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The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

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Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#241

Post by galangalalgol »

mpalmer wrote: post #155
asdff wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need a coordinated conspiracy if the incentives of each person in the chain line up to this inevitability.

Sound point, but the fact that we're forced to do this parsing in the comments means readers of the linked piece will happily continue to use "the elite" as a placeholder for whatever they already believe.

Legally, doesn't a conspiracy require proof of communication? I think that communication can be indirect or even negative in nature, but it has to be there. But if everyone that owns commercial real estate has lower margins, that would eventually lower property taxes for such properties, which hurts city revenue. City planners can connect the dots and push for rto, no communication necessary.

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#242

Post by cscurmudgeon »

camgunz wrote: post #127
chanakya wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, there are all sorts of problems with capitalism. But as Churchill said about democracy, it the worst form of economic organization except for all the others that have been tried from time to time.

Eh I would say Socialism as practiced in Western Europe and the Nordics is doing better. They're out doing the US in most important metrics, and they're trending more Socialist (though we'll see what intensifying climate migration and other climate change consequences bring).

> Eh I would say Socialism as practiced in Western Europe and the Nordics is doing better

It is not an easy comparison.

They have the luxury of the US taxpayers taking care of their defense while they propped up Russia, which US is also paying the most by a large margin to fix now [1, 2, 3]. Hilariously US socialists are against US defense spending except when it comes to US spending on Europe.

They also have the luxury of oil money which American "socialists" are totally against [4].

All in all, a pretty neat scam if you ask me.

[1] https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/88764 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKEycjREgPE [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_aid_to_Ukrain...

[4] https://www.barrons.com/news/norway-earns-record-oil-gas-rev....

Edit: All of what I say is objective. Luxurious Western Europe and Nordic "socialism" can't survive without gullible US taxpayers footing the bill over decades.

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#243

Post by camgunz »

christkv wrote: post #174
camgunz wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh I would say Socialism as practiced in Western Europe and the Nordics is doing better. They're out doing the US in most important metrics, and they're trending more Socialist (though we'll see what intensifying climate migration and other climate change consequences bring).

Social democracy is not socialism. Please don’t confuse the two because they are still miles away from each other.

I think that it is. Socialism is where the workers own the means of production. I think a democracy that's nationalized significant industries fits that description, e.g. France:

> 1982 François Mitterrand's proposals in the 110 Propositions for France and alliance with Jean-Pierre Chevènement's Socialist Party faction CERES, committed France to an explicitly socialist ‘rupture with capitalism’. Full nationalisation (100%): the Compagnie Générale d'Electricité, the Compagnie Générale de Constructions Téléphoniques, Pechiney-Ugine-Kuhlmann, Rhône-Poulenc, Saint-Gobain-Pont-à-Mousson, Thompson-Brandt. Partial nationalisation (51%+): Dassault, Honeywell-Bull, Matra, Roussel-Uclaf, Sacilor, Usinor. Thirty-nine banks, two financial houses, and the remaining 49% of the SNCF were also nationalised, taking the size of the French state to unprecedented levels within a year of Mitterrand's election as president in 1981.

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#244

Post by rsynnott »

asdff wrote: post #151
stanleydrew wrote: post #23

This isn't particularly well-argued. Just a lot of handwavy grievance about "elites" as though there's some kind of coordinated conspiracy.

You don't need a coordinated conspiracy if the incentives of each person in the chain line up to this inevitability.

If, yes, but do they? How?

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#245

Post by hodgesrm »

deet wrote: post #157
stanleydrew wrote: post #23

This isn't particularly well-argued. Just a lot of handwavy grievance about "elites" as though there's some kind of coordinated conspiracy.

The article is not well argued, yes. But there is direct evidence that politicians are influencing corporations to alter return to office policies: - Mayor of SF asking businesses to pledge to implement RTO policies: https://sfist.com/2022/03/03/mayor-breed-would-like-you-back... - Mayor of NYC basically doing the same: https://archive.is/si6xd

> But there is direct evidence that politicians are influencing corporations to alter return to office policies:

But no evidence that this is related to property values alone or even in large part. SF is desperate to ensure the downtown does not enter a full-on doom loop which would impact all businesses as well as anyone who lives there or visits regularly. [0] Other knock-on effects include BART facing severe financial problems due to low ridership. They want people back any way they can get them so San Francisco does not end up like Detroit.

