4 ms·
Some jobs are far worse than others (working in a disgusting sewer) and others are far harder than others (managing an organization of thousands of people). No
by seibelj 4y ago
Some jobs are far worse than others (working in a disgusting sewer) and others are far harder than others (managing an organization of thousands of people).
No matter what the economic system, somehow you need to convince someone to work in the sewer and operate complex orgs of thousands of people.
One option is to use a gun - you point it at people you don’t like and make them sewer workers.
Another is to arbitrarily hire and have no consequences. This leads to incompetence and mismanagement, as often happens in government everywhere and in socialist / communist nations that nationalize industries and staff them with political hires.
In capitalist societies we give more stuff to people who do hard jobs and / or are highly effective. This is the carrot - work a high stress or shitty job and get more stuff. The stick for failure is you get less stuff, but at least you aren’t shot in the head as they do in other systems.
You can argue until you’re blue in the face about neolibs / the rich / whatever. Doesn’t change the fact that inequality is a requirement for society to function if you expect someone to work in shit-filled holes underground all day while others pontificate about philosophy.
- imtringued 4y agoCapitalism doesn't seem to work in Russia or maybe it works as intended?
- jjoonathan 4y agoIf we gave more stuff to people who did harder jobs, immigrant day laborers would be rich and trust fund investors would be poor. I think you realized that you were on shaky ground and stuck "effective" in there, but I'm going to call you on that one: please, explain to me how the strong correlation between shitty jobs and shitty pay is entirely about leveraged value creation and not at all about social status and Rules for Rulers?
- hackerfromthefu 4y agoSadly that perspective is misguided - its harder to be a trust fund investor. The evidence is right in front of you, otherwise the labourers would be doing that instead.
- seibelj 4y agoLife is not fair and not everyone who works hard gets paid more. However on average the better skilled get paid more, and this is exactly why so many immigrants come to America despite our supposed bare-knuckle form of capitalism - we are a place where people who work hard and succeed can get ahead. Please, if you don’t like America then don’t come here, or if you are here just leave. However a lot of supposed socialist utopias in Europe have effectively zero immigration that allows you to be a full citizen on their pension rolls. Just see how hard it is to immigrate to the Netherlands or Norway.