7 ms·

Just call it what it is, greed. Why is it greedy if company owners want to make money, but "good and social" if workers want to make money? I don't think the "

Just call it what it is, greed. Why is it greedy if company owners want to make money, but "good and social" if workers want to make money? I don't think the "earnings per employee" metric entitles employees to anything.

salawat 6y ago
I disagree, particularly as someone who worked fror a firm making over 1000000 per employee. It's hard to square that kind of return only benefitting shareholders. You'd be hard pressed as an employee to get a 3% raise or whatnot to keep up with inflation, or you'd have the call center people making pennies, or micromanaged down to the second, but over a milkion per employee was earned. There is a certain point where one has to stop and reevaluate the nature of the value transfer going on. That same business ate years of my life keeping it afloat, but at the first opportunity for equity holders, dropped the floor out by sellout. Not that I'd want to go back given the business model but it does lead to somber reflection and a heartfelt contemplation of tge advantaged position held by the middle-man.
- antisoeu 6y ago
  "That same business ate years of my life keeping it afloat" Presumably you were paid for your services. If you were unhappy with the pay, you should have renegotiated or changed jobs.
  - xpe 6y ago
    I find this to be comment to be unhelpful. I hope you didn't intend it, but the comment comes across as critical and judgmental. The comment doesn't show that you are curious about the broader context. Would you consider thinking about this from a different perspective? For example, try thinking and asking about what history and experience underlies this. In my view, someone who writes "That same business ate years of my life keeping it afloat" has a story to tell. Think about this possibilities: comments are with real people, not abstractions. Every comment brings the opportunity to get to know someone's situation and experience.
ddingus 6y ago
Nobody mentioned entitlement. That money labor left on the table. Together they can get more of it. Simple as that.
- antisoeu 6y ago
  If it is not entitlement, it is greed. I don't say greed is wrong or should be forbidden, just that they should be honest about it.
  - ddingus 6y ago
    Maybe. There is a point of view framed in things being equitable too. The motivations are more broad, balance of society, etc... Then again, the members may simply need more too. Costs and risks relative to income can change, or are not well balanced. This is a standard of living, needs argument. What differentiates it from greed is the fact than an answer can come from either side of the equation. Lower costs and risks can work the same as more compensation does. None of this, nor my earlier comment speaks to whether greed is good or bad. It can be, or not and context matters.
  - Apocryphon 6y ago
    What makes it greed, and not enlightened self-interest or rational economic behavior?
    - Domenic_S 6y ago
      The unspoken assumption behind this line of thinking is "if an entity/person can afford to pay more, the entity/person on the other side of the deal deserves more". This reasoning is applied to arguments about other things as well, such as taxes. The problems with it become apparent when you realize that the standard isn't applied everywhere and is really impossible to evaluate fairly, so the conclusions are derived from personal ethics and concepts of "fairness" instead. As an example, "they can afford it" is often used as an argument in favor of higher taxes on "the wealthy" (whatever that means), yet nobody says "you can afford to pay starbucks more for your coffee". You could have certainly afforded to pay more for your car or house or macbook, so why didn't you if "you can afford it" is the bar? Likewise many SV tech workers could "afford" to take pay cuts, but nobody's arguing that - why not, if "you can afford it" is the measure?
newsclues 6y ago
I don’t think profit per employee entitles an employee to more salary, but it can justify or prove that the company can afford to pay more. I think unions exist specifically to help employees in their struggle to be greedy against a greedy boss or shareholders. Do you work harder in a partnership where you get 50% or as an employee making 1% of your value? Has corporate greed harmed its own profits and innovation by failing to adequately pay its employees? I think greed is good to a point, then it becomes detrimental to self and society.
- antisoeu 6y ago
  The "they will work harder" argument is bullshit. If that would apply, companies giving their employees more say and shares would be more successful, and drive away the others, all without the need to form unions. I mean it is possible that shareholders will work harder. But that is not an argument for unions. Also, some employees are people like cooks or janitors. Will they really work harder, and what would that even mean? What if they just do their jobs? Does a janitor at Google really deserve more money than a janitor somewhere else? What makes them the "chosen ones"? Just lucky to work for a successful company?
  - Apocryphon 6y ago
    > Does a janitor at Google really deserve more money than a janitor somewhere else? What makes them the "chosen ones"? Just lucky to work for a successful company? Google makes a ton of money off of each employee, and could probably afford it. https://csimarket.com/stocks/GOOG-Revenue-per-Employee.html https://csimarket.com/stocks/GOOG-Revenue-per-Employee.html Google, like much of Silicon Valley, regularly puts forth the messaging that it represents the future, not only in terms of technology but in terms of society. ("Making the world a better place." "Don't be evil.") Forward-thinking often lends itself towards democratization, and of personal empowerment. So if Google wants to portray itself as futuristic, and its employees so lucky to be working for such a futuristic organization, then it would follow based on their own company line that janitors at Google might be entitled to more money at more traditional, hierarchical, less worker-empowering companies. If Google didn't want their employees to set fires, then maybe they shouldn't taught them them the Promethean secret. Perhaps tech companies should cease pretending to be so much nobler than every other traditional form of business. The people running Google created this culture.
Frost1x 6y ago
