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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

by 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.
fsloth 11y ago
Please do not be disrespectful of the people who had to suffer through slavery as slaves by comparing their position with whomever you think is a "slave" in a modern western society.
- 1stop 11y ago
  That's right, don't talk about suffering now, because it used to be way worse! How about this: robbing everyone of any means of survival short of selling their labour is the very definition of slavery. We just obfuscate it with money, but never offer a real chance of owning capital. I'm not taking modern Western society, I'm talking historical/modern capitalism. In all societies.
  - fsloth 11y ago
    "How about this: robbing everyone of any means of survival short of selling their labour is the very definition of slavery. We just obfuscate it with money, but never offer a real chance of owning capital." So by your definition any position short of economic independece would be slavery? I'm not depreciating suffering. Calling employees in a poor bargaining position "slaves" is muddled argumentation. Any arbitrary non-negotiable position is not slavery - unless one wants to be poetic (i.e. "we are all slaves to laws of physics" etc). As to the definition of slavery I would refer to wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery "Slavery is a legal or economic system in which principles of property law can apply to humans so that people can be treated as property,[1] and can be owned, bought and sold accordingly, and cannot withdraw unilaterally from the arrangement." Capital has been always a lopsided thing - few have it. It's quite different not having capital, than being treated as a capital asset and having almost no human rights. As a fairly modern example Frederick Douglas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass) has more than a few words to say about his time as a slave. "I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of his birthday... A want of information concerning my own was a source of unhappiness to me even during childhood. ... I was not allowed to make any inquiries of my master concerning it. He deemed all such inquiries on the part of a slave improper and impertinent," http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23/23-h/23-h.htm http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23/23-h/23-h.htm Being bound to only few means of sustenance is one thing. Having ones birthday robbed is another entirely.
Dylan16807 11y ago
Both people are supposed to benefit in a transaction. Do you disagree with that? The employee getting 100% of the value is just as unworkable as the employer getting 100%. In the one extreme nobody ever gets a job because it's worthless, and in the other extreme nobody ever gets an employee because it's worthless.

by 1stop 11y ago

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.

fsloth 11y ago

Please do not be disrespectful of the people who had to suffer through slavery as slaves by comparing their position with whomever you think is a "slave" in a modern western society.

1stop 11y ago
That's right, don't talk about suffering now, because it used to be way worse! How about this: robbing everyone of any means of survival short of selling their labour is the very definition of slavery. We just obfuscate it with money, but never offer a real chance of owning capital. I'm not taking modern Western society, I'm talking historical/modern capitalism. In all societies.
- fsloth 11y ago
  "How about this: robbing everyone of any means of survival short of selling their labour is the very definition of slavery. We just obfuscate it with money, but never offer a real chance of owning capital." So by your definition any position short of economic independece would be slavery? I'm not depreciating suffering. Calling employees in a poor bargaining position "slaves" is muddled argumentation. Any arbitrary non-negotiable position is not slavery - unless one wants to be poetic (i.e. "we are all slaves to laws of physics" etc). As to the definition of slavery I would refer to wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery "Slavery is a legal or economic system in which principles of property law can apply to humans so that people can be treated as property,[1] and can be owned, bought and sold accordingly, and cannot withdraw unilaterally from the arrangement." Capital has been always a lopsided thing - few have it. It's quite different not having capital, than being treated as a capital asset and having almost no human rights. As a fairly modern example Frederick Douglas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass) has more than a few words to say about his time as a slave. "I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of his birthday... A want of information concerning my own was a source of unhappiness to me even during childhood. ... I was not allowed to make any inquiries of my master concerning it. He deemed all such inquiries on the part of a slave improper and impertinent," http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23/23-h/23-h.htm http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23/23-h/23-h.htm Being bound to only few means of sustenance is one thing. Having ones birthday robbed is another entirely.

Dylan16807 11y ago

Both people are supposed to benefit in a transaction. Do you disagree with that? The employee getting 100% of the value is just as unworkable as the employer getting 100%. In the one extreme nobody ever gets a job because it's worthless, and in the other extreme nobody ever gets an employee because it's worthless.