Is european welfare society/culture making people soft/passive/lazy?

[CrackpotForeigner]

But all work is not the same.

Working and just producing surplus value for the capitalist is 'alienating'; doing the same job for yourself or for those you have relationship which goes beyond the mere economic is not alienating.

Baking cakes for yourself and your family is satisfying and rewarding but sitting on a production line in a bakery putting a cherry on a thousand cakes for eight hours, is not.

 

What about working on a marketing strategy for cherry cakes? Is that even real work? It's arguably less productive than putting the cherry on the things.

[Jarpie]

What else is hard work then if not effiency, doing a better job, diligence and/or industriousness, or vice versa?

...

Hard work is hard work; efficiency is efficiency.

Hard work can be very useful, it can also be pointless and, on occasions, it can be utterly counter-productive.

It seems that there's a bit of difference on the meaning of the word, as at least with the people I know in here means that people does the work well, efficiently and/or hard when they talk about people/employees being industrious and/or hard working, in here "hard working" seems to be synonym for "good worker".

 

It's interesting that a lot of your previous two posts have been about employers/companies getting rid of the 'unmotivated and unproductive' and therefore taking them out of the job market. What then for these people? You wouldn't want them back in the workplace, would you? Because otherwise they'd be the same drag on productivity elsewhere.

 

The point I was trying to make is that they would need to be more productive and industrious, for the lack of better term, if they would know that they'd get more easily fired if they'd be lazy. Some people needs a bit of carrot, and some people requires a bit of stick. Certain players in Aston Villa comes to mind

Good example of this is my local phone company, who's employees are notorious for being utterly inefficient, lazy and doesn't care for shit, one of my friends was there for a summer job couple years or so back, and he worked with the technicians who installs DSLs etc for customers, fixes the faulty connections and so on. They had backlog worth of three-four weeks of orders to be installed, and it took them 30-60 mins to make one installation; as they got to work at 8am they went to install two, and by that time the clock was usually between 9:15am and 9:45am, and the guy would say "Our coffee break is in 15-45 mins, let's go and wait for it", so they'd go to sit in the local gas station and read the paper, and after the coffee break is over they'd go again to install couple more and the clock would be 11:15-11:45, "Our lunchbreak is at noon, let's go wait for it" and again sit for another 15-45 mins and so on, so they'd install six or so subscriptions, instead of the possible dozen or so because they knew they don't have to because it wasn't worth the hassle for the company to try to get rid of them and try to hire new ones.

Not only that, they didn't even check if the connection would work, so some customers would have to call the phone company that it's not working...and again wait for the technicians to fix it. Last time I had to move I ordered the transfer/switch to the new address well in advance because I knew that otherwise I'd have to wait for weeks...as some people I know had to wait for four weeks.

Who lost in this? the customers of course who would have to wait for their DSLs for up to four weeks, five they didn't do it properly.

[snowychap]

It seems that there's a bit of difference on the meaning of the word, as at least with the people I know in here means that people does the work well, efficiently and/or hard when they talk about people/employees being industrious and/or hard working, in here "hard working" seems to be synonym for "good worker".

In which case we have a problem because being a 'hard worker' does not necessarily mean that one is a 'good worker' or that one does a good job or is efficient or as productive as possible (or just more productive than previously, i.e. with an improving productivity) and so on.

Edit: I don't think it's just a language/translation issue either as your comments appear to confirm that you are equating effort with output.

The person who answers 150 calls per day at the call centre is not necessarily either a harder or better worker than the one who answers 50; the person who 'works through lunch' is not necessarily the harder or better worker than the one who makes sure that they take their lunch break - often it's quite the opposite; the person working 50 hours a week isn't necessarily a harder or better worker than the person working 35 hours in the week; the people who go out for a fag break are not necessarily slackers skiving off for five minutes every hour or two, and so on...

Sure, there'll be plenty of examples of people being inefficient and not doing a good job if they're lazy, idle, like to sit around and have a cuppa and so on (as you recount); also, there'll be plenty of examples of people being inefficient and not doing a good job even when they're working hard, not slacking, doing their full hours (or more) and not sat around outside gas stations - that may be to do with poor processes, poor communication, poor information, poor management, poor business ethos, whatever. As above, there will also be a (small) number of people who appear to be real grafters whose output is utterly shit (140 of the 150 calls taken are dissatisfied with the response given so some call back and take up the time of others' or just don't bother and then are lost as customers for an example).

