You must log in or register to comment.
It’s not time stolen from you as the work needs to be done either way, but it’s money stolen from you as you’re either underpaid or paying too much for what you’re buying.
well if you got more money per hours of work or things were cheaper, you would probably work less
How many hours of work are necessary to build car? Does it suddenly take less just because the employees are paid more? No.
If a client wants an employee’s help for 15 minutes, will they suddenly want their help for 10 minutes just because the employee is paid more? No.
There are bullshit jobs around, but most of them aren’t, the with needed to accomplish the tasks will still be the same.
no but people may work in shifts still getting the same total man hours in a company.
Unemployment is pretty low right now, where will you find the staff for that?
For once companies could downsize not because they want to fire people but because there is an excess of jobs. There are many many businesses that produce in excess (take the clothing sector for instance) or others that have already hired beyond sustainability (software and tech). Many governments also have programs to hire in excess for non-required roles to reduce unemployment. There is so much room for optimization but realistically with other effects like average number of kids per family decreasing some degree of automatization beyond what we have now and some change in people’s lifestyles will be required too.
Suddenly everyone has a shit ton more money and you think demand wouldn’t go up?
Production would actually have to increase.
some may fall into rampant consumerism even more, but some (hopefully many) will come out of it because they have money and time for decent hobbies actually. so instead of buying tons of easily consumable crap stuff of every kind to pass whatever little time they have, instead they will focus on buying less but more decent of the stuff they are really interested in.
You are not only working to mentain a functional society, you are also working to constantly grow it (each year more stuff must be made, more money must be earned, more of everything) it and also to create a very big surplus for the rich. We also burn perfectly edible food, ruin perfectly wearable clothing and make electronic devices that intentionally break in a few years to get you to buy another one sooner just to get the 1% more money. If we didn’t do all that and they lived normal, non-luxury lives, everyone would have a lot more free time. If everyone worked only 20 hours a week, we’d make enough to sustain our society.
If everyone was making more money demand would increase therefore people would need to work more, not less…
Also, most workers are so deeply alienated because they know that they aren’t working for themselves, they are working for someone else. Which is why most people simply stop giving a fuck at some point.
There is so much inefficiency because most who do the actual work don’t have much motivation to do a decent job, yet alone think about what they are doing because you simply get punished, or at least don’t get any reward, for thinking. And they people who (should) do the thinking often don’t have a clue as they live in a bubble.
And of course there is all the bullshit about shipping stuff across the world to do different stuff when it is completely unnecessesary…
It’s time stolen from you if you have to commute to your job.
It’s time stolen from you if a lot of your job is pointless busywork.
Very often the work does not need to get done, the work uses up a poorly paid employee’s entire work day to squeeze out an extra fraction of a percent of profit.
You’re right about money, but they are often stealing both time and money.
See also: bullshit Jobs
See exactly: bullshit jobs
I believe it was Marx who first observed that superfluous jobs, as well as unemployment, are inextricably linked to capitalism.
EDIT: Found a relevant Marx quote in Grundrisse:
Capital itself is the moving contradiction, [in] that it presses to reduce labour time to a minimum, while it posits labour time, on the other side, as sole measure and source of wealth. Hence it diminishes labour time in the necessary form so as to increase it in the superfluous form; hence posits the superfluous in growing measure as a condition – question of life or death – for the necessary.
See also Marcuse, 1969:
The absorption [i.e. disappearance] of unemployment and the maintenance of an adequate rate of profit would […] require the stimulation of demand on an ever larger scale, thereby stimulating the rat race of the competitive struggle for existence through the multiplication of waste, planned obsolescence, parasitic and stupid jobs and services.
Great quote. I’m sure people have been spying out bullshit jobs before the industrial revolution, too.
On call standing in the corner to present candied dates or wave palm fronds over the emperor was necessary only for the emperor to fool himself into thinking he was inherently more important than anyone else.
I can’t imagine nobody noticed.
It is time stolen from you as well. You only need to work a fraction of the time you do in order to cover your wages, the rest of the day is free profit for the Capitalist.
You’re ignoring that what you output from your work needs to be… Outputted? So the issue is that you make less than you deserve for the amount of work that you do… If you make 25$/h and it wealth got redistributed so you would make 100$/h it doesn’t mean you could work 10h instead of 40h, your employer would still need you to 40h (or close to it, maybe you would be motivated by the increase in salary and work faster but that’s speculations) to achieve the same result.
If unemployment was at 75% and wealth redistribution happened to quadruple salaries then we could say “Instead of having 25% of the population working 40h/week at 25$/h, we’ll have 100% of the population working 10h/week at 100$/h so in the end the people that are working already will be making the same annual salary” but that’s not the case.
