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I think this article starts to touch on a topic area I don't hear much about but am extremely frustrated by: how modern work for a lot of jobs has become de fac

I think this article starts to touch on a topic area I don't hear much about but am extremely frustrated by: how modern work for a lot of jobs has become de facto indentured servitude. In the "When They Know They've Got You" section, they mention the real challenges of not being able to obtain a lawyer if things truly aren't fair. The average worker can't afford anything without taking on debt. Insurance is a scam in a lot of cases but if a worker is sick it will only hurt the worker not the company a lot of the time. To make matters much worse, the corporations lobby the government and fund all candidates and have seemingly captured the government so no changes are being made. Healthcare, extremely high rent, and things like property tax where failure to pay sends you to prison are used as the means of coercion. If the United States continues on the current political course, nothing will ever change.

throw1234651234 5y ago
This is the best post in this thread. This is all very much true. One more thing that most Americans don't admit is that people mostly work jobs they have started out in. When I was in shitty jobs, people started out and stayed there. As I move up, I notice that people also started out and stayed there. Anecdotally, the US has much less mobility than what is commonly believed. Anyway, I went off topic - don't want to detract from the parent point - you can work 10 hrs a day and not be able to afford anything and barely have a chance to progress because you are ground down by "real life^tm". Tech and MDs are definitely a special little island.
- kebman 5y ago
  You're not just having a hunch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Social_Mobility_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Social_Mobility_Index
- silexia 5y ago
  The solution here is to open up the free markets again. This means: -Right to repair -Abolish the patent system and non competes -Drop the IRS and let the government simply print money it needs... This eliminates all tax loopholes and special treatment. Perfectly fair wealth tax.
  - klyrs 5y ago
    > Drop the IRS and let the government simply print money it needs When the government's "needs" are determined by the rich, what happens to the money that gets printed? That's how the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Simplify the tax code, eliminate loopholes, raise tax rates on extreme wealth & income, and fund the IRS to investigate major tax fraud (instead of the nickle&dime shit they go after today). This isn't about funding the government; it's about retooling the government to work for everybody and not just its richest citizens.
    - willnonya 5y ago
      You missing your own point here. The 'needs' of the government aren't determined by the rich but rather the imbeciles elected by the masses. If you want change the people have to demand it but instead they simply advocate for more of the status quo. Simplifying the tax code is a valid idea. Targeting the 'rich' and ramping up tax fraud witch hunts, not so much. Historically if you want to collect more taxes you lower tax rates and get an increase in compliance. A flat rate is the fairest approach, setting an income threshold or a negative income tax to offset taxes for the poorest citizens provides the progressive aspect.
      - klyrs 5y ago
        > The 'needs' of the government aren't determined by the rich but rather the imbeciles elected by the masses Your understanding of the elections in the US is hopelessly naive, especially after Citizens United opened the floodgates for unlimited, anonymous donations to political campaigns. Politicians do the bidding of the people who give them the most money. Elections are typically between two candidates who wear colors of different gangs, but have been paid off by the same companies. Voting forces a choice between candidates; donating and lobbying allows the rich to get their policies in place regardless of who wins.
  - rajin444 5y ago
    No matter what system we propose it can’t handle human greed and abuses of power. Bad actors ruin everything. We need to figure out how to build high trust societies with a shared culture. There’s a reason large corporations are pushing diversity so hard - it keeps abuses like those described above possible.
- ianai 5y ago
  What irks me in a position is when I find out the people in higher paying, supposedly more demanding positions are doing less work with less effort/demand. Think like the one hourly with many salary supervisors or similar.
3qz 5y ago
> modern work for a lot of jobs has become de facto indentured servitude It’s slavery as a service
- willnonya 5y ago
  - 3qz 5y ago
    What is the purpose of this comment?
    - Nasrudith 5y ago
      To call out the woefully common hyperbolic rhetoric of calling having to compare the default natural state of being, having to work to survive as slavery. Take any given natural environment no matter how idylic and stick bands of naked humans in it. Plus the whole "demand something with zero regard as to the hows of the process and what it would take to maintain it".
      - acomar 5y ago
        > natural state of being, having to work to survive yes, the natural state of all human beings is to derive value for shareholders. the profit of our masters before all. it's just in our DNA. to live requires maintenance and upkeep and work. to live together in a society means doing things for one another. but where in that do you derive a natural state in which people produce things so someone else may profit on their work, and keep the greater part of the fruit? people aren't objecting to the notion of necessary labor. they're objecting to being forced - literally, by threat of starving on the streets - by the organization of the society to labor on behalf of others for produce they will never enjoy.
    - nsxwolf 5y ago
      The purpose, I’m guessing, is to point out that your comment was hyperbolic. I share this impression.
mrjangles 5y ago
