7 ms·

The whole arrangement is about control, preventing workers from having the time or energy to build competing enterprises, develop skills beyond a certain level,

The whole arrangement is about control, preventing workers from having the time or energy to build competing enterprises, develop skills beyond a certain level, or organize against their employers. It’s the same reason why most big corps oppose a national healthcare system in the US: it keeps people locked in to their current positions and has the knock-on effect of putting downward pressure on wages and turnover expenses.

quotemstr 7y ago
> The whole arrangement is about control, preventing workers from having the time or energy to build competing enterprises, develop skills beyond a certain level, or organize against their employers [Citation needed]
- claudeganon 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_history_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_history_of_the_United_St...
  - quotemstr 7y ago
    Quote the relevant passage instead of gesturing vaguely at all of labor history. The idea that working hours are set to sap workers of competitive energy is just a weird conspiracy theory. But I guess HN will believe what it wants to believe.
    - lm28469 7y ago
      Do you really believe you can summarize 100 years of labor law in a single quote that somehow will convince you... Read any European socialist work from the 30s to the 70s and you'll have plenty of quotes to work with. Raoul Vaneigem, Guy Debord, &c.
- lm28469 7y ago
  https://thecharnelhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Raoul-Vaneigem-The-Revolution-of-Everyday-Life.pdf https://thecharnelhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Raoul...
  - quotemstr 7y ago
    So somewhere in 280 pages is something that might support the OP's claim? Give me a break. Cite specifics or stop pushing nonsense. I wish there were a site like HN focused on technology and tech industry developments but without the Bay Area intellectual blind spots and biases.
    - lm28469 7y ago
      I wish there were still people interested in learning instead of waiting to be fed one liners. Anyway, I'm the first to criticize SV so I'm not even sure what you're talking about. That book is quite short by the way, you can finish it in an evening, I don't think you can make it shorter without losing a lot of meaningful info. Seeing your other comment you seem to be stuck in a "HN vs me" kind of logic, knowing that I don't see how a single quote could change your mind.
      - brokencode 7y ago
        I don’t think anybody is going to read a book just because you threw out a link. If you want to get your point across, you should condense what you thought was interesting about the book and make a case for why somebody would read it.
        lm28469 7y ago
        It's a societal critic, you can't condensate that, it's already as short as you can make it and the summary is a rebuttal to op's point... HN truly is becoming reddit by the day. Should I post memes explaining the last 200 years of labor history ? No wonder the world is going down the drain and people like Trump and Bolsonaro get elected if smart people don't even bother reading a 300 pages book about on one of the biggest issues of the last century.
- WilliamEdward 7y ago
  Instead of giving you a citation, how about some logic - when your competitors keep pushing you out of the market, what is the natural course of business? Would it be to: A) decrease work hours for employees or B) make them work more for less, effectively preventing them from doing what OP said It's not always that there is intention to suppress workers, it's just a natural consequence of traditional business.
- osipov 7y ago
  You comment getting downvoted is all the evidence I need that HN went down the tubes over the past couples of years. Do you know of any good alternatives? Apparently dev.to is pretty good...
- pastage 7y ago
  The statement in itself is of course overly broad, but I think you can do better, what part of the argument do you want a citation on? EDIT: I just interpret it as a way to express the opinion that employers usually care about their buisness more than their workers.
osipov 7y ago
I find it fascinating that if you were to make an equivalent statement about the political realm, you'd be immediately branded a conspiracy theorist on HN. But when it comes down to labor management relations I guess HN is happy to upvote conspiracy theories.
- burntoutfire 7y ago
  It's not a conspiracy theory, just common sense. Start talking loudly at your job about starting a side business, being frugal and retiring early or even that the market for your skillset is great at the offers are flooding - and note how the management reacts. Hint: they don't want the workers to know there are viable alternatives to working at $JOB, because it makes their (mgmt) life harder.
  - briandear 7y ago
    At my FAANG company where I work, my side business is not discouraged at all. As long as I don’t complete with them, they don’t care one bit.
  - osipov 7y ago
    The trouble with common sense is that is it so wicked subjective. So when we debate stuff, we at least try to have a pretense of objectivity.
  - MaxBarraclough 7y ago
    > just common sense Clearly not, as many people disagree with you. > they don't want the workers to know there are viable alternatives to working at $JOB, because it makes their (mgmt) life harder. Every decent tech professional is fully aware that they have the option of leaving. Management don't want you encouraging people to leave, sure.
  - christophilus 7y ago
