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The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

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Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#371

Post by jethro_tell »

Aurornis wrote: post #345
usrbinbash wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gimme a good argument why good conditions should diminish, or deteriorate, despite the fact that workforce productivity, as well as corporate margins, have been growing steadily ever since.

If you look at average living conditions across the world, they did actually increase dramatically! This is what people miss about the conversation: That temporary period of brief prosperity was partially due to some of the relative differences across the world. Raising living standards across the world came at a small price of popping that bubble. Although median disposable income of Americans is still significantly…

It's odd that this is the conversation when there was an extremely high top end tax and the government was taking that money and turning it into infrastructure and jobs.

We saw this dream start to disappear as we un did those things in the name of freedom.

Now, we produce more per capita than we ever did before and we get less of that pie as wages have stagnated and taxes go to corporate hand outs and entitlements (healthcare and social security), which are more or less a corporate hand out since they no longer provide pensions for people that work a life time for them.

It's unclear to me why the conversation is centering better standards of living elsewhere as if we haven't added a couple billion people/consumers to the world in that time.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#372

Post by carlosjobim »

bluGill wrote: post #270
alisonatwork wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The post I am responding to mentioned providing a family of five with a self-owned house, a car, a couple of vacations per year and a comfortable retirement. To many people around the world - still today - that would be considered a luxurious lifestyle. You are right that it's possible for one person to support a family. For most people working in the tech industry here on HN they could probably figure out a way to d…

The post you are responding to didn't have Starbucks coffee every day, did have internet, cable tv, subscriptions to streaming services, a computer with a monthly subscription in every pocket. They didn't even have that option. The above is just a short list. Live like 1955 and you can support a family of 5 with, a car, vacations every year and a nice retirement. You won't have many of the other luxuries people enjoy…

Okay, so do the math. How many Starbucks coffees should I abstain from to afford a home?

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#373

Post by bt4u »

welshwelsh wrote: post #185
usrbinbash wrote: post #53

It'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…

A working man can still support a family of five, buy a house, a car and a vacation once or twice a year. He just needs to be realistic. House: you can still find houses with plenty of room for ~$100k. It just needs to be in an affordable area: think McKeesport, not San Francisco. Car: for $5k you can get a 2005 Ford Focus or Honda Civic. They're reliable cars that will get you from A to B perfectly fine, easy to rep…

[dead]

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#374

Post by coldtea »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #320
coldtea wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And the 50s and 60s weren't that great for e.g. black people or women in the US either. This argument is repeated a lot anytime someone mentions the working conditions in the 50s/60s, but how is it any relevant? Is there some natural law that says that mistreatment of blacks for example have to always go hand in hand with livable wages? And that anybody that likes the latter from the 50s/60s must also want the form…

There are enormous amounts of study on the concept that the above-average lifestyle enjoyed at that specific point in history by white men was built on the exploitation of other groups. Frequently, people who name that specific point in time as the model for how they would like the world to be are simply unaware of this tradeoff and have no idea that simply reverting society to that point would make it worse for some…

The "above-average lifestyle enjoyed at that specific point in history" came in the US because Europe was destroyed in WWII, and they got to easily be the world's producer and exporter and dictator of terms for decades. That plus strong unions and growing economy. And the tide also lifted black people with it, that's the era when the civil rights progress was made, for example.

Oh, and Europe also ended up enjoying a similar stability and uplifting economy a few decades later, as the economy recovered there too, without having those other groups to exploit, and even for countries which lost their colonies the decades prior.

The economic rise since the 60s though (in productivity, GDP etc) hasn't translated to similar stability, because the unions were left to die, and neoliberal politics and attitudes became the norm, while the banks and capitalists got a free pass to anything they wanted.

>Less frequently, they already know this and simply don't care, and it's always useful to give this group an opportunity to be explicit about their priorities.

I think it's more that people making your argument are with the side of capitalists, and you want to make a bogus argument as if livable wages and job prospects are racist and only feasible when combined with exploitation, to absolve the current neoliberal order as "the best possible world". So they weaselly mark anybody pointing to those things as pinning for the rasist aspects of 1950s/60s too.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#375

Post by coldtea »

optimalsolver wrote: post #354
coldtea wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And the 50s and 60s weren't that great for e.g. black people or women in the US either. This argument is repeated a lot anytime someone mentions the working conditions in the 50s/60s, but how is it any relevant? Is there some natural law that says that mistreatment of blacks for example have to always go hand in hand with livable wages? And that anybody that likes the latter from the 50s/60s must also want the form…

People that pine for the 50s are def suspicious.

[flagged]

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#376

Post by fragmede »

usrbinbash wrote: post #329
kaashif wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know whether they should or not, but it's clear that there was a very unusual set of conditions and it is unsurprising it didn't last forever, right or wrong.

On the contrary, it is VERY surprising these conditions didn't last, given that productivity only ever increased since then. If favorable, but short lived conditions were behind this sudden change, then it would affect the entire economic system, not just the workforce. How well people are off is a function of how many resources there are to go around. Since the end of WWII, these resources only ever increased. So di…

The Roman Empire's prosperity as the spoils of war are evident even to newest student of history. Why then is it surprising that the US also had some prosperity thanks to winning wars, and that there is none of that to be had if there aren't wars being won? Why is it expected that prosperity should last?

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#377

Post by carlosjobim »

welshwelsh wrote: post #185
usrbinbash wrote: post #53

It'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…

A working man can still support a family of five, buy a house, a car and a vacation once or twice a year. He just needs to be realistic. House: you can still find houses with plenty of room for ~$100k. It just needs to be in an affordable area: think McKeesport, not San Francisco. Car: for $5k you can get a 2005 Ford Focus or Honda Civic. They're reliable cars that will get you from A to B perfectly fine, easy to rep…

> For those people, there's an easy solution: just don't have kids

I think most people have started to notice that this is the actual purpose of all these insane policies against workers in the industrialized world. Every vise imaginable is being used to squeeze young people. From rent and real estate extortion, taxes and tributes, to inflation. Then the solution given to them is "Oh just don't have children. You don't deserve to procreate since you have to keep working for us to be comfortable."

There is another word for the kind of policy being supported by you.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#378

Post by qaq »

supertrope wrote: post #151
qaq wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

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.

Because it's really hard job?

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#380

Post by kwhitefoot »

MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #108
jen20 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work for a pretty successful company (by any measure), and have had multiple startup exits before that, and I would know it was time to retire immediately if I started thinking like you. > One new hire on my team spends upwards of 2 hours per day "walking her dog." I once came up with the idea for a product which has generated several hundred million dollars in revenue on a dog walk in the middle of the day. This m…

Yeah... I used to go for walks to think. There is much evidence that it helps people in general, but I know it does for me. I got dinged on my performance review for being away from my desk. Didn't stay long at that company.

> got dinged on my performance review

I thought performance reviews were supposed to focus on performance, that is on whether you got the job done on time!

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