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Note how security guards are being employed to carry out the will of management Yes, it falls under the concept of "Guard Labor", basically any workers who don

Note how security guards are being employed to carry out the will of management Yes, it falls under the concept of "Guard Labor", basically any workers who don't contribute even indirectly to planning and management or implementation of projects & initiatives. That can be actual guards, managers whose only purpose is to make sure people are doing their job, etc. Work required to keep the status quo as the status quo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guard_labor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guard_labor

cratermoon 5y ago
I wonder if the security guards belong to a union.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  Even when guard labor is unionized, they tend to not to have any solidarity with other unions. See: cops.
  - CryptoPunk 5y ago
    This is why there is so much animosity toward police. Law enforcement doesn't advance the interests of the unionized elite that now runs society, including the mainstream media, which is entirely unionized. The unions wanted Kenosha burned down (which is why CNN's unionized staff described the protests as "fiery but mostly peaceful" with a backdrop of burning buildings [1]) and no police or pesky militias protecting it, in order to demoralize the population and get more subservience from them. [1] https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnn-panned-for-on-air-graphic-reading-fiery-but-mostly-peaceful-protest-in-front-of-kenosha-fire https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnn-panned-for-on-air-graphic-...
    - Ar-Curunir 5y ago
      What kind of cryptopunk sides with the police?
      - CryptoPunk 5y ago
        Basic policing is a necessity for a free society, and it's precisely basic policing that the union-aligned left-wing political movements want defunded. These movements have no problem with their figureheads spending tens of thousands on their own private security attachments [1] or billions of dollars being spent to expand the number of tax enforcers [2] or to bolster policing to protect the political elite. [3] [1] https://nypost.com/2021/07/31/aoc-has-spent-thousands-on-personal-security-including-ex-blackwater-contractor/ https://nypost.com/2021/07/31/aoc-has-spent-thousands-on-per... [2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-to-seek-80-billion-to-bolster-irs-tax-enforcement-11619539465 https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-to-seek-80-billion-to-bol... [3] https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-capitol-police-armed-with-2-billion https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-capitol-police-armed-wi...
        ineedasername 5y ago
        "defunded" has unfortunately become a catch-all but with actually has a few different interpretations: At one end of the extreme it can mean that someone actually wants traditional police forces fully disbanded. At the other end it can mean someone simply wants much more aggressive police reform with funding contingent on that reform. Somewhere in the middle would be a person who wants some policing money diverted to specializing professional to respond to non-criminal calls, or to respond jointly with police to potentially dangerous calls that might be de-escalated with expert intervention. People make a mistake when they use "defund" without specifying such details.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - ashtonkem 5y ago
        The kind that is more crypto currency than crypto punk, per their bio.
    - ashtonkem 5y ago
      “Unionized elite”? CNN wanting Kenosha to burn down so people will serve them? You and I are not experiencing the same reality.
    - cloudfifty 5y ago
      > the unionized elite? That's some really weird world view you got there.
      - CryptoPunk 5y ago
        * The pay gap between public sector workers and private sector workers continues to grow. Many public sector workers are now in the top 10% of income earners, and they number in the millions. Their political power is also greater than the sum of their wealth, because of their numbers. Each one has enough financial interest in the unions' agenda succeeding to potentially engage in PR/lobbying for that cause. Thus they have the critical mass of supporters to shape narratives. Seeing kids talk about how much they hate Trump - something they learned from their unionized teachers - drives that home. * Pensions for public sector workers are bankrupting states, yet there is no political force capable of scaling them back. The kind of job security they gain through their collective bargaining agreement is also degrading the quality of the public service, in public education: https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/111/3/671/1839935?login=true https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/111/3/671/1839935?login... And policing: https://academic.oup.com/jleo/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jleo/ewaa025/6054285 https://academic.oup.com/jleo/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jl... And every other public sector. The inexorable rise of social spending stems from the growing power of public sector unions: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/social-spending-oecd-longrun https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/social-spending-oecd-long... The work forces of media outlets have their own guilds, e.g.: https://nytimesguild.org/ https://nytimesguild.org/ Which combined with left-wing labor laws, means they receive the benefit of barriers to competition from other workers who may want their jobs. Thus they have a financial conflict of interest in how they cover the news, to favor the left-wing political narratives over anything favorable to the concept of a free market and contract rights.
        ineedasername 5y ago
        Public sector jobs on average pay over 10% less than comparable private sector jobs, and even unions don't fully eliminate that pay gap. [0] You're cherry picking specific jobs & unions to paint a false narrative: Police & teachers' unions don't tell the whole story. Barriers to competition is a separate topic and worthy of discussion, but on the issue of overall pay rates relative to private sector workers you are simply wrong. [0] https://www.epi.org/publication/unions-public-sector-pay-gap/#:~:text=Pay%20gap%20is%20the%20difference,and%20year%20using%20regression%20analysis https://www.epi.org/publication/unions-public-sector-pay-gap....
    - ineedasername 5y ago
      I guess if you're not unionized and making $8 an hour minimum wage then a $20/hour union job might seem elite in comparison. But you don't even need to scratch the surface to see that no "elite", at least as it pertains to income, is a union member with the outlier exceptions of SAG members who get paid far above scale. So, roughly 0.0000009% of the unionized workforce. Everyone else in a union? Blue collar and mostly low level white collar workers.
      - CryptoPunk 5y ago
        A significant fraction of public sector workers are in the top 10% by compensation, and with job security that has a market value hard to quantify. I would qualify that as elite. They are also not a tiny percentage of the population. They have the soft power that comes with being part of a bloc constituting millions of people.
