5 ms·

People are cornered by high rent/land prices. They understand this and hate it. The whole point behind high land prices is to prevent most people achieving fina

People are cornered by high rent/land prices. They understand this and hate it. The whole point behind high land prices is to prevent most people achieving financial independence. At this point the workers call the shots. This is why we are kept wage slaves.

Ascetik 10y ago
What does that have to do with working for free? Total non-sequitur.
- branchless 10y ago
  People are cowed by their employers, with little to no savings they live month to month and dare not say no to extra work tasks such as email in the evening etc. High rents are squeezing all disposable income leaving people with no financial autonomy. For me the american dream was all about financial autonomy. The USA had to have actual slaves because they had no land enclosure. Why work as a wage slave when you can walk up the road and work empty land? Land gives labour the choice. Land enclosure is required for wage slaves.
- st3v3r 10y ago
  I think he's talking about unpaid overtime.
Retric 10y ago
In the US farm land averages under 4,500$ per acre. Now there are not a lot of physical jobs in those places, but if you are willing to work remote that's a non issue. On the other hand the median house in Iowa costs $126,300 a but a of cheap housing is less than that and just rented or constructed by the final home owner. In large part people live in city's because they want to live in cities. I pay close to 1/3 of my take home pay in rent because I like where I live.
- branchless 10y ago
  Get out your bubble, most people cannot work remotely as programmers.
  - Retric 10y ago
    Most 'office' jobs can be worked remotely. A lot of jobs that do require face to face interaction also involve a lot of travel and can therefore be based anywhere near an airport. Right now 20-25% of the US workforce teleworkers some of the time. And up to 50% of US jobs could be worked remotely a significant portion of the time. Further, as people move out of the most in demand city's service jobs will follow.
    - branchless 10y ago
      We've been seeing this for years, yet it's not materialised. In theory yes, in practice no. I'm a dev, my company doesn't like WFH. Many don't. That is the real world. And that is dev which is perfect for WFH. Even the wording "a significant portion of the time". Gotta live near.
      - Retric 10y ago
        Having a 1.5-2h commute 5 days a week is soul crushing, having a 1.5-2h commute 2 days a week is not. There is cheap housing within 2h of most locations. My boss lived 230 miles from the office at my last job. He showed up 1-2 days a week for meetings and that's it.
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - mod 10y ago
        I'm a dev, I WFH. I live thousands of miles from the office and have never met anyone I work with, nor been to any of our offices. This is my 2nd such job. If it's something you want, I encourage you to shop around.
kristopolous 10y ago
The market structure for land and its methods of entitlement are certainly wonky and need reform ... but I'm pretty sure we're "wage slaves" because the labor movement was successfully killed off in the 50s red scare along with the rise of classical liberalism in the 60s which poo-poos collective action, devalues communal capital, and encourages uncoordinated individual action. So when the productivity gains that were promised in the 50s came in the 80s there was no labor movement to force a shorter work week, so instead there were layoffs and bigger profits on top. We never got the promised 20 hour work week of the 50s because collectively we forgot and abandoned the multi-generational labor struggle which got us the 40 hour one. These things aren't going to just get handed out.
- branchless 10y ago
  Unions for sure are part of the picture, but I'd rather take a further step back from this and give people the right to refuse to work. I'm not talking about the right to sit around all day of your life, but the right to say "you are working me too hard, I'm out for a bit". But people cannot do this because we live in a world of very efficient economic rent extraction through land prices. When productivity rises land prices rise, handing over all gains to the banks. Our generation are, thanks to tech, far more efficient than the 1960s. Yet now both parents must work for the same (or worse) house. Computing power brought us many things, it also brought banks, the ability to track vast amounts of electronic debt. At a time when we came off the gold standard allowing unconstrained fiat issuance. I'd like to see the shoe on the other foot - employees who are not under constant financial pressure due to high rents demanding that employers pass on most of their surplus value. edit: cannot reply to your comment as faux hacker news "you're submitting to fast about usury" here it is: The main cost of "housing" in urban areas is the land. Construction has improved massively since 1960s as has materials construction, yet here we are with housing at record of income multiples.
  - bluGill 10y ago
    >Yet now both parents must work for the same (or worse) house. That isn't true. Houses built in the 1960s that have only had basic maintenance done to them are available and they are a lot cheaper than newer houses. It turns out most people don't want to live with a house that looks like the 1960s. People like bigger kitchens and houses when we can afford them. Once the house gets a little bigger we like to see things like brick on the front (I'm not sure if this is styles changing or a longer term pattern of people deciding the houses of 1990 are big enough and now we want pretty not more space). The result is perfectly nice houses in old neighborhoods are available for cheap if you are willing to live in them. Despite the above I recommend you not buy those old houses: they are not energy efficient and so either heating/cooling will eat your paycheck or you will spend a lot fo money in upgrades you won't get back.
tomcam 10y ago
So... if your house appreciates it's because you are attempting to prevent others from achieving financial independence? If you earn $50K are you attempting to prevent workers in Mexico from earning $50K?

