4 ms·
Yes, workers in non-profits are status-compensated as well as monetarily compensated. I don't think this is an argument for non-profit unionization.
by whimsicalism 5mo ago
Yes, workers in non-profits are status-compensated as well as monetarily compensated. I don't think this is an argument for non-profit unionization.
- wsve 5mo ago"status-compensated"?
- whimsicalism 5mo agopeople enjoy doing high-status things and will trade off pay for status. asking for equal pay as low-status work is essentially asking to have your cake and eat it too
- 20after4 5mo agoIs working for Wikipedia somehow a higher status job than working for Google? edit: I'm asking because my 7 year stint as an engineer at Wikipedia hasn't provided me with an endless stream of lucrative job offers.
- whimsicalism 5mo agoabsolutely and i'm surprised that you don't think so. e: and to your edit, i'm talking about social/moral status
- harimau777 5mo agoCan you explain what you mean by social/moral status? I haven't seen a big run of non-profit workers marrying movie stars or becoming Pope.
- jonas21 5mo agoIsn't the Pope like the canonical high-status non-profit worker?
- wsve 5mo agoYes, but notice that the pope gets paid very well
- harimau777 5mo agoYes, however, my point is that the vast majority of people working for non-profits do not receive that sort of recognition. So what does "social status" mean?
- komali2 5mo agoYour edit is comparing opposites, basically making the ops point for them. You work at google for money. Money is high status under capitalism. You work at Wikipedia for status in the traditional sense - you trade capitalist status (the salary) for the higher actual status of working for a non profit.
- lux-lux-lux 5mo agoNo one thinks non-profit work is ‘high-status.’ People do it because making the world better in some way is more personally motivating than figuring out how to put video ads on refrigerators or whatever.o
- komali2 5mo agoOk, I don't necessarily disagree, but it is thus living your values, which at the very least increases ones self confidence and self perception of status. Whether one thinks that improves one's status in the eyes of others imo depends on one's cynicism. "Whatever, I'm living my values, they just don't get it. Maybe others will one day." That's how I see it for myself anyway, if I'm being honest. But in the end I don't think there's any better path to happiness and fulfillment than living my values.
- harimau777 5mo agoSure, but happiness and fulfillment isn't status. Not because there's anything wrong with them but because that's not what "status" means.
- whimsicalism 5mo agofeeling better because your job fits better in your moral framework that you get from society is a status-mediated effect and i feel you can usually find social scaffolding under things that are articulated as purely intrinsic.
- 5mo ago
- harimau777 5mo agoI'd love to live in a world where working for a non-profit was high status. Unfortunately that's just not the world we live in. Maybe if you are someone high up at a well known charity, but the bulk of the people keeping non-profits running do not get status from their work.
- wsve 5mo agoUh... Can you name me a single job where the tradeoff is "You won't get paid much because this position is so respectable"? There are respectable jobs where you don't get paid much because the area of work simply does not generate much money (charity), or because they're being exploited and guilt tripped into working hard because of their mission (charity), and there are jobs which are respectable primarily because they pay very well... But there are no jobs where you're "status-compensated", where you are paid less but that's okay, because the job is so respectable so it's okay to pay you less.
- throw4847285 5mo agoI don't think you've ever met anybody who worked for a non-profit in your life.
- whimsicalism 5mo agoboth my parents worked for non-profits their entire lives