4 ms·

The Origins and Decline of the Wage System

23 points by daniel-cussen 17y ago

rgp 17y ago
The essay is well written and has historic base. Nevertheless I did not like the pessimist conclusion. 1) I believe that a economy with an increasing number of startups in the long run is going to grow. 2) The people that try but fail, is going to have entrepreneurial experience that is going to be attractive to the successful startups and companies in recuperation.
rgp 17y ago
In wired: http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-06/nep_essay http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-06/n... Chris Anderson wrote broadly about the topic.
darien 17y ago
Interesting but opinionated and dated. "Wage slavery" became an acceptable and necessary trade-off after the move from an industrial to service economy. This was possible in the US due to the rise in immigrant population (population boom of cities) and the automation of agriculture.
- wisty 17y ago
  Interesting and opinionated - good summary. But there are plenty of owner-operators in the service industry. One person can run a small cafe single-handed. 2 founders (a head cook, and a head waiter) can run a mid-sized restaurant. They still need a few kitchen hands and waiters, but they don't need to hire any managers. Once the whole management structure can be manned by founders the wage system has been undermined. The point isn't that everyone will be an owner-operator or contractor. The point is that all the good jobs will be. If you want to scrub floors, that's OK, but everyone else will be a manager or a hired gun.
  - barrkel 17y ago
    To take your example, a restaurant, the most important factor in success is how well the kitchen works. That requires a solid head chef. How well will that chef run a business when he or she's also running a kitchen? That requires them to specialize in two domains, rather than one. There's a reason why corporations are more efficient than coalitions of self-employed singletons operating in a free market. The transaction costs kill you. In order to specialize with sufficient depth to compete in pretty much any non-local market, you necessarily must either work for someone else, or hire many other people to work for you - and thereby make your specialism planning, coordination and managing, rather than anything else.
    - d4nt 17y ago
      That may well have been true for a while but I think the information revolution will eventually make it so easy to organise, collaborate and outsource that the managerial overhead of a corporation will put big companies at a disadvantage.
    - nazgulnarsil 17y ago
      the division of labor should have a natural schelling point WRT balance between organizational complexity and increased efficiency from specialization. this point moves as humans get better at logistics (computers continue to create an explosion in this area).
snewe 17y ago
If we each owned our own business, we would rarely reach the economies of scale that have increased standards of living for the last 200 years.
- enki 17y ago
  these economies of scale are often based on lower transaction costs at scale. information technology already has managed to lower or eliminate many transaction costs - and while doing so made a lot of previously unviable small business, viable. it's hard to say how many of these transaction costs are to stay with us over the next decades, but it's quite safe to say a lot of them will go. i have no answers, but i'm really curious how this will change society.
- tomjen2 17y ago
  Funny, at one point people assumed we couldn't have a civilization without slavery (not that working is the same as slavery). If everybody ends up working for their own companies, then the big assembly halls will be filled with robots who will do the work.
nazgulnarsil 17y ago
here is some actual scholarship on the subject rather than opinionated garbage in the original link. http://szabo.best.vwh.net/synch.html http://szabo.best.vwh.net/synch.html
- DenisM 17y ago
  pg also wrote about it if memory serves.
known 17y ago
hiring is obsolete http://www.paulgraham.com/hiring.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hiring.html
richardburton 17y ago
In the UK there is a chain of stores called John Lewis. "John Lewis is a co-operative; all employees have a stake in the profits and all workers are called "partners". The staff turnover is well below the national average and assistants get to know their beat and their customers well." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3657242/Spare-John-Lewis-from-the-retail-revolution.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3657242/Spare-John-Lewis-... It's amazing how well you're treated any of the staff at all of their stores. From the cleaners to shoe-fitters, they all seem to work that little bit harder to make the experience of buying in John Lewis as enjoyable as possible. It's an interesting case study of a hybrid between ownership and employment.

23 points by daniel-cussen 17y ago

rgp 17y ago

The essay is well written and has historic base. Nevertheless I did not like the pessimist conclusion. 1) I believe that a economy with an increasing number of startups in the long run is going to grow. 2) The people that try but fail, is going to have entrepreneurial experience that is going to be attractive to the successful startups and companies in recuperation.

rgp 17y ago

In wired: http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-06/nep_essay http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-06/n... Chris Anderson wrote broadly about the topic.

darien 17y ago

Interesting but opinionated and dated. "Wage slavery" became an acceptable and necessary trade-off after the move from an industrial to service economy. This was possible in the US due to the rise in immigrant population (population boom of cities) and the automation of agriculture.

wisty 17y ago
Interesting and opinionated - good summary. But there are plenty of owner-operators in the service industry. One person can run a small cafe single-handed. 2 founders (a head cook, and a head waiter) can run a mid-sized restaurant. They still need a few kitchen hands and waiters, but they don't need to hire any managers. Once the whole management structure can be manned by founders the wage system has been undermined. The point isn't that everyone will be an owner-operator or contractor. The point is that all the good jobs will be. If you want to scrub floors, that's OK, but everyone else will be a manager or a hired gun.
- barrkel 17y ago
  To take your example, a restaurant, the most important factor in success is how well the kitchen works. That requires a solid head chef. How well will that chef run a business when he or she's also running a kitchen? That requires them to specialize in two domains, rather than one. There's a reason why corporations are more efficient than coalitions of self-employed singletons operating in a free market. The transaction costs kill you. In order to specialize with sufficient depth to compete in pretty much any non-local market, you necessarily must either work for someone else, or hire many other people to work for you - and thereby make your specialism planning, coordination and managing, rather than anything else.
  - d4nt 17y ago
    That may well have been true for a while but I think the information revolution will eventually make it so easy to organise, collaborate and outsource that the managerial overhead of a corporation will put big companies at a disadvantage.
  - nazgulnarsil 17y ago
    the division of labor should have a natural schelling point WRT balance between organizational complexity and increased efficiency from specialization. this point moves as humans get better at logistics (computers continue to create an explosion in this area).

snewe 17y ago

If we each owned our own business, we would rarely reach the economies of scale that have increased standards of living for the last 200 years.

enki 17y ago
these economies of scale are often based on lower transaction costs at scale. information technology already has managed to lower or eliminate many transaction costs - and while doing so made a lot of previously unviable small business, viable. it's hard to say how many of these transaction costs are to stay with us over the next decades, but it's quite safe to say a lot of them will go. i have no answers, but i'm really curious how this will change society.
tomjen2 17y ago
Funny, at one point people assumed we couldn't have a civilization without slavery (not that working is the same as slavery). If everybody ends up working for their own companies, then the big assembly halls will be filled with robots who will do the work.

nazgulnarsil 17y ago

here is some actual scholarship on the subject rather than opinionated garbage in the original link. http://szabo.best.vwh.net/synch.html http://szabo.best.vwh.net/synch.html

DenisM 17y ago
pg also wrote about it if memory serves.

known 17y ago

hiring is obsolete http://www.paulgraham.com/hiring.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hiring.html

richardburton 17y ago

In the UK there is a chain of stores called John Lewis. "John Lewis is a co-operative; all employees have a stake in the profits and all workers are called "partners". The staff turnover is well below the national average and assistants get to know their beat and their customers well." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3657242/Spare-John-Lewis-from-the-retail-revolution.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3657242/Spare-John-Lewis-... It's amazing how well you're treated any of the staff at all of their stores. From the cleaners to shoe-fitters, they all seem to work that little bit harder to make the experience of buying in John Lewis as enjoyable as possible. It's an interesting case study of a hybrid between ownership and employment.