4 ms·

In my opinion the very ideas propping up the idea of work and the economy are flawed. They are flawed because work is not designed to meet human needs. Instead

by x5n1 11y ago

In my opinion the very ideas propping up the idea of work and the economy are flawed. They are flawed because work is not designed to meet human needs. Instead the output of work is designed to meet human needs. But people are so busy working they have little time to participate in the output of that work. Work itself is the end, because that is what you spend most of your time doing, it is the product in of itself. We should figure out how to produce work that actually improves well being. Not products or services which do that because they all actually fail to do that in the end if the people producing them are miserable. And they all are. Like let me give you an example. Say a worker produces a widget. They can produce the widget in an hour or in two hours. They feel better if they produce it in two hours. Modern work practices would force you to have them produce it in one hour to lock in that profit of the additional hour of work. At the end to cost of the item would be affected by how much time is given for work. Say the cost is doubled by doing things this way. At the end the worker earns the same, and say we do that with the whole economy and so everything costs twice that much. But workers are generally happier and more relaxed. To me that would be a better out come than goods that cost 1/2 as much. Not so for the economy. In fact it would be very good if we could use automation to do just this. Make work more pleasurable. But the way the economy is set up, and the logic that goes with it. This is simply not going to happen.

backlava 11y ago
In theory the market should balance this. Workers should be willing to accept less money for more rewarding work.
- x5n1 11y ago
  Yes in theory but most work is organized around salary and freelance work is usually more work instead of a salary, so worse. The salary structure forces the type of logic I am writing about above. Every company wants to make as much profit and remain competitive. Therefore they don't really have the opportunity to provide easier or better work. Or even signal that with the amount of money they pay for via a salary. The economy does not do this at all. Read all job descriptions, they are all filled with terms like tight deadlines, etc.
- coldtea 11y ago
  Only if this "more rewarding work" is available and at above subsistence level (nothing rewarding about doing what you like but barely being able to make ends meet and/or not being appreciated for it, which in the end destroys your enjoyment of your line of work too). And only as long as people aren't hammered 24/7 with ads and consumption imperatives -- a lot of people believe those can be easily resisted and that they never buy anything because of these etc, but statistically most of them are overestimating themselves, they are as susceptible as anyone to consumerism persuasion which includes ads, fashion, peer pressure, status signals, being more attractive to potential partners and tons of other things besides.
marknutter 11y ago
> But workers are generally happier and more relaxed Perhaps, but they will also be unemployed because their company's competitors would eat their lunch and put them out of business. However, I disagree that most workers would be happier being less productive. I think people generally take pride in their work and want to be productive as they can possibly be. They understand it benefits the company, the customer, their coworkers, and ultimately themselves because the company that can deliver the best product for the best price wins.
yummyfajitas 11y ago
At the end the worker earns the same, and say we do that with the whole economy and so everything costs twice that much. But workers are generally happier and more relaxed. The average worker doesn't earn the same in real terms - that's just not possible in this world. If you have 100 workers producing 100 loaves of bread the average (real) wage is 1 loaf which costs $1. If we adopt your policy the workers produce 50 loaves. The average real wage is now only 0.5 loaves of bread (== $1) but bread costs $2. You can't cut production without corresponding cuts in real wages.
- x5n1 11y ago
  So automate to reduce the difference.
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    If that were possible then we'd simply be discussing a drop from 2 loaves/person to 1 loaf/person instead of 1 to 0.5.
Joof 11y ago
I'm of the opinion that a very large amount of the work we do now produces minimal value products in terms of general welfare and happiness (Facebook, finance, advertising, companies that support other companies doing useless things. Basically moving money around without producing things. Facebook does generate good research, so maybe that's it's benefit?) Therefore, the cost of society slowing down and doing less work is quite low. Having more time to explore novel ideas will probably become more beneficial to society in the future. Or maybe not, but I like to dream.
petra 11y ago
You don't even need automation to do this. It's just a matter of goals. For example, in Israel, a few years ago, all cashiers we're forced to stand they're full shift. And than the law changed and they must have a chair to sit on. The impact on the prices is negligible maybe even zero, the impact on profits is probably tiny if exists. The impact on the cashiers ? huge. So why did they do it the other way ? because capitalism at it's core is a system built on exploitation and power imbalances and races to the bottom. And it definitely needs to be fixed.
- edanm 11y ago
  "because capitalism at it's core is a system built on exploitation and power imbalances and races to the bottom." That's a very strong claim, which I don't agree with at all. Why do you think this is true? Btw, that's an interesting story about the cashiers in Israel, haven't heard of it before. Do you have a citation?
  - x5n1 11y ago
    Capitalism in fact all economics is based on exploitation. definition of exploitation: make full use of and derive benefit from (a resource). > power imbalances Some people have capital, most people don't. Those who don't have it are exploited as in above. > races to the bottom This is a bit more difficult to prove. But from Wikipedia: "The race to the bottom is a socio-economic phrase which is used to describe government deregulation of the business environment or taxes in order to attract or retain economic activity in their jurisdictions. An outcome of globalization and free trade, the phenomenon may occur when competition increases between geographic areas over a particular sector of trade and production." We call this Economic Liberalism and it is the prevailing economic theory. There is a logic that justifies all of this as a good and positive thing from a societal or even a global development prespective. But the cost for all of these is definitely paid by the individual.
  - petra 11y ago
    Citation:http://www.haaretz.com/news/new-law-requires-employers-to-supply-workers-with-chairs-1.212968 http://www.haaretz.com/news/new-law-requires-employers-to-su... >> "because capitalism at it's core is a system built on exploitation and power imbalances and races to the bottom." - races to the bottom - companies will do a lot to save cents per product, even sabotage quality. that's what i see in the appliance market - where everything is a piece of shit reliability wise. Same in the clothing market(shitty chemicals), ikea furniture, low quality of many software products, many electronic components(micro controllers), etc. Exploitation and power imbalances - Besides state protection - that's relatively hard to get, for many jobs, employers have most of the power and they behave accordingly. suicides in Apple factories(again it would matter to Apple almost at all if employees had reasonable conditions) or the story from Israel is one among many. Are you Israeli BTW?

