|
You are an idiot who lacks comprehension. I used the word garbage to describe what Rowe had to say. I was criticizing the criticizing of others going too far. It's good to give a poo poo about the work we do in the world.
|
# ? Mar 3, 2017 21:00 |
|
|
# ? May 15, 2024 04:17 |
|
Paradoxish posted:Manufacturing isn't "coming back" because it never actually went anywhere. We produce twice as much now as we did in the 70s with one third of the labor. A manufacturing boom would create a few tens of thousands of jobs at most, which is literally a drop in the bucket compared to the number of jobs the US economy produces every month. Even if all of those were high paying jobs, it wouldn't move actual wage growth one bit. quote:Don’t blame the robots! An interview on manufacturing, automation, and globalization with Susan Houseman.
|
# ? Mar 3, 2017 21:01 |
|
BrandorKP posted:You are an idiot who lacks comprehension. I used the word garbage to describe what Rowe had to say. I was criticizing the criticizing of others going too far. It's good to give a poo poo about the work we do in the world. Not if it pays nothing and is immersed in an environment of subjugation. While you call it garbage you were indeed defending the central thesis of the argument, as you remained adamant that one must still somehow remain invested along the lines discussed by Rowe. That you trot out a line about human freedom not being so in such an environment consequently strikes me as deeply loving ironic.
|
# ? Mar 3, 2017 21:06 |
|
Crowsbeak posted:It might be that they are worse than conservatives at least conservatives admit they want people to suffer. No they're definitely worse. At least conservatives acknowledge that problems exist. Dr. Fishopolis posted:You see, people who live in shanties could simply move if only they had the will. Perhaps the poor are lazy and simply prefer not to work? Yeah, that bugged the crap out of me too. Where are these poors supposed to get the money to move all their stuff halfway across the country? Once there how do they find work when shelters are full, they have no connections, and many businesses won't hire someone without a permanent address? Then, once they get their Wallmart greeter gig how are they supposed to afford an apartment when min wage gets you less than half of what you need to survive in many states? But hey some poor bastard in Bangladesh has it worse so those problems don't count I guess.
|
# ? Mar 3, 2017 21:07 |
|
BrandorKP posted:Whatever system we end up with in the future, it must provide those things : adequate food, shelter, education, and healthcare, to the populations that participate in it. The wages of the failure to provide those things will be death, in a literal sense, from instability and the growth of reactionary right. So why not a social market democracy? Identify failures of markets by applying the existing theory to the more and more advanced empirical modeling we have available today, think seriously about uncertainty and limited rationality, regulate and redistribute the poo poo out of everything with some machine learning mechanism design magic. The tools will be here sooner or later. The issue is that people/corporations either want free markets or full communism, both of which are ideologies without any economic theory support behind them.
|
# ? Mar 3, 2017 21:16 |
|
caps on caps on caps posted:So why not a social market democracy? caps on is back with his unique definition of "theory".
|
# ? Mar 3, 2017 21:19 |
|
AstheWorldWorlds posted:Not if it pays nothing and is immersed in an environment of subjugation. While you call it garbage you were indeed defending the central thesis of the argument, as you remained adamant that one must still somehow remain invested along the lines discussed by Rowe. That you trot out a line about human freedom not being so in such an environment consequently strikes me as deeply loving ironic. I'm not being paid to suffer a fool right now. Doesn't mean I shouldn't take pride in it. Anything we do we should do well and this doesn't have anything to do with how we are compensated.
|
# ? Mar 3, 2017 21:32 |
|
This is a great interview. My only real gripe is with the attitude that we can't actually change policy now because of retaliation. gently caress that pussy bullshit. America is an economic behemoth and most countries would get crushed if they tried to play that game.