 

 

Edited September 25, 2015 by snowychap

[Jarpie]

But all work is not the same.

Working and just producing surplus value for the capitalist is 'alienating'; doing the same job for yourself or for those you have relationship which goes beyond the mere economic is not alienating.

Baking cakes for yourself and your family is satisfying and rewarding but sitting on a production line in a bakery putting a cherry on a thousand cakes for eight hours, is not.

 

As far as I know that kind of jobs have been largely eliminated with the automation, and I don't think anyone would say that kind of job would be rewarding.

How is "producing surplus value for the capitlist" alienating? if someone is working for a somekind of manufacturing plant and is doing a "proper" job and not just pushing cherries into the cakes, such as refining the wood into the boards for new houses to be built, or for other uses, like my friend was doing, it brings the company profit, and they'll (potentially) use that profit to invest into the new manufacturing plants and thus they create more jobs for more people to do.

What if someone starts their own bakery, and they'd start to get enough demand that they'd have to hire more people to bake the cakes, and invest into bigger facilities etc...when should the bakery artificially stiffle their crowth that they wouldn't become "alienting"? Sorry if I misunderstood you.

I'm curious...what do you do for the living? would be interesting to know that I can understand where you come from and would understand better your viewpoint.

[MakemineVanilla]

What else is hard work then if not effiency, doing a better job, diligence and/or industriousness, or vice versa?

...

Hard work is hard work; efficiency is efficiency.

Hard work can be very useful, it can also be pointless and, on occasions, it can be utterly counter-productive.

It seems that there's a bit of difference on the meaning of the word, as at least with the people I know in here means that people does the work well, efficiently and/or hard when they talk about people/employees being industrious and/or hard working, in here "hard working" seems to be synonym for "good worker".

 

It's interesting that a lot of your previous two posts have been about employers/companies getting rid of the 'unmotivated and unproductive' and therefore taking them out of the job market. What then for these people? You wouldn't want them back in the workplace, would you? Because otherwise they'd be the same drag on productivity elsewhere.

 

The point I was trying to make is that they would need to be more productive and industrious, for the lack of better term, if they would know that they'd get more easily fired if they'd be lazy. Some people needs a bit of carrot, and some people requires a bit of stick. Certain players in Aston Villa comes to mind

Good example of this is my local phone company, who's employees are notorious for being utterly inefficient, lazy and doesn't care for shit, one of my friends was there for a summer job couple years or so back, and he worked with the technicians who installs DSLs etc for customers, fixes the faulty connections and so on. They had backlog worth of three-four weeks of orders to be installed, and it took them 30-60 mins to make one installation; as they got to work at 8am they went to install two, and by that time the clock was usually between 9:15am and 9:45am, and the guy would say "Our coffee break is in 15-45 mins, let's go and wait for it", so they'd go to sit in the local gas station and read the paper, and after the coffee break is over they'd go again to install couple more and the clock would be 11:15-11:45, "Our lunchbreak is at noon, let's go wait for it" and again sit for another 15-45 mins and so on, so they'd install six or so subscriptions, instead of the possible dozen or so because they knew they don't have to because it wasn't worth the hassle for the company to try to get rid of them and try to hire new ones.

Not only that, they didn't even check if the connection would work, so some customers would have to call the phone company that it's not working...and again wait for the technicians to fix it. Last time I had to move I ordered the transfer/switch to the new address well in advance because I knew that otherwise I'd have to wait for weeks...as some people I know had to wait for four weeks.

Who lost in this? the customers of course who would have to wait for their DSLs for up to four weeks, five they didn't do it properly.

The trouble is that there is no fair solution because either workers take the piss or management take the piss.

My view is that if you spend more time being a worker than a consumer, then it is better that it is the workers who have the privilege of taking the piss.

[bickster]

Hard Working is a synonym in the UK for "Oh Shit, politician speaking"

It has become the salted caramel of politics

[Jarpie]

It seems that there's a bit of difference on the meaning of the word, as at least with the people I know in here means that people does the work well, efficiently and/or hard when they talk about people/employees being industrious and/or hard working, in here "hard working" seems to be synonym for "good worker".