        ineedasername 5y ago
        The lower edge of the top 10% is about $110,000. Not a lot of public sectors earn that much, so it's not a significant fraction. When they do earn that much, comparable jobs in the public sector almost always pay more, and only pay as much as they do because they require either a higher level of education, a specialized skill, a high level of personal danger, or some combination of these. Also you started by mentioning unionized workers as a whole, not just public sector. Let's be consistent about who you're talking about, because a large portion of public sector jobs are white collar jobs requiring higher education, while large portions of typical union labor is much less well paid and has lower salary accordingly https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Union_Laborer/Hourly_Rate https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Union_Laborer/Hourl...
        CryptoPunk 5y ago
        >>Not a lot of public sectors earn that much, so it's not a significant fraction. Yes, a significant fraction earn that much. According to salary.com, the median compensation of a public school teacher in New York is $100,000: https://www.salary.com/tools/salary-calculator/public-school-teacher-benefits/new-york-ny https://www.salary.com/tools/salary-calculator/public-school... A significant fraction of those above the median would be receiving compensation above $110,000. salary.com may be undercounting pensions too, given a USA Today FOIA request found that 3,800 NYS teachers earn over $100,000 a year for their pension: https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/politics/albany/2020/01/27/database-school-teacher-pensions-in-new-york/4563615002/ https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/politics/alb... >>Overall, 3,800 educators in New York got more than $100,000 a year in pensions in 2019, according to the data obtained from the state Teachers Retirement System through a Freedom of Information by the USA TODAY Network New York. And that the average pension for NYS public teachers is $44,859: >>the average pension for school officials was $44,859 last year for the 160,960 retirees in the system, the records showed. This is significant given NYS public school teachers can retire at 55, and that pensions for NYS teachers have increased since many of the current retirees were employed. Another report shows that a NYS teacher with 35 years of experience receives a pension of $87,945 on average: https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/pensions-retired-nyc-educators-high-88g-article-1.2968845 https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/pensions-retired-n... Now consider those pension payments, amortized over their career, are on top of all the other benefits, and an average base salary of $71,501 for public school teachers in NYS. And this doesn't capture the value of their job security. It's incredibly hard to fire New York state public school teachers: https://www.the74million.org/article/investigation-nyc-tried-to-fire-154-teachers-for-incompetence-or-misconduct-75-were/ https://www.the74million.org/article/investigation-nyc-tried... >>Also you started by mentioning unionized workers as a whole, not just public sector Approximately half of unionized workers are in the public sector: https://www.epi.org/publication/2019-union-membership-data/ https://www.epi.org/publication/2019-union-membership-data/ So whatever fraction of unionized public sector workers are in the top 10% by compensation, we can surmise that the proportion for unionized workers as a whole is at least half that.
  - cratermoon 5y ago
    Exactly my point.
OneLeggedCat 5y ago
He specifically mentions guard labor toward the end of his post.
woah 5y ago
Odd tangent, but the wikipedia page says this: > Guard labor is wage labor and other activities that are said to maintain (hence "guard") a capitalist system. I'm confused by the emphasis on "a capitalist system" here. Wouldn't it be much more fruitful to study guard labor in the context of communist systems? Guard labor in communist systems is much more prevalent, reaching an immense scale. Think 2% of the East German population belonging to one agency of the secret service (the Stasi), the immense forced reeducation camps in Xinjiang, or the extensive censorship and monitoring that has taken place in all communist countries. Isn't it kind of a waste of time for scholars who want to study guard labor to focus on capitalism?
- komali2 5y ago
  The East German system was capitalist, not communist. The guards were paid wages. By definition, wages can't exist in a communist system, because there's no currency in communism. Thus wage labor can't exist, thus guard labor can't exist. Guards certainly can, sure, but not guard labor. I think the wikipedia article is just making clear that this term only applies to capitalist economic systems. The concentration camps in Xinjiang from the CCP's genocide against the Uighur Muslims isn't an artifact of communism, it's a result of Han Supremacy and a totalitarian government creating an Other. Further evidence: The CCP doesn't identify between minority populations anymore. There is only Han and Other. The CCP isn't communist: they jail communists. A famous one (in the PRC literary circles) just killed himself after years of cops breathing down his neck. [1] . I, and many others, argue that the PRC operates a state capitalist economy [2]. [1] https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2021/07/translation-the-country-has-gone-dark-li-huizhis-last-words/ https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2021/07/translation-the-countr... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_China EDIT: Sadly I'm a bit of a troublemaker and am limited to 5 posts on HN a day. I'm beginning a motorcycle trip for the next couple of days so please allow me to respond here to some people kind enough to challenge me: To habibur: > That's focusing too much on pure definition of words and terminologies. I think, especially for words like "communism," nothing is more important than fighting mightily for the proper definition. Developed nations the world over are undergoing a resurgence of communist thought and workers-rights movements, and the establishment is leveraging the purposefully negatively-tinged word "communism" to fight against worker's rights. "Communism" is being abused right back to McCarthy era flexibility. Definitions are being abused. Right-leaning political parties across the world are turning workers against eachother by poisoning leftist terminology. I've had more conversations than I can count with people who profess to be hardline conservatives, and then drop line after line of strongly leftist, pro-worker dialogue. To Supermancho: There is always currency in capitalism. Communism is a radically different philosophy regarding the organization of society. Actually, perhaps not as radical as you might think, there's ample evidence that many societies operated under proto-communist systems for the first hundred thousand years of human pre-history, and this continued straight into the age of discovery, as recorded by European explorers in the Americas and Africa. That currency "has always existed" is something economists often postulate but fail to provide evidence for. I'm speaking of course of the classic barter->simplification of means of exchange->currency myth. Common ownership has existed for a very, very long time.

