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You either have to work for a living or you don’t The words 'have to' are doing a lot of work in that statement. Some people 'have to' work to literally put fo

by dagw 1y ago

You either have to work for a living or you don’t The words 'have to' are doing a lot of work in that statement. Some people 'have to' work to literally put food on the table, other people 'have to' work to able to making payments on their new yacht. The world is full of people who could probably live out the rest of their lives without working any more, but doing so would require drastic lifestyle changes they're not willing to make. I personally think the metric should be something along the lines of how long would it take from losing all your income until you're homeless.

dgfitz 1y ago
The sentence works without those two words. “You either work for a living or you don’t.” Now what?
- dagw 1y ago
  Now it comes down to how you define 'for a living'. You still need to differentiate between people who work to survive, people who work to finance their aspirational lifestyle, and people who have all the money they could possibly need and still work because they either see it as a calling or they just seem to like working. Considering all these people in the same 'class' is far too simplistic.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - dgfitz 1y ago
    Enh, to me it’s not, either you work or you don’t.
    - dagw 1y ago
      So someone on the edge of poverty, balancing two or three minimum wage jobs just to make ends meet, should be considered part of the same class as the CEO of Microsoft or Google? Hell most people on the Forbes list 'work' in at least some meaning of the word, even if many of them effectively work for themselves. What about the trust fund kid working part time at an art gallery just because they like the scene and hanging out with artists? Same class? And on the flip side, are pensioners, the unemployed, and people on permanent disability part of the same class as the dilettante children of billionaires?
      - dgfitz 1y ago
        Are we talking about the verb or an ideal? Either you work or you don’t.
        dagw 1y ago
        Are we talking about the verb or an ideal? We are talking about class, and if we should be making distinctions between groups of people who work for a living based on their wealth, income, and economic stability. I believe there is a fundamental class difference between people who work, but are rich enough to stop working whenever they want, those who can't quite stop working but are comfortable enough to easily go 6 month without a pay check, and people who are only a couple of missed pay checks away from literal homelessness.
        dgfitz 1y ago
        I guess I lost the plot. Same point, either you work or you don’t. I grew up not knowing if I would have dinner that night because we were so poor. I learned I needed to work to eat. I don’t care that rich people are rich, I only care about myself and my family. Coddling poor people is so severely out of touch with their reality, they most likely resent the hell out of you for it, I know I did.
        komali2 1y ago
        Nobody's coddling anyone here. Acknowledging the reality of class in society isn't doing anything but analysis. The original claim was a proposal to increase the resolution of class analysis one degree "higher" than Marx and no longer differentiate between the modern proletariat (working class), bourgeois (middle class), and aristocracy (upper class), in this case proposing to lump together the bourgeois and proletariat because they both have to work or they'll starve to death. In this world, being born from the orifice of an aristocrat means you never have to work (have meaning, "or you'll die of exposure"). That's a frank reality. If your reaction to being born from a non aristocratic orifice is to shrug your shoulders and accept reality, great, nobody's trying to take that from you. However you seem to be taking it a step further and suggesting that the people pointing out that this nature of society is unfair are somehow wrong to do so. I disagree. I think is perfectly valid to be born from whatever orifice and declare the obvious unfairness of the situation and the work to balance things out for people. That's not coddling, it's just ensuring that we all benefit in a just way from the work of your grandfather. Cause right now, someone has stolen the value of his work from you, and that's why you (and I) had to work so hard to get where we are today. If you love that you had to work so hard, fine. I could take it or leave it. Instead of working a double through school I would have preferred to focus more on my studies and get higher grades, find better internships instead of slinging sandwiches. Personally I look at the extraordinarily wealth of the aristocrat class and I think, "is it more important that they're allowed to own 3 yachts or that all the children of our society can go to college?" I strongly believe any given country will be much stronger if it has less yachts and more college-educated people. Or people with better access to healthcare. Or people with better transit options to work. Etc.
nosianu 1y ago
> I personally think the metric should be something along the lines of how long would it take from losing all your income until you're homeless. What income? Income from job, or from capital? A huge difference. Also a lot harder to lose the latter, gross incompetence or a revolution, while the former is much easier.
- dagw 1y ago
  Yea, should have been clearer. Income from work (or unemployment benefits) in this case. Someone who works to essentially supplement their income, but could live off their capital, is in a very different position than someone for whom work is their only source of income or wealth.
larrled 1y ago
“from losing all your income until you're homeless.” I’m willing to bet you haven’t lived long enough to know that’s a more or less a proxy for old age. :) That aside, even homeless people acquire possessions over time. If you have a lot of homeless in your neighborhood, try to observe that. In my area, many homeless have semi functional motor homes. Are they legit homeless, or are they “homeless oligarchs”? I can watch any of the hundreds of YouTube channels devoted to “van life.” Is a 20 year old who skipped college which their family could have afforded, and is instead living in an $80k van and getting money from streaming a “legit homeless”? The world is not so black and white it will turn out in the long run.
- nradov 1y ago
  Many of those semi-functional motorhomes are actually owned by a particular type of slumlord (vanlord) who rent them out to homeless people. https://sanjosespotlight.com/san-jose-to-crack-down-on-rv-rentals-to-homeless/ https://sanjosespotlight.com/san-jose-to-crack-down-on-rv-re...
mantas 1y ago
Homeless or loose current house? Downsizing and/or moving to cheaper places could go a long way. Yet loosing current level of housing is what most people think want to avoid.
- dagw 1y ago
  Either work, but homeless is more absolute. For some downsizing means moving into their car and for others it means moving into a 3000 sq ft house, with a smaller pool, in the third nicest neighbourhood in town. But yea, losing your house and being forced to drastically downsize against your will is no doubt traumatic in both cases.