In which case we have a problem because being a 'hard worker' does not necessarily mean that one is a 'good worker' or that one does a good job or is efficient or as productive as possible (or just more productive than previously, i.e. with an improving productivity) and so on.

Edit: I don't think it's just a language/translation issue either as your comments appear to confirm that you are equating effort with output.

The person who answers 150 calls per day at the call centre is not necessarily either a harder or better worker than the one who answers 50; the person who 'works through lunch' is not necessarily the harder or better worker than the one who makes sure that they take their lunch break - often it's quite the opposite; the person working 50 hours a week isn't necessarily a harder or better worker than the person working 35 hours in the week; the people who go out for a fag break are not necessarily slackers skiving off for five minutes every hour or two, and so on...

Yeah, I know this as I worked in helpdesk for six long (and sometimes excruciating) years, and I don't equate that effort = output, for example my intake for calls wasn't in the highest tier, but my boss saw from the statistics (as they can gather statics for everything) that those customers who called me didn't mostly have to call us back as I handled their case/call as well that it got dealt with. I was just saying that in here hard worker has become to mean the same as good worker, not the other way around.

Sure, there'll be plenty of examples of people being inefficient and not doing a good job if they're lazy, idle, like to sit around and have a cuppa and so on (as you recount); also, there'll be plenty of examples of people being inefficient and not doing a good job even when they're working hard, not slacking, doing their full hours (or more) and not sat around outside gas stations - that may be to do with poor processes, poor communication, poor information, poor management, poor business ethos, whatever. As above, there will also be a (small) number of people who appear to be real grafters whose output is utterly shit (140 of the 150 calls taken are dissatisfied with the response given so some call back and take up the time of others' or just don't bother and then are lost as customers for an example).

Yeah, shitty employer can create really shitty work environment so people aren't motivated, or that there's something wrong in the company. My boss in the helpdesk was fortunately very good one in that he knew how to read the statistics and saw that some of those who got very high intakes for calls caused the customers to call again as they didn't do their job properly, so some of them actually cost the company more than me (they had calculated how much one call cost on average). On the other hand there were some bosses who just looked at the pure numbers and bitched to their underlings that they have to take more calls.

In the helpdesk I saw some people becoming much more lazier and losing their motivation to do the work well when they got from the fixed-time/temp contracts to the permanent one, even though there was nothing wrong in the workplace, as they knew that they'll have the comfy job for a long time as without reduction negotiations they won't get fired without getting many warnings and what not, and if they did, they could then improve a bit again to make it look like they give a shit.

I'd say about 30% of people were like that, give or take 5%, and based on what I've asked in another professions, the percentage is about the same.

Edit: Derp, typo, meant 20%.

Edited September 25, 2015 by Jarpie

[MakemineVanilla]

But all work is not the same.

Working and just producing surplus value for the capitalist is 'alienating'; doing the same job for yourself or for those you have relationship which goes beyond the mere economic is not alienating.

Baking cakes for yourself and your family is satisfying and rewarding but sitting on a production line in a bakery putting a cherry on a thousand cakes for eight hours, is not.

 

As far as I know that kind of jobs have been largely eliminated with the automation, and I don't think anyone would say that kind of job would be rewarding.

 

Far from it.

Every ready meal or sandwich you eat has been assembled by hand by a line of people wearing hairnets and standing in a freezing warehouse.

Same as the people who spend their day picking grocery orders for all those delivery vans you see on the streets.

They definitely do not go home and enthuse about how fulfilling and satisfying it was, they moan because the gaffer has reduced the time they have to do a task, or is deliberately running with a person short.

 

[Jarpie]

But all work is not the same.

Working and just producing surplus value for the capitalist is 'alienating'; doing the same job for yourself or for those you have relationship which goes beyond the mere economic is not alienating.

Baking cakes for yourself and your family is satisfying and rewarding but sitting on a production line in a bakery putting a cherry on a thousand cakes for eight hours, is not.

 

As far as I know that kind of jobs have been largely eliminated with the automation, and I don't think anyone would say that kind of job would be rewarding.

 

Far from it.

Every ready meal or sandwich you eat has been assembled by hand by a line of people wearing hairnets and standing in a freezing warehouse.

Same as the people who spend their day picking grocery orders for all those delivery vans you see on the streets.

They definitely do not go home and enthuse about how fulfilling and satisfying it was, they moan because the gaffer has reduced the time they have to do a task, or is deliberately running with a person short.

