this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2024
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
- Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
- We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.
Our Goals
- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
- Better worker representation, including but not limited to unions.
- Better and fewer working hours.
- Stimulating a massive wave of worker organizing in the United States and beyond.
- Organizing and supporting political causes and campaigns that put workers first.
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I owned my own business with employees twice. I've faced decisions where I needed to screw over people to grow my business or make more money. "I owned my own business..."
It is not hard to make a fortune. You just need to be a psychopath in a way that threads all the legal loopholes and only hurt people that are beneath your super secret caste rank we're never supposed to admit is a thing.
It starts by making your first million in reserve by becoming a slumlord. Then you can afford to use the legal system to bankrupt smaller fish while avoiding larger predators. From then on, you just need to continue to cannibalized as much as possible. Eating big fish is dangerous. Large filter feeders that kill hundreds of thousands of average people are the safest bet. Also, fund the right political party that maintains open loopholes that are easy to exploit and protect their biggest whales, and turn a blind eye to cannibal fish, while selling idiot krill whatever mysticism nonsense they are willing to buy. It is not hard. Just be a terrible human being. I failed when I tried, but my apprentice at the time still has his house to this day.
The fact that it pays to be an awful person shows that there is just something fundamentally wrong with our society. Possibly our species.
I would say society, due to having money being displayed as success and intelligence by a lot of major news sources, regardless of the process by which they make/obtain that money.
My Google news feed thing on my phone constantly has these bullshit side hustle articles. I hate everything about them
Sure, but also think of all the horrible people throughout history that clawed their way to power and ruled both ruthlessly and successfully.
I would blame that on outliers and survivorship bias. We don't exactly care about the 100,000's of years of relatively peaceful human history. There's a reason "may you live in interesting times," is a curse. We live in interesting times.
Peaceful relative to what? Historically, war and conflict has been the norm.
Not really. If it were, we wouldn't have survived as a species. It's what we focus on, but it actually makes up a very small segment of the overall human experience.
I disagree. Conflict is what has driven our development as a species. The first tools weren't for building, they were weapons. Even today, so much new scientific development happens as a result of war, especially in medicine.
Tools predate humans..... The first tools weren't weapons. The first human tools weren't even weapons for internal conflict, they were for hyenas, since that seems to be what was predominantly hunting us at that point.
Terms of service are slavery contracts that presume all persons possess the means to process and competently understand the choices they make. The acceptance of these agreements is the legal forfeiture of citizenship and democracy. This is the simplified core issue of present Western society. Ultimately, people have proven that they will sell democracy and citizenship to anyone willing to create digital novelties. This has normalized and funded exploitation and the US party of open legislative loopholes for criminals.
Seems like a stretch unless you fundamentally understand the implications against the third pillar of democracy—freedom of information required for an informed public. Informational determinism is a cornerstone of democracy. This cornerstone is missing and the house of cards is falling as a result. Most of our present issues boil down to this one problem either directly or indirectly.
I mean the human species is a virus
Ironically, Citizen Kane has a relevant line: “It’s no trick to make a lot of money, if all you want is to make a lot of money.”
This dude talks about passing his values on to his kids who are in the business, I shudder to think what his actual values are.
Well, considering the character is said to have been based on William Randolph Hearst, you're probably quite right to be concerned.
Could you organize your business into a worker co-op instead of following the example of successful psychopaths?
Think the problem is you'll get obliterated from the market by the psychopaths.
ever seen Ocean Spray in the supermarket?
There are quite a few co-ops that compete and not owing a dividend to private equity is actually a pretty big competitive advantage.
I don't think so in general.
My personal business was just auto body and a very niche segment within that.
I've also worked for mixed ownership. They tend to fail because someone must sign for the credit required to run the business. Eventually this person holds leverage. People change, and nearly all humans are corruptible.
It is hard to run a business, like when I was the buyer for a chain of bike shops. I spent nearly 3 million dollars on preseason orders. If I got that wrong, the business is going under. A lot of that money is credit from the manufacturers. The way it works is that manufacturers have no idea how much of whatever they need to make and warehouse. Buyers know the local market, store demographics, and core customer base. They can make reasonable predictions about what will sell and how. Mind you, I needed to know absolutely every detail about new products and changes in the market with each season, but at the time I rode everywhere by bike, I raced, and I did downhill enduro for fun. I went to interbike and a bunch of demo days for brands. I effectively took over for the owners because I did my homework and backed up every decision with statistical sales history in each store. However, one of the owners had undersigned his house and that turned into leverage and a problem. We were struggling to finance and open a new store when I was nearly killed ten years ago riding to work and got hit by a driver badly. That lead to a cascade of problems that closed all of the stores a few years later.
Personally, I see group dynamics as a potential problem in most cases. The best I ever had it was when I worked completely by myself. Owning a business sucks though unless you have the money to deal with the ups and downs. Only a fool likes at or near paycheck to paycheck when they own a business. I wouldn't consider anything for a business now unless I can generate more than 15% extra money after paying everyone including myself. If you can't put money back into the business, you're going to fail within a few years
I thought about this a lot in recent months. Co-ops have existed before, especially in the 70s, but it seems greed got the better of people. People say it's difficult to obtain funding, but why not create a co-op that lends money to other co-ops first, in order to bootstrap an alternative economy?
Why all these intricate hiring shenanigans or this whole thing of having one successful product or service, then trying to milk it for as long as possible during the inevitable downward slope capitalism dictates?
(Credit: Geoffrey West)
Different forms of organization are possible. Things don't have to be done by the book; it would be us writing the book.
I've watched a documentary which mentioned Colab, an art collective. Paraphrasing Coleen Fitzgibbon, one of its more prominent members: Instead of having to be appointed and annointed to the workforce, we could simply be the workforce.