>how modern work for a lot of jobs has become de facto indentured servitude...The average worker can't afford anything without taking on debt. For people from other countries wondering about the veracity of these claims, let's take an example: The typical shitty job everyone on here complains about is working at an amazon warehouse. This is a job people with no skills take on. They pay 15 USD an hour. In other currencies that is 42k a year AUD or 2390 Euros a month. (the cost of living is roughly the same in these places). I'll leave you to decide whether this is "slavery" and whether they "can't afford anything" or whether Americans are just so rich they are out of touch with reality.
- notesinthefield 5y ago
  I dont think this comparison is as relevant as youre presenting it to be - why concern ourselves with the rest of the world when the GP and the linked article are US centric? Furthermore - why would someone struggling and feeling enslaved care one bit about how much harder anyone has it?
- pphysch 5y ago
  US and more socialist EU countries may have similar CPIs, but when we get to talking about education, rent, healthcare, transportation, etc the differences can be stark. Yes, people in US earn more and get taxed less. But they also spend a lot, lot more on necessities via shadowy cost structures like student loans and insurance and >$1,000 ambulance rides.
  - mrjangles 5y ago
    This is often measured by researchers. It is called a "cost of living" calculation, and every one of these that I have seen indicates that this isn't the case.
    - femiagbabiaka 5y ago
      Do you mind sharing a link to some data that you feel illustrates this? Pretty interesting.
nebula8804 5y ago
>If the United States continues on the current political course, nothing will ever change. Change is the only thing that is a guarantee. Maybe it will collapse when some other nation comes along and outruns some future instance of the US that is completely tired and broken. Or maybe they will turn the ship around.
giardini 5y ago
alexfromapex says >"...Healthcare, extremely high rent, and things like property tax where failure to pay sends you to prison are used as the means of coercion. If the United States continues on the current political course..."< AFAIK you cannot be sent to prison for not paying property taxes in the USA.
- jetbalsa 5y ago
  Some Tax Evasion laws do allow for criminal charges. tends to only be charged in extreme cases, but can happen.
  - giardini 5y ago
    Tax evasion is a crime and imprisonment is a punishment reserved for criminal activity. Failing to pay property tax is not a crime in itself. If someone is charged with tax evasion they are charged with something other than merely owning property and not paying taxes. They are charged with some specific criminal act. Taxation OTOH is a civil, not a criminal, matter. If someone doesn't pay their property tax then, in the worst case, control/ownership of the property is taken by the relevant authorities, the property sold and the taxes paid to the extent possible.
  - masonic 5y ago
    Not for property taxes. If one is that far behind, one can sell long before facing anything confiscatory... and incarceration for it is not a thing.
- dumpsterlid 5y ago
  Failure to pay eventually sends you to prison one way or another when you live in a country with such a catastrophically broken social safety net.
  - BobbyJo 5y ago
    As someone from a very large, impoverished family, this is an easily falsifiable statement... I mean, being poor sucks, and it does make you more likely to commit crime, but talking about it like it's an inevitability is inaccurate and not in good faith.
pessimizer 5y ago
> If the United States continues on the current political course, nothing will ever change. Our political course is set by our media, because it's hard (and getting harder) to find information otherwise. Right now the media is concerned with hating Russia (for the seventh year in a row), a nonexistent crime wave, and that unapproved information remains too available. If you think the US has any other problems other than made up ones, you're out of luck.
nradov 5y ago
How is insurance a scam? And no one goes to jail for failure to pay property tax, unless there is some kind of egregious fraud involved. The tax authorities just put a lien on the property, and then seize it to sell at auction.
bluetomcat 5y ago
Let me give you a concrete non-US, Eastern European (Bulgarian) perspective on the scale of financial and career “shitness” that the majority of individuals, and even a sizable portion of the well-educated go through. From my privileged position as a remotely working software engineer for a western company who resides in a middle-sized town, I am able to observe the daily hurdles and fears of my friends and relatives earning 10x less for a lot more stress and sweating. The typical clerical office job pays you something in the range of 350 to 450 euros. Renting a small, badly furnished and badly isolated communist-era flat costs you around 150 euros. Food isn’t cheap compared to the West and you would need at least 200 euros a month. Many working adults prefer to live under one roof with their parents in order to make ends meet. Starting a family is a risky affair. Dysfunctional families with 1 member working abroad in a wealthier EU country are quite common. That member often comes for a visit to attend a relative’s funeral or for Christmas. Most people drive a 20 year-old banger just to be able to go to work and it eats their full income. Just know this when complaining about your Walmart or Amazon US job.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
heroicdanger 5y ago
ethbr0 5y ago
> the real challenges of not being able to obtain a lawyer if things truly aren't fair This is underappreciated by the well-off: the very possibility of a counterparty being able to afford a lawyer raises the floor of illegality. If you and the people around you couldn't ever afford a lawyer... that floor lowers drastically. I have a few lawyer friends who volunteer at various legal aid organizations. Their most numerous cases? Landlords doing obviously-illegal things. But without legal representation, who's to stop them? Or, to be fair to law-abiding small-scale landlords, the opposite situation with bad tenants? Access to the law isn't just a "nice to have". It's a pillar of not-ripping-each-others-throats-out society.

