this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2023
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Antiwork
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A community for those who want to end work, are curious about ending work, want to get the most out of a work-free life, want more information on anti-work ideas and want personal help with their own jobs/work-related struggles.
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Date Created: June 21, 2023
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Essential Reads
Start here! These are probably the most talked-about essays on the topic.
- The Abolition of Work by Bob Black (1985) | listen
- On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber (2013) | listen
- In Praise of Idleness by Bertrand Russell (1932) | listen
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Packing boxes at Amazon is skilled labor?
All labor is skilled labor, but packing boxes sure as shit isn't more skill than a short order cook.
I'll do you one in reverse: all labor can be represented in the unskilled labor required to recreate it. If unskilled labor is x, and skilled labor is 2x, skilled is just a higher quantity of unskilled labor as expressed per hour.
I don't think you are saying they are actually interchangeable in that way, but employers think like this and will hire multiple 'unskilled' people to do a job that would take one 'skilled' person. In reality the work done by unskilled people will not be the same as the skilled person.
Yes, skilled labor isn't normally represented in multiple people selling unskilled labor, but rather the unskilled labor of training and whatnot.
No. Because that is assuming that all work has more primitive forms that are still extent. There really isn't a market for unskilled heart surgery. Lots of work is binary, you can and should do it, or you can't and should definitely not try.
The model you are advocating is a gross simplification that wouldn't even be applicable to basic machine parts.
No, you're grossly misinterpreting what I'm saying.
Heart Surgery is represented as the condensed unskilled labor of decades of experience before even being able to perform one. All of that training requires decades of hard training to replicate.
I'm not implying that you can get 40 dudes with no training to do heart surgery together.
How would that even work? Who is training the surgeon? Where does the unskilled labor go, does it hover about the person like a spirit?
Maybe humans are more complicated than "well since this guy has a CPR cert his labor is 1.2x the person without".
You're still thinking of it in completely the wrong way. All skilled labor is, is unskilled labor for training, and current labor. Nobody gives a shit who trained who, or where it magically needs to hang.
Fine. Skills + labor = skilled labor.
Are you studying to be an economist or something?
Almost. Labor + labor = skilled labor, as skills are just embodied labor.
No, I'm not studying to become an economist, but I am familiar with economics.
Again this makes no sense. You just admitted that throwing random people at a problem doesn't mean they know how to fix it.
You're again missing the entire point.
Training is unskilled labor. The value of skilled labor represents the time it took to train for said labor. It doesn't mean you can throw bodies at a skilled problem.
If you're missing the point this badly, I don't think you'll ever get it.
If the value of skilled labor was equal to the time it took to train there would not be situations where someone was screwed or blessed. My kids teachers have masters degrees I only have a 4-year degree in engineering. Guess who makes more money?
You're still not quite right, value and price are not the same. Price is influenced by supply and demand, value is not.
I think the observation is that little or no broad difference emerges between training for providing skilled labor, versus simply providing labor that may be considered as unskilled. In either case, one provides labor, with or without the intention of developing skill, but certainly converging toward such an effect.
You clearly haven't seen me at work.
Every skill is different from others qualitatively, not ranked hierarchically, one above or below another.
My skill is shitting in a corner, I've practiced and I'm very good at it, and I don't want no electricity scientists saying they're better than me goddammit.
Both are just following instructions. I just put a fry cook slightly higher because a mistake on their part could burn the building down. A box filler, not so much.
May I hold a box packer in higher regard, because of all the days I would lose from being shipped the wrong item, or would I be missing the concerns of broader relevance?
I get what you're saying, but calling any position a cook at McDonald's is uhh...generous.
"food assembly position" is more like it
that's most chain restaurant kitchens though...
Don't let that question distract you from how he illustrates her point: the capitalists get away with exploitation by distracting workers into fighting among ourselves. It's so easy for them: even in this thread everyone sails right past this main point into arguing about whether an Amazon warehouse worker or a McDonald's cook should earn more.
I would add, though, the deeper observation, that among the means of imposing division is the constructed distinction and terminology embodied by "unskilled labor".
The concern for workers is not which worker belongs in which category, nor even which categories should be given and how they should be named, but rather, how to challenge both the distinction and also the processes and conditions from which it emerges.
So what's the reason that I don't have to work as an Amazon warehouse dude or McDonald's cook? I'm not really a capitalist, 95% of my income comes from my work.
I don't quite see the relevance of your question. People can do different jobs. We don't need to fight with one another about them, when the real significant inequality is between what employees receive versus those who cream the value off the top.
2023, words mean anything you want them to mean and the only thing that is real is our outrage. That's why a cardiologist is just as skilled as someone stacking boxes.
The meanings of terms are often determined and enforced socially through particular systems that carry power in society.
Sure as hell is if the company needs it to happen