|
# ? Mar 3, 2017 21:34 |
|
The best we can hope for is a trade or shooting war to protect the interests of the rich and hope some gravy gets slopped onto the ground for the rest of us
|
# ? Mar 3, 2017 21:37 |
|
BrandorKP posted:I'm not being paid to suffer a fool right now. Doesn't mean I shouldn't take pride in it. Anything we do we should do well and this doesn't have anything to do with how we are compensated. Yeah, once again, I have no idea what you are talking about regarding pride in ones work as it pertains to Mike Rowe's right wing screed, as that is not his central argument. That you are persistent in this point really does leave an impression you are obliquely defending him wrt Protestant work ethic.
|
# ? Mar 3, 2017 21:40 |
|
I'm not sure the data really backs up her conclusion entirely. This is manufacturing output vs. employment in the US, both indexed against 1997 since it's the cutoff that Houseman uses in this interview: Growth in manufacturing had clearly been rising dramatically for some time (1987 is as far back as the output series goes) despite no meaningful change in employment. Moreover, the employment metric here is thousands of persons, so that straight line is actually a gradual decline once population growth is taken into account. Without doing more research I'm willing to take the computer industry growth aspect of what she's saying at face value for 2000 and beyond, but it's pretty clear there's more going on here in general. Edit- And it's also worth pointing out that that massive drop from 2000 until now represents only about 3% of the total labor force over the course of 16 years. Paradoxish fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Mar 3, 2017 |
# ? Mar 3, 2017 22:10 |
|
readingatwork posted:This is a great interview. My only real gripe is with the attitude that we can't actually change policy now because of retaliation. gently caress that pussy bullshit. America is an economic behemoth and most countries would get crushed if they tried to play that game. The global economy is not a football game and you don't win by beating everyone else. We all win when we work together to make ourselves and the world a more prosperous place. You are identical to the German who says Greeks need to be disciplined for their profligacy: even if it destroys their economy. You're the same as the racist who says welfare queens are exploiting hard working (white) folk. You're indistinguishable from the anti-immigrant hardliners who want our fieldworkers deported to boost wages for Americans- even if it's guaranteed those jobs we just go to different foreign workers on seasonal work visas, or be automated. You just want America to start winning again so bad- you don't care if winning over everybody else is certain to make us all worse off.
|
# ? Mar 3, 2017 22:48 |
|
Squalid posted:The global economy is not a football game and you don't win by beating everyone else. We all win when we work together to make ourselves and the world a more prosperous place. gently caress the rest of the world, America should focus on making Americans better off. That includes everyone already here, so throw full amnesty into that. You are identical to the farm owner that sheds crocodile tears over the prospect of providing OSHA-compliant workplaces and living wages to their employees. You are indistinguishable from the people that abuse the H-1B system to force workers to retrain their foreign replacements. Listen, I get it, you want to ensure that we've got an unlimited reserve army of second class labor with no legal protections so you can stuff your face at a cheaper price. Why give farm workers citizenship, with all the protections that comes with, when we can reenact chattel slavery without the plantation-provided housing?
|
# ? Mar 3, 2017 22:54 |
|
See, you're so intent on making this a competition, where America has to gently caress the rest of the world to make itself better off. The world doesn't have to be like that, and looking at the practical consequences of that kind of attitude its obvious that, at every political scale from the family on up to international relations, it hurts everybody. Yet still we remain convinced that if we can just make everyone worse off than ourselves, it will somehow fix our problems. It doesn't have to be. Today it feels like the world is seized with some kind of violent mania in which everyone is convinced that by screwing enough people over they can fix all their own problems, and then they look around themselves and can't figure out why everyone else is screwing them.
|
# ? Mar 3, 2017 23:07 |
|
readingatwork posted:But hey some poor bastard in Bangladesh has it worse so those problems don't count I guess. What I was trying to point out is Malaysia isn't Bangladesh, not by far. At that point it's closer to 90% of the world's population. Though there still are drastic differences between them, i. e. Filipino maids are somewhat common among wealthier Malaysian families because of the disparity of income between the two countries. And its not like living in a literal shack is the norm for poorer US citizens, don't tell me that. And I doubt someone who does would get one of the new manufacturing jobs anyway.