A lot of the work we do is effectively to satisfy the (constantly changing and growing) desires or the wealthy (or let’s say, the desires of the people who employ wage workers).
Simple example: labour productivity has grown with 70% since the 70s while real wages have stayed more or less the same. So that growth in output hasnt been going to workers. (The time that productivity increase could have freed up, is now used to produce stuff that the workers do not get to consume themselves).
I’m not ignoring anything. Commodities trend towards being sold at their Value, and since Value comes from Labor and Natural Resources, Capitalists necessarily pay Workers less than the Value they create. Ie, if a Worker creates $500 in Value per day yet is paid 15 dollars an hour for their 10 hours, this means they have made $350 in Value purely for the Capitalist. With their 50 dollars in Value per Hour created, they cover their wages in a mere 3 hours, rather than 10.
A similar process can be seen in Feudalism, though it was more distinct. In Feudalism, serfs covered rent, then produced for themselves. They were able to clearly see what has been taken. Capitalism advanced on this concept to obscure exploitation through the idea of wages, yet still they take profit via paying Workers less than the Value they create.
I recommend reading Wage Labor and Capital and following it up with Value, Price and Profit if you want further elaboration and proof of said concepts, and have a couple hours to spare.
I’m talking about a separate issue! Even if rich people don’t exist anymore, something that takes 500h work hours to accomplish will still take 500h to accomplish, you won’t suddenly have to work less.
You are not talking about a separate issue.
Going off my example from earlier, the Workers would only need to work 3 hours to maintain their standard of living, the extra 7 hours are pocketed by the Capitalist for their enrichment alone.
Removing the wealth siphons reduces the amount of necessary work, as if you only need 3 hours to cover yourself without a Capitalist involved, you only need to work 3 hours.
Society overproduces vast amounts of goods and works far longer than necessary purely for Capitalist enrichment, not to cover themselves.
You’re talking about something else entirely.
Rich people disappear, wealth is redistributed, somehow you guys think that building a house will suddenly take less work hours than it does at the moment? No it won’t, construction workers will be paid more to work just as many hours building that house, they won’t suddenly work 20h/week.
Rich people disappear, wealth is redistributed, somehow you guys think that building a house will suddenly take less work hours than it does at the moment? No it won’t, construction workers will be paid more to work just as many hours building that house, they won’t suddenly work 20h/week.
Probably a bad example. The wealthy are the cause of fewer houses being built than are needed to maintain the surplus allowing reasonable pricing in the market. And it is being done primarily to extract more money from people without actually producing anything. So, that house would actually get built and probably to better standards than are currently seen with the efforts to maximize profit.
Holy fuck! That’s not the fucking point! The time to end up with a finished product is the fucking same no matter how much people are getting paid! Your screws and nails don’t go in any faster! You can’t type faster than your fastest typing speed! You can’t call more than one client at a time! You’re just paid more but the work isn’t accomplished faster!
You’re so blinded by rich people that you’re unable to analyze the rest of the issue!
Holy fuck! That’s not the fucking point! The time to end up with a finished product is the fucking same no matter how much people are getting paid! Your screws and nails don’t go in any faster! You can’t type faster than your fastest typing speed! You can’t call more than one client at a time! You’re just paid more but the work isn’t accomplished faster!
That’s really not correct. Like, what you are saying here:
Your screws and nails don’t go in any faster!
is literally contradictory to reality.
Automation and technological advances literally make work more productive. A carpenter getting a share of the value of their labor that is both keeping pace with inflation and productivity would mean that they can invest in newer tools and equipment that can allow them to accomplish more in a safer manner in a shorter time. They could, for example, purchase a cordless framing nailer and spare batteries, eliminating the need to setup a workplace generator and pneumatic compressor, which would need to be moved periodically as they work. It also eliminates the hose as a potential workplace tripping hazard. Assistive robotic exoskeletons increase carry capacity while reducing strain on joints, reducing likelihood of injury while increasing efficiency.
You can’t type faster than your fastest typing speed!
But you can automate repetitive tasks, allowing more to be done in the same amount of time. More resources allow one to invest in their own or others’ knowledge to accomplish that.
You can’t call more than one client at a time!
This is true. But how many calls or meetings really are needed and can’t be sorted via email or Slack?
You’re so blinded by rich people that you’re unable to analyze the rest of the issue!
I think that you may be projecting a bit here. I’m just tired of the bleeding of the working class that has been actively in progress in the West for the last half century at least. I’m happy to dig into the slews of data showing how and why people are worse off than their ancestors and where that money has been going (spoiler: the wealthy have been hoarding it and continue to insatiably claw back more via price gouging and wage theft).