cratermoon 5y ago

I wonder if the security guards belong to a union.

ashtonkem 5y ago
Even when guard labor is unionized, they tend to not to have any solidarity with other unions. See: cops.
- CryptoPunk 5y ago
  This is why there is so much animosity toward police. Law enforcement doesn't advance the interests of the unionized elite that now runs society, including the mainstream media, which is entirely unionized. The unions wanted Kenosha burned down (which is why CNN's unionized staff described the protests as "fiery but mostly peaceful" with a backdrop of burning buildings [1]) and no police or pesky militias protecting it, in order to demoralize the population and get more subservience from them. [1] https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnn-panned-for-on-air-graphic-reading-fiery-but-mostly-peaceful-protest-in-front-of-kenosha-fire https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnn-panned-for-on-air-graphic-...
  - Ar-Curunir 5y ago
    What kind of cryptopunk sides with the police?
    - CryptoPunk 5y ago
      Basic policing is a necessity for a free society, and it's precisely basic policing that the union-aligned left-wing political movements want defunded. These movements have no problem with their figureheads spending tens of thousands on their own private security attachments [1] or billions of dollars being spent to expand the number of tax enforcers [2] or to bolster policing to protect the political elite. [3] [1] https://nypost.com/2021/07/31/aoc-has-spent-thousands-on-personal-security-including-ex-blackwater-contractor/ https://nypost.com/2021/07/31/aoc-has-spent-thousands-on-per... [2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-to-seek-80-billion-to-bolster-irs-tax-enforcement-11619539465 https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-to-seek-80-billion-to-bol... [3] https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-capitol-police-armed-with-2-billion https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-capitol-police-armed-wi...
      - ineedasername 5y ago
        "defunded" has unfortunately become a catch-all but with actually has a few different interpretations: At one end of the extreme it can mean that someone actually wants traditional police forces fully disbanded. At the other end it can mean someone simply wants much more aggressive police reform with funding contingent on that reform. Somewhere in the middle would be a person who wants some policing money diverted to specializing professional to respond to non-criminal calls, or to respond jointly with police to potentially dangerous calls that might be de-escalated with expert intervention. People make a mistake when they use "defund" without specifying such details.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - ashtonkem 5y ago
      The kind that is more crypto currency than crypto punk, per their bio.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    “Unionized elite”? CNN wanting Kenosha to burn down so people will serve them? You and I are not experiencing the same reality.
  - cloudfifty 5y ago
    > the unionized elite? That's some really weird world view you got there.
    - CryptoPunk 5y ago
      * The pay gap between public sector workers and private sector workers continues to grow. Many public sector workers are now in the top 10% of income earners, and they number in the millions. Their political power is also greater than the sum of their wealth, because of their numbers. Each one has enough financial interest in the unions' agenda succeeding to potentially engage in PR/lobbying for that cause. Thus they have the critical mass of supporters to shape narratives. Seeing kids talk about how much they hate Trump - something they learned from their unionized teachers - drives that home. * Pensions for public sector workers are bankrupting states, yet there is no political force capable of scaling them back. The kind of job security they gain through their collective bargaining agreement is also degrading the quality of the public service, in public education: https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/111/3/671/1839935?login=true https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/111/3/671/1839935?login... And policing: https://academic.oup.com/jleo/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jleo/ewaa025/6054285 https://academic.oup.com/jleo/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jl... And every other public sector. The inexorable rise of social spending stems from the growing power of public sector unions: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/social-spending-oecd-longrun https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/social-spending-oecd-long... The work forces of media outlets have their own guilds, e.g.: https://nytimesguild.org/ https://nytimesguild.org/ Which combined with left-wing labor laws, means they receive the benefit of barriers to competition from other workers who may want their jobs. Thus they have a financial conflict of interest in how they cover the news, to favor the left-wing political narratives over anything favorable to the concept of a free market and contract rights.