|
# ? Mar 3, 2017 23:30 |
|
Paradoxish posted:I'm not sure the data really backs up her conclusion entirely. This is manufacturing output vs. employment in the US, both indexed against 1997 since it's the cutoff that Houseman uses in this interview: This was addressed in the interview. The increase in output is attributable to the rapid development of the electronics industry, especially computers, and the fact their processing speed keeps increasing every year. The rest of the manufacturing sector has performed quite poorly and at best is keeping pace with the rest of the economy, or at worst lagging behind it in productivity growth. quote:Moreover, the employment metric here is thousands of persons, so that straight line is actually a gradual decline once population growth is taken into account. No it isn't. Manufacturing employment was relatively stable for decades and then suddenly makes a dramatic plummet around the year 2000. quote:Without doing more research I'm willing to take the computer industry growth aspect of what she's saying at face value for 2000 and beyond, but it's pretty clear there's more going on here in general. The decline of manufacturing has knock on effects on the larger economy, both in the regions where factories closed and in the decline of a relatively high wage and unionized sector of the economy, or the way that outsourcing had a demoralizing effect on labour militancy and thus a depressing effect on wages. Obviously there are other factors at play here and this is only one part of a larger story but the idea that there wasn't a huge disruption in the manufacturing industry, which was directly tied in to the opening up of new labour markets in places like China, is ridiculous.
|
# ? Mar 3, 2017 23:33 |
|
Helsing posted:This was addressed in the interview. The increase in output is attributable to the rapid development of the electronics industry, especially computers, and the fact their processing speed keeps increasing every year. The rest of the manufacturing sector has performed quite poorly and at best is keeping pace with the rest of the economy, or at worst lagging behind it in productivity growth. What? I specifically responded to this in my post. Here: Susan Houseman posted:If one excludes the computer industry from the numbers, manufacturing output is only about 8 percent higher now than in 1997. It is about 5 percent lower than before the Great Recession. And, without the computer industry, productivity growth is no higher in manufacturing than in the economy overall. I chose those graphs to show that the massive increase in output coupled with flat employment began long before the time period she's talking about here. In fact, it goes all the way back to the beginning of the series tracking that data. So that massive jump in growth from 2000 is thanks to the computer industry - so what? She's still saying that the rest of the manufacturing sector has increased its output by 8% over the last two decades despite cutting a third of its workforce. Helsing posted:No it isn't. Manufacturing employment was relatively stable for decades and then suddenly makes a dramatic plummet around the year 2000. Yes, I also acknowledged this in my post. My point is that the civilian labor force literally doubled between the early 60s and 2000, yet manufacturing employment was flat in absolute terms over that same period. Helsing posted:Obviously there are other factors at play here and this is only one part of a larger story but the idea that there wasn't a huge disruption in the manufacturing industry, which was directly tied in to the opening up of new labour markets in places like China, is ridiculous. I never said any of this, so I don't know why you're responding to my post as if I did. Manufacturing was a rapidly diminishing part of the employment picture in the US long before 2000, and that apparently precipitous drop over the last 16 years actually doesn't represent a huge number of jobs compared to the wider labor market. Paradoxish fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Mar 4, 2017 |
# ? Mar 4, 2017 00:28 |
|
AstheWorldWorlds posted:Yeah, once again, I have no idea what you are talking about regarding pride in ones work as it pertains to Mike Rowe's right wing screed, as that is not his central argument. That you are persistent in this point really does leave an impression you are obliquely defending him wrt Protestant work ethic. I know you don't, and I'd imagine you don't don't get the story about Jesus and the fig tree either.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2017 05:54 |
