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Software workers are starting to experience a reality that other professions have been feeling for a long while. Market downturns benefit the rich at the expens

by nsvd 3y ago

Software workers are starting to experience a reality that other professions have been feeling for a long while. Market downturns benefit the rich at the expense of the poor.

sokoloff 3y ago
Are software engineers at Microsoft poor in that story?
- 6D794163636F756 3y ago
  If they are working at a company then they are working class.
  - dingusdew 3y ago
    If they aren't generating capital from investments and work for a paycheck, they are working class. Capitalists have capital. The rest of us are born with only our labor to sell, whether that labor is blue collar or white collar. The middle class is was and always has been a lie to separate the working class.
    - lupire 3y ago
      There are numbers greater than 2, and colors between black and white.
      - brailsafe 3y ago
        I suppose it would be hard to lump billionaires in with arbitrary people who generate capital through investments and business, as well as people who do both or just run small businesses. But, I do think software engineering is a working class job. For a long time it's been awkward to say it, because yes it can be extremely lucrative compared to any given other career, but yet unless you're very lucky, it's a path that doesn't excape the drudgery of whatever else you could be doing. I put my best effort into waking up for bullshit 6am scrum meetings with my global team a few times a week, eventually with the constant stress of some bug being discovered and having to hold for the next sprint and dreading 1-on-1s with this asshole manager who'd consume the entire time with me having to justify why I "wasn't coding faster"; eventually getting laid off during the worst downturn in the tech job market I've ever seen.
    - solardev 3y ago
      What happens when, as often happens, someone works for a paycheck and also has side investments? Working class demi-capitalists hoping for a break?
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - mptest 3y ago
        How do you think retired people are classified by Marxists? The class distinction does not mean "work until you die" , it means "you need to/have needed to work to live". So no, you're not a "demi-capitalist". You're still a worker. Because you had to work for that capital. You didn't inherit it/exploit it from the surplus value you extracted from laborers
        solardev 3y ago
        What good is this sort of binary differentiation? Someone like Zuckerberg would technically be working class because he worked for his money, despite his negative effects on the world. People move between income sources...
        mptest 3y ago
        It's a starting point to my understanding, not an end all be all categorization. It helps get across that the only useful distinction worth making is between those who work, and those whose capital does the work for them I don't know Zuckerberg's biography but I'd wager to say he didn't have to work or starve ever in his life. And I'm no Bhaskar Sunkara but I'd also wager to say >50% of zuckerbergs wealth is due to the surplus labor value his employees create, not his labor. So in a material examination of Zuckerberg you'd say indeed the issue is not the phase of his life where he worked for a living, but the phase where he is extracts maximum surplus labor value from his workers. That phase constitutes X-99.9% of his wealth, so he is not exactly some hard to pin down edge case This isn't to say that any company that derives a profit is an evil exploitation factory, it's just an idiots understanding of a useful jumping off point for material analysis.
  - MagicMoonlight 3y ago
    That’s not how working class is defined
    - tyg13 3y ago
      The way I've seen it defined is: If your wealth derives primarily from your labor, you are in the working class. If your wealth derives primarily from your wealth, you are in the ownership class. Do you have an alternative definition?
      - emodendroket 3y ago
        People also use "working-class" to mean someone doing blue-collar labor at a below-middle-class income. Both views have their merits. A software engineer and a nanny both sell their labor... on the other hand, the fact that the former can employ the latter and the reverse is not true suggests their position is not entirely the same.
        AnimalMuppet 3y ago
        Yeah, terms like "middle class" and "professional class" exist for a reason. If you insist on reducing all of us to only two classes, then working vs owning is one way to do it... but not the only way. One could also divide the "paying" class from the "charity" class, for instance. And a software engineer at Microsoft with a 401k and a portfolio of stock grants has one foot in the ownership class, even if they still work. General observation: Anyone who says "there are only two X..." is trying to make you view the world in reductionist terms, and they're choosing the terms to make you focus on the issue that they want you to focus on. But the world has a lot more nuance than that, and some of the other nuances also matter.
        emodendroket 3y ago
        Sure but the commonalities are also interesting.
- svaha1728 3y ago
  No, but the average tenure at Microsoft is around 5 years. Depending on their career moves before and after their tenure, they aren’t necessarily rich.
- nsvd 3y ago
  Maybe poor isn't the right word, but I certainly don't think they're rich enough to defend their self-interests, in this case their earning potential.
- blitzar 3y ago
  They think they are, afterall the family up the street has 3 teslas and they only have 2
nly 3y ago
Yup. See plenty of people here in the UK gleeful at the prospect of falling house prices onset by higher interest rates. Overall housing affordability for the average person who needs a mortgage is still worse now because house prices haven't fallen enough to offset the rate hikes. Literally the only people who will benefit are cash rich wealthy who don't need to borrow, and landlords who can use high rates and high inflation as an excuse to put up rents.
- thefounder 3y ago
  >> landlords who can use high rates and high inflation as an excuse to put up rents. Is that really just an excuse? Why shouldn't rents increase in an inflationary environment? What makes them more special than food products for example?

by nsvd 3y ago

Software workers are starting to experience a reality that other professions have been feeling for a long while. Market downturns benefit the rich at the expense of the poor.

sokoloff 3y ago

Are software engineers at Microsoft poor in that story?