 

Hmh, every time I've seen footage from finnish food manufacturers, those have been very much automated where they don't have people manually putting the food etc together and packing them, maybe it's different where you live.

 

The trouble is that there is no fair solution because either workers take the piss or management take the piss.

My view is that if you spend more time being a worker than a consumer, then it is better that it is the workers who have the privilege of taking the piss.

So you think that every employer is an asshole who's exploiting their workers? Have you ever ran your own business? My father did and he employed 2-3 people and it's a very tough work to run your own (small) business, and he certainly "didn't take the piss" of his employees, and that goes to every entrepreneur I've known, although I've known mostly small or mid-sized business owners who are more "hands on" than many of the biggest ones, sure some of the people owning businesses can be assholes or who exploit people who don't know better, but not all, are the most? I doubt it.

What would you propose instead? Surely not communism as we saw how well that worked in the soviet union, china and eastern europe. Do I think that unchecked and unregulated capitalism is good? Of course not, there needs to be laws and regulations to make sure that businesses does things properly, takes care of their employees and keeps the work places safe etc.

We have very strong unions in finland, so that helps to keep things in check, and deal with the problems with the employers if needed.

Part of the reason why I'd want getting rid of the 'problem'-workers would be easier in Finland is that our economy is in the shitter, partly because companies are afraid of investing as it can even ruin their business if they hire wrong people. It's not the only thing what should be done but one of actions what should be taken. Our export-business is in shambles because producing stuff is way too expensive in finland compared to the quality they can produce, so the customers go elsewhere, so another action should be making it cheaper to hire people, as it's expensive in Finland.

Either we increase our income (as in investments and taxes from the companies and people they hire) or we'll cut the public sector, and that's mostly public sector salaries, social security and welfare etc, and I'd rather increase the income than make cuts.

[chrisp65]

Just for info., MMV is quite right, sandwich making is a boom industry here and it's very much a manual job. People cheerfully lining up for local news and magazine programmes to smile and tell us a robot can't spread tuna or distribute prawns like a person can.

 

[MakemineVanilla]

But all work is not the same.

Working and just producing surplus value for the capitalist is 'alienating'; doing the same job for yourself or for those you have relationship which goes beyond the mere economic is not alienating.

Baking cakes for yourself and your family is satisfying and rewarding but sitting on a production line in a bakery putting a cherry on a thousand cakes for eight hours, is not.

 

As far as I know that kind of jobs have been largely eliminated with the automation, and I don't think anyone would say that kind of job would be rewarding.

 

Far from it.

Every ready meal or sandwich you eat has been assembled by hand by a line of people wearing hairnets and standing in a freezing warehouse.

Same as the people who spend their day picking grocery orders for all those delivery vans you see on the streets.

They definitely do not go home and enthuse about how fulfilling and satisfying it was, they moan because the gaffer has reduced the time they have to do a task, or is deliberately running with a person short.

 

Hmh, every time I've seen footage from finnish food manufacturers, those have been very much automated where they don't have people manually putting the food etc together and packing them, maybe it's different where you live.

 

The trouble is that there is no fair solution because either workers take the piss or management take the piss.

My view is that if you spend more time being a worker than a consumer, then it is better that it is the workers who have the privilege of taking the piss.

So you think that every employer is an asshole who's exploiting their workers? Have you ever ran your own business? My father did and he employed 2-3 people and it's a very tough work to run your own (small) business, and he certainly "didn't take the piss" of his employees, and that goes to every entrepreneur I've known, although I've known mostly small or mid-sized business owners who are more "hands on" than many of the biggest ones, sure some of the people owning businesses can be assholes or who exploit people who don't know better, but not all, are the most? I doubt it.

What would you propose instead? Surely not communism as we saw how well that worked in the soviet union, china and eastern europe. Do I think that unchecked and unregulated capitalism is good? Of course not, there needs to be laws and regulations to make sure that businesses does things properly, takes care of their employees and keeps the work places safe etc.

We have very strong unions in finland, so that helps to keep things in check, and deal with the problems with the employers if needed.