Is it really 'greed' when the capital ownership class want more money? That's not the narrative I hear pretty much everywhere, I simply hear it rebranded to: growing the economy, improving life, creating jobs, etc. It all depends on the argument and who wants what. Ultimately, capitalism drives greedy behaviors in everyone either by choice or by necessity. At some point if you don’t adopt similar behaviors to the greedy, you will be taken advantage of, guaranteed. One of the flaws of this system is that competition is what props it up and gives it stability, so everyone has to play the optimization game as much as the most optimal are optimizing, otherwise they're 'losing' in our economic system, relatively speaking. So yes, it's the same optimization like behaviors Google and other giant businesses in the capital ownership class are utilizing. Are the motives different (greed, survival, sense of 'fair' compensation)? Maybe, maybe not, but if you don't play the game it doesn't matter because you're being taken advantage of and the state will only decline. I for one applaud Google employees pushing this and hope they can set a precedent for the entire industry. There is widespread rampant abuse in tech no one talks about or just ingore and it's often waved away because '...but money' and employment mobility. None of these fix the underlying problems and are often merely excuses made to allow abuse to grow and fester.
- antisoeu 6y ago
  "everyone has to play the optimization game as much as the most optimal are optimizing, otherwise they're 'losing' in our economic system, relatively speaking." If a person is happy with their salary, are they really being taken advantage of? Just because they could perhaps get a better salary, doesn't mean they are forced to go for it. I suspect such cases are also rarer than one might think. I would expect most people to occasionally check their market value. "greed" is just a negative way to frame it. Ultimately, striving for optimal outcomes is what stabilizes systems and makes them healthier and more efficient. Competition is the only known way to ensure fair prices. Every other approach can and will be gamed (corruption), but you can not fake prices. It's also all nice to talk about being social, but I think many employees are less happy in reality when they find they have to compensate for their unproductive colleagues and even get less pay. That gets people riled up quickly in the real world.
arcticbull 6y ago
It's not. Both sides want money. Currently, a small minority of authoritarians (management is authoritarian by nature - and that's okay) get to decide how much of the company profit is shared with employees. Now, employees get to decide alongside them. This reduces the power differential between the groups. Now they can decide what fair is on a more level playing field. This is simply about improving the power differential between management and labor. If that means more money, so be it. It may well not. It might be more about working conditions or projects. I guess my question to you is why do you demand democracy in government, but accept authoritarianism at work no questions asked?
- throwaway3699 6y ago
  Not really - it's basically two sets of authoritarians deciding. For example, if we take this to it's logical conclusion and look a work culture where your co-workers decide how much you get paid, go look at Valve and see how that works out for them: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wired.com/2013/07/wireduk-valve-jeri-ellsworth/amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wired.com/2013/07/wireduk-v... There's really no great solution to this problem as everyone wants more money. Either it's workers vs. management or workers vs. each other.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- parasubvert 6y ago
  Fewer people seem to be demanding democracy in government. ;) I am not OP, but I’d say the reason authority is acceptable in a managed organization (not necessarily for profit - any managed organization whether the military, or NGO, or business, or charity) is because it ultimately has a narrow function: either fulfilling a mission, or increasing the wealth producing capacity of the organization. Democracy at that granularity is somewhat irrelevant: either you’re doing the things (objectively measured), or you are not. Voting doesn’t lead to better policy decisions, just freer ones. Of course the best performing companies aren’t managed in an “authoritarian” manner in the usual sense of strongman rule, because one person (or even a small group) doesn’t have all the answers. Labor/management collaboration and recognition of the importance of human capital is essential. This is why management doesn’t have as much power as it used to in modern industry: it is dependent on human capital retention in its labor force, which is very expensive to replace (far more than just skilled labor). Collective bargaining becomes less about power disparity (when labor can make as much money elsewhere and management needs labor more) and more about pressure on systematic policies that are difficult to change without sustained external pressure: pay disparity, bonuses to sexual harassers, etc.) At the bigger picture, life is a lot bigger than missions or profit, and democracy is essential. (Unless one’s mission is to own the libs, then I guess democracy isn’t so important)
SerLava 6y ago
Could be neither, or it could be that adding to 20 billion dollars is different than adding to 100 thousand dollars.
minimuffins 6y ago
No, what "entitles" them is that they do the work and generate the profit and therefore have the power to organize themselves into a coherent, self-interested group that can withhold their labor if they don't get what they want. Who cares what you think they're "entitled" to?
- antisoeu 6y ago
  As long as they get no special rights to form their unions, fine. In my country, unions get special protections by law, which is not OK. If workers simply choose to monopolize, of course they can do that. Of course laws against monopolies in general should then also be abolished, though. You can not be in favor of unions, but opposed to monopolies, as unions are also monopolies. In that sense, no, I don't care what they feel entitled to - there should just be no obligation to give them what they feel they are entitled to.
  - minimuffins 6y ago
    We're never going to have a productive discussion if you think capital and labor are the same thing.
    - antisoeu 6y ago
      Exactly how a discussion with a Marxist is expected to go down, just invent random concepts and twist the meaning of words until a discussion becomes impossible I prefer to stick to physics, rather than those arbitrary concepts of "capital" and "labor". Let's cut the bullshit and look at reality. Moving/changing things costs energy, that is the reality.
UncleMeat 6y ago
I wouldn't say that unionization of software engineers is a public good. It won't solve poverty or make the world a better place. It is a conflict between engineers and software executives to make money in the way that they want. I'd wager that most unionization supporters at Google also support high taxes, a social safety net, and widespread unionization so other laborers can capture more of their own output.

