I think this post and some of the comments confuses work with job. Work is a means to a kind of satisfaction that cannot be achieved via leisure. And people need that and need work. Job on the other hand is everything most of the comments is talking about. Job is what you end up with when you working in a capitalistic system where profit is the sole motive (competition is what drives the need to keep costs down and labor is part of cost. We need capitalism to evolve so that practices are more sustainable call it capitalism 2.0 or whatever). So unless you are the job creator which very few of us are we are resorted to having a job. This is the case generally unless you are part of the smaller segment of people who have been lucky enough to call their job also their work.
The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore
191–200 of 511 posts
Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore
#192It's pretty simple really. If the reward from working is barely enough to cover the necessities, then there is technically no difference between working as a free citizen, and being forced to work as an indentured servant, other than a vague notion of freedom, which in that case is the freedom to decide between working and living on the streets. And people don't like being indentured servants. History should have mad…
I have heard the argument that a negative effect of the post WW2 "feminist" movement (by that I mean women in the work force) has had the long term effect of causing prices to simply adjust to the dual income household, to the point that now it is a necessity. It is a privileged family today that can afford to live comfortably on only one salary.
Elizabeth Warren made that exact argument.
https://www.amazon.com/Two-Income-Trap-Middle-Class-Parents-...
Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have heard the argument that a negative effect of the post WW2 "feminist" movement (by that I mean women in the work force) has had the long term effect of causing prices to simply adjust to the dual income household, to the point that now it is a necessity. It is a privileged family today that can afford to live comfortably on only one salary.
I think piketty would disagree. Productivity per worker has gone up but the share of profits going to workers has gone down. This is not some kind of inflation driven by scarcity.
The ultra wealthy hired the best to win a game of financial manipulation that the rest of us didn’t even know was being played.
The median salary would be six figure if the share of productivity gains was distributed like it was in 1970.
Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>But at the end of the day there's no satisfaction. If that's the case then you need to find a different job. Plenty of people are really satisfied with what they do at work. I've accepted lower salary for years because the job I did was really satisfying and I'm still glad I was part of it.
Why must the burden of getting a job that is not shitty always seem to fall on the worker and never the employee or the state? Why don't we have a law that says "if the boss is disrespectful to the worker, they pay the worker the average of their hourly wage for every such incident" while being rude to your superior would be considered a breach of conduct that, when repeated, would be grounds for dismissal? Stop ador…
>>Why must the burden of getting a job that is not shitty always seem to fall on the worker and never the employee or the state?
What makes you think that my arguments precludes the latter? Equally, do you think that you as an employee have no agency in your own choice of employment? I understand there is a lot(probably even a majority) of people in the world who don't have that - but my comment isn't addressed to those. It's addressed to the specific HN comment.
>>Stop adoring the hierarchy and licking the boot.
...what? I think you've constructed in your own head what my position is and are arguing against that, and not against what I actually said or believe.
Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore
#195As a long-time software engineer and related positions. When covid started it felt as if the world said "We worked enough we need a collective time off"
More like, people realized how nice their life's were if they spent less time at work. I did not understand how much my 45min x 2 commute was draining my stamina before I stopped commuting, e.g.
> More like, people realized how nice their life's were if they spent less time at work...
... but still got paid.
Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore
#196As a tech lead, the big problem I see now is that people are not hungry anymore. The best engineers I've ever worked with were consistently asking for more and leveling up the team at the same time. Now, the post-covid hires, especially the junior engineers, just do the bare minimum to scrape by, and they seem totally unbothered by it. One new hire on my team spends upwards of 2 hours per day "walking her dog." I eve…
> As a tech lead, the big problem I see now is that people are not hungry anymore.
What incentives need to be aligned and how, to starve them a bit more and make them hungry again?
Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Is that gross revenue before paying for diesel, the loan on the truck, the employer side of Social Security tax, health insurance? If it’s as simple as you say to earn $160K-$180K why isn’t everyone doing it? In an efficient market arbitrage opportunities usually close quickly.
> If it’s as simple as you say to earn $160K-$180K why isn’t everyone doing it?
It might be 'simple' in the sense of 'straightforward', but not in the sense of 'easy'.
Hard work plus long hours won't appeal to everyone. Self-employment might not be everyone's cup of tea either.
Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore
#198The gig economy has worn many out... The promise of services like social media, Uber, Political Parties, and airBnB that promised to create wealthy entrepreneurs fell flat on it's face after making the people at the top of the pyramids very wealthy. I think that social media really tipped the balance of fairness in the working world... With social media, suddenly Trust fund Babies could fake success, and promote sche…
If someone isn’t successful in making money on that work, though, it means it isn’t very good. I know it’s not a 1:1 result, but in reality, if you put in the hours and you make things people want, you will be successful. The problem is everyone who works on something they’re passionate about (even if they suck at it) thinks they ought to be compensated, even if their contributions amount to exactly Jack shit. Meanwh…
You can be a baker and make the best cakes in the world, but if your shop is located in the wrong place (like a dark alley with no foot traffic) where no one knows it exists, your business can fail if you don't also learn marketing, and possibly move to a better positioned (but more expensive of course) spot. A better spot, and marketing lessons though, are hinged on having the money to make that happen... Many people can't pay for advancement because they aren't profiting off of their work to fund expansion and growth.
The ideal that people don't succeed because of the quality of their work is a fallacy... Many people who do succeed who have a shoddy/marginal history of work is also yet another example of why that ideal is not accurate.
Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore
#199It's pretty simple really. If the reward from working is barely enough to cover the necessities, then there is technically no difference between working as a free citizen, and being forced to work as an indentured servant, other than a vague notion of freedom, which in that case is the freedom to decide between working and living on the streets. And people don't like being indentured servants. History should have mad…
I have heard the argument that a negative effect of the post WW2 "feminist" movement (by that I mean women in the work force) has had the long term effect of causing prices to simply adjust to the dual income household, to the point that now it is a necessity. It is a privileged family today that can afford to live comfortably on only one salary.
That argument, like all arguments that somehow equate wages with inflation, would hold water if the productivity of the workforce was constant.
We know that it isn't. Productivity of the workforce is ever increasing. The generated wealth simply doesn't make it to the workforce.
Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore
#200It's pretty simple really. If the reward from working is barely enough to cover the necessities, then there is technically no difference between working as a free citizen, and being forced to work as an indentured servant, other than a vague notion of freedom, which in that case is the freedom to decide between working and living on the streets. And people don't like being indentured servants. History should have mad…
i agree 100% , but what is the solution to that ? just raising wages en masse erodes the power of money and leads to inflation.
The housing market is probably permanently ruined for individual family buyers as long as they are competing with businesses/individuals buying multiple residential properties as investments.
Subsidies or government backed contributions won't be the answer. Universities have a societal function and could conceivable operate without profit in mind, but they still chose to be greedy and act like for-profit businesses once government backed loans became a thing. The government tried to fix access to education by directly injecting cash via students instead of fixing it through the universities. Taking the same approach with home buyers would be a mistake because real estate obviously is meant to be for-profit and acts that way, so they will obviously raise prices as well.
So you'll probably need to fuck over a lot of banks, investors, construction and real estate companies to get housing prices accessible to the wider population and change economic interactions in that market. I wouldn't count on that though - the government will probably choose to fix it through backed loans or subsidies again, if they do anything.