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Servants Without Masters

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Re: Servants Without Masters

#11

Post by 0815test »

empath75 wrote: post #2

> It made me intensely uncomfortable to have someone hanging around just to attend to my needs, and tell them to do menial chores for me. >And yet, when I thought about it, I realized that I had no problem with janitors or baristas doing dirty work for me. In order for the economics of having a personal servant to work out, there needs to be a fairly grotesque level of income inequality, driven by high levels of soci…

Not "income inequality", but inequality in the marginal disutility of labor. Someone who works many hours per week in high-effort jobs will be eager to outsource even trivial tasks to a "gig economy" worker who is in a sharply different position. That worker may have f!!k-you money of their own and be working at an "easy" job to make some extra change, for all we know - the exchange works all the same, and leaves both better off.

Re: Servants Without Masters

#12

Post by lordleft »

'What individualism has bought us is not the end of servitude, but merely the cloaking of masters.'

A really provocative and intriguing article. I'm not sure if I agree with all of it, but I do notice that some Americans are myopic to any description of freedom that cannot be expressed as an arrangement between two supposedly free economic actors. For example, some Americans are particularly resistant to describing the relationship between a boss and his or her subordinates as inequitable and potentially exploitative, even though a boss can sometimes exert more control over an employee's life than the state can.

Re: Servants Without Masters

#13

Post by temporaryvector »

Swizec wrote: post #8
empath75 wrote: post #2

> It made me intensely uncomfortable to have someone hanging around just to attend to my needs, and tell them to do menial chores for me. >And yet, when I thought about it, I realized that I had no problem with janitors or baristas doing dirty work for me. In order for the economics of having a personal servant to work out, there needs to be a fairly grotesque level of income inequality, driven by high levels of soci…

Funny, a personal servant makes us uneasy, but a personal/executive assistant does not. What’s the difference? They’re both employees and both are being paid to do tasks that need to get done but aren’t worth their boss’s time. Is it the extra indirection of the salary coming from company instead of personal coffers that does it? What if the person hiring the assistant has 100% ownership of the company like in the ca…

In part it might be where the salary is coming from, but even when someone personally hires a personal assistant, it doesn't have the same connotation as personal servant.

I think the main implication is that a personal assistant is a qualified, educated person who is well positioned to find another job, while a personal servant evokes images of someone less well off and more at the mercy of the employer. There is a second implication as well: you hire a personal assistant to help you with your job, to be more productive and get more done, but you hire a personal servant to help you with your personal life, so you can get more leisure time and be more lazy.

In some ways, there might not be much practical difference between a personal assistant and a personal servant, but the words have different connotations. There are some questions that I think are relevant to ask oneself: Do you have the same reaction to the word "personal servant" and the words "butler," "housekeeper," "majordomo," etc? When you think of the word "personal servant," is the first image that comes to your mind that of a maid, a footman, a housekeeper or a butler, or something else?

Also, I'm not American so I can't comment on this point, but it may also be that the word "servant" is uncomfortably close to the word "slave".

Re: Servants Without Masters

#14

Post by whatshisface »

lordleft wrote: post #12

'What individualism has bought us is not the end of servitude, but merely the cloaking of masters.' A really provocative and intriguing article. I'm not sure if I agree with all of it, but I do notice that some Americans are myopic to any description of freedom that cannot be expressed as an arrangement between two supposedly free economic actors. For example, some Americans are particularly resistant to describing t…

You can change your boss, unless there's something seriously wrong with the local labor market. Your boss' highest threat? They can change you. Unless you are a farmhand in the middle of the Great Depression that's pretty fair.

Re: Servants Without Masters

#15

Post by awillen »

I definitely understand the desire to be served by people you don't have any kind of a personal relationship with, but I don't think it's inherently terrible. I like to keep my business/transactional and personal relationships separate as much as possible.

Purely transactional relationships have clearly defined rules - I pick my food on DoorDash's app, someone delivers it, I pay and tip. Done. Once the relationship becomes personal, any request becomes more complicated than just a transaction. This definitely applies at work - it's weird that I have to build up and use social capital within an organization in order to get things done. It's an inefficient system of distributing resources (charming/friendly people get what they need, instead of everyone optimizing for what's best for the business), and if I don't have the social capital, it can be uncomfortable to ask for the things I need to do my job.

I think there's something to be said for a hard separation of the personal and professional/transactional, though obviously that total separation isn't possible in real life.

Re: Servants Without Masters

#16

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

whatshisface wrote: post #14
lordleft wrote: post #12

'What individualism has bought us is not the end of servitude, but merely the cloaking of masters.' A really provocative and intriguing article. I'm not sure if I agree with all of it, but I do notice that some Americans are myopic to any description of freedom that cannot be expressed as an arrangement between two supposedly free economic actors. For example, some Americans are particularly resistant to describing t…

You can change your boss, unless there's something seriously wrong with the local labor market. Your boss' highest threat? They can change you. Unless you are a farmhand in the middle of the Great Depression that's pretty fair.

The ability to move between lots of autocratic states wouldn't be seen as freedom. The most probable result of your decision to move around in the local labor market is that you just end up under another boss who restricts your freedom.

Re: Servants Without Masters

#17

Post by 0815test »

whatshisface wrote: post #5

The faceless interaction with a Starbucks worker is associated with their freedom to switch between different worksites. In a culture where you have to have a personal relationship with your servants, they have less power to engage in the market. Yes, they're interchangeable to you and to Starbucks, but Starbucks and you are interchangeable to them. Anyone who works in the service industry can tell you that their cus…

It's also associated with the freedom to specialize in an industry, and not just in relationship-specific capital. A Starbucks barista is far more comfortable and effective at making coffee than a jack-of-all-trades personal servant would be, and can also avail herself of expensive machinery to that purpose - so "depersonalization" (which is literally unavoidable - a barista cannot possibly know her customers socially the way we expect of a servant!) comes with very real benefits.

Re: Servants Without Masters

#18

Post by whatshisface »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #16
whatshisface wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can change your boss, unless there's something seriously wrong with the local labor market. Your boss' highest threat? They can change you. Unless you are a farmhand in the middle of the Great Depression that's pretty fair.

The ability to move between lots of autocratic states wouldn't be seen as freedom. The most probable result of your decision to move around in the local labor market is that you just end up under another boss who restricts your freedom.

I'm not sure how you would enforce freedom of movement if every country in the world was autocratic, but if that happened somehow then one of the countries could simply become free and take all of the best people from every other country. Sure if every employer was wordlessly conspiring to torture their employees for no reason things would be pretty bad, but that's not what happens.

Re: Servants Without Masters

#19

Post by bjornsing »

How anybody can think that some form of servitude under a human master is more "likely to be human-friendly" is just beyond me... If this guy wants to be somebody's property, and given a "flogging for good measure" then by all means, but stay the hell away from me.

Re: Servants Without Masters

#20

Post by girvo »

whatshisface wrote: post #14
lordleft wrote: post #12

'What individualism has bought us is not the end of servitude, but merely the cloaking of masters.' A really provocative and intriguing article. I'm not sure if I agree with all of it, but I do notice that some Americans are myopic to any description of freedom that cannot be expressed as an arrangement between two supposedly free economic actors. For example, some Americans are particularly resistant to describing t…

You can change your boss, unless there's something seriously wrong with the local labor market. Your boss' highest threat? They can change you. Unless you are a farmhand in the middle of the Great Depression that's pretty fair.

The business is unlikely to be in existential danger if they change you; your life however, is in danger of ruin if you don't take that job right now; this is inherently exploitative, in terms of power dynamics. The consequences for each party are not the same. They never will be, either.
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