4 ms·

In #2, you're 100% right - if doing a bit of janitorial work was enough to obtain an upper class lifestyle, there'd be mile long lines of people anxious to beco

In #2, you're 100% right - if doing a bit of janitorial work was enough to obtain an upper class lifestyle, there'd be mile long lines of people anxious to become janitors. But don't you see the problem that immediately entails? You have neither enough resources for everybody to live these sort of lifestyles nor enough jobs for this many janitors, and so paying janitors this sort of salary becomes a nonstarter. This is why in capitalism, wages are not determined by some subjective measurement about a job (difficulty, desirability, etc) but a simple balance between supply and demand. The reason janitors are paid poorly is because there's lots of supply, but not nearly as much demand. The same's true in high skill positions. Post-docs are some of the most highly skilled individuals who often have years of specialized education in very specific fields. Yet there's lots of post-docs but not much demand, so their pay isn't that far removed from that of a janitor. Automation feels hand-wavey to me on these topics, because it's not realistically coming anytime soon for many of these jobs. While we take janitorial work for granted, think about how absurdly difficult it would be for a robot to be able to clean an arbitrarily designed bathroom, which may be defouled in an equally arbitrary number of ways, and also possibly depending on an arbitrary selection of third party tools/replacements. In all reality I think it's extremely safe to say that's not happening in our lifetimes. There's also an economic issue that the jobs automation replaces needs to be substantially cheaper than a human doing the same work. Stuff with moving parts breaks down and tends to need regular maintenance, while wages for most low skill work are very low. We could largely automate something like fast food production, but economically it's still cheaper to just use humans.

hnbad 3y ago
Let's be honest, this is just navel gazing. At heart it's a simple question of ethics: Do you prefer a system that affords a very small number of people a lifestyle of exuberant luxury and wasteful excess at the cost of exploiting the labor of the vast majority and condemning a large number of people to abject poverty to one that distributes resources based on how much every single person can contribute and how much they need and sharing the surplus, even if the luxuries this affords everyone can at best approximate the mean of the system built on exploitation? Generally, people like democracy because they like the idea of everyone having an equal say. Generally, people like socialized healthcare because they like the idea of everyone being cared for in times of crisis. Generally, people like public services because they like the idea of everyone having access to vital infrastructure and emergency services. Generally, people like the minimum wage because they don't like to see people being taken advantage of. But the very idea of capitalism contradicts this. Under capitalism, democracy is defined in terms of the free market. Socialized healthcare is seen as wasteful. Maintaining infrastructure beyond what is immediately necessary is inefficient. The minimum wage is seen as hindering market flexibility. All can be property and all property must be subject to the market and the market must allow for the accumulation of property in order to allow it to find a stable equilibrium over time, humans are an afterthought. Generally, people don't like this. That is why it's always wrapped in conditionals: "capitalism but in a democracy", "capitalism but regulated", "capitalism but social market economics", "capitalism but woke". But those are always contradictions and at the end of the day the market demands privatization and absolute capitalization. Capitalism tends towards "anarcho-capitalism", a minimalist state reduced to its mechanisms of enforcement but at the full control of moneyed interests where every social interaction is a market transaction. Capitalism puts markets first. Everything is capital, every interaction transactional. Conveniently this benefits those who already have state-enforced claims over massive amounts of capital going in. Inconveniently it can be literally life-threatening to those who have nothing and hazardous to those who only have their own labor to sell. Anarchism puts people first. The systems arise from it as needed and are kept in check by everyone's willingness to participate in them. A real-life version of the fiction of the "social contract" state theory uses to justify its steel grip around its subjects' necks. Under a state there is literally nowhere you can go because all land is property and property can be ceased or held by the state. Under a state there is literally nothing you can take with you because all you have is property and all your property is only under your control as long as the state permits it. The state exists as a golem manifesting and voiding property claims and transactions while following the faint calls of whoever holds the most of it, be it the democratic majority or a minority of moneyed individuals. For me, that goes deeply against my idea of ethics. We can't aimlessly tear down the systems we have, yes, as long as other systems exist that will fill in the gaps. But we can build horizontal structures in the spaces those systems allow it or where they can't stop us - yet. Once you tear down one system, the others will fill the gaps. It's on us to ensure those that remain will be in favor of us once those that exist in contradiction force their own inevitable destruction as their necessary resolution.
- somenameforme 3y ago
  I general I don't really disagree with you, but there's one place we do differ. I find that in reality we often don't have the choice between a good idea and a bad idea, but rather between a bad idea and a terrible one. And so trying something new simply because what we currently have is bad is not compelling, to me. It's really interesting how much wisdom is tucked away in all of those old hokey folk sayings that we seem to be largely discarding in modern cultureless culture: 'Out of the frying pan, into the fire.' So, no - I don't find it to be just navel gazing. As to the issues with "our" current system, I think one could argue a lot of it started in 1971. [1] It's referencing the end of Bretton Woods. Under Bretton Woods the USD was convertible to gold at a fixed rate, and other countries were obligated to peg their currency to the USD. The idea being that the fixed conversion rate would prevent the US from printing too much money, or other countries would just convert their excess USD to gold and make a huge profit. Except we did print too much money and other countries decided to cash in their gold. So we simply defaulted on our obligations and withdrew from the agreement. It's at exactly that point in 1971 that the handcuffs on governments' money printing were completely removed. And we're now seeing the consequences of this. Rather than being some deep issue with capitalism, I think we're just looking at a relatively short-lived monetary experiment that's ultimately turning out to be a catastrophic failure, masked only by the fact that we kicked off said experiment at the exact time computing and related technology was entering into a hyper-expansion phase. But now as that fantasy/bubble of infinite growth to sustain infinite monetary expansion starts to pop, we're seeing the natural outcomes happen at an accelerated rate. [1] - https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
BobaFloutist 3y ago
So we've gone from "How are we going to get people to do shitty work" to "Now everyone wants to do the shitty work!" as our problem, which tells me that we just need to tune the pay to a middle ground somewhere between the two to get the perfect number of janitors. Easy!

