I love how in every topic about WFH there’s some dudebro going on about the economy suffering due to supposed lessened productivity and I’m like… Why should I care?
Don’t you even think about the billionaires, bro?
Less trickling down for me
You should care because that profit should be going to the workers who create the value. It doesn’t go to the workers, so you should continue not caring about productivity. Damn the man.
Workers aren’t the only factor the creates value. Capital and land also add value. Why would people use them otherwise?
That being said, the workers are jointly responsible for their actions in production while capital is merely an instrument of their will and cannot be responsible for anything. Workers are denied the positive and negative results of their actions, so we should not care
Oh no! We got so wrapped up thinking about general human well-being, we forgot about productivity!
But for real, if the economy isn’t for people then wtf is it for?
Oh, it is for people. Just not for people like us.
I’m a micro bro, don’t attempt to assuage me with your macro stats
I’m a micro bro
Sorry to hear that. I heard there are pills for it now.
my poor feelings!
It’s also bullshit. Worker productivity is overall slightly up with WFH. The economy suffered from the pandemic and everything that entails.
I love the abstract “productivity”.
Like yo, cancer is incredibly productive.
Demolishing subsistence farms and replacing them with cash crop slave plantations is mad profitable.
I could make thousands of dollars in a day if I just sold everything I own.
Our metrics of economic growth revolve around basically doing all of the above, to varying degrees of figurative vs. literal-ness.
This reminded me of an old joke:
Two economists are walking down the street with their friend when they come across a fresh, streaming pile of dog shit. The first economist jokingly tells the other “I’ll give you a million dollars if you eat that pile of dog shit”. To his surprise, the second economist grabs it off the ground and eats it without hesitation. A deal is a deal so the first economist hands over a million dollars.
A few minutes later they come across a second pile of shit. The second economist, wanting to give his peer a taste of his own medicine, says he’ll give the first economist a million dollars if he eats it. The first economist agrees and does so, winning him a million dollars.
Their friend, rather confused, asks what the point of all this was, the first economist gave the second economist a million dollars, and then the second economist gave it right back. All they’ve accomplished is to eat two piles of shit.
The two economists look rather taken aback. “Well sure,” they say, “but we’ve grown the economy by two million dollars!”
That’s not how productivity works. It’s basically looking at how much a person can produce with a given amount of labor.
Take that small scale subsistence farmer. Individually, they will live a precarious life. Their country will not have the surplus food needed for other pursuits like building cities, engaging in R&D, developing science, and so on. A smaller and smaller number of people need to be able to feed more and more using less land per person.
Manually copied manuscripts are another example. They were painstakingly copied over by hand in an incredibly low productivity manner. The introduction of the printing press essentially eliminated an art form, but gave rise to practical mass media.
In the present day, computers have been the main form of productivity booster. While arguably social media is a drag on productivity, overall computers open up a broad range of possibilities.
Like yo, cancer is incredibly productive.
Cancer is incredibly costly to society. Think about it, a single person getting cancer could mean many hours of them being in the hospital. Net zero on productivity
Demolishing subsistence farms and replacing them with cash crop slave plantations is mad profitable.
As I detailed above, transitioning from unproductive farms to highly productive farms is necessary. Don’t believe me, ask Mao.
I could make thousands of dollars in a day if I just sold everything I own.
That would not be a productive activity since there would be no value added. Arguably there would be less value, since that stuff is likely worth more to you than it is to another person.
The problem in the US is that increasing productivity among individuals is not scaling evenly with increasing benefits for individuals. So despite the success of large scale agriculture or the efficiency offered by computers, it feels like “productivity for productivity’s sake” at best or “productivity for the wealthiest individuals’ sake” at worst. It is not productive for me to work harder at my job because it does not translate to any tangible benefit for me, my family, or my community. To me, this is what makes “productivity” feel like an abstract concept.
Don’t you understand? The line must go up as sharply as possible forever.
I prefer co-op games like the James Webb telescope. Thanks ESA for a perfect launch.
I’m a simple man, I see actual accomplishments of mankind being mentioned and I upvote.
Line go up is for smooth brained animals.
Rocket go up is for true gentlemen.
It took me way too long to realize chasing a high pay, high stress career wasn’t worth it. I envied my friends and family for being able to enjoy weekends, evenings, and holidays when I couldn’t. I missed my best friends bachelor party, I missed Christmas and New Years parties. If i didnt miss them entirely i would show up late or leave early from every occasion. I realized I was going to reach the end of life never having lived it.
Yup, I gave up my 70 hour work weeks. My 50 hour weeks grew my salary and position, then my 60 hour weeks put me in charge of massive projects, which drove me to 70 hours during a couple ERP implementations. I took a paycut overall, but now I work 40 hours.
By law in Germany you cannot work more than 40 hours per week. There are some exceptions but usually it’s downright illegal for employers to request it.
Sorry, didn’t see your email cos it’s actually fuckin illegal to send me it if I’m not working
It can’t be illegal to send you an email outside working hours, that’s just silly. Now if it’s illegal to demand that you read it and respond outside working hours, I would understand.
I’m definitely cutting off my nipples this summer
How very Ichi the Killer.
I used to work for a French company. My colleagues in France would take the whole damn month of August off, and then complain that North Americans never worked.
That’s the thing - if you have plenty of vacations and a short work week, then you tend to actually do work during your working hours. If you’re in the workplace for 70 hours every week all year, then naturally you can’t do useful work for most of these hours. Which is why it looks like you never work as you have to rest at work.
I’d rather have 30 incredibly intense and productive hours than 60 completely chill no stress do a little of this a little of that hours.
