4 ms·

As an American, living in late capitalism, I do not see this as anything but extremely wishful thinking for 99% of the working population here. But if this sor

by eckza 10y ago

As an American, living in late capitalism, I do not see this as anything but extremely wishful thinking for 99% of the working population here. But if this sort of thing ever does happen, then I absolutely hope that it goes down as you've described.

bmelton 10y ago
Yes, your anti-capitalist intentions were pretty clear from your earlier post. Put simply, I do not share your views on the subject.
- eckza 10y ago
  That's fair. Sorry, I hope I didn't get too carried away. Thanks for the dialogue. :)
  - bmelton 10y ago
    No need to apologize, I just don't agree. In the time I've been alive, I've seen more and more employers gravitating towards fewer hours, more lenient work schedules, etc. My first job was basically a minimum of 10 hours a day, and 6, sometimes 7 days a week. Nowadays, companies (especially in tech, mind you) are realizing the difficulty in recruiting / training / keeping personnel and are competing on benefits to the extent that 'unlimited' vacation days, telework, longer maternity and paternity leaves, etc. And before the obvious counterargument is made, this isn't limited just to technology (though it does seem to be blazing the trail.) Tech, agriculture, finance, business, and any industry in which recruiting and keeping talent are tricky are basically trading dollars for perks, and often, the result of that is that employees get to keep more of their personal time for themselves. Sure, this hasn't affected every industry, and for industries where labor is a commodity, it may never occur, but just as sure as you believe your scenario is the result of capitalism, I believe that the increase in perks / time / accommodation is the same.
    - eckza 10y ago
      That's a really interesting perspective, especially since you've brought up a lot of illustrations that I cannot disagree with. I think you really nailed it with the phrase, > trading dollars for perks And I suppose it also has to do a lot with how much leverage employees have against their employers. Those of us in tech have more leverage on average than, say, a hospitality worker. It's a lot more nuanced than I had initially thought, for sure.
      - bmelton 10y ago
        "It's a lot more nuanced than I had initially thought" Most things are a LOT more nuanced than most people give credence to, and there's zero dishonor in acknowledging that. With almost every issue I've delved into (especially political ones), there are arguments for and against any given issue that I can't hand-wave away. I might prioritize some factors ahead of others, but just about every political issue in the world is a matter of tradeoffs, and there are very few obvious wins. I agree with your assertion here that much of the strengths to be found in capitalism revolve around the notion of resolving power imbalances. For every good story I've read, somewhere, there's a terrifying story -- I'm reminded of the old Hazard county mine worker strikes, for example. But while unions are ostensibly the surest fix in mitigating those power imbalances (in fostering leverage to the people), the more I look at them the more I realize that they need to be truly cooperative. Union power is real enough that there are places like Sweden which have no minimum wage, and yet still have high effective wages. But in America at least, unions with political power often exploit that political power towards complacency, corruption, and often trend towards being less effective stewards of their member interests. In essence, too much cooperation between unions and policy makers may yield counter-intuitive results that manifest in ineffective unions, which yields declining memberships, which yields power imbalances in favor of corporations. The point, if I have one, is that while so many people get wrapped up in the idea of "unions bad" or "unions good", we lose the ability to objectively evaluate whether a given union is good or bad because we ideologically insist that they be a certain way. Similarly, evaluations of government, corporations, regulations, trade, capitalism, socialism, et al all falter as soon as we begin to put too much faith in the institution that we stop performing scientifically objective and individual evaluations upon them. Thanks for the conversation, and in particular, for the open mind. It's always a pleasure to engage with someone who I know to be willing to adjust their opinions to facts, and while capitalism surely isn't always good, it definitely isn't always bad either.

by eckza 10y ago

bmelton 10y ago

Yes, your anti-capitalist intentions were pretty clear from your earlier post. Put simply, I do not share your views on the subject.

eckza 10y ago
That's fair. Sorry, I hope I didn't get too carried away. Thanks for the dialogue. :)
- bmelton 10y ago
  No need to apologize, I just don't agree. In the time I've been alive, I've seen more and more employers gravitating towards fewer hours, more lenient work schedules, etc. My first job was basically a minimum of 10 hours a day, and 6, sometimes 7 days a week. Nowadays, companies (especially in tech, mind you) are realizing the difficulty in recruiting / training / keeping personnel and are competing on benefits to the extent that 'unlimited' vacation days, telework, longer maternity and paternity leaves, etc. And before the obvious counterargument is made, this isn't limited just to technology (though it does seem to be blazing the trail.) Tech, agriculture, finance, business, and any industry in which recruiting and keeping talent are tricky are basically trading dollars for perks, and often, the result of that is that employees get to keep more of their personal time for themselves. Sure, this hasn't affected every industry, and for industries where labor is a commodity, it may never occur, but just as sure as you believe your scenario is the result of capitalism, I believe that the increase in perks / time / accommodation is the same.
  - eckza 10y ago
    That's a really interesting perspective, especially since you've brought up a lot of illustrations that I cannot disagree with. I think you really nailed it with the phrase, > trading dollars for perks And I suppose it also has to do a lot with how much leverage employees have against their employers. Those of us in tech have more leverage on average than, say, a hospitality worker. It's a lot more nuanced than I had initially thought, for sure.
    - bmelton 10y ago
      "It's a lot more nuanced than I had initially thought" Most things are a LOT more nuanced than most people give credence to, and there's zero dishonor in acknowledging that. With almost every issue I've delved into (especially political ones), there are arguments for and against any given issue that I can't hand-wave away. I might prioritize some factors ahead of others, but just about every political issue in the world is a matter of tradeoffs, and there are very few obvious wins. I agree with your assertion here that much of the strengths to be found in capitalism revolve around the notion of resolving power imbalances. For every good story I've read, somewhere, there's a terrifying story -- I'm reminded of the old Hazard county mine worker strikes, for example. But while unions are ostensibly the surest fix in mitigating those power imbalances (in fostering leverage to the people), the more I look at them the more I realize that they need to be truly cooperative. Union power is real enough that there are places like Sweden which have no minimum wage, and yet still have high effective wages. But in America at least, unions with political power often exploit that political power towards complacency, corruption, and often trend towards being less effective stewards of their member interests. In essence, too much cooperation between unions and policy makers may yield counter-intuitive results that manifest in ineffective unions, which yields declining memberships, which yields power imbalances in favor of corporations. The point, if I have one, is that while so many people get wrapped up in the idea of "unions bad" or "unions good", we lose the ability to objectively evaluate whether a given union is good or bad because we ideologically insist that they be a certain way. Similarly, evaluations of government, corporations, regulations, trade, capitalism, socialism, et al all falter as soon as we begin to put too much faith in the institution that we stop performing scientifically objective and individual evaluations upon them. Thanks for the conversation, and in particular, for the open mind. It's always a pleasure to engage with someone who I know to be willing to adjust their opinions to facts, and while capitalism surely isn't always good, it definitely isn't always bad either.