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Tripledoc
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It has always struck me as odd that we despite industrialization and huge advances in information processing still have to meet at a what is now called the work-place.
One should think that with the increases automatization of production the demand for labor would decrease.
However, the large majority in the Western world still does menial work and recieve pay for the effort. But what kind of work is it that the so-called tertiary or service sector actually does. A disproportiante amount of people make a living out of providing services to other people - often those being served percieve themselves as having superior status. This work is not productive, it only serves to inflate those being served with self-importance. What is essentially being traded between worker and the person being served is time. Apparently some people percieve themselves to have a greater right to time than others. They pay for extra time by making a transfer of money - the value of which is questionable were it not for the willingness of both parties to invest trust in it. Whence this trust comes from is perhaps controversial, but ultimately it has to do with power. See the giver can refuse to offer a transfer, but the taker can hardly refuse - else he be fired. The taker of money has transfered sovereignty to the employer - or the owner of his worktime. The employee is subservient to the company and must hand over the whole of the money tranfer to the employer (exempting tips where that applies). In exchange the employer gives that person the right to recieve money from the custumer, but otherwise the employee has not significantly gained anything, but investing his own person in the legitimacy of the money transfering process. To add hurt to insult the employee now takes away part of the money transfer, precisely because he was the one who invested the employee with the right to recieve the transfer. To my mind this is an unequal deal and it is slavery.
Some might say - "yes, that is capitalism and it works."What I wish to know is what it works towards. The exchange in money for extra time has not given each individual more time - has it? To the contrary. All studies show that people are working for longer hours now - and more people are involved in providing work/time than ever before in the history of mankind - in relative terms even. So despite the fact that former generation's expenditure of time has provided adequately to the average household in all things material which are supposedly time saving, but are in reality not. Take the example of the dishwasher. In medieval times one person had one plate and when it was dirty he licked it clean. Now the mere indication of a spot of food on a plate will make any infrared-bespeckled housewife skyrocket through the air in neurotic terror. Mediaval Man wore the same shirt for three weeks on end and would never consider spending the amount of resources the western world spends on washing the color out of their clothes on a continual and habitual basis.
So, if the created capital by the forceful exchange of time through money transfers has not led and will never lead to truly free society, where each individual is capable of choosing for himself what he chooses to spend his time on - then capitalist society is merely a ploy in which people agree willingly to rob eachother of time.
Furthermore capitalist society twists this even further, by saying that the people who choose to invest time in creating capital - which in this day and age merely means surplus money supply - are allowed greater access to borrowing money because they are presumably more credit worthy. Credit worthy because they have agreed with the bank that the capital they have so conspiciosly accumulated can be laid down as security. This quite puts the banks in a fix since if the borrower is deemed not credit worthy despite his surplus money supply and his carefully husbanded capital - then clearly and logically the bank itself would not be considered credit worthy. But then again the bank is simply another service for the person who thinks his time is more valuable than the bank. The accumulation of time is then an expanding and dynamic process in that the more time you have the more you a capable of accumulating. From this follows that more and more people would logically have to transfer their time to the person who thinks his time is so valuable.
Thus the money economy is simply a ploy whereby the socalled capitalists are able to feed on the surplus money supply and hand it over in exchange for ekstra time, made possible by the overall legitimization of this process in the media and the possessed governments. The need for this system is to satisfy the human need for dominance over its fellow man. Strange system in my oppinion - and it is not sufficiently productive for the whole of humanity for it to make a living.
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Inverse Icarus
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flying too low to the ground
May 2001
time: 00:25
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time is money. you trade your time for money no matter what you do. the essence of capitialism. that basically covers the first 1/3 of your post.
then you went into how we're overly clean, in terms of dirty dishes and clothes. personally, i'm not too caring about my dishes, and i stretch my laundry as long as i can, wearing jeans/shirts several times, and spraying febreeze on stanky laundry piles so the odor doesnt get too offensive. but we live in a society that scared us into this. it's like: CLEAN! OR YOU'LL GET DISEASED AND DIE". whatever. to quote george carlin "i never get sick. i have a healthy immune system because i swam in sewage when i was a kid and my body is prepared for that f*cking flu when it comes."
your final point: people are tied up in making a living and providing for their family. thats fine for them. i'd like to make a difference, but i'm young and ignorant, and the weight of the world hasn't crushed my hopes and dreams yet. ideally, and here we delve into socialism, people would work purely for the advancement of the human race (or, their society, depending on how wide-scale a system it is), but we're not there yet.
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Sava
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GO GO GO!
Mar 2001
time: 23:25
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In a capitalist society like the US, the people that control the means of production (i.e. the rich, corporations, industrialists, etc) hold everybody else hostage, and force them to work for their lives. People are slaves to the system.
