I often tire of hearing how businesses should be left alone to regulate as they see fit--that governmental interference in the workplace is disruptive to economic progress.
Perhaps.
But then there's this:
from In Praise of Slowness
Carl HonoréOne British manager put it bluntly: "We're in a cut-throat business, and if our rivals are getting seventy hours per week out of their staff, then we have to get at least that to stay in the game."
This is the attitude that infuses laissez-faire economics--people are capital, people are commodities, people are resources to be used and disposed of at will. It is dehumanizing and it is a distinctly anti-Christian view of the person. And if it is not actively protested by those who experience it--if we countenance it, then we are contributing to its continuation. The form of protest, the one I use most often and which offends nearly no one is to refuse to say "We don't have the resources for that." I always say, "There are not enough people for that" or "We do not have enough staff to manage that." It's a small way of continuing to point out that people are people and staplers and paper are resources.
I always say, "There are not enough people for that" or "We do not have enough staff to manage that." It's a small way of continuing to point out that people are people and staplers and paper are resources.
Steven you absolutely nailed it. Right on.
I find it endlessly fascinating how it is that women allow themselves to be beaten by their spouse or boyfriend. "But he loves me!" they say, and go back to him despite the beatings. Perhaps it's simply that I'm envious of how the knave often seems more appealing to women than someone like me, never prone to violence. Sort of how Errol Flynn was more interesting to most women than someone more unthreatening.
Similarly I'm fascinated in how it comes that employees allow themselves to be treated like chattel. Free markets in theory are double-sided, yet we employees assume the employer has all the power despite the lack of slave labor in this country. It's one of the mysteries of life for me as one who would be very motivated to find another job if my employer expected even 50 hours. It's similar to democracy, isn't it? I suspect fear is the great motivator on earth and employees have much greater fear than employers and so the balance tips that way.
It also sort of reminds me of how we complain bitterly of politicians lying while at the same time demanding they lie, as Ave Maria radio host Al Kresta pointed out on Friday. He said the fault lies in not just with politicans but with the voters who *want* politicians to lie, finding the truth simply hurtful. Kresta pointed out how Phil Graham recently spoke the truth and how we are not in a recession but was excorciated for it. Liberal Michael Kinsley said the same thing in his famous line about how a Washington gaffe is when someone tells the truth.
On a slight tangent, it seems to me that the correct analysis would be, "If our rivals are getting seventy hours a week out of our staff, they're clearly burning out their employees, making mistakes, and doing a very poor job of deciding what actually needs to get done."
While I am, I suppose, I bit of a laissez faire type in some ways, I have never seen teams that are being pushed to the 70 hour point (or even the 60 hour point) that are actually doing the company a real benefit in the long run by doing so. Once you push people past 50 hours for more than a week or two at a time, you lead to burn-out, mistakes, or both. And it's time to ask: Is everything we're doing something we really need to be doing (which it seems like is usually the problem -- people afraid to skip stuff that really is not that essential)? And: What will happen if these people burn out and leave their current jobs?
It seems to me that one of the insights of economics which is far too often ignored (especially by some employers in "hot" areas like tech, law, finance and marketing) is that exchange must maximize benefit for _all_ parties involved, or it will eventually self correct (to the detriment of the party which has been getting an unfair share of benefit in the mean time.) Thus, if a company effectively cannibalizes its employees, burning them out and pushing them harder than they should be expected to work for human flourishing, it will eventually come back and bite the company -- sometimes hard.
So I figured I'm doing the company a favor when I refuse to let our team take on unsustainable load, or identify things that people simply don't need to be doing because it's churn with minimal benefit.
Dear TSO,
While I agree with much of what you say, I have a good deal of sympathy with those who do not or cannot leave their jobs. From what you say, I infer you work in a field that has a broad applicability and transfer to another position is not particular difficult because the skills--are readilly transferable--and I don't mean to slight you by that--many people do have such transferable skills. However, the field I work in is not one with highly transferable skills between branches. So, for example, to make the money I am presently making (which would still represent a 20-40% cut in pay because of where the other positions are) I have exactly three places I can go. I can choose to make a good deal less, to transfer over to another branch and make even less than taking a lower position in my own branch. There are a good many reasons why people do not look for other positions--status quo, "that can't happen to me" syndrome, ostrich syndrome (similar but not quite so unrealistic) and sheer lack of opportunities elsewhere that can support the family. So, I do understand that.
Also, I'm no disinclined to work the extra hours in the rare event that they are necessary. This week, I'm working something like 12 hours days in toto. Of course, I'm in a lovely and different place and the benefits more than compensate for a little additional work. Just a walk down the street is an adventure.
Darwin Catholic:
I am not a laissez-faire captialist. The capitalist system, as the socialist system, and the communist system, is objectively neither good nor bad--it is morally neutral--but left to its own resources, I am convinced that the evils of capitalism without restrictions equal and perhaps even exceed those of some of the other systems. I don't know. But laissez-faire is a convenient system for those on top--rarely for the entire chain. I think one of the lures of capitalism is that it seems to promise that everyone is invited to the same place, when in fact, obstacles are constantly thrown up to prevent you from joining those already there.
I do believe that capitalism has the best potential for a sustainable, viable economy, but only when there are watchdogs who are willing to raise a ruckus when people violate the integrity of the system with exploitative, but theoretically "pure" practices.