throw1234651234 5y ago

This is the best post in this thread. This is all very much true. One more thing that most Americans don't admit is that people mostly work jobs they have started out in. When I was in shitty jobs, people started out and stayed there. As I move up, I notice that people also started out and stayed there. Anecdotally, the US has much less mobility than what is commonly believed. Anyway, I went off topic - don't want to detract from the parent point - you can work 10 hrs a day and not be able to afford anything and barely have a chance to progress because you are ground down by "real life^tm". Tech and MDs are definitely a special little island.

kebman 5y ago
You're not just having a hunch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Social_Mobility_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Social_Mobility_Index
silexia 5y ago
The solution here is to open up the free markets again. This means: -Right to repair -Abolish the patent system and non competes -Drop the IRS and let the government simply print money it needs... This eliminates all tax loopholes and special treatment. Perfectly fair wealth tax.
- klyrs 5y ago
  > Drop the IRS and let the government simply print money it needs When the government's "needs" are determined by the rich, what happens to the money that gets printed? That's how the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Simplify the tax code, eliminate loopholes, raise tax rates on extreme wealth & income, and fund the IRS to investigate major tax fraud (instead of the nickle&dime shit they go after today). This isn't about funding the government; it's about retooling the government to work for everybody and not just its richest citizens.
  - willnonya 5y ago
    You missing your own point here. The 'needs' of the government aren't determined by the rich but rather the imbeciles elected by the masses. If you want change the people have to demand it but instead they simply advocate for more of the status quo. Simplifying the tax code is a valid idea. Targeting the 'rich' and ramping up tax fraud witch hunts, not so much. Historically if you want to collect more taxes you lower tax rates and get an increase in compliance. A flat rate is the fairest approach, setting an income threshold or a negative income tax to offset taxes for the poorest citizens provides the progressive aspect.
    - klyrs 5y ago
      > The 'needs' of the government aren't determined by the rich but rather the imbeciles elected by the masses Your understanding of the elections in the US is hopelessly naive, especially after Citizens United opened the floodgates for unlimited, anonymous donations to political campaigns. Politicians do the bidding of the people who give them the most money. Elections are typically between two candidates who wear colors of different gangs, but have been paid off by the same companies. Voting forces a choice between candidates; donating and lobbying allows the rich to get their policies in place regardless of who wins.
- rajin444 5y ago
  No matter what system we propose it can’t handle human greed and abuses of power. Bad actors ruin everything. We need to figure out how to build high trust societies with a shared culture. There’s a reason large corporations are pushing diversity so hard - it keeps abuses like those described above possible.
ianai 5y ago
What irks me in a position is when I find out the people in higher paying, supposedly more demanding positions are doing less work with less effort/demand. Think like the one hourly with many salary supervisors or similar.

3qz 5y ago

> modern work for a lot of jobs has become de facto indentured servitude It’s slavery as a service

willnonya 5y ago
- 3qz 5y ago
  What is the purpose of this comment?
  - Nasrudith 5y ago
    To call out the woefully common hyperbolic rhetoric of calling having to compare the default natural state of being, having to work to survive as slavery. Take any given natural environment no matter how idylic and stick bands of naked humans in it. Plus the whole "demand something with zero regard as to the hows of the process and what it would take to maintain it".
    - acomar 5y ago
      > natural state of being, having to work to survive yes, the natural state of all human beings is to derive value for shareholders. the profit of our masters before all. it's just in our DNA. to live requires maintenance and upkeep and work. to live together in a society means doing things for one another. but where in that do you derive a natural state in which people produce things so someone else may profit on their work, and keep the greater part of the fruit? people aren't objecting to the notion of necessary labor. they're objecting to being forced - literally, by threat of starving on the streets - by the organization of the society to labor on behalf of others for produce they will never enjoy.
  - nsxwolf 5y ago
    The purpose, I’m guessing, is to point out that your comment was hyperbolic. I share this impression.

mrjangles 5y ago

>how modern work for a lot of jobs has become de facto indentured servitude...The average worker can't afford anything without taking on debt. For people from other countries wondering about the veracity of these claims, let's take an example: The typical shitty job everyone on here complains about is working at an amazon warehouse. This is a job people with no skills take on. They pay 15 USD an hour. In other currencies that is 42k a year AUD or 2390 Euros a month. (the cost of living is roughly the same in these places). I'll leave you to decide whether this is "slavery" and whether they "can't afford anything" or whether Americans are just so rich they are out of touch with reality.

