5 ms·

Let's say she has ten employees. They all voluntarily agree to work for her: slavery is illegal, so people work for others on a consensual basis. Both the emp

Let's say she has ten employees. They all voluntarily agree to work for her: slavery is illegal, so people work for others on a consensual basis. Both the employer and employee negotiated and consented to a salary or wage schedule for that employee. The employer pays the agreed-upon compensation, and the employee receives it. If the company makes an unexpectedly large profit, the employer is not obligated to redistribute that to her employees in addition to the already agreed-upon and paid compensation. If the employees think that what they agreed to work for is no longer sufficient, they are welcome to renegotiate their compensation or, if they feel they have been wronged and are being paid less than they are worth, to take their talent to a different employer. After all, everything so far has been consensual. The only thing that would be non-consensual would be obligating the employer to redistribute her profit over and above what had already been negotiated.

AndrewKemendo 4mo ago
[flagged]
- brchn 4mo ago
  PG thinks racism was solved in the 60s
JimmyBuckets 4mo ago
This completely negates the fact that due to how the labor market is structured, most people who sell their labour to survive are in a disadvantageous position for the negotiation you are talking about. What you are talking about works well in a basic economics text book but does not translate to the real world.
- stephbook 4mo ago
  The cleaning lady at SpaceX doesn't do a better job than that at Walmart. So why should she be paid more? You think she's doing the heavy lifting there? Creating the billions? While the underperformer at VideoBuster / Radio Shack is responsible for tanking the business? That's just not true.
  - FromTheFirstIn 4mo ago
    Finally, the case for exploitation! So brave to say people who do physical labor deserve less.
    - stephbook 4mo ago
      I didn't say that. You misunderstood me. Read again.
      - FromTheFirstIn 4mo ago
        You are saying that, you just value physical labor so little you no longer recognize it. Read again.
        therealdrag0 4mo ago
        If you think they were commenting on physical labor your reading comprehension is poor. The example job could have been a “non physical” job, say the hallway CCTV monitor, and made the same point.
        FromTheFirstIn 4mo ago
        Their point is that labor they consider low impact or menial doesn’t drive returns, and therefore shouldn’t share in the returns. You’re right that the labor being physical is incidental, really they’re just classist/elitist and any job they consider beneath them would fit this model, while others wouldn’t. There’s a reason they chose a cleaner (and a woman!) instead of a product manager or CPA, though the quality is also unlikely to differ between spaceX and Walmart there. Speaking of reading comprehension, they didn’t address the core argument of the person they were responding to, which is that labor that falls “beneath the fold” of this class line is not able to negotiate aggressively due to the inelastic costs of food, shelter, and basic necessities. It doesn’t matter how “high impact” you are, if you’re negotiating and need to eat you’ll accept any amount that lets you eat. In fact, having impact or driving revenue is never the most important factor to reaping the rewards. Anyone who’s worked for a few years with their eyes open should reach this conclusion unless they have some strong motivation not to.
bluecheese452 4mo ago
And we all lived happily ever after in our frictionless world of spherical cows.
wat10000 4mo ago
The fact that everything is consensual doesn’t mean the rewards are earned. If I find gold on my land and dig it up and sell it, I haven’t done anything wrong, but I haven’t earned most of that money. I just got lucky.
didibus 4mo ago
> If the company makes an unexpectedly large profit, the employer is not obligated to redistribute that to her employees in addition to the already agreed-upon and paid compensation. What if they were ? That's the whole point of the conversation lol. It's like you're side stepping the entire discourse. Maybe the company should be obligated to redistribute it to her employees, or to the public, etc.
- carlosjobim 4mo ago
  ... and to you, right? Would you want to take a pay cut if your employer was having financial problems? Why not? Because you have an agreement on what your salary should be. It is fair that it works both ways.
  - davemp 4mo ago
    > Would you want to take a pay cut if your employer was having financial problems? This happens constantly in the form of layoffs…
    - carlosjobim 4mo ago
      Would you prefer to stay and work without pay and not be allowed to change jobs? Millions of people have also had that experience in countries without a free labor market.
      - davemp 4mo ago
        Just because it could be worse doesn’t mean it couldn’t be better.
  - didibus 4mo ago
    Uh, pay cuts due to financial problems of the business happens all the time.
- brigandish 4mo ago
  > That's the whole point of the conversation lol > It's like you're side stepping the entire discourse. No, they addressed that with: > The only thing that would be non-consensual would be obligating the employer to redistribute her profit over and above what had already been negotiated. Which would be truly immoral. "lol"
robotpepi 4mo ago
so many people missing the point... try to get out of the box