But thanks for the comment--I particularly agree above the diminishing returns of an over-worked workforce.
shalom,
Steven
Good post Steven. And the language is a big part of the dehumanizing foundation. There is a post at Vox Nova asking the question of whether labor is a commodity, effectively ignoring the fact that the term 'labor' refers to human beings working. So of course labor is not a commodity: the very term 'labor' is one of the foundational dehumanizing terms in both capitalist and socialist/communist thought.
Good post Steven. And the language is a big part of the dehumanizing foundation. There is a post at Vox Nova asking the question of whether labor is a commodity, effectively ignoring the fact that the term 'labor' refers to human beings working. So of course labor is not a commodity: the very term 'labor' is one of the foundational dehumanizing terms in both capitalist and socialist/communist thought.
To be clear, it's not that I think that a generally free market capitalist system has any particular virtue to it. It's just that it strikes me as having more room for self correction built into it than attempts at central management.
That, and just as I generally prefer democratic systems of government on the theory of "giving people the government they deserve", I labor under the hope that under a capitalist system people's conditions will be more the result of their own actions than under a collective system.
Well, I think 'free market' and 'collective system' are both Utopian idealizations which never, ever exist in actual reality -- indeed, which are not even fully coherent as ideals when taken seriously. Economics is always a combination of (among other things) governing law and custom, including governing men, and otherwise free economic actors making choices within that governing law and custom. So saying one is preferable to the other is like saying that round squares are preferable to square circles.
Well, I think 'free market' and 'collective system' are both Utopian idealizations which never, ever exist in actual reality -- indeed, which are not even fully coherent as ideals when taken seriously. Economics is always a combination of (among other things) governing law and custom, including governing men, and otherwise free economic actors making choices within that governing law and custom. So saying one is preferable to the other is like saying that round squares are preferable to square circles.
Steven - sorry about the stutters.
I think most jobs are transferable, even more so if one is not in a dream job situation where no other job will fit in terms of either remuneration or desirability. With you it seems the former. For those who find themselves in that situation either through ill luck or choices made, it is very precarious indeed and my prayers are with them.
Hi All,
Thank you for sharing these thoughts. I have good reason right now to be very aware of the harsh reality behind some of these thoughts, and it is good to have a balancing influence as well as support for the central conviction.
Dear TSO,
You might be surprised how non-transferable many skills are. As you have often said of my own opinions regarding poetry and literture, it is possible that you are universalizing your own experience. I can tell you for a fact that micro-paleontologists have a set of skills that are not particularly transferable nor particularly marketable outside a very small sector. And so it is with a great many skills. Indeed, there are many that are transferable, but you'd be surprised how few the numbers within that many.
But the point remains, we always, at least in theory, can walk.
Dear Zippy,
I love your point about labor as commodity--in some ways, despite what I had written here, I'm not sure I had made that connection as well and I'm not certain I would have recognized the insidiousness of that principle. Thank you.
And as to stuttering--for some reason, this blog commenting system seems to lend itself to that. I don't know how many times I've commented and had to go back and delete mutliple iterations. I think it's because the comment does show up after you hit the button and all the other comments do. I'm used to the system on your blog.
Dear Darwin Catholic,
Thank you for your further thoughts. I really do not mean to antagonize, and know that I can occasionally stubbornly refuse to hear the point that is being made, so I appreciate your willingness to restate and clarify. Besides the fact that I appreciate any comment from someone whom I have come to respect so much.
shalom,
Steven
Tha
Zippy,
I agree with you that there is no such thing as a truly "free market" -- both in the sense that a "market" can only exist well in a fairly moral and ordered environment, and in the sense that regulation is often not only needed but a stimulant to market activity. The sense in which I tend to be a "free marketer" however, is that it seems to me that markets (being the sum of numerous people making decisions for reasons having to do with the details of their circumstances) often "know more" (realizing that the term "know" is being used somewhat improperly here) than those who try to come up with a quick set of regulations to improve them.
So while I acknowledge the need for regulation, I think we should be pretty cautious about it.
Steven,
Goodness, I'm flattered to be thought of that way. Now I suppose I shall have to strive to deserve it...
On the difficulty of moving jobs: I do hear you. My father was a planetarium director, which meant that there were at most 20 other positions in the country that he could in theory have tried to obtain, and they only opened up when someone died or retired.
It strikes me that in a sense you (as my father did) must have transferrable skills in that you are someone able to write and think well and who is well educated in both the sciences and humanities. But unfortunately, many people are so focused on degrees and experience in specific fields these days (when it comes to the higher paid/higher skilled jobs) that you would as you say probably face a lot of skepticism or a significant pay cut if you switched fields. Though I suspect that with a few weeks solid training you could step into a totally unrelated job such as mine (marketing analytics) and do very well -- people wouldn't believe that you could.
Which is something that annoys me very much about our modern economy.
Dear Darwin Catholic,
What you say is true. There is nothing that I do that a well-educated person couldn't be brought to do in a few years. (Years, more because that is our cycle of development rather than that is the time it takes to learn all of the things needed. If everything were running at the same time, it would be a matter of weeks.
And I have a string of letters behind my name that reaches as far as my grasp; however, if some of those letters aren't MBA or such, you don't know how to manage people, or if they are not PMP you don't know how to run a project. Even if you do.
shalom,
Steven
And I have a string of letters behind my name that reaches as far as my grasp
Then you're lucky. I'm hoping that the letters behind my name isn't just beyond my grasp...