|
call to action posted:gently caress the Fixed that for you. There is no agricultural production problem. The world produces an overabundance of food for everyone. There is no industrial production problem. The world produces enough material goods to clothe and house everyone and provide them with a decent standard of living. There is absolutely a resource allocation problem. Numbers on the spreadsheets say that a tiny fraction of people in the world control all those resources, therefore people all over the world live in fear of not being able to provide for themselves (or outright starve) while others party in luxury.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2017 15:24 |
|
BrandorKP posted:I know you don't, and I'd imagine you don't don't get the story about Jesus and the fig tree either. I know you think this kind of rhetorical move is clever, but it's just Christian sophistry and a transparent dodge.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2017 16:25 |
|
AstheWorldWorlds posted:I know you think this kind of rhetorical move is clever, but it's just Christian sophistry and a transparent dodge. These are question of class. You understand neither the dignity of work or the immediacy of the need for justice. Not understanding those things is deadly to possible ways forward right now.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2017 16:42 |
|
BrandorKP posted:These are question of class. You understand neither the dignity of work or the immediacy of the need for justice. Not understanding those things is deadly to possible ways forward right now. Mike Rowe's terrible SWEAT pledge: now apparently about the dignity of work and the immediacy of the need of justice. Good stuff brandor, keep em coming.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2017 16:46 |
|
AstheWorldWorlds posted:Mike Rowe's terrible SWEAT pledge: Again that I described as garbage. I have a toddler, he would have comprehended that by this point, hell he'd have gotten it the second time I made it. But enough arguing with an idiot. The shipping line ZIM is pulling off the west coast. Just heard from a Chief officer that the next voyage will be the last calling of west coast ports for vessel on the service. They canned office staff over a month ago in my area. Several months back they sold thier ships to a bank and chartered them. I've seen it explicitly stated the intention is for them to shrink down to a regional Mediterranean carrier. This is a slow motion controlled failure. It won't likely make the news (because it's happening slowly) but it's another container line failing. Expect more if there is a border adjustment.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2017 18:43 |
|
BrandorKP posted:Again that I described as garbage. I have a toddler, he would have comprehended that by this point, hell he'd have gotten it the second time I made it. But enough arguing with an idiot. You are doing a really terrible job of explaining your position, as you haven't really tried at all. You inject your own arguments into a clearly garbage statement as a way to obliquely defend it and then get pissy when someone calls you on it vis-a-vis your ostensible 'progressivism' which is in direct contradiction to the thing you were obliquely defending which never argued what you are arguing for in the first place. And I'm the idiot? Ok, Brandor. What you are doing is identical to more moderate conservatives half assed defense of modern right wing positions as having a "kernel of truth" by injecting stuff they do agree with into something that does not at all support their own positions if they are truly moderate. Why you felt compelled to inject your own positions into a clearly poo poo document and then throw out an obfuscatory cloud of christian sophistry confuses me, as it may be your gimmick, but it's a poo poo way of going about making actual arguments. Do you identify with elements of the document? Then make that argument instead of whatever it is you are doing.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2017 19:01 |
|
BrandorKP posted:Again that I described as garbage. I have a toddler, he would have comprehended that by this point, hell he'd have gotten it the second time I made it. But enough arguing with an idiot. where? I just hit https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3761067&userid=9123 and you never said it directly?