Ascetik 10y ago

What does that have to do with working for free? Total non-sequitur.

branchless 10y ago
People are cowed by their employers, with little to no savings they live month to month and dare not say no to extra work tasks such as email in the evening etc. High rents are squeezing all disposable income leaving people with no financial autonomy. For me the american dream was all about financial autonomy. The USA had to have actual slaves because they had no land enclosure. Why work as a wage slave when you can walk up the road and work empty land? Land gives labour the choice. Land enclosure is required for wage slaves.
st3v3r 10y ago
I think he's talking about unpaid overtime.

Retric 10y ago

In the US farm land averages under 4,500$ per acre. Now there are not a lot of physical jobs in those places, but if you are willing to work remote that's a non issue. On the other hand the median house in Iowa costs $126,300 a but a of cheap housing is less than that and just rented or constructed by the final home owner. In large part people live in city's because they want to live in cities. I pay close to 1/3 of my take home pay in rent because I like where I live.

branchless 10y ago
Get out your bubble, most people cannot work remotely as programmers.
- Retric 10y ago
  Most 'office' jobs can be worked remotely. A lot of jobs that do require face to face interaction also involve a lot of travel and can therefore be based anywhere near an airport. Right now 20-25% of the US workforce teleworkers some of the time. And up to 50% of US jobs could be worked remotely a significant portion of the time. Further, as people move out of the most in demand city's service jobs will follow.
  - branchless 10y ago
    We've been seeing this for years, yet it's not materialised. In theory yes, in practice no. I'm a dev, my company doesn't like WFH. Many don't. That is the real world. And that is dev which is perfect for WFH. Even the wording "a significant portion of the time". Gotta live near.
    - Retric 10y ago
      Having a 1.5-2h commute 5 days a week is soul crushing, having a 1.5-2h commute 2 days a week is not. There is cheap housing within 2h of most locations. My boss lived 230 miles from the office at my last job. He showed up 1-2 days a week for meetings and that's it.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
    - mod 10y ago
      I'm a dev, I WFH. I live thousands of miles from the office and have never met anyone I work with, nor been to any of our offices. This is my 2nd such job. If it's something you want, I encourage you to shop around.

kristopolous 10y ago

The market structure for land and its methods of entitlement are certainly wonky and need reform ... but I'm pretty sure we're "wage slaves" because the labor movement was successfully killed off in the 50s red scare along with the rise of classical liberalism in the 60s which poo-poos collective action, devalues communal capital, and encourages uncoordinated individual action. So when the productivity gains that were promised in the 50s came in the 80s there was no labor movement to force a shorter work week, so instead there were layoffs and bigger profits on top. We never got the promised 20 hour work week of the 50s because collectively we forgot and abandoned the multi-generational labor struggle which got us the 40 hour one. These things aren't going to just get handed out.

branchless 10y ago
Unions for sure are part of the picture, but I'd rather take a further step back from this and give people the right to refuse to work. I'm not talking about the right to sit around all day of your life, but the right to say "you are working me too hard, I'm out for a bit". But people cannot do this because we live in a world of very efficient economic rent extraction through land prices. When productivity rises land prices rise, handing over all gains to the banks. Our generation are, thanks to tech, far more efficient than the 1960s. Yet now both parents must work for the same (or worse) house. Computing power brought us many things, it also brought banks, the ability to track vast amounts of electronic debt. At a time when we came off the gold standard allowing unconstrained fiat issuance. I'd like to see the shoe on the other foot - employees who are not under constant financial pressure due to high rents demanding that employers pass on most of their surplus value. edit: cannot reply to your comment as faux hacker news "you're submitting to fast about usury" here it is: The main cost of "housing" in urban areas is the land. Construction has improved massively since 1960s as has materials construction, yet here we are with housing at record of income multiples.
- bluGill 10y ago
  >Yet now both parents must work for the same (or worse) house. That isn't true. Houses built in the 1960s that have only had basic maintenance done to them are available and they are a lot cheaper than newer houses. It turns out most people don't want to live with a house that looks like the 1960s. People like bigger kitchens and houses when we can afford them. Once the house gets a little bigger we like to see things like brick on the front (I'm not sure if this is styles changing or a longer term pattern of people deciding the houses of 1990 are big enough and now we want pretty not more space). The result is perfectly nice houses in old neighborhoods are available for cheap if you are willing to live in them. Despite the above I recommend you not buy those old houses: they are not energy efficient and so either heating/cooling will eat your paycheck or you will spend a lot fo money in upgrades you won't get back.

tomcam 10y ago

So... if your house appreciates it's because you are attempting to prevent others from achieving financial independence? If you earn $50K are you attempting to prevent workers in Mexico from earning $50K?