AndrewKemendo 4mo ago

[flagged]

brchn 4mo ago
PG thinks racism was solved in the 60s

JimmyBuckets 4mo ago

This completely negates the fact that due to how the labor market is structured, most people who sell their labour to survive are in a disadvantageous position for the negotiation you are talking about. What you are talking about works well in a basic economics text book but does not translate to the real world.

stephbook 4mo ago
The cleaning lady at SpaceX doesn't do a better job than that at Walmart. So why should she be paid more? You think she's doing the heavy lifting there? Creating the billions? While the underperformer at VideoBuster / Radio Shack is responsible for tanking the business? That's just not true.
- FromTheFirstIn 4mo ago
  Finally, the case for exploitation! So brave to say people who do physical labor deserve less.
  - stephbook 4mo ago
    I didn't say that. You misunderstood me. Read again.
    - FromTheFirstIn 4mo ago
      You are saying that, you just value physical labor so little you no longer recognize it. Read again.
      - therealdrag0 4mo ago
        If you think they were commenting on physical labor your reading comprehension is poor. The example job could have been a “non physical” job, say the hallway CCTV monitor, and made the same point.
        FromTheFirstIn 4mo ago
        Their point is that labor they consider low impact or menial doesn’t drive returns, and therefore shouldn’t share in the returns. You’re right that the labor being physical is incidental, really they’re just classist/elitist and any job they consider beneath them would fit this model, while others wouldn’t. There’s a reason they chose a cleaner (and a woman!) instead of a product manager or CPA, though the quality is also unlikely to differ between spaceX and Walmart there. Speaking of reading comprehension, they didn’t address the core argument of the person they were responding to, which is that labor that falls “beneath the fold” of this class line is not able to negotiate aggressively due to the inelastic costs of food, shelter, and basic necessities. It doesn’t matter how “high impact” you are, if you’re negotiating and need to eat you’ll accept any amount that lets you eat. In fact, having impact or driving revenue is never the most important factor to reaping the rewards. Anyone who’s worked for a few years with their eyes open should reach this conclusion unless they have some strong motivation not to.

bluecheese452 4mo ago

And we all lived happily ever after in our frictionless world of spherical cows.

wat10000 4mo ago

The fact that everything is consensual doesn’t mean the rewards are earned. If I find gold on my land and dig it up and sell it, I haven’t done anything wrong, but I haven’t earned most of that money. I just got lucky.

didibus 4mo ago

> If the company makes an unexpectedly large profit, the employer is not obligated to redistribute that to her employees in addition to the already agreed-upon and paid compensation. What if they were ? That's the whole point of the conversation lol. It's like you're side stepping the entire discourse. Maybe the company should be obligated to redistribute it to her employees, or to the public, etc.

carlosjobim 4mo ago
... and to you, right? Would you want to take a pay cut if your employer was having financial problems? Why not? Because you have an agreement on what your salary should be. It is fair that it works both ways.
- davemp 4mo ago
  > Would you want to take a pay cut if your employer was having financial problems? This happens constantly in the form of layoffs…
  - carlosjobim 4mo ago
    Would you prefer to stay and work without pay and not be allowed to change jobs? Millions of people have also had that experience in countries without a free labor market.
    - davemp 4mo ago
      Just because it could be worse doesn’t mean it couldn’t be better.
- didibus 4mo ago
  Uh, pay cuts due to financial problems of the business happens all the time.
brigandish 4mo ago
> That's the whole point of the conversation lol > It's like you're side stepping the entire discourse. No, they addressed that with: > The only thing that would be non-consensual would be obligating the employer to redistribute her profit over and above what had already been negotiated. Which would be truly immoral. "lol"

robotpepi 4mo ago

so many people missing the point... try to get out of the box