5 ms·

I think it's common for young people to not understand: your employer is not on your side. You are making a legal contract which your employer is trying to ext

I think it's common for young people to not understand: your employer is not on your side. You are making a legal contract which your employer is trying to extract a maximum amount of profit from, while passing on risk, and has more experience and understanding of how to negotiate to that effect.

TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
Yes. Under capitalism, you will never see the full fruits of your labour, it goes first and foremost to the company and they will give you (theoretically) the smallest slice of it they can get away with. Of course, sometimes there are “nice” employers but they have the same interests.
- PasserBy2024 7y ago
  And under socialism that company is the entire country so you cannot even change jobs easily.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
    You could have left a useful comment instead of snark.
    - PasserBy2024 7y ago
      Snarks get more up-votes.
  - vidarh 7y ago
    There's nothing requiring that to be true. There are whole ranges of socialist ideologies based on removing the state, and so reducing or removing hierarchies, including pulverising large employers into smaller units. There are others (with significant overlap) based around retaining market mechanisms, but externalising labour conditions and salary, and so using market mechanisms as a resource allocation mechanism. A market is only a threat to workers if there is a significant negative impact from being made redundant - some socialists believe society should strive for a system where we encourage businesses to make people redundant by making themselves more efficient; redundancy protections are a band aid for a lacking welfare system. It's not for nothing that Marx and Proudhon violently agreed that one of the most radical policies you can pass is providing cheap credit (though they disagreed about agreeing...) - make credit cheap and you make exploitation of labour far harder because it becomes easier and lower risk to leave to work for yourself. Sure, state socialist ideas ideologies would have the issue you describe, which is one of many reasons why a whole lot of socialists find them more objectionable than capitalism.
jakobegger 7y ago
> your employer is not on your side Maybe that's true for most venture-funding backed startups, but it's a bit of an unfair generalisation. There are plenty of employers out there that don't want to suck their employees dry. Some companies have a more long term vision, and the easiest way to retain employees for more than a few years is to not exploit them.
- aprescott 7y ago
  I agree that it's a somewhat unfair generalization that paints a harsh picture. The core point of the argument still holds though, I think. A cynical response might be to say that the difference is the employer is accounting for longer-term replacement hiring/training costs, rather than short term value extraction. The optimization has new parameters but the structure of the relationship is still fundamentally transactional. I don't really think that's how things generally run, though. Both parties should want a place that's enjoyable to work over the long term, yet sometimes the company will have to make hard decisions. Priorities slip or people are straight-up unable to avoid, say, laying off half the staff. Framing and context matter, as always. "Your employer is not on your side" is hopefully not a statement about the day-to-day interactions with your boss, or even a statement about company values, but it can serve as a reminder that there's always a line somewhere, and, intent aside, your best interests may simply fall on the wrong side.
- acjohnson55 7y ago
  It's true, but even in that case, you need to protect and advocate for yourself. Moreover, you're more useful to your employer when you are savvy. The very best employers don't just treat their people well, they also educate them.
- learnstats2 7y ago
  > a bit of an unfair generalisation... There are plenty of employers out there that don't want to suck their employees dry. I think I generalised it correctly. I agree with this point - that it's often not the most profitable to suck your employees dry, as you say. Your employer is not on your side, even if your goals temporarily align with their long term vision. That is almost the best you can hope for in employment. If business has a time of crisis, for whatever reason, then it becomes a risk-minimising strategy to exploit staff - at least until the crisis is over or the business collapses.
ktaylor 7y ago
This is a 19th century view of the workplace. Don't work for employers who ascribe to this workforce philosophy.

TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago

Yes. Under capitalism, you will never see the full fruits of your labour, it goes first and foremost to the company and they will give you (theoretically) the smallest slice of it they can get away with. Of course, sometimes there are “nice” employers but they have the same interests.

PasserBy2024 7y ago
And under socialism that company is the entire country so you cannot even change jobs easily.
- TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
  You could have left a useful comment instead of snark.
  - PasserBy2024 7y ago
    Snarks get more up-votes.
- vidarh 7y ago
  There's nothing requiring that to be true. There are whole ranges of socialist ideologies based on removing the state, and so reducing or removing hierarchies, including pulverising large employers into smaller units. There are others (with significant overlap) based around retaining market mechanisms, but externalising labour conditions and salary, and so using market mechanisms as a resource allocation mechanism. A market is only a threat to workers if there is a significant negative impact from being made redundant - some socialists believe society should strive for a system where we encourage businesses to make people redundant by making themselves more efficient; redundancy protections are a band aid for a lacking welfare system. It's not for nothing that Marx and Proudhon violently agreed that one of the most radical policies you can pass is providing cheap credit (though they disagreed about agreeing...) - make credit cheap and you make exploitation of labour far harder because it becomes easier and lower risk to leave to work for yourself. Sure, state socialist ideas ideologies would have the issue you describe, which is one of many reasons why a whole lot of socialists find them more objectionable than capitalism.

jakobegger 7y ago

> your employer is not on your side Maybe that's true for most venture-funding backed startups, but it's a bit of an unfair generalisation. There are plenty of employers out there that don't want to suck their employees dry. Some companies have a more long term vision, and the easiest way to retain employees for more than a few years is to not exploit them.

aprescott 7y ago
I agree that it's a somewhat unfair generalization that paints a harsh picture. The core point of the argument still holds though, I think. A cynical response might be to say that the difference is the employer is accounting for longer-term replacement hiring/training costs, rather than short term value extraction. The optimization has new parameters but the structure of the relationship is still fundamentally transactional. I don't really think that's how things generally run, though. Both parties should want a place that's enjoyable to work over the long term, yet sometimes the company will have to make hard decisions. Priorities slip or people are straight-up unable to avoid, say, laying off half the staff. Framing and context matter, as always. "Your employer is not on your side" is hopefully not a statement about the day-to-day interactions with your boss, or even a statement about company values, but it can serve as a reminder that there's always a line somewhere, and, intent aside, your best interests may simply fall on the wrong side.
acjohnson55 7y ago
It's true, but even in that case, you need to protect and advocate for yourself. Moreover, you're more useful to your employer when you are savvy. The very best employers don't just treat their people well, they also educate them.
learnstats2 7y ago
> a bit of an unfair generalisation... There are plenty of employers out there that don't want to suck their employees dry. I think I generalised it correctly. I agree with this point - that it's often not the most profitable to suck your employees dry, as you say. Your employer is not on your side, even if your goals temporarily align with their long term vision. That is almost the best you can hope for in employment. If business has a time of crisis, for whatever reason, then it becomes a risk-minimising strategy to exploit staff - at least until the crisis is over or the business collapses.

ktaylor 7y ago

This is a 19th century view of the workplace. Don't work for employers who ascribe to this workforce philosophy.