salawat 6y ago

I disagree, particularly as someone who worked fror a firm making over 1000000 per employee. It's hard to square that kind of return only benefitting shareholders. You'd be hard pressed as an employee to get a 3% raise or whatnot to keep up with inflation, or you'd have the call center people making pennies, or micromanaged down to the second, but over a milkion per employee was earned. There is a certain point where one has to stop and reevaluate the nature of the value transfer going on. That same business ate years of my life keeping it afloat, but at the first opportunity for equity holders, dropped the floor out by sellout. Not that I'd want to go back given the business model but it does lead to somber reflection and a heartfelt contemplation of tge advantaged position held by the middle-man.

antisoeu 6y ago
"That same business ate years of my life keeping it afloat" Presumably you were paid for your services. If you were unhappy with the pay, you should have renegotiated or changed jobs.
- xpe 6y ago
  I find this to be comment to be unhelpful. I hope you didn't intend it, but the comment comes across as critical and judgmental. The comment doesn't show that you are curious about the broader context. Would you consider thinking about this from a different perspective? For example, try thinking and asking about what history and experience underlies this. In my view, someone who writes "That same business ate years of my life keeping it afloat" has a story to tell. Think about this possibilities: comments are with real people, not abstractions. Every comment brings the opportunity to get to know someone's situation and experience.

ddingus 6y ago

Nobody mentioned entitlement. That money labor left on the table. Together they can get more of it. Simple as that.

