The Grind

[Salty]

Ever since reading The Jungle* I've taken to being affronted whenever some person complains about "The Grind". This may be due to these people not being physically ground into the earth for profit. We in the west have been striving to send as much of that type of work as far away as possible, presumably to achieve even higher quality goods and services. Surely, it's not a concerted effort to reduce all those pesky regulations and pay demands that develop over a century of industrial living.

Surely, it's all for a brighter tomorrow.

Meanwhile, here in 1st/2nd World paradise, people either schlep double or triple shifts OR claw away 5-15 hours at some shit retail job OR the company "goes out of business" and "comes back" and hires new people at pathetic rates. Not all of them, but way, way too many people do this.

Whatever happened to that sweet 40 an hour workweek, weekends free? Wait. What?

Is that what me or any of us want? Is that what any of us need?

I mean, while we're talking about Utopia here...what in the hell is up with that 40 hour, workweek? Unions fought hard for that shit just to get a reasonable bare minimum.** I'm starting to think that bare minimum is monstrous, archaic, and just plain stupid.

Do you feel any guilt at the idea of working any less? I do. It feels like there's a whole world out there, just waiting for me to PRODUCE as much as possible, and that 40 hours being the grudgingly set ideal, and I can't shake that shit.

At some point it's like having a car (for most people) you kinda have to because that's how it is.

At some other point you have to leave the past behind.

Do you suppose all the other human revolutions (Agricultural, etc) were as bloody as this last one?








*Until the last fifth or so turned into a tract on utopian socialism. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for that, but not in my horror story plz.
**Ooh, sore subject.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Europe has proven that you can have a fully-functional economy on a 32 hour work week.

With 6 weeks vacation.

So there's really no excuse for treating people like robots.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Europe has proven that you can have a fully-functional economy on a 32 hour work week.

With 6 weeks vacation.

So there's really no excuse for treating people like robots.

If you want to keep wages artificially low, there is.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Honestly I think the problem is that we have an economy where "what you do for a living" and "what you do for fun" are almost always in completely separate domains. Obviously, someone's got to clean toilets and there probably aren't many people for whom that qualifies as a dream job, but there's no really compelling reason why hundreds of millions of people should have to spend their best years churning out sprockets or tinkering with things just to pay the bills.

Maybe the Grind would feel less grinding if we had universal education, guaranteed health care, and an absolute promise that no matter who you are, where you come from, or what you choose to do for work, you will not starve to death, die of a treatable illness, or have to live in poverty. If we were free to experiment and find what really inspires us without the fear of "failing" and being destitute, I think a lot more people would end up happy and we might be surprised at the kinds of jobs that still get done.

[Salty]

I'd have to agree.

With those things in place I certainly wouldn't mind cleaning toilets while going to school.

And then yell at my son that I did so when he complains about whatever menial task the hive mind assigns him.

Does anyone else just sit and stare and daydream about that kind of shit, and then someone, everyone, starts talking to you about something that isn't that, and you don't get angry and shake all of them?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Honestly I think the problem is that we have an economy where "what you do for a living" and "what you do for fun" are almost always in completely separate domains. Obviously, someone's got to clean toilets and there probably aren't many people for whom that qualifies as a dream job, but there's no really compelling reason why hundreds of millions of people should have to spend their best years churning out sprockets or tinkering with things just to pay the bills.

Maybe the Grind would feel less grinding if we had universal education, guaranteed health care, and an absolute promise that no matter who you are, where you come from, or what you choose to do for work, you will not starve to death, die of a treatable illness, or have to live in poverty. If we were free to experiment and find what really inspires us without the fear of "failing" and being destitute, I think a lot more people would end up happy and we might be surprised at the kinds of jobs that still get done.

Amen. Not to mention the kind of brilliant innovation that would arise.

