6 ms·

It's always refreshing to read someone who really gets that economy is not about money, but rather about what is being produced. The title reminded me of the fa

by js8 6y ago

It's always refreshing to read someone who really gets that economy is not about money, but rather about what is being produced. The title reminded me of the famous Kalecki essay, Political Aspects of Full Employment, which actually explains deeper why this is not so easy to do as Cory Doctorow imagines (if you hadn't read it, I really recommend it, it's one of the best works on economics ever). Here I think is the crux of the problem. In our (western civilization) societies, everyone wants to be a manager or a scrum master or at least a programmer, have a nice white collar job in the home office. Not many people want to do actual manual jobs, like painting or plumbing, even though these would actually be needed a lot. If we truly payed blue collar guys a market rate, no white collar jobs would exist, because what is the price for risking your health? I think we are plagued by a very similar problem that plagued any human civilization before us. We have a system sustained by a psychopathic upper class, where clueless middle class, which wants to keep their white collar jobs, knows only one thing for sure - they do not want to become blue collar losers. And the only innovation of the system we figured out was that we can make the middle class really big, thanks to productivity of technology. But unfortunately, that means we are actually underutilizing the possible technological advances. By relegating the maintenance of the technology to lower classes, we are limiting its potential, in order to preserve the middle class social status.