antisoeu 6y ago
If it is not entitlement, it is greed. I don't say greed is wrong or should be forbidden, just that they should be honest about it.
- ddingus 6y ago
  Maybe. There is a point of view framed in things being equitable too. The motivations are more broad, balance of society, etc... Then again, the members may simply need more too. Costs and risks relative to income can change, or are not well balanced. This is a standard of living, needs argument. What differentiates it from greed is the fact than an answer can come from either side of the equation. Lower costs and risks can work the same as more compensation does. None of this, nor my earlier comment speaks to whether greed is good or bad. It can be, or not and context matters.
- Apocryphon 6y ago
  What makes it greed, and not enlightened self-interest or rational economic behavior?
  - Domenic_S 6y ago
    The unspoken assumption behind this line of thinking is "if an entity/person can afford to pay more, the entity/person on the other side of the deal deserves more". This reasoning is applied to arguments about other things as well, such as taxes. The problems with it become apparent when you realize that the standard isn't applied everywhere and is really impossible to evaluate fairly, so the conclusions are derived from personal ethics and concepts of "fairness" instead. As an example, "they can afford it" is often used as an argument in favor of higher taxes on "the wealthy" (whatever that means), yet nobody says "you can afford to pay starbucks more for your coffee". You could have certainly afforded to pay more for your car or house or macbook, so why didn't you if "you can afford it" is the bar? Likewise many SV tech workers could "afford" to take pay cuts, but nobody's arguing that - why not, if "you can afford it" is the measure?

newsclues 6y ago

I don’t think profit per employee entitles an employee to more salary, but it can justify or prove that the company can afford to pay more. I think unions exist specifically to help employees in their struggle to be greedy against a greedy boss or shareholders. Do you work harder in a partnership where you get 50% or as an employee making 1% of your value? Has corporate greed harmed its own profits and innovation by failing to adequately pay its employees? I think greed is good to a point, then it becomes detrimental to self and society.

antisoeu 6y ago
The "they will work harder" argument is bullshit. If that would apply, companies giving their employees more say and shares would be more successful, and drive away the others, all without the need to form unions. I mean it is possible that shareholders will work harder. But that is not an argument for unions. Also, some employees are people like cooks or janitors. Will they really work harder, and what would that even mean? What if they just do their jobs? Does a janitor at Google really deserve more money than a janitor somewhere else? What makes them the "chosen ones"? Just lucky to work for a successful company?
- Apocryphon 6y ago
  > Does a janitor at Google really deserve more money than a janitor somewhere else? What makes them the "chosen ones"? Just lucky to work for a successful company? Google makes a ton of money off of each employee, and could probably afford it. https://csimarket.com/stocks/GOOG-Revenue-per-Employee.html https://csimarket.com/stocks/GOOG-Revenue-per-Employee.html Google, like much of Silicon Valley, regularly puts forth the messaging that it represents the future, not only in terms of technology but in terms of society. ("Making the world a better place." "Don't be evil.") Forward-thinking often lends itself towards democratization, and of personal empowerment. So if Google wants to portray itself as futuristic, and its employees so lucky to be working for such a futuristic organization, then it would follow based on their own company line that janitors at Google might be entitled to more money at more traditional, hierarchical, less worker-empowering companies. If Google didn't want their employees to set fires, then maybe they shouldn't taught them them the Promethean secret. Perhaps tech companies should cease pretending to be so much nobler than every other traditional form of business. The people running Google created this culture.

Frost1x 6y ago

Is it really 'greed' when the capital ownership class want more money? That's not the narrative I hear pretty much everywhere, I simply hear it rebranded to: growing the economy, improving life, creating jobs, etc. It all depends on the argument and who wants what. Ultimately, capitalism drives greedy behaviors in everyone either by choice or by necessity. At some point if you don’t adopt similar behaviors to the greedy, you will be taken advantage of, guaranteed. One of the flaws of this system is that competition is what props it up and gives it stability, so everyone has to play the optimization game as much as the most optimal are optimizing, otherwise they're 'losing' in our economic system, relatively speaking. So yes, it's the same optimization like behaviors Google and other giant businesses in the capital ownership class are utilizing. Are the motives different (greed, survival, sense of 'fair' compensation)? Maybe, maybe not, but if you don't play the game it doesn't matter because you're being taken advantage of and the state will only decline. I for one applaud Google employees pushing this and hope they can set a precedent for the entire industry. There is widespread rampant abuse in tech no one talks about or just ingore and it's often waved away because '...but money' and employment mobility. None of these fix the underlying problems and are often merely excuses made to allow abuse to grow and fester.