|
# ? Mar 4, 2017 19:10 |
|
Goa Tse-tung posted:where? I just hit https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3761067&userid=9123 and you never said it directly? Trump thread, AstheWorldWorlds felt strongly enough to bring the discussion here. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3797481&pagenumber=3&perpage=40#post469974036 I straight up call Rowe's worldview garbage. AstheWorldWorlds, are you the Putin apologist I called a liar or was that somebody else? I should look for that thread.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2017 19:36 |
|
Goa Tse-tung posted:where? I just hit https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3761067&userid=9123 and you never said it directly? BrandorKP posted:Rowe's list is about giving a poo poo about what you do, whatever it is. The structure of the list is garbage. His worldview also denies all the things outside ourselves that limit and determine our actions. That is also garbage. But there is one piece of substance in it. We can and should choose to give a gently caress about what we do in the world. Ignoring that, failing to understand that, means they win everytime. Because they'll give a gently caress and we won't. He is saying some elements or structure is garbage while implicitly agreeing. Meaning that at its core its not really garbage. He is simply flailing. Also I don't believe I have ever commented on Putin or Russia, so weird of you to bring it up. Actually if you look at my post history I have backed you up on more than one occasion regarding this stuff. AstheWorldWorlds fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Mar 4, 2017 |
# ? Mar 4, 2017 19:37 |
|
Paradoxish posted:What? I specifically responded to this in my post. Here: Output is only about 8% higher than it was in 1997 and in fact about 5% lower than before the Great Recession. That's not a "massive increase". quote:Yes, I also acknowledged this in my post. My point is that the civilian labor force literally doubled between the early 60s and 2000, yet manufacturing employment was flat in absolute terms over that same period. Yeah and then it made an unprecedented and dramatic drop since 2000 after remaining stable for decades. Between 1997 and 2008 manufacturing employment declined by 22%. quote:I never said any of this, so I don't know why you're responding to my post as if I did. Manufacturing was a rapidly diminishing part of the employment picture in the US long before 2000, and that apparently precipitous drop over the last 16 years actually doesn't represent a huge number of jobs compared to the wider labor market. In your previous post you claimed there was no real decline in manufacturing and that at most the job losses due to trade amounted to the equivalent of a few months worth of job creation. This is strange given that the US trade deficit increased dramatically in the last two decades. In 2016 the US trade deficit was about $500 billion. That's down from a peak of more than $700 billion in the mid 2000s. A substantial part of those imports are manufactured goods: Industry Week, Why the Trade Deficit in Manufactured Goods Matters posted:While the United States has been running a trade deficit in manufacturing for more than three decades, it grew considerably worse after 2000. Do you really think the US could produce hundreds of billions of additional dollars worth of manufactured goods without a substantial increase in employment?
|
# ? Mar 4, 2017 20:16 |
|
AstheWorldWorlds posted:Also I don't believe I have ever commented on Putin or Russia, so weird of you to bring it up. Actually if you look at my post history I have backed you up on more than one occasion regarding this stuff. It was someone else. I piss enough people off I can't keep track anymore. Lets cut this poo poo to the core. I'm saying it's good to give a gently caress about what we do in the world, our work regardless of what it is. Do you think that's worth doing or not?
|
# ? Mar 4, 2017 20:30 |
|
Helsing posted:Output is only about 8% higher than it was in 1997 and in fact about 5% lower than before the Great Recession. That's not a "massive increase". I'm not trying to be a dick, but it seriously feels like you're not reading my posts. The "massive increase" in my post is referring to before 1997, which I brought up specifically to show that this isn't some new phenomenon. And there's still the issue that we're talking about an 8% increase in output alongside a large drop in employment. quote:Yeah and then it made an unprecedented and dramatic drop since 2000 after remaining stable for decades. Between 1997 and 2008 manufacturing employment declined by 22%. Your argument that manufacturing employment was stable makes no sense when combined with your argument that an 8% increase in output represents a decline. You seem to be saying that it's a decline in real terms since consumption increased over that period, but if that's the case then manufacturing employment has actually been declining steadily since the 70s (at least). A roughly equal number of people being employed in manufacturing over a period where the labor force literally doubled represents a massive decline in the relative importance of manufacturing to the labor market as a whole. quote:FRED is really a lot better