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In a true meritocracy, a fair system, people are rewarded for their contributions. Do you think Mark Zuckerberg is worth 70 billion because he works 2,000,000 t
by beaconstudios 5y ago
In a true meritocracy, a fair system, people are rewarded for their contributions. Do you think Mark Zuckerberg is worth 70 billion because he works 2,000,000 times harder or more effectively than a caterer in facebook's cafeteria? Of course not.
Exploitation is when everybody is allocated a fixed wage and incremental raises, and only a tiny subset of the people involved in the company get to reap the rewards of everybody's hard work.
- rosndo 5y agoYou’re using the wrong measurements. “Working hard” is meaningless, it’s about your output.
- beaconstudios 5y agoYes, to be clear I don't mean working hard as in exerting effort - I mean getting results for the business.
- klyrs 5y agoIf the cafeteria worker saves 500 highly-paid employees 30 minutes a day, how do we measure their output in a way that supports a lower wage than the people they're providing meals for?
- xeromal 5y agoThe other part of the calculation is: How replaceable is the cafeteria worker? There's only one Facebook. Many have tried to supplant it and failed.
- klyrs 5y agoOkay, so it's not actually about outputs.
- xeromal 5y agoI'm not sure how you read that. Assuming you're in a capitalistic society: I'll rephrase. If 7 billion people can do your job at the drop of a hat, you're going to make the lowest wage. If 100 million people can, you'll make a little more. If 100 people can, you'll make the most.
- klyrs 5y ago> I'm not sure how you read that. I was responding to a statement made upthread: >...> “Working hard” is meaningless, it’s about your output. While I don't need your elementary explanation of how capitalism operates, it does appear that you agree with me. We aren't paid by how much value we provide to the company. We aren't paid by how much effort we provide to the company. We're paid according to the amount of leverage that a company has to exploit us.
- xeromal 5y agoElementary my dear Watson
- beaconstudios 5y agoOK, but the cafeteria worker is part of Facebook. Every single person in the company is replaceable, but does contribution not mean more in terms of what that person is "worth" to the company? If you were looking to distribute money by fungibility, you'd end up giving minimum wage to almost everybody and millions to that one sysadmin who has created an elaborate system that nobody understands. There is no objective measure for what ratio people should be paid at, because different roles often cannot be compared; I think it's best decided democratically based on assessment contribution.
- rosndo 5y agoThose minutes were really saved by the person who decided to hire cafeteria workers in order to boost employee productivity, not as much by the entirely fungible cafeteria workers.
- klyrs 5y agoIf your boss tells you to write a new operating system, which your company makes a billion dollars selling, was it really your boss who made the company all that money?
- rosndo 5y agoThat’s a bit too simplified, but yeah. Unfortunately top level managers have far more control over the output of the business than low level laborers.
- beaconstudios 5y agoThis is a post hoc justification for why executives make 1,000,000x more than the people who do the actual work.
- rosndo 5y agoIt’s just the nature of working for someone else.
- beaconstudios 5y agoI think we're having separate conversations - you're describing how things are, I'm talking about how things should be. I agree that the nature of employment is one of exploitation - I'm saying that's a bad thing.
- reese_john 5y ago> In a true meritocracy, a fair system, people are rewarded for their contributions. In your true and fair system, how much should a talented new grad software engineer, whose output to the company in his first year will be little (if not negative due to opportunity costs of mentoring by senior engineers) be paid ? Assuming that after some time, the new hire has the potential, although not guaranteed, to make substantial business impact.
- beaconstudios 5y agoLess than seniors, but a reasonable amount? As I said in another comment, I would suggest allocating wages democratically - that way people can negotiate between themselves to find an agreeable rate.