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It largely is insightful, but absolute statements such as "All work under capitalism is exploitative" are debatable and often indicative of further nonsense com

by FabHK 5y ago

It largely is insightful, but absolute statements such as "All work under capitalism is exploitative" are debatable and often indicative of further nonsense coming up.

sudosysgen 5y ago
An important distinction is that if you think that work under capitalism isn't exploitative you take on assumptions that make it very hard to argue that sex work is. It's hard to argue that being a coal miner for example isn't exploitative despite irreversible and severe, often deadly, harm to your body, but selling pictures on onlyfans is exploitative. Ultimately the vast majority of work requires you trade away your health and youth in some way or another. If you're going to say that only some work is exploitative, you need to draw an arbitrary line, and I think if you're drawing that line to begin with you're going to include most people in the exploitative category. Or you can take the voluntary association position and then you're back to absolutes. So I'd argue that whatever your position is the argument is repairable. FWIW the argument that working for someone else and being their subordinate is always somewhat exploitative is not a bad one.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  Coal mining and sex work are hardly representative examples of "all work." We all lose our youth and our health, it's inevitable whether we work or not. Yes ultimately your employer feels that they are getting more value from your work than it is costing them, otherwise there would be no point in employing you. It's a real stretch to argue that is exploitative even in most cases (to say nothing of all work).
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Most work in the world is closer to Coal Mining I'm afraid. Losing your health by working 40+ hours a week is much worse than the baseline. As far as the extraction of value not being exploitative, this argument simply applies to literally every condition of exploitation, and it is very possible to be employed without having a dominant superior. It would be good for you to arrive to a better definition of exploitation, otherwise plainly most relationships of employment do involve some sort of exploitation.
    - FabHK 5y ago
      > plainly most relationships of employment do involve some sort of exploitation Well, that's already a much more defensible statement than "All work under capitalism is exploitative". But I'd want to add that not all relationships (and that includes work relationships) fall neatly into a oppressor vs. oppressed or exploitative "dominant superior" vs. exploited worker scheme. (Who'd have thought that you find me deconstructing binaries, but here we are...)
      - leppr 5y ago
        > All work under capitalism is exploitative and all work that involves emotional labor (e.g. all service work) can be particularly damaging, but sex work is its own separate beast [...]. Instead of reading the first part of the sentence as a statement of some kind of general truth, I read it as an axiom to the rest of the sentence in which it relatively made very good common sense. I guess this difference in reading might explain the downvotes I was wondering about. There are good reasons for this HN guideline: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." After watching the first linked video (and finding it to be mostly unsubstantiated meta-rambling and call to arms), I'm assuming hnbad might actually consider the "all work under capitalism is exploitative" as some truth they rally behind. That's something I disagree strongly against, and thus would be tempted to blindly downvote. Yet, by taking a "favorable" (for me) interpretation of the post, instead of trying to guess what side the poster aligns on, the point of the argumentation remains and I'm enriched from having read it.
        sudosysgen 5y ago
        I would recommend that you watch the second video. The first one is not something you can get anything out of without a lot of baggage and even then there is much to disagree with. The second is much better. I don't think anyone actually believes that literally all work under capitalism is exploitive outside of very specific definitions of work, exploitative, and capitalism. It is meant as common sense.
      - sudosysgen 5y ago

by FabHK 5y ago

It largely is insightful, but absolute statements such as "All work under capitalism is exploitative" are debatable and often indicative of further nonsense coming up.

sudosysgen 5y ago

An important distinction is that if you think that work under capitalism isn't exploitative you take on assumptions that make it very hard to argue that sex work is. It's hard to argue that being a coal miner for example isn't exploitative despite irreversible and severe, often deadly, harm to your body, but selling pictures on onlyfans is exploitative. Ultimately the vast majority of work requires you trade away your health and youth in some way or another. If you're going to say that only some work is exploitative, you need to draw an arbitrary line, and I think if you're drawing that line to begin with you're going to include most people in the exploitative category. Or you can take the voluntary association position and then you're back to absolutes. So I'd argue that whatever your position is the argument is repairable. FWIW the argument that working for someone else and being their subordinate is always somewhat exploitative is not a bad one.

throwawayboise 5y ago
Coal mining and sex work are hardly representative examples of "all work." We all lose our youth and our health, it's inevitable whether we work or not. Yes ultimately your employer feels that they are getting more value from your work than it is costing them, otherwise there would be no point in employing you. It's a real stretch to argue that is exploitative even in most cases (to say nothing of all work).
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  Most work in the world is closer to Coal Mining I'm afraid. Losing your health by working 40+ hours a week is much worse than the baseline. As far as the extraction of value not being exploitative, this argument simply applies to literally every condition of exploitation, and it is very possible to be employed without having a dominant superior. It would be good for you to arrive to a better definition of exploitation, otherwise plainly most relationships of employment do involve some sort of exploitation.
  - FabHK 5y ago
    > plainly most relationships of employment do involve some sort of exploitation Well, that's already a much more defensible statement than "All work under capitalism is exploitative". But I'd want to add that not all relationships (and that includes work relationships) fall neatly into a oppressor vs. oppressed or exploitative "dominant superior" vs. exploited worker scheme. (Who'd have thought that you find me deconstructing binaries, but here we are...)
    - leppr 5y ago
      > All work under capitalism is exploitative and all work that involves emotional labor (e.g. all service work) can be particularly damaging, but sex work is its own separate beast [...]. Instead of reading the first part of the sentence as a statement of some kind of general truth, I read it as an axiom to the rest of the sentence in which it relatively made very good common sense. I guess this difference in reading might explain the downvotes I was wondering about. There are good reasons for this HN guideline: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." After watching the first linked video (and finding it to be mostly unsubstantiated meta-rambling and call to arms), I'm assuming hnbad might actually consider the "all work under capitalism is exploitative" as some truth they rally behind. That's something I disagree strongly against, and thus would be tempted to blindly downvote. Yet, by taking a "favorable" (for me) interpretation of the post, instead of trying to guess what side the poster aligns on, the point of the argumentation remains and I'm enriched from having read it.
      - sudosysgen 5y ago
        I would recommend that you watch the second video. The first one is not something you can get anything out of without a lot of baggage and even then there is much to disagree with. The second is much better. I don't think anyone actually believes that literally all work under capitalism is exploitive outside of very specific definitions of work, exploitative, and capitalism. It is meant as common sense.
    - sudosysgen 5y ago