Part of the reason why I'd want getting rid of the 'problem'-workers would be easier in Finland is that our economy is in the shitter, partly because companies are afraid of investing as it can even ruin their business if they hire wrong people. It's not the only thing what should be done but one of actions what should be taken. Our export-business is in shambles because producing stuff is way too expensive in finland compared to the quality they can produce, so the customers go elsewhere, so another action should be making it cheaper to hire people, as it's expensive in Finland.

Either we increase our income (as in investments and taxes from the companies and people they hire) or we'll cut the public sector, and that's mostly public sector salaries, social security and welfare etc, and I'd rather increase the income than make cuts.

I still have a naive belief that capitalism can be benevolent and paternalistic.

I particularly admire the Quakers' ethical idea of business but I don't think many companies are run along those lines these days, especially in the UK.

 

[Marka Ragnos]

 

ONE SMALL EDIT: I still have a naive belief that capitalism can be benevolent and paternalistic nurturing.

I particularly admire the Quakers' ethical idea of business but I don't think many companies are run along those lines these days, especially in the UK.

 

I can agree with that. I don't think it's naive to appeal to people's better natures. And we need trade. It can be done ethically or cynically. As you know, it's all a matter of how the rubber meets the road. China practices some forms of capitalism, and it's become an oligarchic dictatorship. There's an ugly side to capitalism in Scandinavia, too, a place often hailed for its social state. The USA is the world's whipping boy for its supposed untrammeled capitalism, but we actually have an enormous social state, too. As many people in the States get pensions of some sort as the entire population of Britain. 

Wasn't Brum a place where the Quaker experiment in business was quite successful?

[Jarpie]

 

I still have a naive belief that capitalism can be benevolent and paternalistic.

I particularly admire the Quakers' ethical idea of business but I don't think many companies are run along those lines these days, especially in the UK.

 

Ah, sorry, I misunderstood then.

ONE SMALL EDIT: I still have a naive belief that capitalism can be benevolent and paternalistic nurturing.

I particularly admire the Quakers' ethical idea of business but I don't think many companies are run along those lines these days, especially in the UK.

 

I can agree with that. I don't think it's naive to appeal to people's better natures. And we need trade. It can be done ethically or cynically. As you know, it's all a matter of how the rubber meets the road. China practices some forms of capitalism, and it's become an oligarchic dictatorship. There's an ugly side to capitalism in Scandinavia, too, a place often hailed for its social state. The USA is the world's whipping boy for its supposed untrammeled capitalism, but we actually have an enormous social state, too. As many people in the States get pensions of some sort as the entire population of Britain. 

Wasn't Brum a place where the Quaker experiment in business was quite successful?

What's the ugly side of capitalism in scandinavia?

One of the flaws in Finland is that our laws and bureocracy doesn't support the risk-taking, I think that supporting the right kind of risk-taking the state would incite starting new kinds of enterprises, which in my opinion would be very important in the long run for economy as you never know where the next big success comes from, for example I doubt anyone would've believed in the 80s that mobile phones would become such a huge thing when Nokia ventured into that business.

I can agree with that. I don't think it's naive to appeal to people's better natures.

Yes and no, if you naively expect just anyone to be good natured and honest you will get exploited by assholes, as I believe that most people are selfish, stupid and/or assholes. Also I wouldn't trust anyone to be fair toward their employees, even though most employers probably are good ones, that's why I think it's important that we have reasonable laws and regulations to keep them in check.

When it comes to social security etc, as I think I said before, I like most of it, but the benefit-system have had adverse effects too. Our unemployment benefit system has caused more low paying jobs to become much less valued and respected than they were 20-30 years ago, for example we have lack of nurses in at least parts of the country because youths are not going for it. I've heard youths saying that "Why would I go to study to become nurse when I can get half of the salary as benefits anyway?" and they go to study something else, so I do think that if we wouldn't had the benefits then people would still go for those kind of professions, I'm not sure which would've been better though.

[Marka Ragnos]

Well said, Jarpie. You make many good points! When I say "ugly side of capitalism in Scandinavia," I mostly meant that there is still greed, unfairness, etc. But your point is more interesting and insightful.

[bickster]

What's the ugly side of capitalism in scandinavia?

 

IKEA? 

[MakemineVanilla]

What's the ugly side of capitalism in scandinavia?

 

IKEA? 

Your quote is wrongly attributed to me.

But to answer the question I never actually asked, I would have thought that with the government spending so much of the nations' wealth corruption, fraud and crony capitalism just have to be rife.