So paying higer profit share or wage to construction wokers won’t encouage more people to spend more time building stuff?
Did no one tell you about how competetive markets work? supernormal profits get bid down by market entry.
banks and oligopolistic top tier construction companies, and landowners don’t want more construction, or entry into the market.
by your logic we should just offer people slave contracts and they’d opt in.
Except a lot of people’s work output is kinda fucking pointless.
If we managed the way we worked better and didn’t have the mindset of work for works sake/for the sake of the rich, we could be working a lot less.
I think Lemmy’s vision of productivity is skewed by the fact that there’s a lot of office workers on here…
I work in a grocery store, and while I would still need to be in about 25-30 hours a week to ensure product is on the shelves a massive amount of my time at work is useless facing and looking busy after the first few hours of real work restocking. If I was paid fairly I could come in for about 3 hours every day and have everything that needed done done without spinning on a thumb all day just to barely make rent.
It’s more skewed towards Marxist analysis of Capitalism and Value.
Fam, at my last job they had roughly 23h of activity for me per week. 17h of nothing to do and still having to stick around because i needed every penny to be able to pay my bills.
Anecdotal, plenty of jobs where downtime doesn’t exist.
it impairs the economy. More folks could hire people to do things. Remember there were milkmen and tv repair men at one point in time. You could hire someone to clean your house and they could hire someone to do their taxes. its amazing how an economy works when people have money to spend rather than hoard.
There were also icemen at one point. Then we invented refrigerators. Nobody seems to miss having a giant block of ice delivered to their house to keep the food we buy at the stores cold. But one thing I think a lot of people miss is appliances that didn’t need to be thrown away.
For many jobs it is indeed stolen time https://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=4042
BUT THINK OF THE BILLIONAIRES COMPETING AGAINST EACH OTHER TO BUILD BIGGER MEGA YACHTS. THINK OF THE YACHTS.
I think they compete in Space cock
Nobody seems to have mentioned the very oddly placed highlight
No they aren’t. The number that’s increasing is a price tag, not cash. That’s why no one’s wallet or bank account gets bigger when that same number goes down.
Who do you think the profit of increasing the price tag goes to? The workers in the factory to help them deal with inflation, or the rich shareholders?
Who do you think the profit of increasing the price tag goes to?
Whoever sells the appreciated asset to someone else, who was willing to buy it at the new, higher price.
And if they don’t sell, there is no profit, it’s still unrealized.
Unrealized on paper, but not in a practical sense when they can borrow against those assets to access their wealth tax-free.
borrow against those assets to access their wealth tax-free.
…until they pay the loan back, you mean.
Hell, loans better be tax free, it’s not income if you have to pay it back.
P.S. Some food for thought: if workers’ labor is being ‘skimmed’ by employers, making workers into a source of profit as a result, then why would a company ever downsize as a measure against financial difficulty? Why would any business ever fire anyone who’s doing their job, if worker = profit for the business?
Conspiracy theory: The reason we have the Chicken Tax is to keep the Hilux out of the US because it’s too effective a weapon against the military
Top gear put a Hilux up against a 1984 chevy half 4x4 they found on craigslist. The old chevy won, only vehicle running at the end.
[citation needed]
That’s Top Gear America, which is very much not Top Gear. Plus they didn’t run the Hilux head-to-head. I bet none of those guys have even driven a Hilux.
It is so smaller more competitively priced and actually usable trucks stay out of your country
That’s too credible for me to believe
Fucking yes. We need to be having economic conversations on the basis of time.
You see how that would be bad for the economy, right? Good for individual workers, but bad for consumers since there’s no longer a person doing some service, like I don’t know, medical care. I fell off the bike in Canada and spent 7 hours covered in blood before a nurse saw me and bandaged me up.
As an American I also had to pay $1000 USD for this (insurance will eventually refund this to me, hopefully)
I’m Canadian, and I dont mind our healthcare system one bit. You only had to pay because you were American.
It’s far from a perfect system, but at least I’m not riddled in medical debt, or have to financially plan to have my wife deliver a kid.
They won’t sell the Hilux in the US because it’s too easy to turn into a technical. Nobody out here with a Tacoma technical
Bunch of yeehawdists rolling around in Hiluxes would be sub-optimal
Shitpost? This is just unadulterated truth
I am just against what they are allowed to do with this money. How many airplanes full with fules can they blow up just for fun? Want to find fastest way to blow it up. Is it fair that they can ignore the climate impact completely? Just do what ever bad stuff they want to.
Is that a thing? Blowing up fully-fuelled airplanes just for fun?
