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The Brief Origins of May Day

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Re: The Brief Origins of May Day

#131
> Literally thousands of working people embraced the ideals of anarchism, which sought to put an end to all hierarchical structures

Something that groups of people rarely seem to realize: you don't have to accept a binary. You don't have to put all hierarchical structure to an end. You don't have to do ONLY one thing or ONLY another. Life is about balance.

Doesn't matter what side of a spectrum you're on. Conservatives, capitalists, evangelicals, anarchists, socialists, leftists. Each group is often dominated by a polarizing, binary force. Some fiery personality is agitating so hard for their point of view that they will only accept total capitulation and domination of their position. But that doesn't leave room for the middle way, compromise, a diversity of states of being. And so it creates conflict, even warfare.

I've worked in both systems (capitalist hierarchy, anarchist non-hierarchy). Both are useful. Both suck. The reason they both suck, is their incapacity to accept that sometimes the "other way" is better to get a specific thing done. But they can't see outside their own limited model. They're 2-dimensional, when they need to be 3-D.

They won't allow the "other way" in, because they're afraid it will taint "their way", and in some way ruin or defeat it. But if they did finally compromise and allow an alien system to co-habitate with their own, they'd see the truth. A composite of glass and plastic is better than either of them alone. Foreign organisms living in your gut make you healthier. It's the sum of the good properties, closely aligned, that contribute to a better whole.

Re: The Brief Origins of May Day

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What made unions unrelatable for me was them obviously pushing the interest of factory workers over the interests of engineers. Thanks for trying to get my job outsourced I guess.

There's nothing stopping us from creating an engineers union. Each field should have their own organisation.

Yes there is. I hate unions and I hate union work and I love doing my job.

Re: The Brief Origins of May Day

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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But software developers are the working class. Anyone who derives their income from labor is.

More likely software developers are, for the most part, middle class – deriving their income from a combination of labor and land/capital.

While software developers just starting out are apt to be working class, when you receive a comparatively high income for your labor it soon becomes hard to find things to do with it if you don't start investing in land/capital, so one in that position doesn't stay working class for long.

Re: The Brief Origins of May Day

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there are conflicts of interest. Factory workers create the products which create profits. I am paid with these profits, if the profits go down engineers loose their jobs. If Factory workers longer and more efficiently my job becomes more secure. So obviously I want a union which advocates that factory workers work longer hours, it is clearly in my interest. The same goes for strikes, if factory workers strik…

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Their unions want my job to get outsourced and my working conditions to be made worse (RTO) why should I have the tiniest shred of solidarity with them?

>Get rid of them and there'll be plenty of money for both of you.

The unions? Sure, if they were gone things would become better.

Re: The Brief Origins of May Day

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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Their unions want my job to get outsourced and my working conditions to be made worse (RTO) why should I have the tiniest shred of solidarity with them? >Get rid of them and there'll be plenty of money for both of you. The unions? Sure, if they were gone things would become better.

[flagged]

Re: The Brief Origins of May Day

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> police have never been on the side of the people that is a remarkable generalization, that overstates things to the point of being misleading > They are they muscle of the state. still, there are better and worse states if you go fully pacifist and disempower yourself and your state it will not result in peace - it will result in someone else, likely worse, taking over Police in my country did some bad things (and…

Its only a generalization in so far as that is and always has been their direct purpose. The history of policing is, regionally, either rooted in slave catchers or as muscle to disrupt labor organizing.

> The history of policing is, regionally, either rooted in slave catchers or as muscle to disrupt labor organizing.

Not really? It may apply in some very specific area but it does NOT generalize worldwide.

And for direct purpose: even taking maximally cynical view and seeing police as muscle power existing to enforce tax payments by threat of force and to disrupt threats to state...

Then I, as a citizen (and many other people) would agree that gangs should be disrupted and that they prefer to pay taxes over every lowlife able to steal all their stuff and burn down their home.

Sadly, it takes only few people to make area terrible for others. Some do it with no benefit for themselves and there is no way to reason with them. Taking out such people (for whatever reason) by police is an useful service. That - even with quite badly managed police - is overall beneficial.

Re: The Brief Origins of May Day

#139

Why don’t labor issues resonate more with tech workers? I know that we’re not a monolith and are actually a heterogeneous mix of opinions, but there frequently talk about job dissatisfaction (career burnout, comically stingy equity grants, etc). But when organizing comes up, it’s usually treated with disdain because so many have bought into highly individualistic hustle-culture and the narrative that unions only exis…

> Why don’t labor issues resonate more with tech workers? Because many tech workers don't see themselves as workers, with some justification, many having substantial capital investments alongside labor income, making them, in class terms, petit bourgeois or at least close enough to it to perceive their own interests in more bourgeois than proletarian terms. And even the tech workers that are clearly part of the prole…

It's crazy how we've abstracted financial serfdom out of the status of being a property owner. Contrasted with renting it surely seems like independence, but whether the bank squeezes extra value out of you directly or through the proxy of a landlord, the end result is similar.

Re: The Brief Origins of May Day

#140
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

There is no snark here. The union wants my job outsourced so that factory workers can keep theirs. Please tell me why I should have solidarity with them.

You keep repeating this in various comments throughout this submission- can you share links to the materials of the union(s) you are referring to and point out the relevant sections where they are advocating for this?

I am curious to take a read for myself, as I'm sure many other readers are

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