In a more socialist society, government (controlled by the people) provides for the people. Sure, people don't have to work as hard, but if they don't work hard enough, then they won't enjoy certain luxuries. People have more direct control of their quality of life, whereas in American capitalism, people work and work and work; and the rich reap the rewards. It's been that way for over a hundred years, and with conservatives and capitalists in control of government (instead of the people) it's going to remain that way.
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el freako
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Bristol, European Union
Oct 1999
time: 05:25
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quote:
Originally posted by Skanky Burns
We have a much higher standard of living today than, say, 50 years ago. To pay for it, we need to work longer. For society to provide this higher standard of living for a large majority of people, it requires people in that society to do more work too. |
Sorry but that's total utter tosh.
Workers in every major economy work less hours now than they did 50 years ago (or even 25 years ago) and yet standards of living have soared:
Average Annual Hours worked in 1975 & 2000:
United States: 1850, 1840 (it was 2040 in 1950)
Japan: 2110, 1810
Germany: 1760, 1480
France: 1860, 1590
Britian: 1880, 1710
Italy: 1770, 1620
Canada: 1860, 1790
Rise in GDP per head 1975-2000
United States: 72%
Japan: 107%
Germany: 107%
France: 69%
Britian: 87%
Italy: 104%
Canada: 74%
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Jon Miller
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I am not really sure
Jon Miller
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MRT144
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Seattle Washington
Oct 2002
time: 21:25
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i work because i like it...
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Tripledoc
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Well, maybe I should change the headline to "Why do people work under the present system?"
Is it not so that women have become integrated in the labor market to an extent they were not before. hence the total amount of work being done has increased.
Also I think people in the third world work harder now than when they were farming their land - now they work in sweat-shops and factories to satisfy western demand for consumer goods. Capitalism is a global system - not an exclusively American construct.
The workers in the western world are kept in check precisely because they have acces to cheap goods from the third world. In that way the capitalists have cynically begun to exploit cheap foreign labor, and have actually involved the western workers as participants in that exploitation. Not a very nice thing to do.
I agree that work can sometimes be a satisfying experience - but only when it is oneself, friends or family who recieve the full benefit of the worktime invested.
No employer who skims off profit, please.
Capitalists must by definition enjoy their work - but under the present system it would be impossible if everyone was his own employer. if such a system existed everyone would be forced to trade work on an equal basis and the ability to dominate would be lost.
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Rogan Josh
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I am a theoretical particle physicist. I find my job extremely interesting - it is a lot of fun to learn about the physics of the universe and discuss things like black holes, supersymmetry and extra dimensions with my coleagues. And it is great to try and find solutions to problems at the cutting end of science and then travel the world explaining your solution in seminars with Nobel Prize winners in the audience.
Even so, I would probably not continue to do my job if I wasn't paid for it. My wife earns a lot of money in her job (she is a pensions actuary) so we would still have no problem with money if I didn't work, so that isn't why. It is more the feeling of self worth - somehow we are conditioned by our society to think that our lives are a failure if we don't have a successful "career". Our society tells us that we should be able to provide for our families and work our way to the top - and if we don't, we are losers. So if I wasn't paid for doing my job I would feel that my work wasn't appreciated and that I was a waste of space even although I know on an intellecual level that this is isn't true.
Having said that, if I left research and got a 'real job' I would probably still try to continue my research as a hobby - it is just that I would need the 'real job' for my feelings of self worth.
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Tripledoc
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Science and education is extremely important - yet in my country science and education budgets are being slashed. This is dangerous.
In the book The Renaissance the British historian Paul Johnson writes on the fall of the Roman Empire.
"The Greeks were inventive, and produced some scientists and engineers of genius, and the Romans were able to build on their work to carry out projects on a scale that is often impressive even by today's standards and appaered superhuman to mediaval man. but there was something suspect about Roman monumentality. It was built on muscle-power rather than brain-power. The forts, the roads, the bridges, the enormous aquaducts, the splendid municipal and state buildings, were put up thanks to a conscript or servile multitude, whose human energies were the chief source of power. the slave gangs, constantly replenished, by wars of conquest, were always available in almost unlimited numbers. The disincentive to develop new engineering skills, as opposed to the brute strenght of immensely thick walls and buttresses, was continual. Indeed there is disconcerting evidence that the Roman authorities were reluctant to use labour-saving methods, even when available, for fear of unemployment and discontent. considering the wealth of the Roman Republic in its prime, its technology was minimal, barely in advance of Athenian Greece, and confined laregly to the military sphere."
I take this to mean that unemployment in a society is a healthy sign that should not be met by reactionary policies.
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Ozz
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Canada
Mar 2002
time: 05:25
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quote:
Originally posted by el freako
Workers in every major economy work less hours now than they did 50 years ago (or even 25 years ago) and yet standards of living have soared: |
Less hours, but the "working time" is now almost pure work for most, In the past they didn't really work as
we do today.
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15-01-2003 08:28
*Looks at all the cynicism*
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