for this kind of data, since you can overlay series against each other: Is there a correlation there? Yeah, kind of, but the declines in manufacturing employment correlate much more strongly with recessions. There's no evidence that the trade deficit for goods was increasing alongside declining employment during recovery periods. I'd argue that what you're seeing here is two separate data points that are both being affected by similar structural issues rather than some kind of direct cause and effect relationship. quote:Do you really think the US could produce hundreds of billions of additional dollars worth of manufactured goods without a substantial increase in employment? No, but I never made this claim either. The problem is that this isn't a simple case of suggesting that we can open US factories and use them to start meeting demand for goods. That demand is largely for cheap goods, and manufacturing (even at its peak in the 90s) represents a small part of the labor force as a whole. We aren't going to suddenly start employing so many people in factories that aggregate wages will shoot through the roof because we simply do not need that many high paid factory workers.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2017 20:39 |
|
BrandorKP posted:It was someone else. I piss enough people off I can't keep track anymore. I think that the answer to that is deeply contextual, which is why I find a broad based support of Rowe's statement shocking and not at all appropriate for someone who is progressive or leftist. Historically, installing that kind of broad moral imperative that work is itself good and should be cared about has intermixed with slavery of various kinds, religion, and politics more than once. If the work itself is coerced, which as you correctly indicate makes them unfree, then caring deeply about the work and busting their rear end directly empowers the very thing that is oppressing them in a fairly linear fashion. What you are saying is true only if the labor is not coerced and is given willingly and not under duress, any conditions but these subject the broad mandate to do good work up to the context this is being applied to. However, Mike Rowe is not making the argument you are making, so there is not even that one bit of truth to it. Mike Rowe is saying "The world isn't fair, suck it up, commit yourself totally to your work [in the context of employment in a capitalist system], and don't complain". He doesn't care about whether the work is coerced or not because, as he has argued on MSNBC, unless it is literal chattel slavery out of Django Unchained then it doesn't count.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2017 20:48 |
|
Paradoxish posted:I'm not trying to be a dick, but it seriously feels like you're not reading my posts. The "massive increase" in my post is referring to before 1997, which I brought up specifically to show that this isn't some new phenomenon. And there's still the issue that we're talking about an 8% increase in output alongside a large drop in employment. You're not being a dick. It's easy to talk past each other in these internet arguments.I do think your phrasing was a bit less clear than you realize. When you wrote that "the massive increase in output coupled with flat employment began long before the time period she's talking about here" you seemed to be suggesting that this "massive increase" then continued through the period we are discussing. I understand now that this is not your position so my apologies for misinterpreting you. quote:Your argument that manufacturing employment was stable makes no sense when combined with your argument that an 8% increase in output represents a decline. You seem to be saying that it's a decline in real terms since consumption increased over that period, but if that's the case then manufacturing employment has actually been declining steadily since the 70s (at least). A roughly equal number of people being employed in manufacturing over a period where the labor force literally doubled represents a massive decline in the relative importance of manufacturing to the labor market as a whole. I think the point of contention here is that the decline hasn't been steady at all. Manufacturing employment was stable in absolute terms despite declining as a share of the economy until 2000 and then suddenly makes a historically unprecedented nose dive. The point here is that while automation obviously plays a significant long term role in the decline of manufacturing as a share of GDP it doesn't explain the dramatic drop that occured during the last 17 years. quote:FRED is really a lot better for this kind of data, since you can overlay series against each other: But there is evidence showing that the trade deficit was impacting unemployment. We can actually see companies closing factories in the US and moving them to Mexico or Asia during this period. We can go to the towns where manufacturing jobs disappeared and cratered entire local economies. The idea that it's a complete coincidence that the trade deficit increased and manufacturing employment both fell in unprecedented and dramatic ways during the same period is hard to sustain when you actually examine what was going on in the economy during that period. quote:No, but I