hnbad 3y ago

Let's be honest, this is just navel gazing. At heart it's a simple question of ethics: Do you prefer a system that affords a very small number of people a lifestyle of exuberant luxury and wasteful excess at the cost of exploiting the labor of the vast majority and condemning a large number of people to abject poverty to one that distributes resources based on how much every single person can contribute and how much they need and sharing the surplus, even if the luxuries this affords everyone can at best approximate the mean of the system built on exploitation? Generally, people like democracy because they like the idea of everyone having an equal say. Generally, people like socialized healthcare because they like the idea of everyone being cared for in times of crisis. Generally, people like public services because they like the idea of everyone having access to vital infrastructure and emergency services. Generally, people like the minimum wage because they don't like to see people being taken advantage of. But the very idea of capitalism contradicts this. Under capitalism, democracy is defined in terms of the free market. Socialized healthcare is seen as wasteful. Maintaining infrastructure beyond what is immediately necessary is inefficient. The minimum wage is seen as hindering market flexibility. All can be property and all property must be subject to the market and the market must allow for the accumulation of property in order to allow it to find a stable equilibrium over time, humans are an afterthought. Generally, people don't like this. That is why it's always wrapped in conditionals: "capitalism but in a democracy", "capitalism but regulated", "capitalism but social market economics", "capitalism but woke". But those are always contradictions and at the end of the day the market demands privatization and absolute capitalization. Capitalism tends towards "anarcho-capitalism", a minimalist state reduced to its mechanisms of enforcement but at the full control of moneyed interests where every social interaction is a market transaction. Capitalism puts markets first. Everything is capital, every interaction transactional. Conveniently this benefits those who already have state-enforced claims over massive amounts of capital going in. Inconveniently it can be literally life-threatening to those who have nothing and hazardous to those who only have their own labor to sell. Anarchism puts people first. The systems arise from it as needed and are kept in check by everyone's willingness to participate in them. A real-life version of the fiction of the "social contract" state theory uses to justify its steel grip around its subjects' necks. Under a state there is literally nowhere you can go because all land is property and property can be ceased or held by the state. Under a state there is literally nothing you can take with you because all you have is property and all your property is only under your control as long as the state permits it. The state exists as a golem manifesting and voiding property claims and transactions while following the faint calls of whoever holds the most of it, be it the democratic majority or a minority of moneyed individuals. For me, that goes deeply against my idea of ethics. We can't aimlessly tear down the systems we have, yes, as long as other systems exist that will fill in the gaps. But we can build horizontal structures in the spaces those systems allow it or where they can't stop us - yet. Once you tear down one system, the others will fill the gaps. It's on us to ensure those that remain will be in favor of us once those that exist in contradiction force their own inevitable destruction as their necessary resolution.

somenameforme 3y ago
I general I don't really disagree with you, but there's one place we do differ. I find that in reality we often don't have the choice between a good idea and a bad idea, but rather between a bad idea and a terrible one. And so trying something new simply because what we currently have is bad is not compelling, to me. It's really interesting how much wisdom is tucked away in all of those old hokey folk sayings that we seem to be largely discarding in modern cultureless culture: 'Out of the frying pan, into the fire.' So, no - I don't find it to be just navel gazing. As to the issues with "our" current system, I think one could argue a lot of it started in 1971. [1] It's referencing the end of Bretton Woods. Under Bretton Woods the USD was convertible to gold at a fixed rate, and other countries were obligated to peg their currency to the USD. The idea being that the fixed conversion rate would prevent the US from printing too much money, or other countries would just convert their excess USD to gold and make a huge profit. Except we did print too much money and other countries decided to cash in their gold. So we simply defaulted on our obligations and withdrew from the agreement. It's at exactly that point in 1971 that the handcuffs on governments' money printing were completely removed. And we're now seeing the consequences of this. Rather than being some deep issue with capitalism, I think we're just looking at a relatively short-lived monetary experiment that's ultimately turning out to be a catastrophic failure, masked only by the fact that we kicked off said experiment at the exact time computing and related technology was entering into a hyper-expansion phase. But now as that fantasy/bubble of infinite growth to sustain infinite monetary expansion starts to pop, we're seeing the natural outcomes happen at an accelerated rate. [1] - https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

BobaFloutist 3y ago

So we've gone from "How are we going to get people to do shitty work" to "Now everyone wants to do the shitty work!" as our problem, which tells me that we just need to tune the pay to a middle ground somewhere between the two to get the perfect number of janitors. Easy!