    > Start talking loudly at your job about starting a side business, being frugal and retiring early Where I work, we have a Slack channel dedicated to this kind of talk, and most managers are in it. It’s been just fine.
briandear 7y ago
If you worked 4 days a week, you would spend that time organizing against your employer? What the hell for? If you don’t like the employer, go somewhere else.
- Frondo 7y ago
  Or organize with your coworkers to bring the operation more in line with how you all would like to see it operate. Management needs labor just as much as labor needs a paycheck. It's a two-way street.
  - Frondo 7y ago
    Could the downvoters please explain why organizing with your coworkers is not an option, or not an appropriate option, instead of just downvoting?
- NullPrefix 7y ago
  Going somewhere else requires time to arrange it. Time is something you don't have working 5 days a week.
  - kyriakos 7y ago
    You still got 2 days a week off. Now you'll say those are days when other businesses are closed so you can't plan and interview but if everyone was working 4 days a week all businesses would be closed for 3 days. So you'd be back to square one.
- rrix2 7y ago
  Not everyone is willing or able to Leetcode in the office restrooms to "brush up"
umvi 7y ago
> It’s the same reason why most big corps oppose a national healthcare system in the US: it keeps people locked in to their current positions Ok, then why isn't EU a Mecca of enterprise and innovation? Seems like EU is largely technologically stagnant compared to the US despite tons of safety nets at every level.
- claudeganon 7y ago
  Technology is not the only economic domain and entrepreneurship is higher in some parts of Europe than the US: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/10/think-were-the-most-entrepreneurial-country-in-the-world-not-so-fast/263102/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/10/think-w...
- TrackerFF 7y ago
  There are many reasons, IMO. 1. The US has almost 330 million people; Europe has 740 million - but we're spread over so many different countries / policies / cultures etc. Hell, eastern Europe was locked out up until 30 years ago, and didn't stat to see industrial prosperity until 20 years ago. 2. USA had a massive advantage after WW2, while Europe was still in shambles. The rebuilding of Europe wasn't really completed until the 50s and 60s, at a time when the US experienced its golden age of industrial development. 3. More rich people and more investors compared to Europe, from earlier on, coupled with excellent schools that could produce and feed talent into the industry. Sure, we here in Europe have had excellent schools, but nowhere near the financial backings. In many countries, financial backing of tech and companies have been a gov / state affair, which in turn can be extremely limited compared to private investors. etc.
  - mbrodersen 7y ago
    Google, Facebook etc. are ad serving companies. That's how they make their money. Let's compare that with other companies (a lot of them European) that are busy saving the world with renewable energy technologies etc. No comparison.
  - livesinhel 7y ago
    1.2 Europe's 740 million people speak in at least 24 languages. This makes it much more difficult to scale internationally. That's why there's so many doppelgänger companies in different EU countries — it's more likely that somebody will create a regional clone of your successful business than you'll be able to scale.
Aloha 7y ago
Citation needed, in re corporate opposition to national healthcare
- claudeganon 7y ago
  https://www.uschamber.com/letter/us-chamber-letter-the-house-opposing-medicare-all-and-medicare-buy-proposals https://www.uschamber.com/letter/us-chamber-letter-the-house...
  - Aloha 7y ago
    That seems to be more driven by a fear of out of control costs - also, the US chamber tends to represent smaller and a medium sized businesses. Also it may be driven by fears of losing member support, as happened when they supported the clinton health care reform in the 90's
amiga_500 7y ago
Exactly. After 3 days people in pubs and town halls would have reached the inescapable conclusion that they should revolt against rentiers.
friendlybus 7y ago
The only way to keep some employees is to give them time to work on their own side projects. Google used to do this. Formula 1 does this with key players.
- sdenton4 7y ago
  (Google used to do 20% time... They still do, but they used to, too.)
  - dtech 7y ago
    There have been reports that the 20% time is being slowly taken away and more heavily policed, and that it's more 100% + 20% time nowadays.
    - kettro 7y ago
      This is mostly untrue (IME) - a 20% project is strongly encouraged, and is used during the performance review. Taking time off of the main projects is expected.
      - colejohnson66 7y ago
        Is it really a side project if it’s used in your performance review?
  - osipov 7y ago
    At Google Cloud the 20% time is just a recruiting tactic. Once you join you'll find out that it should be on top of your existing 100% FTE.
  - james_s_tayler 7y ago
    Mitch Hedberg!!! My other favorite joke of his: "Rice is great when you're hungry and want to eat like 2000 of something"
jariel 7y ago
"The whole arrangement is about control, preventing workers from having the time or energy to build competing enterprises, develop skills beyond a certain level," No, it really is not this at all. The 5 day work week is a result of a reduction from the 6 day work week which and it's mostly derived as a standoff between organised labour and the capital class. It's the big entente.