vages 6y ago
The essay "The political aspects of full employment" by Michal Kalicki https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/05/political-aspects-of-full-employment-kalecki-job-guarantee https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/05/political-aspects-of-full...
082349872349872 6y ago
The only way your breakdown differs from The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism is that the "clueless middle class" in Oceania seems to split into two mutually antagonistic but still self policing Outer Parties. (also I think calling "white collar" "middle class" is a bit ahistorical: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23671937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23671937 but, as with "hacker", I guess I should make an attempt to go with the times, if reluctantly) Cleese: I get a feeling of superiority over them↓. Barker: I get a feeling of inferiority from him↑, but a feeling of superiority over him↓. Corbett: I get a pain↑ in the back of my neck.
- throwanem 6y ago
  Not that I especially want to validate your reference to a piece of diegetic COINTELPRO agitprop in a not very good and rather outdated polemical novel, but if it's "two mutually antagonistic but still self policing Outer Parties" you want, have you seen the ostensibly competing libertarian tendencies that currently make up American public politics?
  - tristor 6y ago
    Are you kidding me? What are these "ostensibly competing libertarian tendencies that currently make up American public politics"? We have a broken two-party system where both parties abandoned their philosophical beginnings more than 3 decades ago to pursue headlong corporatist and globalist goals, with varying spins depending on what personally benefits party leadership the most. Both parties are working hard to systematically eliminate any real measure of freedom which exists for the average person in the nation, but taking different angles to do so. One party makes direct attacks on the very basis of our Constitution, the other party more subtly manipulates processes to disenfranchise people while acting to prevent them from having secure communications and privacy. Both parties actively support a police state, and both parties are out of touch with the realities of the majority of residents, especially those outside of cities. In neither case would I describe the current system as "ostensibly competing libertarian tendencies." There are obviously many possible negative consequences and externalities that come from absolute freedom (libertarianism), but the current actions and words of both parties fly in the face of the claim that they are in any way advocating such a position; hidden, blatant, or otherwise. Also, referring to "1984" as "COINTELPRO agitprop" is so tone deaf that it's nearly daft. George Orwell was a British author, first of all, and COINTELPRO was a domestic operation of the FBI in the US. Secondly, if you were to observe a theme in "1984" and follow it to its logical conclusion, I think it obvious that the books premise and message would be opposed to government operations exactly like COINTELPRO. In fact, 1984 captures the essence of our current situation pretty well to show you the dystopian future that awaits from giving up control to the state combined with technology capable of absolute surveillance. Your comment reads like something written in a Chinese troll farm to push public opinion in support of Communism.
Reelin 6y ago
> If we truly payed blue collar guys a market rate, no white collar jobs would exist, because what is the price for risking your health? Isn't that exactly what we do though? Doesn't pay (very approximately) correlate with required skill? For example, compare the salary of a skilled carpenter with some of the lower skilled "tech" jobs. All of your examples (manager, scum master, programmer) are decidedly high skill jobs when compared to the economy as a whole. (As far as software goes, consider that demand for laborers currently outstrips supply. Prices adjust to reflect that.) What you're really describing (IMO) is that everyone is competing with each other and we all want to be above average. Going back to your tech industry examples, I've heard it said that the majority of programmers think they're above average.
- js8 6y ago
  My polemic is that at least some of this "high skill" distinction that we attribute to cushy high skilled jobs is a myth. They are well paid, because we claim they are high skill. And everybody with power in that system has an interest in perpetuating that myth. (Including me, I am a programmer.) Part of the myth is that it is skill, not health risks, that should be well paid. And I suspect one reason why we don't want to tackle climate change (or even generally take more advantage of technological progress) is that it requires a different skill set, the one that is lot more blue collar, and to make that transformation we would have to upset the existing social order. In other words, I generally don't believe there is only one solution to the "market equations". Remuneration, price of different types of labor, also depends on cultural factors. And because there is not always unique solution, you might end up in a local maximum of productivity. One way around it is what Doctorow suggests, we all gather around a table (well, metaphorically, with a government as our proxy) and decide, well, we have to do these things, and here are the jobs to be filled (and he further argues that we are in such local maximum regarding the climate change, and we can get out of it). Sadly, it's been really difficult historically to get out of such local maxima without profound rifts in the society, civilizations often chose death rather than do this. And that's what I worry about, and I think we need to come to terms with.
  - grasshopperpurp 6y ago
uxcolumbo 6y ago
So what's the solution? So if I understand you correctly is that blue collar jobs are not attractive enough? So does the solution include one or more of the following? - Increase the status of those jobs in society. This pandemic has shown us who the key workers are, so increasing the status of jobs that actually benefit society, e.g. street cleaner vs product manager for a betting company. - Pay more for these key worker jobs - Move to a 4 day work week, so people have more leisure time and live life a little bit more - Provide other perks if you're classed as a key worker, e.g. discount on public transport etc?
jpxw 6y ago
We do pay blue collar workers the market rate. Why do you think we don’t?
- greyface- 6y ago
  The market misprices worker health.
wGeF7H8Z59y985y 6y ago
> In our (western civilization) societies, everyone wants to be a manager or a scrum master or at least a programmer, have a nice white collar job in the home office. That’s a very coastal city attitude which in most parts of the US would seem utterly provincial. The man who owns the roofing company that’s redoing my roof shakes his head when he hears me talk about staring at a computer screen all day. The HVAC repairman who was at my house yesterday was horrified to find out that I need a special keyboard to prevent pain in my hands from too much typing. “Don’t you have insurance or workers comp?” he asked. He thought I was lying or mistaken when I laughed and explained that my injuries are mine to deal with on my own. In my part of America, which is neither overly cosmopolitan nor a big city where all the wide-eyed, bushy-tailed dreamers are flocking, most people aim to work in the various trades after high school. The ambitious ones will move up in the world by owning businesses which employ tradesmen, but that’s about as far as most will go. To most HN readers this will seem like a colossal economic hole, but it’s nothing like it. Tradesmen with only a few years of experience make decent money, and business owners are enjoying conditions similar to those which HNers with “lifestyle businesses” aim to attain. Yes, there are untold millions of Americans working menial jobs. Those jobs require no special skills or experience, which is why such workers are seen as expendable. To lump such workers and their plight together with decidedly blue-collar tradesmen is a mistake.
- montereynack 6y ago
  Sorry, I know you wanted to communicate a lot with that paragraph but I gotta ask - what keyboard do you use? I want to avoid carpal tunnel myself but haven’t been able to find any recommendations online.
  - bpizzi 6y ago
    You should aim for orthogonal and spitted keyboards. Big changes, you possibly need to relearn to type, but potentially life changing. One model among others which is safe for recommendation is Ergodox EZ. Warning: not cheap, none are.
  - wGeF7H8Z59y985y 6y ago
    I use the ErgoDox EZ (https://ergodox-ez.com/ https://ergodox-ez.com/) with those sculpted caps that come without letters printed on them. I love this keyboard: it's one of my most prized possessions. I only wish they'd made one where the sculpted caps do have letters printed on them. This would make it possible for other persons in my household to use my keyboard.
naveen99 6y ago
It’s sociopath (not psychopath), clueless, and loser...
- Balgair 6y ago
  For those lost in this minutia, they are referencing The Gervais Principle theory of company management: "Sociopaths, in their own best interests, knowingly promote over-performing losers into middle-management, groom under-performing losers into sociopaths, and leave the average bare-minimum-effort losers to fend for themselves." Rao intentionally uses mean words to describe all players in the system. https://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/
asdff 6y ago
There is something about working with your hands that can't be understated. If you haven't done a hard working job, you wouldn't know. The only thing stopping me is the salary. If I could make as much money as a knowledge worker cutting greens at golf courses, I'd go back to being a groundskeeper in a heartbeat. That job is pure zen, hard work, but bliss. Most important is that you are able to leave it behind and removed from your life and headspace entirely the minute you step off the property, unlike our email driven petty political rat race.

