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I don't think anyone would argue that having the resources of large corporation gives the average worker capacity to be significantly more economically producti

I don't think anyone would argue that having the resources of large corporation gives the average worker capacity to be significantly more economically productive than they would be working for themselves - meaning there's fairly few people who could earn enough to make a decent living self-employed. Even if that weren't the case, we're social creatures and a big part of our motivation stems from our wanting to be seen as contributing towards shared goals and working as part of a team: when that motivation isn't there on a regular basis a good many of us aren't likely to work nearly as industriously as we would otherwise. So yes, it's not hard to believe a company that generally treats its workers poorly is still able to make them more economically productive than they would be solo - what's more dismaying is when they seem able to sustain higher levels of productivity from their workers than other businesses that do in fact treat their workers well, enabling them to offer more in remuneration and various other perks. But not necessarily hard to understand why it happens - the former may simply have chanced upon a better business model or got a lucky early foothold in a market and continues to do well based on that. How sustainable that is in the longer term is open to question.

developer93 4y ago
Do you have a source for the claim that companies that treat workers badly are able to extract more productivity from them? Or is it just that companies that are enjoyable places to work don't need to pay as much to retain workers? Or you mean that "worker oriented" companies don't prioritise productivity at worker's expense? Maybe I misunderstood your point there. Edit: you also have to take into account shareholders sucking the value out of companies, generally companies pay as little as they can get away with rather than the opposite
- wizofaus 4y ago
  I didn't make such a claim in general, only that it's not so hard to see how there can be such cases. Generally I'm skeptical that it makes long term business sense to either underpay or disrespect workers.
ilyt 4y ago
> I don't think anyone would argue that having the resources of large corporation gives the average worker capacity to be significantly more economically productive than they would be working for themselves - meaning there's fairly few people who could earn enough to make a decent living self-employed I'd say it entirely depends on industry, if it allows you to buy a bunch of expensive machinery that makes work of worker more efficient - solo craftsman can't afford and don't have volume to pay for say fancy CNC router - sure it can. But on the other end, like programming, generally the bigger company is the more levels of indirection and waste happens, and small team can vastly outpace in per-developer productivity a big team. Now when that team needs to buy 10 million worth of hardware to train their AI stuff that flips back to "corporate with bigger resources enhance productivity

developer93 4y ago

Do you have a source for the claim that companies that treat workers badly are able to extract more productivity from them? Or is it just that companies that are enjoyable places to work don't need to pay as much to retain workers? Or you mean that "worker oriented" companies don't prioritise productivity at worker's expense? Maybe I misunderstood your point there. Edit: you also have to take into account shareholders sucking the value out of companies, generally companies pay as little as they can get away with rather than the opposite

wizofaus 4y ago
I didn't make such a claim in general, only that it's not so hard to see how there can be such cases. Generally I'm skeptical that it makes long term business sense to either underpay or disrespect workers.

ilyt 4y ago

> I don't think anyone would argue that having the resources of large corporation gives the average worker capacity to be significantly more economically productive than they would be working for themselves - meaning there's fairly few people who could earn enough to make a decent living self-employed I'd say it entirely depends on industry, if it allows you to buy a bunch of expensive machinery that makes work of worker more efficient - solo craftsman can't afford and don't have volume to pay for say fancy CNC router - sure it can. But on the other end, like programming, generally the bigger company is the more levels of indirection and waste happens, and small team can vastly outpace in per-developer productivity a big team. Now when that team needs to buy 10 million worth of hardware to train their AI stuff that flips back to "corporate with bigger resources enhance productivity