6D794163636F756 3y ago
If they are working at a company then they are working class.
- dingusdew 3y ago
  If they aren't generating capital from investments and work for a paycheck, they are working class. Capitalists have capital. The rest of us are born with only our labor to sell, whether that labor is blue collar or white collar. The middle class is was and always has been a lie to separate the working class.
  - lupire 3y ago
    There are numbers greater than 2, and colors between black and white.
    - brailsafe 3y ago
      I suppose it would be hard to lump billionaires in with arbitrary people who generate capital through investments and business, as well as people who do both or just run small businesses. But, I do think software engineering is a working class job. For a long time it's been awkward to say it, because yes it can be extremely lucrative compared to any given other career, but yet unless you're very lucky, it's a path that doesn't excape the drudgery of whatever else you could be doing. I put my best effort into waking up for bullshit 6am scrum meetings with my global team a few times a week, eventually with the constant stress of some bug being discovered and having to hold for the next sprint and dreading 1-on-1s with this asshole manager who'd consume the entire time with me having to justify why I "wasn't coding faster"; eventually getting laid off during the worst downturn in the tech job market I've ever seen.
  - solardev 3y ago
    What happens when, as often happens, someone works for a paycheck and also has side investments? Working class demi-capitalists hoping for a break?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - mptest 3y ago
      How do you think retired people are classified by Marxists? The class distinction does not mean "work until you die" , it means "you need to/have needed to work to live". So no, you're not a "demi-capitalist". You're still a worker. Because you had to work for that capital. You didn't inherit it/exploit it from the surplus value you extracted from laborers
      - solardev 3y ago
        What good is this sort of binary differentiation? Someone like Zuckerberg would technically be working class because he worked for his money, despite his negative effects on the world. People move between income sources...
        mptest 3y ago
        It's a starting point to my understanding, not an end all be all categorization. It helps get across that the only useful distinction worth making is between those who work, and those whose capital does the work for them I don't know Zuckerberg's biography but I'd wager to say he didn't have to work or starve ever in his life. And I'm no Bhaskar Sunkara but I'd also wager to say >50% of zuckerbergs wealth is due to the surplus labor value his employees create, not his labor. So in a material examination of Zuckerberg you'd say indeed the issue is not the phase of his life where he worked for a living, but the phase where he is extracts maximum surplus labor value from his workers. That phase constitutes X-99.9% of his wealth, so he is not exactly some hard to pin down edge case This isn't to say that any company that derives a profit is an evil exploitation factory, it's just an idiots understanding of a useful jumping off point for material analysis.
- MagicMoonlight 3y ago
  That’s not how working class is defined
  - tyg13 3y ago
    The way I've seen it defined is: If your wealth derives primarily from your labor, you are in the working class. If your wealth derives primarily from your wealth, you are in the ownership class. Do you have an alternative definition?
    - emodendroket 3y ago
      People also use "working-class" to mean someone doing blue-collar labor at a below-middle-class income. Both views have their merits. A software engineer and a nanny both sell their labor... on the other hand, the fact that the former can employ the latter and the reverse is not true suggests their position is not entirely the same.
      - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
        Yeah, terms like "middle class" and "professional class" exist for a reason. If you insist on reducing all of us to only two classes, then working vs owning is one way to do it... but not the only way. One could also divide the "paying" class from the "charity" class, for instance. And a software engineer at Microsoft with a 401k and a portfolio of stock grants has one foot in the ownership class, even if they still work. General observation: Anyone who says "there are only two X..." is trying to make you view the world in reductionist terms, and they're choosing the terms to make you focus on the issue that they want you to focus on. But the world has a lot more nuance than that, and some of the other nuances also matter.
        emodendroket 3y ago
        Sure but the commonalities are also interesting.
svaha1728 3y ago
No, but the average tenure at Microsoft is around 5 years. Depending on their career moves before and after their tenure, they aren’t necessarily rich.
nsvd 3y ago
Maybe poor isn't the right word, but I certainly don't think they're rich enough to defend their self-interests, in this case their earning potential.
blitzar 3y ago
They think they are, afterall the family up the street has 3 teslas and they only have 2

nly 3y ago

Yup. See plenty of people here in the UK gleeful at the prospect of falling house prices onset by higher interest rates. Overall housing affordability for the average person who needs a mortgage is still worse now because house prices haven't fallen enough to offset the rate hikes. Literally the only people who will benefit are cash rich wealthy who don't need to borrow, and landlords who can use high rates and high inflation as an excuse to put up rents.

thefounder 3y ago
>> landlords who can use high rates and high inflation as an excuse to put up rents. Is that really just an excuse? Why shouldn't rents increase in an inflationary environment? What makes them more special than food products for example?