by js8 6y ago

vages 6y ago

The essay "The political aspects of full employment" by Michal Kalicki https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/05/political-aspects-of-full-employment-kalecki-job-guarantee https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/05/political-aspects-of-full...

082349872349872 6y ago

The only way your breakdown differs from The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism is that the "clueless middle class" in Oceania seems to split into two mutually antagonistic but still self policing Outer Parties. (also I think calling "white collar" "middle class" is a bit ahistorical: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23671937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23671937 but, as with "hacker", I guess I should make an attempt to go with the times, if reluctantly) Cleese: I get a feeling of superiority over them↓. Barker: I get a feeling of inferiority from him↑, but a feeling of superiority over him↓. Corbett: I get a pain↑ in the back of my neck.

throwanem 6y ago
Not that I especially want to validate your reference to a piece of diegetic COINTELPRO agitprop in a not very good and rather outdated polemical novel, but if it's "two mutually antagonistic but still self policing Outer Parties" you want, have you seen the ostensibly competing libertarian tendencies that currently make up American public politics?
- tristor 6y ago
  Are you kidding me? What are these "ostensibly competing libertarian tendencies that currently make up American public politics"? We have a broken two-party system where both parties abandoned their philosophical beginnings more than 3 decades ago to pursue headlong corporatist and globalist goals, with varying spins depending on what personally benefits party leadership the most. Both parties are working hard to systematically eliminate any real measure of freedom which exists for the average person in the nation, but taking different angles to do so. One party makes direct attacks on the very basis of our Constitution, the other party more subtly manipulates processes to disenfranchise people while acting to prevent them from having secure communications and privacy. Both parties actively support a police state, and both parties are out of touch with the realities of the majority of residents, especially those outside of cities. In neither case would I describe the current system as "ostensibly competing libertarian tendencies." There are obviously many possible negative consequences and externalities that come from absolute freedom (libertarianism), but the current actions and words of both parties fly in the face of the claim that they are in any way advocating such a position; hidden, blatant, or otherwise. Also, referring to "1984" as "COINTELPRO agitprop" is so tone deaf that it's nearly daft. George Orwell was a British author, first of all, and COINTELPRO was a domestic operation of the FBI in the US. Secondly, if you were to observe a theme in "1984" and follow it to its logical conclusion, I think it obvious that the books premise and message would be opposed to government operations exactly like COINTELPRO. In fact, 1984 captures the essence of our current situation pretty well to show you the dystopian future that awaits from giving up control to the state combined with technology capable of absolute surveillance. Your comment reads like something written in a Chinese troll farm to push public opinion in support of Communism.

Reelin 6y ago

> If we truly payed blue collar guys a market rate, no white collar jobs would exist, because what is the price for risking your health? Isn't that exactly what we do though? Doesn't pay (very approximately) correlate with required skill? For example, compare the salary of a skilled carpenter with some of the lower skilled "tech" jobs. All of your examples (manager, scum master, programmer) are decidedly high skill jobs when compared to the economy as a whole. (As far as software goes, consider that demand for laborers currently outstrips supply. Prices adjust to reflect that.) What you're really describing (IMO) is that everyone is competing with each other and we all want to be above average. Going back to your tech industry examples, I've heard it said that the majority of programmers think they're above average.