[0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/san-francisco-crime-downtown-do...

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#246

Post by rsynnott »

pdonis wrote: post #126
stanleydrew wrote: post #23

This isn't particularly well-argued. Just a lot of handwavy grievance about "elites" as though there's some kind of coordinated conspiracy.

I read the article more as an implied warning: a lot of paper wealth is tied up in commercial real estate, and that wealth could evaporate. The people who own that paper wealth aren't just going to sit back and let that happen. Yes, for many companies there is no direct way to force them to bring workers back to the office. But it might be worth taking some time to think about what else might be tried.

I would note that the Grand Commercial Real Estate Conspiracy was not notably successful in getting people to go to brick and mortar retail; if there was an effective conspiracy, you’d expect it to have put a horse’s head in Amazon’s bed.

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#247

Post by rsynnott »

camgunz wrote: post #150
chanakya wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A core element of socialism is that all industries and natural resources are state-owned. European countries are capitalist, not socialist, and got where they are by being so.

Sure, I'm saying: - there are big differences between US capitalism and European social democracy - European social democracies are trending more socialist all the time > European countries are capitalist, not socialist, and got where they are by being so. Ehhhh communist movements, multiple devastating wars, and unions had a hand in it too.

> - European social democracies are trending more socialist all the time

Eh? Which ones? As a European this is very much news to be; not much seizing of the means of production going on. If anything, some divesting of the means of production; heavily regulated privatisation of state energy, transport etc monopolies has been going on all over Western Europe for a while.

I realise that in the US, the colloquial definition of ‘socialist’ these days is more or less “not actively going around kicking poor people”, but the idea that Europe is becoming more socialist by any reasonable definition is a bit out there.

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#248

Post by tremon »

xyzelement wrote: post #225

The "article" rehashes the well repeated meme about propping up commercial real estate, with the only callout to productivity being the authors own self admitted "bullshit job". My counter would be as someone who is loving WFH as a new dad, it is obvious to me that as a group, teams are less productive when not face to face even though individuals may think they are crushing it. This is obvious to many people I talk…

it is obvious to me that as a group, teams are less productive when not face to face

Less productive, compared to what though? In most offices I've seen cubicles and open-plan spaces reign supreme, along with flex-desk policies. Which means that even when all team members are in the office, they are not working face to face. So while you may be correct that teams could be more productive if they're all in the same space, the typical office is not optimized to achieve that.

Also, teams never need to be face-to-face for the entirety of the work: in my experience, only design and planning benefits from face-to-face coordination; for deep productive work the benefits of quick verbal checks is negated by the loss of focus from quick verbal checks from others.

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#249

Post by 1attice »

galangalalgol wrote: post #241
mpalmer wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sound point, but the fact that we're forced to do this parsing in the comments means readers of the linked piece will happily continue to use "the elite" as a placeholder for whatever they already believe.

Legally, doesn't a conspiracy require proof of communication? I think that communication can be indirect or even negative in nature, but it has to be there. But if everyone that owns commercial real estate has lower margins, that would eventually lower property taxes for such properties, which hurts city revenue. City planners can connect the dots and push for rto, no communication necessary.

I could be wrong here but I don't read this as a claim of conspiracy.

To my mind, this is more a systems-level description of currents in capital. Yes, there's a clickbaity headline about 'elites', but if you think more in terms of wealth doing things of its own accord (similar to how e.g. Dawkins got us talking about selfish genes -- selfish dollars?) then this observation might cash out after all.

That said, I do agree that the editorial style of the article is needlessly conspiratorial --- it likely appeals strongly to leftists (like me) who see and sense that capital flows and floes seem to have a mind of their own, but who (unlike me) think this requires smoky backroom deals.

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#250

Post by missedthecue »

rsynnott wrote: post #238

This is a very popular idea, but it doesn’t make a huge amount of _sense_. Most office-oriented employers don’t own much if any real estate; they lease it. And unless they’re really huge, what _they_ do has very little influence on the price of real estate generally; they’ve no individual incentive here. Arguably a mild counter—incentive; it’s generally to their benefit, as renters of real estate, if future real-esta…

Wouldn't it make more sense for the wall street shareholders of the companies to end the office leases and put the resulting freed-up money into extra dividends?

I agree, it sounds like a conspiracy theory. Not a lot of evidence.

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