notesinthefield 5y ago
I dont think this comparison is as relevant as youre presenting it to be - why concern ourselves with the rest of the world when the GP and the linked article are US centric? Furthermore - why would someone struggling and feeling enslaved care one bit about how much harder anyone has it?
pphysch 5y ago
US and more socialist EU countries may have similar CPIs, but when we get to talking about education, rent, healthcare, transportation, etc the differences can be stark. Yes, people in US earn more and get taxed less. But they also spend a lot, lot more on necessities via shadowy cost structures like student loans and insurance and >$1,000 ambulance rides.
- mrjangles 5y ago
  This is often measured by researchers. It is called a "cost of living" calculation, and every one of these that I have seen indicates that this isn't the case.
  - femiagbabiaka 5y ago
    Do you mind sharing a link to some data that you feel illustrates this? Pretty interesting.

nebula8804 5y ago

>If the United States continues on the current political course, nothing will ever change. Change is the only thing that is a guarantee. Maybe it will collapse when some other nation comes along and outruns some future instance of the US that is completely tired and broken. Or maybe they will turn the ship around.

giardini 5y ago

alexfromapex says >"...Healthcare, extremely high rent, and things like property tax where failure to pay sends you to prison are used as the means of coercion. If the United States continues on the current political course..."< AFAIK you cannot be sent to prison for not paying property taxes in the USA.

jetbalsa 5y ago
Some Tax Evasion laws do allow for criminal charges. tends to only be charged in extreme cases, but can happen.
- giardini 5y ago
  Tax evasion is a crime and imprisonment is a punishment reserved for criminal activity. Failing to pay property tax is not a crime in itself. If someone is charged with tax evasion they are charged with something other than merely owning property and not paying taxes. They are charged with some specific criminal act. Taxation OTOH is a civil, not a criminal, matter. If someone doesn't pay their property tax then, in the worst case, control/ownership of the property is taken by the relevant authorities, the property sold and the taxes paid to the extent possible.
- masonic 5y ago
  Not for property taxes. If one is that far behind, one can sell long before facing anything confiscatory... and incarceration for it is not a thing.
dumpsterlid 5y ago
Failure to pay eventually sends you to prison one way or another when you live in a country with such a catastrophically broken social safety net.
- BobbyJo 5y ago
  As someone from a very large, impoverished family, this is an easily falsifiable statement... I mean, being poor sucks, and it does make you more likely to commit crime, but talking about it like it's an inevitability is inaccurate and not in good faith.

pessimizer 5y ago

> If the United States continues on the current political course, nothing will ever change. Our political course is set by our media, because it's hard (and getting harder) to find information otherwise. Right now the media is concerned with hating Russia (for the seventh year in a row), a nonexistent crime wave, and that unapproved information remains too available. If you think the US has any other problems other than made up ones, you're out of luck.

nradov 5y ago

How is insurance a scam? And no one goes to jail for failure to pay property tax, unless there is some kind of egregious fraud involved. The tax authorities just put a lien on the property, and then seize it to sell at auction.

bluetomcat 5y ago

Let me give you a concrete non-US, Eastern European (Bulgarian) perspective on the scale of financial and career “shitness” that the majority of individuals, and even a sizable portion of the well-educated go through. From my privileged position as a remotely working software engineer for a western company who resides in a middle-sized town, I am able to observe the daily hurdles and fears of my friends and relatives earning 10x less for a lot more stress and sweating. The typical clerical office job pays you something in the range of 350 to 450 euros. Renting a small, badly furnished and badly isolated communist-era flat costs you around 150 euros. Food isn’t cheap compared to the West and you would need at least 200 euros a month. Many working adults prefer to live under one roof with their parents in order to make ends meet. Starting a family is a risky affair. Dysfunctional families with 1 member working abroad in a wealthier EU country are quite common. That member often comes for a visit to attend a relative’s funeral or for Christmas. Most people drive a 20 year-old banger just to be able to go to work and it eats their full income. Just know this when complaining about your Walmart or Amazon US job.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

heroicdanger 5y ago

ethbr0 5y ago

> the real challenges of not being able to obtain a lawyer if things truly aren't fair This is underappreciated by the well-off: the very possibility of a counterparty being able to afford a lawyer raises the floor of illegality. If you and the people around you couldn't ever afford a lawyer... that floor lowers drastically. I have a few lawyer friends who volunteer at various legal aid organizations. Their most numerous cases? Landlords doing obviously-illegal things. But without legal representation, who's to stop them? Or, to be fair to law-abiding small-scale landlords, the opposite situation with bad tenants? Access to the law isn't just a "nice to have". It's a pillar of not-ripping-each-others-throats-out society.