[LMNO]

That would certainly make my life more interesting.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

I just don't know where to even begin undermining the notion that "work" equals "money." I mean, why should your value as a human, or what goods and services you have access to, depend on what you do at work? The idea that some people are just more important than other people, which incidentally is the most fundamental cornerstone of Western civilization, demands that this is how the economy must work. Even in extreme Socialist systems, this hierarchy of purpose and impact is woven into society from the lowest levels up. It is that we value a person's actions and products above the person's self, or their beliefs or their observations, which are only important in the really fantastic so-called "dream jobs" like rock stardom -- which in reality is far less glamorous and "fun" than it looks, or so all the longtime rock stars say.

My frustration is that at its core, our entire way of life is based on this belief that function and hierarchy are superior to human experience. Which just seems completely backward to me.

[Demolition Squid]

I've often wondered if the major failing of capitalism (or one of them) is that the notion of 'value' is skewed massively by the basic need to do something to survive.

If the state paid your survival needs, we'd see a sudden surge in wages for the shittiest jobs in society... because you'd need a far bigger incentive to work them. That would put things closer towards a system where 'well if they don't like it, they don't have to do it' is actually a reasonable response to things like working conditions and benefits, because it'd actually be true.

There's some countries which have come close to this, but since society needs exploitation in order to maintain the shape we expect, I don't think it'll ever happen. Still, though, its a nice thought.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

I've often wondered if the major failing of capitalism (or one of them) is that the notion of 'value' is skewed massively by the basic need to do something to survive.

If the state paid your survival needs, we'd see a sudden surge in wages for the shittiest jobs in society... because you'd need a far bigger incentive to work them. That would put things closer towards a system where 'well if they don't like it, they don't have to do it' is actually a reasonable response to things like working conditions and benefits, because it'd actually be true.

There's some countries which have come close to this, but since society needs exploitation in order to maintain the shape we expect, I don't think it'll ever happen. Still, though, its a nice thought.

Does it really need exploitation? Can you expand on that?

[Demolition Squid]

Well, there's a few ways I mean it. There's the fact that capitalism is built on the promise that if you can accumulate wealth, you can keep it and do what you want with it. In a system which is predicated on providing the basic needs for everyone first and foremost, that can't exist - so you wouldn't have multi-millionaires most likely, let alone billionaires. Those people have access to too much capital which could otherwise be used for other purposes. It'd require a whole new set of expectations for what the 'top level' you can achieve in life is, in terms of monetary wealth.

But at its most basic level, we need people to grow our food and make our goods. We've exported the exploitation necessary to third world countries for the vast majority of basic products. If those people no longer had to do that to survive, how many do you think would continue to do so? How much would you have to pay them to go out in the fields and work, or sit in a factory all day? Its an ugly part of our world, but without the exploitation of those people, we wouldn't be able to enjoy the vastly increased standards of living we take for granted.

To bring them up, we'd have to radically reshape the entire way wealth is distributed in society. It could probably be done in theory, but it'd require a global level of governance and cooperation working against powers that are so deeply entrenched I don't think it is feasible in practice. It may not even be desirable, given what we know tends to happen with large organizations of people being people all over the place.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Employment is essentially a form of exploitation; if I can't make a profit off of your labor, I have no reason to hire you. I am OK with this, but where it goes really wrong is when employers gain too much power and are able to manipulate the market so that they are able to maximize the profit they earn from workers' labor, while minimizing the options laborers have for finding employment with a better wage-to-productivity ratio. This is why you see employees who break sales records that earn the company millions being rewarded with a brass plaque in the lunchroom.

[Salty]

 

Every quarterly big meeting at ATT we were told we just had our best quarter ever, then, every Friday we were told we were worthless scum.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Small farms work, DS. They work because farmers actually love to farm, and because local food stimulates the local economy, and because most factory farms are actually conglomerates of former small farmers who have been coerced into contract with the agricorporations, at tremendous cost to not only their individual profitability but also their way of life. The idea that we HAVE to have large-scale farming operations in order to feed the starving masses is a straight-up myth. It's a lie, invented by corporate giants to justify the ever-increasing profitability of warehousing food and people.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Every quarterly big meeting at ATT we were told we just had our best quarter ever, then, every Friday we were told we were worthless scum.

"The good news is that the company is earning record profits, and opening six new locations! The bad news is that there's a wage freeze, so sorry guys, it's the economy".