js8 6y ago
My polemic is that at least some of this "high skill" distinction that we attribute to cushy high skilled jobs is a myth. They are well paid, because we claim they are high skill. And everybody with power in that system has an interest in perpetuating that myth. (Including me, I am a programmer.) Part of the myth is that it is skill, not health risks, that should be well paid. And I suspect one reason why we don't want to tackle climate change (or even generally take more advantage of technological progress) is that it requires a different skill set, the one that is lot more blue collar, and to make that transformation we would have to upset the existing social order. In other words, I generally don't believe there is only one solution to the "market equations". Remuneration, price of different types of labor, also depends on cultural factors. And because there is not always unique solution, you might end up in a local maximum of productivity. One way around it is what Doctorow suggests, we all gather around a table (well, metaphorically, with a government as our proxy) and decide, well, we have to do these things, and here are the jobs to be filled (and he further argues that we are in such local maximum regarding the climate change, and we can get out of it). Sadly, it's been really difficult historically to get out of such local maxima without profound rifts in the society, civilizations often chose death rather than do this. And that's what I worry about, and I think we need to come to terms with.
- grasshopperpurp 6y ago

uxcolumbo 6y ago

So what's the solution? So if I understand you correctly is that blue collar jobs are not attractive enough? So does the solution include one or more of the following? - Increase the status of those jobs in society. This pandemic has shown us who the key workers are, so increasing the status of jobs that actually benefit society, e.g. street cleaner vs product manager for a betting company. - Pay more for these key worker jobs - Move to a 4 day work week, so people have more leisure time and live life a little bit more - Provide other perks if you're classed as a key worker, e.g. discount on public transport etc?

jpxw 6y ago

We do pay blue collar workers the market rate. Why do you think we don’t?

greyface- 6y ago
The market misprices worker health.

wGeF7H8Z59y985y 6y ago

> In our (western civilization) societies, everyone wants to be a manager or a scrum master or at least a programmer, have a nice white collar job in the home office. That’s a very coastal city attitude which in most parts of the US would seem utterly provincial. The man who owns the roofing company that’s redoing my roof shakes his head when he hears me talk about staring at a computer screen all day. The HVAC repairman who was at my house yesterday was horrified to find out that I need a special keyboard to prevent pain in my hands from too much typing. “Don’t you have insurance or workers comp?” he asked. He thought I was lying or mistaken when I laughed and explained that my injuries are mine to deal with on my own. In my part of America, which is neither overly cosmopolitan nor a big city where all the wide-eyed, bushy-tailed dreamers are flocking, most people aim to work in the various trades after high school. The ambitious ones will move up in the world by owning businesses which employ tradesmen, but that’s about as far as most will go. To most HN readers this will seem like a colossal economic hole, but it’s nothing like it. Tradesmen with only a few years of experience make decent money, and business owners are enjoying conditions similar to those which HNers with “lifestyle businesses” aim to attain. Yes, there are untold millions of Americans working menial jobs. Those jobs require no special skills or experience, which is why such workers are seen as expendable. To lump such workers and their plight together with decidedly blue-collar tradesmen is a mistake.

montereynack 6y ago
Sorry, I know you wanted to communicate a lot with that paragraph but I gotta ask - what keyboard do you use? I want to avoid carpal tunnel myself but haven’t been able to find any recommendations online.
- bpizzi 6y ago
  You should aim for orthogonal and spitted keyboards. Big changes, you possibly need to relearn to type, but potentially life changing. One model among others which is safe for recommendation is Ergodox EZ. Warning: not cheap, none are.
- wGeF7H8Z59y985y 6y ago
  I use the ErgoDox EZ (https://ergodox-ez.com/ https://ergodox-ez.com/) with those sculpted caps that come without letters printed on them. I love this keyboard: it's one of my most prized possessions. I only wish they'd made one where the sculpted caps do have letters printed on them. This would make it possible for other persons in my household to use my keyboard.

naveen99 6y ago

It’s sociopath (not psychopath), clueless, and loser...

Balgair 6y ago
For those lost in this minutia, they are referencing The Gervais Principle theory of company management: "Sociopaths, in their own best interests, knowingly promote over-performing losers into middle-management, groom under-performing losers into sociopaths, and leave the average bare-minimum-effort losers to fend for themselves." Rao intentionally uses mean words to describe all players in the system. https://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/

asdff 6y ago

There is something about working with your hands that can't be understated. If you haven't done a hard working job, you wouldn't know. The only thing stopping me is the salary. If I could make as much money as a knowledge worker cutting greens at golf courses, I'd go back to being a groundskeeper in a heartbeat. That job is pure zen, hard work, but bliss. Most important is that you are able to leave it behind and removed from your life and headspace entirely the minute you step off the property, unlike our email driven petty political rat race.