antisoeu 6y ago
"everyone has to play the optimization game as much as the most optimal are optimizing, otherwise they're 'losing' in our economic system, relatively speaking." If a person is happy with their salary, are they really being taken advantage of? Just because they could perhaps get a better salary, doesn't mean they are forced to go for it. I suspect such cases are also rarer than one might think. I would expect most people to occasionally check their market value. "greed" is just a negative way to frame it. Ultimately, striving for optimal outcomes is what stabilizes systems and makes them healthier and more efficient. Competition is the only known way to ensure fair prices. Every other approach can and will be gamed (corruption), but you can not fake prices. It's also all nice to talk about being social, but I think many employees are less happy in reality when they find they have to compensate for their unproductive colleagues and even get less pay. That gets people riled up quickly in the real world.

arcticbull 6y ago

It's not. Both sides want money. Currently, a small minority of authoritarians (management is authoritarian by nature - and that's okay) get to decide how much of the company profit is shared with employees. Now, employees get to decide alongside them. This reduces the power differential between the groups. Now they can decide what fair is on a more level playing field. This is simply about improving the power differential between management and labor. If that means more money, so be it. It may well not. It might be more about working conditions or projects. I guess my question to you is why do you demand democracy in government, but accept authoritarianism at work no questions asked?

throwaway3699 6y ago
Not really - it's basically two sets of authoritarians deciding. For example, if we take this to it's logical conclusion and look a work culture where your co-workers decide how much you get paid, go look at Valve and see how that works out for them: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wired.com/2013/07/wireduk-valve-jeri-ellsworth/amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wired.com/2013/07/wireduk-v... There's really no great solution to this problem as everyone wants more money. Either it's workers vs. management or workers vs. each other.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
parasubvert 6y ago
Fewer people seem to be demanding democracy in government. ;) I am not OP, but I’d say the reason authority is acceptable in a managed organization (not necessarily for profit - any managed organization whether the military, or NGO, or business, or charity) is because it ultimately has a narrow function: either fulfilling a mission, or increasing the wealth producing capacity of the organization. Democracy at that granularity is somewhat irrelevant: either you’re doing the things (objectively measured), or you are not. Voting doesn’t lead to better policy decisions, just freer ones. Of course the best performing companies aren’t managed in an “authoritarian” manner in the usual sense of strongman rule, because one person (or even a small group) doesn’t have all the answers. Labor/management collaboration and recognition of the importance of human capital is essential. This is why management doesn’t have as much power as it used to in modern industry: it is dependent on human capital retention in its labor force, which is very expensive to replace (far more than just skilled labor). Collective bargaining becomes less about power disparity (when labor can make as much money elsewhere and management needs labor more) and more about pressure on systematic policies that are difficult to change without sustained external pressure: pay disparity, bonuses to sexual harassers, etc.) At the bigger picture, life is a lot bigger than missions or profit, and democracy is essential. (Unless one’s mission is to own the libs, then I guess democracy isn’t so important)

SerLava 6y ago

Could be neither, or it could be that adding to 20 billion dollars is different than adding to 100 thousand dollars.

minimuffins 6y ago

No, what "entitles" them is that they do the work and generate the profit and therefore have the power to organize themselves into a coherent, self-interested group that can withhold their labor if they don't get what they want. Who cares what you think they're "entitled" to?

antisoeu 6y ago
As long as they get no special rights to form their unions, fine. In my country, unions get special protections by law, which is not OK. If workers simply choose to monopolize, of course they can do that. Of course laws against monopolies in general should then also be abolished, though. You can not be in favor of unions, but opposed to monopolies, as unions are also monopolies. In that sense, no, I don't care what they feel entitled to - there should just be no obligation to give them what they feel they are entitled to.
- minimuffins 6y ago
  We're never going to have a productive discussion if you think capital and labor are the same thing.
  - antisoeu 6y ago
    Exactly how a discussion with a Marxist is expected to go down, just invent random concepts and twist the meaning of words until a discussion becomes impossible I prefer to stick to physics, rather than those arbitrary concepts of "capital" and "labor". Let's cut the bullshit and look at reality. Moving/changing things costs energy, that is the reality.

UncleMeat 6y ago

I wouldn't say that unionization of software engineers is a public good. It won't solve poverty or make the world a better place. It is a conflict between engineers and software executives to make money in the way that they want. I'd wager that most unionization supporters at Google also support high taxes, a social safety net, and widespread unionization so other laborers can capture more of their own output.