by dagw 1y ago

dgfitz 1y ago

The sentence works without those two words. “You either work for a living or you don’t.” Now what?

dagw 1y ago
Now it comes down to how you define 'for a living'. You still need to differentiate between people who work to survive, people who work to finance their aspirational lifestyle, and people who have all the money they could possibly need and still work because they either see it as a calling or they just seem to like working. Considering all these people in the same 'class' is far too simplistic.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- dgfitz 1y ago
  Enh, to me it’s not, either you work or you don’t.
  - dagw 1y ago
    So someone on the edge of poverty, balancing two or three minimum wage jobs just to make ends meet, should be considered part of the same class as the CEO of Microsoft or Google? Hell most people on the Forbes list 'work' in at least some meaning of the word, even if many of them effectively work for themselves. What about the trust fund kid working part time at an art gallery just because they like the scene and hanging out with artists? Same class? And on the flip side, are pensioners, the unemployed, and people on permanent disability part of the same class as the dilettante children of billionaires?
    - dgfitz 1y ago
      Are we talking about the verb or an ideal? Either you work or you don’t.
      - dagw 1y ago
        Are we talking about the verb or an ideal? We are talking about class, and if we should be making distinctions between groups of people who work for a living based on their wealth, income, and economic stability. I believe there is a fundamental class difference between people who work, but are rich enough to stop working whenever they want, those who can't quite stop working but are comfortable enough to easily go 6 month without a pay check, and people who are only a couple of missed pay checks away from literal homelessness.
        dgfitz 1y ago
        I guess I lost the plot. Same point, either you work or you don’t. I grew up not knowing if I would have dinner that night because we were so poor. I learned I needed to work to eat. I don’t care that rich people are rich, I only care about myself and my family. Coddling poor people is so severely out of touch with their reality, they most likely resent the hell out of you for it, I know I did.
        komali2 1y ago
        Nobody's coddling anyone here. Acknowledging the reality of class in society isn't doing anything but analysis. The original claim was a proposal to increase the resolution of class analysis one degree "higher" than Marx and no longer differentiate between the modern proletariat (working class), bourgeois (middle class), and aristocracy (upper class), in this case proposing to lump together the bourgeois and proletariat because they both have to work or they'll starve to death. In this world, being born from the orifice of an aristocrat means you never have to work (have meaning, "or you'll die of exposure"). That's a frank reality. If your reaction to being born from a non aristocratic orifice is to shrug your shoulders and accept reality, great, nobody's trying to take that from you. However you seem to be taking it a step further and suggesting that the people pointing out that this nature of society is unfair are somehow wrong to do so. I disagree. I think is perfectly valid to be born from whatever orifice and declare the obvious unfairness of the situation and the work to balance things out for people. That's not coddling, it's just ensuring that we all benefit in a just way from the work of your grandfather. Cause right now, someone has stolen the value of his work from you, and that's why you (and I) had to work so hard to get where we are today. If you love that you had to work so hard, fine. I could take it or leave it. Instead of working a double through school I would have preferred to focus more on my studies and get higher grades, find better internships instead of slinging sandwiches. Personally I look at the extraordinarily wealth of the aristocrat class and I think, "is it more important that they're allowed to own 3 yachts or that all the children of our society can go to college?" I strongly believe any given country will be much stronger if it has less yachts and more college-educated people. Or people with better access to healthcare. Or people with better transit options to work. Etc.

nosianu 1y ago

> I personally think the metric should be something along the lines of how long would it take from losing all your income until you're homeless. What income? Income from job, or from capital? A huge difference. Also a lot harder to lose the latter, gross incompetence or a revolution, while the former is much easier.

dagw 1y ago
Yea, should have been clearer. Income from work (or unemployment benefits) in this case. Someone who works to essentially supplement their income, but could live off their capital, is in a very different position than someone for whom work is their only source of income or wealth.

larrled 1y ago

“from losing all your income until you're homeless.” I’m willing to bet you haven’t lived long enough to know that’s a more or less a proxy for old age. :) That aside, even homeless people acquire possessions over time. If you have a lot of homeless in your neighborhood, try to observe that. In my area, many homeless have semi functional motor homes. Are they legit homeless, or are they “homeless oligarchs”? I can watch any of the hundreds of YouTube channels devoted to “van life.” Is a 20 year old who skipped college which their family could have afforded, and is instead living in an $80k van and getting money from streaming a “legit homeless”? The world is not so black and white it will turn out in the long run.

nradov 1y ago
Many of those semi-functional motorhomes are actually owned by a particular type of slumlord (vanlord) who rent them out to homeless people. https://sanjosespotlight.com/san-jose-to-crack-down-on-rv-rentals-to-homeless/ https://sanjosespotlight.com/san-jose-to-crack-down-on-rv-re...

mantas 1y ago

Homeless or loose current house? Downsizing and/or moving to cheaper places could go a long way. Yet loosing current level of housing is what most people think want to avoid.

dagw 1y ago
Either work, but homeless is more absolute. For some downsizing means moving into their car and for others it means moving into a 3000 sq ft house, with a smaller pool, in the third nicest neighbourhood in town. But yea, losing your house and being forced to drastically downsize against your will is no doubt traumatic in both cases.