      - ineedasername 5y ago
        Public sector jobs on average pay over 10% less than comparable private sector jobs, and even unions don't fully eliminate that pay gap. [0] You're cherry picking specific jobs & unions to paint a false narrative: Police & teachers' unions don't tell the whole story. Barriers to competition is a separate topic and worthy of discussion, but on the issue of overall pay rates relative to private sector workers you are simply wrong. [0] https://www.epi.org/publication/unions-public-sector-pay-gap/#:~:text=Pay%20gap%20is%20the%20difference,and%20year%20using%20regression%20analysis https://www.epi.org/publication/unions-public-sector-pay-gap....
  - ineedasername 5y ago
    I guess if you're not unionized and making $8 an hour minimum wage then a $20/hour union job might seem elite in comparison. But you don't even need to scratch the surface to see that no "elite", at least as it pertains to income, is a union member with the outlier exceptions of SAG members who get paid far above scale. So, roughly 0.0000009% of the unionized workforce. Everyone else in a union? Blue collar and mostly low level white collar workers.
    - CryptoPunk 5y ago
      A significant fraction of public sector workers are in the top 10% by compensation, and with job security that has a market value hard to quantify. I would qualify that as elite. They are also not a tiny percentage of the population. They have the soft power that comes with being part of a bloc constituting millions of people.
      - ineedasername 5y ago
        The lower edge of the top 10% is about $110,000. Not a lot of public sectors earn that much, so it's not a significant fraction. When they do earn that much, comparable jobs in the public sector almost always pay more, and only pay as much as they do because they require either a higher level of education, a specialized skill, a high level of personal danger, or some combination of these. Also you started by mentioning unionized workers as a whole, not just public sector. Let's be consistent about who you're talking about, because a large portion of public sector jobs are white collar jobs requiring higher education, while large portions of typical union labor is much less well paid and has lower salary accordingly https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Union_Laborer/Hourly_Rate https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Union_Laborer/Hourl...
        CryptoPunk 5y ago
        >>Not a lot of public sectors earn that much, so it's not a significant fraction. Yes, a significant fraction earn that much. According to salary.com, the median compensation of a public school teacher in New York is $100,000: https://www.salary.com/tools/salary-calculator/public-school-teacher-benefits/new-york-ny https://www.salary.com/tools/salary-calculator/public-school... A significant fraction of those above the median would be receiving compensation above $110,000. salary.com may be undercounting pensions too, given a USA Today FOIA request found that 3,800 NYS teachers earn over $100,000 a year for their pension: https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/politics/albany/2020/01/27/database-school-teacher-pensions-in-new-york/4563615002/ https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/politics/alb... >>Overall, 3,800 educators in New York got more than $100,000 a year in pensions in 2019, according to the data obtained from the state Teachers Retirement System through a Freedom of Information by the USA TODAY Network New York. And that the average pension for NYS public teachers is $44,859: >>the average pension for school officials was $44,859 last year for the 160,960 retirees in the system, the records showed. This is significant given NYS public school teachers can retire at 55, and that pensions for NYS teachers have increased since many of the current retirees were employed. Another report shows that a NYS teacher with 35 years of experience receives a pension of $87,945 on average: https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/pensions-retired-nyc-educators-high-88g-article-1.2968845 https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/pensions-retired-n... Now consider those pension payments, amortized over their career, are on top of all the other benefits, and an average base salary of $71,501 for public school teachers in NYS. And this doesn't capture the value of their job security. It's incredibly hard to fire New York state public school teachers: https://www.the74million.org/article/investigation-nyc-tried-to-fire-154-teachers-for-incompetence-or-misconduct-75-were/ https://www.the74million.org/article/investigation-nyc-tried... >>Also you started by mentioning unionized workers as a whole, not just public sector Approximately half of unionized workers are in the public sector: https://www.epi.org/publication/2019-union-membership-data/ https://www.epi.org/publication/2019-union-membership-data/ So whatever fraction of unionized public sector workers are in the top 10% by compensation, we can surmise that the proportion for unionized workers as a whole is at least half that.
- cratermoon 5y ago
  Exactly my point.