by x5n1 11y ago

backlava 11y ago

In theory the market should balance this. Workers should be willing to accept less money for more rewarding work.

x5n1 11y ago
Yes in theory but most work is organized around salary and freelance work is usually more work instead of a salary, so worse. The salary structure forces the type of logic I am writing about above. Every company wants to make as much profit and remain competitive. Therefore they don't really have the opportunity to provide easier or better work. Or even signal that with the amount of money they pay for via a salary. The economy does not do this at all. Read all job descriptions, they are all filled with terms like tight deadlines, etc.
coldtea 11y ago
Only if this "more rewarding work" is available and at above subsistence level (nothing rewarding about doing what you like but barely being able to make ends meet and/or not being appreciated for it, which in the end destroys your enjoyment of your line of work too). And only as long as people aren't hammered 24/7 with ads and consumption imperatives -- a lot of people believe those can be easily resisted and that they never buy anything because of these etc, but statistically most of them are overestimating themselves, they are as susceptible as anyone to consumerism persuasion which includes ads, fashion, peer pressure, status signals, being more attractive to potential partners and tons of other things besides.

marknutter 11y ago

> But workers are generally happier and more relaxed Perhaps, but they will also be unemployed because their company's competitors would eat their lunch and put them out of business. However, I disagree that most workers would be happier being less productive. I think people generally take pride in their work and want to be productive as they can possibly be. They understand it benefits the company, the customer, their coworkers, and ultimately themselves because the company that can deliver the best product for the best price wins.

yummyfajitas 11y ago

At the end the worker earns the same, and say we do that with the whole economy and so everything costs twice that much. But workers are generally happier and more relaxed. The average worker doesn't earn the same in real terms - that's just not possible in this world. If you have 100 workers producing 100 loaves of bread the average (real) wage is 1 loaf which costs $1. If we adopt your policy the workers produce 50 loaves. The average real wage is now only 0.5 loaves of bread (== $1) but bread costs $2. You can't cut production without corresponding cuts in real wages.

x5n1 11y ago
So automate to reduce the difference.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  If that were possible then we'd simply be discussing a drop from 2 loaves/person to 1 loaf/person instead of 1 to 0.5.

Joof 11y ago

I'm of the opinion that a very large amount of the work we do now produces minimal value products in terms of general welfare and happiness (Facebook, finance, advertising, companies that support other companies doing useless things. Basically moving money around without producing things. Facebook does generate good research, so maybe that's it's benefit?) Therefore, the cost of society slowing down and doing less work is quite low. Having more time to explore novel ideas will probably become more beneficial to society in the future. Or maybe not, but I like to dream.

petra 11y ago

You don't even need automation to do this. It's just a matter of goals. For example, in Israel, a few years ago, all cashiers we're forced to stand they're full shift. And than the law changed and they must have a chair to sit on. The impact on the prices is negligible maybe even zero, the impact on profits is probably tiny if exists. The impact on the cashiers ? huge. So why did they do it the other way ? because capitalism at it's core is a system built on exploitation and power imbalances and races to the bottom. And it definitely needs to be fixed.

edanm 11y ago
"because capitalism at it's core is a system built on exploitation and power imbalances and races to the bottom." That's a very strong claim, which I don't agree with at all. Why do you think this is true? Btw, that's an interesting story about the cashiers in Israel, haven't heard of it before. Do you have a citation?
- x5n1 11y ago
  Capitalism in fact all economics is based on exploitation. definition of exploitation: make full use of and derive benefit from (a resource). > power imbalances Some people have capital, most people don't. Those who don't have it are exploited as in above. > races to the bottom This is a bit more difficult to prove. But from Wikipedia: "The race to the bottom is a socio-economic phrase which is used to describe government deregulation of the business environment or taxes in order to attract or retain economic activity in their jurisdictions. An outcome of globalization and free trade, the phenomenon may occur when competition increases between geographic areas over a particular sector of trade and production." We call this Economic Liberalism and it is the prevailing economic theory. There is a logic that justifies all of this as a good and positive thing from a societal or even a global development prespective. But the cost for all of these is definitely paid by the individual.
- petra 11y ago
  Citation:http://www.haaretz.com/news/new-law-requires-employers-to-supply-workers-with-chairs-1.212968 http://www.haaretz.com/news/new-law-requires-employers-to-su... >> "because capitalism at it's core is a system built on exploitation and power imbalances and races to the bottom." - races to the bottom - companies will do a lot to save cents per product, even sabotage quality. that's what i see in the appliance market - where everything is a piece of shit reliability wise. Same in the clothing market(shitty chemicals), ikea furniture, low quality of many software products, many electronic components(micro controllers), etc. Exploitation and power imbalances - Besides state protection - that's relatively hard to get, for many jobs, employers have most of the power and they behave accordingly. suicides in Apple factories(again it would matter to Apple almost at all if employees had reasonable conditions) or the story from Israel is one among many. Are you Israeli BTW?