never made this claim either. The problem is that this isn't a simple case of suggesting that we can open US factories and use them to start meeting demand for goods. That demand is largely for cheap goods, and manufacturing (even at its peak in the 90s) represents a small part of the labor force as a whole. We aren't going to suddenly start employing so many people in factories that aggregate wages will shoot through the roof because we simply do not need that many high paid factory workers. So do you agree or disagree that the US could produce hundreds of billions of additional dollars worth of manufactured goods without a substantial increase in employment? Or are you maintaining that in the absence of trade with China that Americans just wouldn't have consumed the $526 billion worth of manufactured goods that they imported between 2002 and 2011? I just want to circle back to your initial claim that I was responding to, which was that the trade deficit in manufactured goods was the equivalent of a few months worth of job creation. During the George W. Bush administration (if we exclude 2002 and 2008) average job creation per month was 130,000. You really think that if the US trade deficit was 1% to 2% of GDP instead of 5% to 6% of GDP that this would have only created a couple hundred thousand extra jobs? Because that sounds like a gigantic leap of logic. This isn't to say that you could just magically flip a switch, throw up a tariff wall and magically create millions of new manufacturing jobs over night. But people need to stop repeating these ridiculous assertions about how US trade policy has no relationship to the decline in manufacturing employment.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2017 20:58 |
|
AstheWorldWorlds posted:What you are saying is true only if the labor is not coerced and is given willingly and not under duress, any conditions but these subject the broad mandate to do good work up to the context this is being applied to. Have you ever watched Bridge Over the River Kwai? Even in that situation there is something deeply human in finding meaning in work even if it is forced and detrimental to our own ends, and even if one ends up pushing the plunger blowing it all up. This something that strongly motivates a good percentage of people, to the point of it being a fundamental part of thier identity. It's dangerous to just toss it out as protestant work ethic.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2017 21:10 |
|
BrandorKP posted:Have you ever watched Bridge Over the River Kwai? Even in that situation there is something deeply human in finding meaning in work even if it is forced and detrimental to our own ends, and even if one ends up pushing the plunger blowing it all up. This something that strongly motivates a good percentage of people, to the point of it being a fundamental part of thier identity. It's dangerous to just toss it out as protestant work ethic. I would prefer to discuss history, not fictional movies. If you want to discuss the Burma-Siam railway then I am open to that. There was nothing good or noble in that work, including the 100k+ it killed. Anything good out of that is merely incidental and to be taken in the context of thousands of humans bring ground up so a malevolent empire could have better communications to continue a campaign of murdering millions.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2017 21:22 |
|
BrandorKP posted:Have you ever watched Bridge Over the River Kwai? Even in that situation there is something deeply human in finding meaning in work even if it is forced and detrimental to our own ends, and even if one ends up pushing the plunger blowing it all up. This something that strongly motivates a good percentage of people, to the point of it being a fundamental part of thier identity. It's dangerous to just toss it out as protestant work ethic. If anything one of the core themes of that vote was how perverse that pride ends up. They are indeed proud of the work they did (entirely ahistorical but it is a story nonetheless), but that didn't discount the reality of their situation which was one of forced labor and misery. It seems like Rowe's point is that workers should be left nothing but that hollow pride. (Granted, I don't think work itself is a bad thing and if anything can be extremely unifying but that doesn't actually fix the issue of starvation pay and terrible working conditions.) Ardennes fucked around with this message at 21:32 on Mar 4, 2017 |
# ? Mar 4, 2017 21:28 |
|
Ardennes posted:(Granted, I don't think work itself is a bad thing and if anything can be extremely unifying but that doesn't actually fix the issue of starvation pay and terrible working conditions.) FWIW, I do agree that one should do good work but that this is heavily contingent on the degree of coercion involved. Rowe is ideologically committed to never seeing any coercion in capitalism, and so the entirety of his manifesto is garbage. Like to expect the same enthusiasm and passion out of wage slaves working at wal-mart as well compensated members of a WSDE seems perverse if not outright sadistic to me.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2017 21:45 |
|