OneLeggedCat 5y ago

He specifically mentions guard labor toward the end of his post.

woah 5y ago

Odd tangent, but the wikipedia page says this: > Guard labor is wage labor and other activities that are said to maintain (hence "guard") a capitalist system. I'm confused by the emphasis on "a capitalist system" here. Wouldn't it be much more fruitful to study guard labor in the context of communist systems? Guard labor in communist systems is much more prevalent, reaching an immense scale. Think 2% of the East German population belonging to one agency of the secret service (the Stasi), the immense forced reeducation camps in Xinjiang, or the extensive censorship and monitoring that has taken place in all communist countries. Isn't it kind of a waste of time for scholars who want to study guard labor to focus on capitalism?

komali2 5y ago
The East German system was capitalist, not communist. The guards were paid wages. By definition, wages can't exist in a communist system, because there's no currency in communism. Thus wage labor can't exist, thus guard labor can't exist. Guards certainly can, sure, but not guard labor. I think the wikipedia article is just making clear that this term only applies to capitalist economic systems. The concentration camps in Xinjiang from the CCP's genocide against the Uighur Muslims isn't an artifact of communism, it's a result of Han Supremacy and a totalitarian government creating an Other. Further evidence: The CCP doesn't identify between minority populations anymore. There is only Han and Other. The CCP isn't communist: they jail communists. A famous one (in the PRC literary circles) just killed himself after years of cops breathing down his neck. [1] . I, and many others, argue that the PRC operates a state capitalist economy [2]. [1] https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2021/07/translation-the-country-has-gone-dark-li-huizhis-last-words/ https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2021/07/translation-the-countr... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_China EDIT: Sadly I'm a bit of a troublemaker and am limited to 5 posts on HN a day. I'm beginning a motorcycle trip for the next couple of days so please allow me to respond here to some people kind enough to challenge me: To habibur: > That's focusing too much on pure definition of words and terminologies. I think, especially for words like "communism," nothing is more important than fighting mightily for the proper definition. Developed nations the world over are undergoing a resurgence of communist thought and workers-rights movements, and the establishment is leveraging the purposefully negatively-tinged word "communism" to fight against worker's rights. "Communism" is being abused right back to McCarthy era flexibility. Definitions are being abused. Right-leaning political parties across the world are turning workers against eachother by poisoning leftist terminology. I've had more conversations than I can count with people who profess to be hardline conservatives, and then drop line after line of strongly leftist, pro-worker dialogue. To Supermancho: There is always currency in capitalism. Communism is a radically different philosophy regarding the organization of society. Actually, perhaps not as radical as you might think, there's ample evidence that many societies operated under proto-communist systems for the first hundred thousand years of human pre-history, and this continued straight into the age of discovery, as recorded by European explorers in the Americas and Africa. That currency "has always existed" is something economists often postulate but fail to provide evidence for. I'm speaking of course of the classic barter->simplification of means of exchange->currency myth. Common ownership has existed for a very, very long time.