- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/7597775
Alienation of labour, what’s that?
You must log in or register to comment.
I feel incredibly blessed to have a job that allows me to do my work on my own time, and to utilize company resources to educate myself while on the clock. I honestly get excited to go to work nowadays, and it’s great. :)
You have drawn a good lot it seems. Tho no matter how pleasant the job, you still create more value for your boss than you get paid back by them… (value extraction for profit lessss goooo)
True, although this can be alliviated by working in a worker-owned cooperative business
not rly, market machinations force co-ops to behave like for-profit capitalist companies regardless. The hell of capitalism is the firm, not the fact that it has a boss. Even if you have great conditions as a worker-owner, your privilege is just built on the backs of non-owner (aka. 2nd class) workers and outsourcing (see Mondragon in Spain for example)
Don’t get me wrong though: co-ops are still virtually always better than “standard” corporations imo. What I mean to say is that the systemic problem of capitalism is not solvable by just creating companies “of a new type”
You’re forgetting the fact that your work has zero value in a vacuum though. If you enjoy your employment and are well remunerated for it, then a cut for the enabler isn’t actually unreasonable. Having said that, the cut taken is usually way too high, but that’s another discussion…
The employers’ claim extend beyond a cut. They solely appropriate 100% of the whole positive and negative product of the firm while employees as employees have 0% claim on the whole product
Well that’s not really true… It’s very common for employees to be granted shares in some form or another, and of course your salary comes from some proportion of the firm’s profits. Don’t get me wrong, if I could just work on open source stuff all the time and have money magically appear in my account I’d be chuffed, but in the absence of a market, one arises - some people don’t want the hassle of figuring out what people actually want and are happy to lend their arms to the oars in exchange for someone else to figure out where to go, and of course some people feel like they have a good vision as to what will be productive but don’t have the ability to create the whole edifice themselves.
Regulation is, of course, important - in a democracy, the theory is that everyone has a right to vote for a government who will in turn protect their interests in what can otherwise become a very leveraged position for the employer - but the notion that every CEO is inherently a leech on society simply by virtue of being an employer seems a little too lacking in nuance for me to get onboard here.
In the context of the real world, I think it’s unquestionably the case that director-level positions are over-rewarded and insufficiently taxed and regulated, but I see that more as a failure of implementation; I’m not sure how people could ever cooperate on the diversity of projects that currently exist if the employer/employee relationship we’re forbidden. A lot of people are simply unable or unwilling to play the role of general; not everyone falls into that category of course, and it would be an interesting world if one could just join a collective effort and from the get-go be as highly rewarded and as listened to as the project’s progenitors, but it can often take a long time to build up context…
Anyway what I’m saying here is that dictating a global framework for the structure of collective effort is genuinely really hard, and that’s before you even get into the issues of what mandate is required for a body to be able to stipulate such a framework to begin with
The whole product is the legal rights to the produced outputs and the liabilities for the used-up inputs not value. The employer legally owns the outputs and is legally liable for the used-up inputs.
FOSS can use quadratic funding. Not arguing for complete market abolition.
The workers are de facto responsible for production. By the principle that legal and de facto responsibility should match, the workers should jointly receive the whole product of the firm. The workers can delegate in a coop
The latter problem could be solved by banning having non-member workers at the legal level and requiring giving workers voting rights in the firm they work in.
Worker coops don’t behave exactly like for-profit companies. Anti-capitalism is more than just worker democracy. For example, another aspect is common ownership of land and natural resources with fees for use. This would ensure that worker coops factor in environmental costs
It’s pretty plain for me to see it. I still like my job as well, but I know my company charges clients 3x my hourly wage for an hour of my time.
Oh believe me, I’m well aware. Having a healthy work environment doesn’t change the fact that it gets harder and harder every year to pay rent.
That’s why it makes me livid when landbastards talk about “passive income”… it’s just extorting money from working ppl (who actually create value) for the “privilege” of having one’s basic needs met
did you start planning your communist revolution yet?
Is there is job that isn’t value extraction for profit?
That is the entire point of hiring someone is to make more profit.
I personally feel attacked.
Yeah. What about those of use who are in Google Sheets 9 hours a day? Fuck OP.