quotemstr 7y ago

> The whole arrangement is about control, preventing workers from having the time or energy to build competing enterprises, develop skills beyond a certain level, or organize against their employers [Citation needed]

claudeganon 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_history_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_history_of_the_United_St...
- quotemstr 7y ago
  Quote the relevant passage instead of gesturing vaguely at all of labor history. The idea that working hours are set to sap workers of competitive energy is just a weird conspiracy theory. But I guess HN will believe what it wants to believe.
  - lm28469 7y ago
    Do you really believe you can summarize 100 years of labor law in a single quote that somehow will convince you... Read any European socialist work from the 30s to the 70s and you'll have plenty of quotes to work with. Raoul Vaneigem, Guy Debord, &c.
lm28469 7y ago
https://thecharnelhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Raoul-Vaneigem-The-Revolution-of-Everyday-Life.pdf https://thecharnelhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Raoul...
- quotemstr 7y ago
  So somewhere in 280 pages is something that might support the OP's claim? Give me a break. Cite specifics or stop pushing nonsense. I wish there were a site like HN focused on technology and tech industry developments but without the Bay Area intellectual blind spots and biases.
  - lm28469 7y ago
    I wish there were still people interested in learning instead of waiting to be fed one liners. Anyway, I'm the first to criticize SV so I'm not even sure what you're talking about. That book is quite short by the way, you can finish it in an evening, I don't think you can make it shorter without losing a lot of meaningful info. Seeing your other comment you seem to be stuck in a "HN vs me" kind of logic, knowing that I don't see how a single quote could change your mind.
    - brokencode 7y ago
      I don’t think anybody is going to read a book just because you threw out a link. If you want to get your point across, you should condense what you thought was interesting about the book and make a case for why somebody would read it.
      - lm28469 7y ago
        It's a societal critic, you can't condensate that, it's already as short as you can make it and the summary is a rebuttal to op's point... HN truly is becoming reddit by the day. Should I post memes explaining the last 200 years of labor history ? No wonder the world is going down the drain and people like Trump and Bolsonaro get elected if smart people don't even bother reading a 300 pages book about on one of the biggest issues of the last century.
WilliamEdward 7y ago
Instead of giving you a citation, how about some logic - when your competitors keep pushing you out of the market, what is the natural course of business? Would it be to: A) decrease work hours for employees or B) make them work more for less, effectively preventing them from doing what OP said It's not always that there is intention to suppress workers, it's just a natural consequence of traditional business.
osipov 7y ago
You comment getting downvoted is all the evidence I need that HN went down the tubes over the past couples of years. Do you know of any good alternatives? Apparently dev.to is pretty good...
pastage 7y ago
The statement in itself is of course overly broad, but I think you can do better, what part of the argument do you want a citation on? EDIT: I just interpret it as a way to express the opinion that employers usually care about their buisness more than their workers.

osipov 7y ago

I find it fascinating that if you were to make an equivalent statement about the political realm, you'd be immediately branded a conspiracy theorist on HN. But when it comes down to labor management relations I guess HN is happy to upvote conspiracy theories.

burntoutfire 7y ago
It's not a conspiracy theory, just common sense. Start talking loudly at your job about starting a side business, being frugal and retiring early or even that the market for your skillset is great at the offers are flooding - and note how the management reacts. Hint: they don't want the workers to know there are viable alternatives to working at $JOB, because it makes their (mgmt) life harder.
- briandear 7y ago
  At my FAANG company where I work, my side business is not discouraged at all. As long as I don’t complete with them, they don’t care one bit.
- osipov 7y ago
  The trouble with common sense is that is it so wicked subjective. So when we debate stuff, we at least try to have a pretense of objectivity.
- MaxBarraclough 7y ago
  > just common sense Clearly not, as many people disagree with you. > they don't want the workers to know there are viable alternatives to working at $JOB, because it makes their (mgmt) life harder. Every decent tech professional is fully aware that they have the option of leaving. Management don't want you encouraging people to leave, sure.
- christophilus 7y ago
  > Start talking loudly at your job about starting a side business, being frugal and retiring early Where I work, we have a Slack channel dedicated to this kind of talk, and most managers are in it. It’s been just fine.

briandear 7y ago

If you worked 4 days a week, you would spend that time organizing against your employer? What the hell for? If you don’t like the employer, go somewhere else.