My old job was 60-70 hours of incredibly intense productivity (was working for a Japanese corporation) and I learnt at a rate well above what other workers would due to the intensity, but then I had a breakdown from burn out. Keeping that tempo for fewer hours is the best of both worlds. Employers need to be focused on output rather than time logged.
I agree. There’s also that benefit you forgot to mention that you have 30 hours more free time to spend however you like, instead of somewhat “free” time that you have to spend at work.
But the real killer is average life expectancy.
Check out the southern US states for that, especially Mississippi. It’s soul crushing that people think that’s okay.
And the rocket scientists over in the Mississippi legislature thought it was a good idea to turn down Medicaid expansion funds from the ACA. I honestly have a hard time figuring out how self destruction they let themselves be.
According to Wikipedia, 74.7. Hawaii is the highest with 81.6. That’s fascinating, on average people in Mississippi are living 7 fewer years. That’s a lot.
Oooo that must sting.
Also, it’s not just about time off, you can have decent time off (not 6 weeks, but decent), but the culture can be hyper competitive.
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Instead of being smug Europeans could try to help foster solidarity amongst the workers of the world and help Americans fight for their labor rights
Thanks for your comment. I’m currently out of office on annual summer vacation until 30th sep 2023.
savage 🤣
Ok, how do I, as an individual, do that?
By posting memes on Lemmy to piss off Americans, so they start to take formative action after they research the memes context and realise they don’t have free health care, cheap/free post secondary education, and mandatory holidays like the EU bros.
Tldr: Post them memes buddy!
Edit: guys… this is c/memes. Y’all are taking this way too literally lmao. Lighten up a bit ffs.
We are very aware of the shittiness of our labor laws
Free healthcare does not exist. Someone will pay the bill. The bill may not be ridiculously inflated but someone pays.
No shit, literally no one actually thinks this when they say “free healthcare” what they mean is that it’s free for the individual. As in, you don’t have to deplete your life savings because you had an injury.
It is not free for the individual. People pay 800 Euro for healthcare per month regardless if they need it or not. Everyone contributes to paying the bills except the young and very poor.
That’s because those two groups CANT PAY THE TAX CAUSE THEY DONT HAVE ANY MONEY.
Do you also hate public roads? After all your taxes go to fixing those even if you don’t own a car!
We can play this dumb shit game all day.
Read what i said. You assume shit because of voices in your head. I stated what is real without any judgment. You assume my opinion based pn a picture your brain painted based on nothing. I did not voice an opinion anywhere.
If you live in the UK and earn £100k per annum (which puts you in the highest tax bracket), then you are paying £460 per month for all social securities including healthcare. If you earn less, you pay less. Where did you get this €800 from? Your dumb ass?
Your manners are pretty decent for earning so much money. Gratulations. Not everyone is living in the uk…
I’m not saying you’re wrong but you are being pedantic: aka the worst kind of right.
It’s free in the same sense that a free school lunch is free: the exchange of money happened long before/after the actual goods or services get to the person who needs it
They know. Most people that use that argument just want to make their position known, ie: socialism bad.
I am not pedantic. I am precise. People need to understand that other people pay for their treatment and it does not just happen.
No one thinks that though so I’m not sure who you’re trying to preach to.
How? All I want is to replace the term free healthcare with socialized healthcare. All the other arguments here only exist because people assume opinions that where never voiced.
People know and understand that - that’s why countries with high tax rates aren’t seeing people throw tea in the water on a regular basis. They understand that they have representation and a share in the value that comes having those relatively high tax rates.
Motivation to even want to have some solidarity instead of smugness is the first step honey.
I would recommend you start by joining the Industrial Workers of the World and paying monthly dues to empower the union to fight the fight necessary. https://www.iww.org/membership/
There is a difference in interests at work between employees and employers. Even if someone doesn’t own the business, if they have real hiring and firing power over other workers then they count as an employer to us.
I have two direct reports at work, so it seems like they consider me an employer, and I’m not eligible to join.
yep, capitalist scum
Establish more labor unions! This is the only solution.
No.
maybe stop calling everybody on this side a “sOcIaLiSt” and we might feel like it
Imagine thinking that the American posting asking for worker’s solidarity is somehow not left of the socialists
Who cares about Americans?
Lower unemployment because there are mainly no basic benefits and people have to eat or they’d die
I’m neither so i don’t get it, any help?
Top panel is explaining why Americana are better than Europeans. Bottom panel retorts with saying that they’re on vacation. Europeans get more paid vacation time than Americans.
EDIT: Added “paid” vacation time. Also, someone else mentions that it’s obligated, so they have to take it. I’m not sure about this, so I’m not editing above to include it, but there you go.
*paid vacation time.
Thank you, edited my comment to include this.
There’s no Americans bragging about that. Corporations and the government, sure. The rest of us are to busy living in pain
Some years ago I were in US on vacation and a Cadillac commercial said you shouldn’t buy cars made by lazy people wo have 4 weeks vacation every year, instead you should buy an American car.
Disgusting.
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God please let me move to Europe I don’t even care what language I have to learn I just wanna be able to live without worrying about affording a doctor appointment.
Sprich Deutsch du Hurensohn.
That’s ich_iel spirit.
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Maybe you don’t need the language for work. But you will need te learn the language eventually for other day to day interactions.
im in the country for almost 10 years now without speaking a word. not true.
Or the paper works outside of the labs.
never needed german knowledge to do standard burocracy stuff
post ww2 socialist russia people had more disposable income and more vacation days than americans.