I’m sorry, how could I forget? smh 😔
Hey, This is lemmy! You gotta include the open source ones too like OpenOffice and LibraOffice That might fly in other platforms but not lemmy
Lmao, I don’t think they enjoy whidespread corporate usage tho. Also Excel is pretty much a synonym for spreadsheets in general at this point
Sorry to hear that… Maybe join a union and/or socialist party/org in your area to bring about change?
It’s ok if you don’t have the energy/motivation for that though… maybe just spread the word that a better world, where the economy is democratically controlled and owned by the public, is possible?
Doing excel for 9 hours straight is far better than breathing toxic gases inside a damp,badly lit coal mines tho. Juste saying…
Yes of course and eating trash is better than eating shit
What I mean is that work conditions have vastly improved compared to the last century (thanks to unions). It may be miserable yes but it’s a far cry from the horrible work that our ancestors were forced to endure starting from a young age.
I get what you mean. Ofc class struggle has brought us many concessions, technology progresses over time and the industrialized countries add more and more abstraction layers to manual work.
My point would be that we do have to view the working conditions relative to what’s possible at the given time. Given the resources humanity has today, fully automated luxury (queer) space communism is within realistic reach!
It’s a similar answer as to world hunger: it’s a systematic distribution - not resource - problem. That being artificially created scarcity thanks to a profit and greed driven economic base (capitalism) and inequitable/inefficient allocation of resources (markets)
I can only agree
Doing excel for 9 hours straight is far better than breathing toxic gases inside a damp,badly lit coal mines tho. Juste saying…
Give it time. Those work conditions are getting gradually worse all over again as the internal contradictions intensify.
I suppose that is the 3 largest domino.
Trades are always hiring. My phone says I walk like 5 miles a day just working in our factory. I use my brain, body, problem-solving skills, and have real conversations with my coworkers daily about how to go about the work and solve problems, or just pass the time when we’re not as busy. I learn new things constantly and enjoy working with my hands and making my work look beautiful, which can be surprisingly deep in the field of industrial electrical work.
Just know that if anyone’s interested in this kinda thing, make sure you have some thick skin and maybe leave a terminally online brain at home
making my work look beautiful
The plumber who did work in my kitchen made a fantastic job of the under-sink pipework. Everything curved and lined up just so, little screw valves instead of clunky taps, it’s lovely. It’s hidden away behind cleaning products, but I know it’s there and it makes me smile. Thank you to tradespeople who enjoy their work!
Which trade are you in?
I’m gonna guess industrial electrical work
Yes. Specifically industrial control and automation, which is apples to oranges to commercial and industrial building power distribution for example.
I worked for GE as a grunt first building inverters for solar fields and power plants. Then I did field service for them in the American southwest when they shut down the factory and sent all the work to GE Germany and Japan.
Then when all of the re-work we were doing was done, I passed on traveling indefinitely and came back home to Pittsburgh. I got hired opening a new factory for a company that makes machinery used for plastics recycling and worked there for close to a decade as their only electrical technician. That shop holds a deep place in my heart for the connections and friendships I made there. But I saw us getting slow as fuck and everyone quitting and decided to switch jobs this year for a better paycheck and closer commute. Now I work solely in testing and do a bit of design work and drafting.
I’d love to have a job where I get paid to work with excel the whole day. Not kidding.
It’s pretty dope, especially when you get to work from home. I’m usually in my pajamas snuggled under a blanket. Much comfier than dress pants in a cubicle.
I never got why people love working from home so much. Home has so many distractions like my PC, my phone, my fridge, etc.
It also helps to just physically seperate my work from my free time. My home is my fortress where no work shall ever be done, a place for resting and wanking.
Also, work was like 90% of my social interaction and the pandemic really did a number on me.
In a cruel twist of fate, I now work almost exclusively from home, a dream for others, a dread for me.
Have you tried walking to and from work every day? It can help you pretend they are different places.
You wake up and do your morning routine, then you walk around the block and start your working day when you reach your home office. Then at the end of the day walk around the block and home to mark the end of your work day.
Why not automate stuff? Do enough janky shit with excel functions and macros so you get everything you need from copying data into a worksheet.
Then you’re only getting more work, not more free time, for the same wage
See that’s where a lot of people go wrong
Automate what you can but don’t tell anyone and don’t turn it in any faster
Make your deadlines and be one with the chill
Then you have to play the look busy game if you’re in an office
Some people excel at that.
9 hours? Every day? Where? I work 8 hours and obviously only 5 days a week. I thought that’s the norm.
