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> turning yourself into an asset How is that any different from any other skilled labor? Recall the old joke about the plumber who charged $1 for banging on t

by lisper 2y ago

> turning yourself into an asset How is that any different from any other skilled labor? Recall the old joke about the plumber who charged $1 for banging on the pipe and $1000 for knowing where to bang. Even purely physical labor like digging ditches requires that you have certain physical traits (strength and stamina) that you can look at as assets. > Society will not be worse off with most people doing physical labor. Like what? There is virtually nothing that used to be done with human labor that can't be done by machine nowadays. Even ditch-digging is mostly done with backhoes, not men with shovels. For the moment we still need (some) humans to run the machines, but that's knowledge work too.

deadbabe 2y ago
With physical labor you still need to do the work to deliver value, where as with knowledge work, you may not need to do anything until you are needed, but people pay to simply have access to you. Many software engineers for example, don’t do much most of the time, but they are an asset due to their familiarity with company systems.
- lisper 2y ago
  > with knowledge work, you may not need to do anything until you are needed That can be true for physical labor as well. Fire fighters. Ambulance drivers. Soldiers. All get paid to be on-call.
  - deadbabe 2y ago
    Yes, it’s rent-seeking behavior. And when you retire, sometimes you draw pension and do nothing for the rest of your life, you use your past service as an asset for future gains.
    - lisper 2y ago
      Past service can't be an asset. You can convert your present service into assets (i.e. you can save instead of spend) but the compensation for the service itself can only be done at the time it's rendered, even if the payment takes the form of debt. But the debt is the asset, not the past service itself. And I don't see anything wrong with that. It is quite literally the essence of capitalism. Rent-seeking is different. Rent-seeking is the act of growing one's existing wealth by manipulating the social or political environment without creating new wealth [1]. That is not at all the same as making your living off of assets that you've earned with past labor. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking

by lisper 2y ago

deadbabe 2y ago

With physical labor you still need to do the work to deliver value, where as with knowledge work, you may not need to do anything until you are needed, but people pay to simply have access to you. Many software engineers for example, don’t do much most of the time, but they are an asset due to their familiarity with company systems.

lisper 2y ago
> with knowledge work, you may not need to do anything until you are needed That can be true for physical labor as well. Fire fighters. Ambulance drivers. Soldiers. All get paid to be on-call.
- deadbabe 2y ago
  Yes, it’s rent-seeking behavior. And when you retire, sometimes you draw pension and do nothing for the rest of your life, you use your past service as an asset for future gains.
  - lisper 2y ago
    Past service can't be an asset. You can convert your present service into assets (i.e. you can save instead of spend) but the compensation for the service itself can only be done at the time it's rendered, even if the payment takes the form of debt. But the debt is the asset, not the past service itself. And I don't see anything wrong with that. It is quite literally the essence of capitalism. Rent-seeking is different. Rent-seeking is the act of growing one's existing wealth by manipulating the social or political environment without creating new wealth [1]. That is not at all the same as making your living off of assets that you've earned with past labor. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking