8 ms·

Ah yes, fat salaries on other people's money, and a fat pension on other people's money! Sweet deal!

1stop 11y ago
... That describes every job... ever. Unless you are the one stealing the resources directly from the land... in which case: Fat salaries on other peoples' property. But hey, hate on the academics, they are the WORST! right?
- loup-vaillant 11y ago
  > That describes every job... ever Wait, what? Most jobs give you a salary, sure, but you nearly always end up producing far more value than you are paid back. The thieves are the shareholders of the company you serve. (As for the land… not every piece of land is someone's property —and that's good.)
  - saalweachter 11y ago
    If you are producing more value than you are being paid for, why are you working there?
    - chucksmash 11y ago
      What alternative are you suggesting? salesman who sells $100,000 in product a year should get paid $150,000 a year? Unless you are part of a cost center, it seems to me the assumption is that you are producing more value than you cost to employ.
      - 1stop 11y ago
        Or people get paid their value, and we stop thinking it's okay for a select few to reap the surplus value of others... you know, kind of like how we got rid of slavery (except we didn't, we just paid a little more for it).
        chucksmash 11y ago
        An employer making a profit beyond the cost of paying their employees a (decent in many cases, especially in software) salary is not slavery...
        andrepd 11y ago
        You may not like the analogy, and the difference in scale is surely a big one, but the principle is the same. In slavery, you were prevented to quit by physical coercion. In capitalism, you are prevented to quit because if you do you and your family will starve (or at least live in poverty, on modern welfare states). The employer can pay you minimum wage for your labour, even if it generates 10x more value, because you have no choice: he has you on the palm of your hand. Submit to the conditions the capital holders dictate, or starve.
        chucksmash 11y ago
        1) You are totally discounting the social safety net. 2) If the services you provide are commoditized, there are millions of other people who can do the work you do so you are more easily replaceable. Investing in your skills can remedy that. About the worst thing you could do would be to lament how you are beholden to the capital holders while stagnating with an undifferentiated skillset. 3) "The principle is the same" is an incredibly narrow view to take. It minimizes the horrors of slavery. Working for a living in an at will arrangement is nothing like being the property of another human. You can quit, and go find a new job. You can move to another state - there are no laws that say your previous employer can send bounty hunters after you to reclaim you as a runaway. Perspective, please.
        andrepd 11y ago
        1) I didn't, that's what I was referring too when I said "or at least live in poverty, in a modern welfare state" 2) That's all very nice in principle, but in practice that's often not feasible. I'm not talking about the software industry, where everything is very open and full of opportunity, but about low-income jobs and how the people working in them often have such incredibly complex constraints about them that that talk about "investing in your skills" and "differentiating your skillset" is totally disconnected from the reality of life. 3) I guess so. Still I was trying to emphasise the whole binding aspect of it, the fact that in many situations you are only free to leave in principle, because being out of a job can throw you and your family into debt, homelessness, or worse. Wasn't exactly thinking of slavery in the literal, bounty-hunters-after-runaways, sense.
      - loup-vaillant 11y ago
        Note: there is no such thing as an actual cost centre: those quickly get fired or outsourced. (Exception: the shareholders themselves.)
    - lotharbot 11y ago
      Most employees produce a little more to their company's bottom line, on average, than their salary+overhead. They allow the surplus to go to the employer in exchange for certain benefits -- such as security, consistency, and division of labor. A lot of people would rather make $50,000 with a 4% raise every year than make $60,000 on average but with occasional dry spells, the constantly-looming threat of not being able to find new clients, and the annoyance of having to manage your own research/dev/sales/marketing/insurance/taxes/licensing/misc paperwork.
    - lmm 11y ago
      It's like buying insurance. My employer pays me a bit less than my average value in return for taking on all the risk. (Sadly this does induce a counterparty risk that I perhaps failed to fully account for)
    - andrepd 11y ago
      Of course you are producing more value than you are being paid for. Why else would an employer hire you?
  - 1stop 11y ago
    But you a receiving "someone else's money". Every piece of property was stolen at some point even if it was sold legally after that. All major resources generally have come from such "acquisitions".
daleroberts 11y ago
Yep, you'll find fat cats in every industry. My main point is that not only is there "dualisation" like is proposed in the article but out of those who have made it into a tenured position there is another hard split between those academics that are creaming it and those that do ok.

1stop 11y ago

... That describes every job... ever. Unless you are the one stealing the resources directly from the land... in which case: Fat salaries on other peoples' property. But hey, hate on the academics, they are the WORST! right?

loup-vaillant 11y ago
> That describes every job... ever Wait, what? Most jobs give you a salary, sure, but you nearly always end up producing far more value than you are paid back. The thieves are the shareholders of the company you serve. (As for the land… not every piece of land is someone's property —and that's good.)
- saalweachter 11y ago
  If you are producing more value than you are being paid for, why are you working there?
  - chucksmash 11y ago
    What alternative are you suggesting? salesman who sells $100,000 in product a year should get paid $150,000 a year? Unless you are part of a cost center, it seems to me the assumption is that you are producing more value than you cost to employ.
    - 1stop 11y ago
      Or people get paid their value, and we stop thinking it's okay for a select few to reap the surplus value of others... you know, kind of like how we got rid of slavery (except we didn't, we just paid a little more for it).
      - chucksmash 11y ago
        An employer making a profit beyond the cost of paying their employees a (decent in many cases, especially in software) salary is not slavery...
        andrepd 11y ago
        You may not like the analogy, and the difference in scale is surely a big one, but the principle is the same. In slavery, you were prevented to quit by physical coercion. In capitalism, you are prevented to quit because if you do you and your family will starve (or at least live in poverty, on modern welfare states). The employer can pay you minimum wage for your labour, even if it generates 10x more value, because you have no choice: he has you on the palm of your hand. Submit to the conditions the capital holders dictate, or starve.
        chucksmash 11y ago
        1) You are totally discounting the social safety net. 2) If the services you provide are commoditized, there are millions of other people who can do the work you do so you are more easily replaceable. Investing in your skills can remedy that. About the worst thing you could do would be to lament how you are beholden to the capital holders while stagnating with an undifferentiated skillset. 3) "The principle is the same" is an incredibly narrow view to take. It minimizes the horrors of slavery. Working for a living in an at will arrangement is nothing like being the property of another human. You can quit, and go find a new job. You can move to another state - there are no laws that say your previous employer can send bounty hunters after you to reclaim you as a runaway. Perspective, please.
        andrepd 11y ago
        1) I didn't, that's what I was referring too when I said "or at least live in poverty, in a modern welfare state" 2) That's all very nice in principle, but in practice that's often not feasible. I'm not talking about the software industry, where everything is very open and full of opportunity, but about low-income jobs and how the people working in them often have such incredibly complex constraints about them that that talk about "investing in your skills" and "differentiating your skillset" is totally disconnected from the reality of life. 3) I guess so. Still I was trying to emphasise the whole binding aspect of it, the fact that in many situations you are only free to leave in principle, because being out of a job can throw you and your family into debt, homelessness, or worse. Wasn't exactly thinking of slavery in the literal, bounty-hunters-after-runaways, sense.
    - loup-vaillant 11y ago
      Note: there is no such thing as an actual cost centre: those quickly get fired or outsourced. (Exception: the shareholders themselves.)
  - lotharbot 11y ago
    Most employees produce a little more to their company's bottom line, on average, than their salary+overhead. They allow the surplus to go to the employer in exchange for certain benefits -- such as security, consistency, and division of labor. A lot of people would rather make $50,000 with a 4% raise every year than make $60,000 on average but with occasional dry spells, the constantly-looming threat of not being able to find new clients, and the annoyance of having to manage your own research/dev/sales/marketing/insurance/taxes/licensing/misc paperwork.
  - lmm 11y ago
    It's like buying insurance. My employer pays me a bit less than my average value in return for taking on all the risk. (Sadly this does induce a counterparty risk that I perhaps failed to fully account for)
  - andrepd 11y ago
    Of course you are producing more value than you are being paid for. Why else would an employer hire you?
- 1stop 11y ago
  But you a receiving "someone else's money". Every piece of property was stolen at some point even if it was sold legally after that. All major resources generally have come from such "acquisitions".

daleroberts 11y ago

Yep, you'll find fat cats in every industry. My main point is that not only is there "dualisation" like is proposed in the article but out of those who have made it into a tenured position there is another hard split between those academics that are creaming it and those that do ok.