AstheWorldWorlds posted:FWIW, I do agree that one should do good work but that this is heavily contingent on the degree of coercion involved. Rowe is ideologically committed to never seeing any coercion in capitalism, and so the entirety of his manifesto is garbage. I do think work does have a socially unifying effect, the question is what it can be used for especially in a society that deeply values wealth. In the Soviet Union, the country was a worker state in a literal sense since there was practically full employment and everyone was classified as some type of worker (including intellectual workers). You can make a point this was still exploitative and in the end failed in it's goals but at the same time it did give society a unified sense of purpose and even at times comradery. In comparison, in the US where is this actually leading? You can tear down the ideology of the Soviets, but there doesn't actually seem to be any foundation to the same type of "worker pride." At least the Soviets thought there were struggling towards something even if the cause collapsed on itself, what is the point of pretending we are "all in it together" when it is very very clear we aren't? Ardennes fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Mar 4, 2017 |
# ? Mar 4, 2017 22:03 |
|
Ardennes posted:I do think work does have a socially unifying effect, the question is what it can be used for especially in a society that deeply values wealth. In the Soviet Union, the country was a worker state in a literal sense since there was practically full employment and everyone was classified as some type of worker (including intellectual workers). You can make a point this was still exploitative and in the end failed in it's goals but at the same time it did give society a unified sense of purpose and even at times comradery. I know I'm pointing out the obvious, but it's much easier to exploit someone if they think you are in it together.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2017 22:19 |
|
Cerebral Bore posted:I know I'm pointing out the obvious, but it's much easier to exploit someone if they think you are in it together. As I already stated, but at the same time, you can also make a point that sometime that type of social leveling and common identity can also be a positive thing. It is also easy to exploit people if they are fighting among themselves for the lowest possible wage.
|
# ? Mar 4, 2017 23:28 |
|
|
# ? May 15, 2024 04:17 |
|
AstheWorldWorlds posted:FWIW, I do agree that one should do good work but that this is heavily contingent on the degree of coercion involved. Rowe is ideologically committed to never seeing any coercion in capitalism, and so the entirety of his manifesto is garbage. That's the prosperity gospel and American Christianity rearing its ugly head again. The Bible even says that you should work your hardest at whatever it is you're doing pretty much no matter what. Diligence is, after all, considered a virtue. However, that was written at a time when most people were subsistence farmers and capitalism as we know it today wasn't even thought of. It also looks at that in a vacuum and ignores all other virtues. Yes people like Rowe are absolutely right in that we should individually all work hard, be productive, and take pride in doing whatever it is we do well. However, he's also ignoring why so many low-paid workers have lost their motivation and he's also very wrong that anybody who can't make enough to survive on only has themselves to blame. He also willfully ignores how much game rigging the rich have done in the world today to make all the gains flow into their pockets. The other side of "diligence being a virtue" is that if you work hard you'll reap the rewards. In this day and age they're ignoring that second part; the expectation is that anybody who works should work as hard as they possibly can and just let other people have the rewards. It's a common reversal of the actual logic; they're just assuming that the poor are poor because they aren't diligent and industrious when really why would they bother working hard if they don't see any gain out of it? The guy stocking the shelves still makes $9 an hour if he does only enough to not get fired instead of as much as he possibly can. If he works his hardest his raise is still going to be garbage. Expending extra effort gets him no extra reward other than a higher expectation of more work. Really a lot of American businesses are seeing problems because of this kind of thing right now. Yeah it's cheaper to hire deliberately exploited people working part time for minimum wage at multiple places with no benefits but those employees are going to be miserable, unmotivated people who do bad work. This is especially true when they realize that their boss is actively looking for excuses to fire them so they don't have to be given raises, promotions, or any benefits ever. Why bother working hard for a business to make it prosper when you know the boss wants to fire you as soon as he can? Why bother putting in extra effort when you know that you'll never be given full time hours? It's truly amazing how many people think "well we told the poor to work harder! My job here is done. It's their own fault lol end welfare" is the entirety of the story. ToxicSlurpee fucked around with this message at 23:58 on Mar 4, 2017 |
# ? Mar 4, 2017 23:40 |