Frondo 7y ago
Or organize with your coworkers to bring the operation more in line with how you all would like to see it operate. Management needs labor just as much as labor needs a paycheck. It's a two-way street.
- Frondo 7y ago
  Could the downvoters please explain why organizing with your coworkers is not an option, or not an appropriate option, instead of just downvoting?
NullPrefix 7y ago
Going somewhere else requires time to arrange it. Time is something you don't have working 5 days a week.
- kyriakos 7y ago
  You still got 2 days a week off. Now you'll say those are days when other businesses are closed so you can't plan and interview but if everyone was working 4 days a week all businesses would be closed for 3 days. So you'd be back to square one.
rrix2 7y ago
Not everyone is willing or able to Leetcode in the office restrooms to "brush up"

umvi 7y ago

> It’s the same reason why most big corps oppose a national healthcare system in the US: it keeps people locked in to their current positions Ok, then why isn't EU a Mecca of enterprise and innovation? Seems like EU is largely technologically stagnant compared to the US despite tons of safety nets at every level.

claudeganon 7y ago
Technology is not the only economic domain and entrepreneurship is higher in some parts of Europe than the US: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/10/think-were-the-most-entrepreneurial-country-in-the-world-not-so-fast/263102/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/10/think-w...
TrackerFF 7y ago
There are many reasons, IMO. 1. The US has almost 330 million people; Europe has 740 million - but we're spread over so many different countries / policies / cultures etc. Hell, eastern Europe was locked out up until 30 years ago, and didn't stat to see industrial prosperity until 20 years ago. 2. USA had a massive advantage after WW2, while Europe was still in shambles. The rebuilding of Europe wasn't really completed until the 50s and 60s, at a time when the US experienced its golden age of industrial development. 3. More rich people and more investors compared to Europe, from earlier on, coupled with excellent schools that could produce and feed talent into the industry. Sure, we here in Europe have had excellent schools, but nowhere near the financial backings. In many countries, financial backing of tech and companies have been a gov / state affair, which in turn can be extremely limited compared to private investors. etc.
- mbrodersen 7y ago
  Google, Facebook etc. are ad serving companies. That's how they make their money. Let's compare that with other companies (a lot of them European) that are busy saving the world with renewable energy technologies etc. No comparison.
- livesinhel 7y ago
  1.2 Europe's 740 million people speak in at least 24 languages. This makes it much more difficult to scale internationally. That's why there's so many doppelgänger companies in different EU countries — it's more likely that somebody will create a regional clone of your successful business than you'll be able to scale.

Aloha 7y ago

Citation needed, in re corporate opposition to national healthcare

claudeganon 7y ago
https://www.uschamber.com/letter/us-chamber-letter-the-house-opposing-medicare-all-and-medicare-buy-proposals https://www.uschamber.com/letter/us-chamber-letter-the-house...
- Aloha 7y ago
  That seems to be more driven by a fear of out of control costs - also, the US chamber tends to represent smaller and a medium sized businesses. Also it may be driven by fears of losing member support, as happened when they supported the clinton health care reform in the 90's

amiga_500 7y ago

Exactly. After 3 days people in pubs and town halls would have reached the inescapable conclusion that they should revolt against rentiers.

friendlybus 7y ago

The only way to keep some employees is to give them time to work on their own side projects. Google used to do this. Formula 1 does this with key players.

sdenton4 7y ago
(Google used to do 20% time... They still do, but they used to, too.)
- dtech 7y ago
  There have been reports that the 20% time is being slowly taken away and more heavily policed, and that it's more 100% + 20% time nowadays.
  - kettro 7y ago
    This is mostly untrue (IME) - a 20% project is strongly encouraged, and is used during the performance review. Taking time off of the main projects is expected.
    - colejohnson66 7y ago
      Is it really a side project if it’s used in your performance review?
- osipov 7y ago
  At Google Cloud the 20% time is just a recruiting tactic. Once you join you'll find out that it should be on top of your existing 100% FTE.
- james_s_tayler 7y ago
  Mitch Hedberg!!! My other favorite joke of his: "Rice is great when you're hungry and want to eat like 2000 of something"

jariel 7y ago

"The whole arrangement is about control, preventing workers from having the time or energy to build competing enterprises, develop skills beyond a certain level," No, it really is not this at all. The 5 day work week is a result of a reduction from the 6 day work week which and it's mostly derived as a standoff between organised labour and the capital class. It's the big entente.