the side of good. There are simple solutions to our problems." This can be summed up in Marx's axiomatic statement, "to each as he needs; from each as he can."

It would have likely have been more accurate to say, "in the language of Marx skills are not capital." It would probably be more accurate for my comment to have been, "if you don't have the propensity to call yourself a communist you probably don't worry about whether or not skills are capital." This is because for me the common feature amongst communists (in a free society) is their belief in simple solutions, and unwillingness to engage with their unintended side effects.

Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

#317

Post by nvfkpwydxt »

This is not a plan, this is a temper tantrum, thrown by an infant.

A plan is to shame management and foment collective response.

E.g., as background - Research on profits vs time for companies - Research on real wages for SWE vs time for same companies - Illustration on timing of layoffs compared to these

And, as foreground: - Collectively asking management for response to these facts in available forums, e.g., town halls or slack channels

Or, if these fora don't exist - creating them by collective action e.g., meeting with each other and discussing at these meetings

Small side point: while the post opens with an image referring to events of 1830 there is almost no history in the post. If anyone has recommended links to some actionable history that would also be useful

Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

#318

Post by ameister14 »

pdonis wrote: post #82
ameister14 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skills are not capital assets.

Yes, they are. The people who own and run Google and Facebook and Amazon didn't magically get "capital" from nowhere. They used their skills, and turned those skills into huge amounts of money. In other words, they understood what capital they owned, and acted to maximize their return on that capital. If you insist on refusing to view your own skills as capital, you're just giving up the chance to maximize (or at lea…

I get what you're saying, you're using the 'human capital' social science-y definition.

I don't really get why you're using that definition, though. Was the person you responded to not clear as to what he meant by capital, so you misunderstood and thought it was human capital? Or did you just want to derail into a semantic discussion?

Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

#319

Post by swamp40 »

leshow wrote: post #288
swamp40 wrote: post #121

Well, in case you were wondering what a communist was, here is a perfect example. As an engineer, I'm not falling for his sad attempt to drive a wedge between tech workers, engineers and management. I have more in common with tech company lofty goals than I do with his. > Google, Amazon, IBM, Spotify, PayPal, Salesforce, 3M, Coinbase, and more are all conducting mass layoffs at the same time. Yes, it's a conspiracy j…

Unemployment is at record low levels, that's not indicative of a recession.

Lots of companies laying off though. The numbers lag. And the fed will continue hitting the brakes until it gets what it wants. A recession isn't even called until it is over.

Re: An Introduction to Class Warfare for the Software Engineer

#320

Post by swamp40 »

steele wrote: post #169
swamp40 wrote: post #121

Well, in case you were wondering what a communist was, here is a perfect example. As an engineer, I'm not falling for his sad attempt to drive a wedge between tech workers, engineers and management. I have more in common with tech company lofty goals than I do with his. > Google, Amazon, IBM, Spotify, PayPal, Salesforce, 3M, Coinbase, and more are all conducting mass layoffs at the same time. Yes, it's a conspiracy j…

Marxism*

Ok, true.
Post reply on HN