Almost. Look at spaceX and their Rockets.
I am just saying that they are allowed make very heavy impact to the climate compared a normal person. Just take their jet plan or helicopter wherever they go is allowed.
Money is not finite. Quit acting like it is gold bullion. It’s not. Whatever amount someone aquires has zero effect on your pile. This argument reeks of grade 2 math.
And people say memeing is not an artform
I want to both upvote and downvote this at the same time. So I will do neither, I will just state my opinion…
This is not a shitpost, this is fact.
It’s literally not a fact. Net worth is a price tag, not an amount of cash.
Agreed.
Billionaires should pay everyone for stolen time, potential contributions to better world living. They currently pay only toxicity, diminish quality of life on Earth.
Billionaires should not exist at all. I saw a post saying that once you earn $999.999.999 dollars you get a trophy saying “I won capitalism” and everything else you earn goes to taxes. We should absolutely do that
This except we should expand it by saying something like $1b net worth, $100m cash, or $10m income—whichever comes first.
Here. Take a booby prize
I dunno who the face is on the accelerator pedal, but it looks like someone loved riding their clutch…
Van Clutch
Van Stop
Van Gogh (famous 19th century artist)
…but I’m guessing you know who spongebob is?
Isn’t he that dude that wears square pants?
Fuck I dunno, I smoked too many sponges today…
Van accelerator?
Van gas
P.s. I’m not American.
More people need to read Marx. I recommend reading Wage Labor and Capital and following it up with Value, Price and Profit if you have a couple hours to spare.
Counter offer …tell people the basic concepts to ask ChatGPT to explain/summarise, so they can escape “false consciousness”?
Maybe start with how the division of labour during the industrial revolution caused a loss of community and craftsmanship?
…I assume, value adding labour theory should be explained…
…surplus value being converted to profit rather than wages …
Alienated labour
The means of production, and how a dictatorship of the prolitariate are achieved?
What the petite bouigouis and lumlenprolitariate are?
Culture and how it reifies workers and their interests… ?
Stuff like that… Maybe even lead into Marcuse’s theory of the 1 dimensional man?
Why involve ChatGPT, rather than actually starting with the basics of Marx’s critique of Capitalism, especially the two I linked? I specifically mentioned WLaC and VPaP because they are already summaries and simplifications of Capital.
Going beyond those two works into more complicated class dynamics like the petite bourgeoisie, lumpenproletariat, and so forth, concepts like the Base and Superstructure, Historical and Dialectical Materialism, and so forth can be explored later.
“I’m trying to introduce people who are maybe just average people without a whole lot of time into my preferred political ideas”
“I’ll link two large volumes with complex ideas, surely that will work”
Are you trying to sell ideas and concepts, a worldview, or are you trying to set political science homework…
… anyways good luck appealing to people who already agree with you, and people who have already heard of these ideas and rejected them.
Marxist are just plain shit at selling their ideas. That’s your ideologies entire problem.
WLaC and VPaP are both pamphlets, Capital is a collection of large Volumes. The ideas presented in WLaC and VPaP are simple, straightforward, and deliberately written for the common worker, unlike Capital, which was directed towards academics.
I hear and understand your point, but unfortunately in my experience trying to distill these ideas even further in Lemmy comments, and feed people individually piece by piece, results in far more questions and time investment than simply reading the texts.
… anyways good luck appealing to people who already agree with you, and people who have already heard of these ideas and rejected them.
I’m appealing to people who recognize that Capitalism isn’t working, but don’t yet fully understand the mechanics of why.
Marxist are just plain shit at selling their ideas. That’s your ideologies entire problem.
It is indeed a struggle to teach Marxist concepts within society dominated by Liberalism, yes. That doesn’t make the struggle pointless. If Marxism is indeed a correct method of analysis, like I believe it is, then it will continue to prove itself as such without care for the ideas held by society.
Really they should just read the book. You can’t read half a book.
It’s 2024, I’m not sitting around reading Marxist tracts. No.
The premise of the comment that normies are going to jump on the chance to read boring political tracts is idiotic. I was just trying to help, but I see you guys have another century of failing to appeal to a mass audience ahead of you.
So ignore my advice and just go on with your book list plan.
I’m sure in 2024, people will choose to read these two books rather than a book of their own choosing, or a video game, or a youtube video…nah nah not at all. People are just out there like “I’m really hankering to read long form political monologues”.hahahaha
I don’t mind working when it’s either something I enjoy doing and would do without it being a job, or if I can see it tangibly improving something or someone by providing something other people (or myself) need.
If all I see is the boss getting richer while I am doing something I literally would only do because I am being paid to do it, fuck that job.
