Watch: Billionaire CEO says unemployment 'has to jump' to put 'arrogant' workers in their place
2y 9mon ago by lemmy.world/u/return2ozma in news from www.rawstory.com
This post was locked for multiple violations of instance rules. Please don’t incite violence in this community.
We need to see some pain in the economy. We need to remind people that they work for the employer, not the other way around... There's been a systemic change where the employees feel that the employer is extremely lucky to have them, as opposed to the other way around.
So said every vicious aristocrat throughout history.
Whether owner of slaves, serfs or workers - elites always believe it's their right to inflict harm on others.
Eat the rich, put us out of their misery.
I agree in part, Im not particularly a fan of all the death threats myself.
But do the billionaires treat us the way they want to be treated?
As long as you commodify my labor, it has value.
Whose labor generates more value? The worker, who creates the product being sold to generate profit, or the boss who manages them?
Without the boss, there wouldn't be the worker or the company. Let's not pretend that the entire management does nothing.
But in all seriousness, think of strikes and the inherent power of labor.
How come management never strikes?
When workers strike and there are no workers in the building, the day comes to a screeching halt and NOTHING happens.
If there are no managers in the building, business continues as usual. Because it happens all of the fucking time. That's why your manager can go on vacation for weeks at a time and nobody gives a shit, but you're lucky if you get 5 days in a whole calendar year.
Management strikes have happened but it's ridiculously rare
Yes. What ever did humanity do for work before the invention of middle management?
It must have been chaos. Bedlam, even!
Since you're describing a society with no infrastructure whatsoever, yeah, basically.
No hierarchy doesn't mean the same as no infrastructure and never has.
It's a commonly repeated lie to equate them as meaning the same thing.
EDIT: Middle management is also a phenomenon of the Industrial Era. Prior to industrialization, humanity (and jobs) existed for thousands of years.
According to some here, that is impossible.
"Middle management" as a concept is simply "someone gives you directives and you give someone else directives" and that is literally as old as society itself.
The Mayans didn't build highways through a fucking jungle without middle management, and they were most definitely not "industrialized."
Also the whole "middle management bad" meme is pants on head stupid. Almost as stupid as your interest in going back to subsistence farming.
I never implied a necessary return to subsistence farming. I said that hierarchy is not necessary for society to exist, but you continue to equate the two.
Mayans didn't build highways, because the technology and the necessity were not present. But they did build roads. And bridges. And pressurized aqueducts. And they did it without an "Assistant Director of Construction."
Y'know. Infrastructure. With limited hierarchy.
Saying that human civilization and the necessary infrastructure to support it is impossible without traditional corporate hierarchy isn't just wrong, it's fucking propaganda. And it's propaganda designed specifically to depress the value of labor.
Mayans did build highways, made of elevated dirt, to connect their cities. We just discovered them via LiDAR
https://mymodernmet.com/lidar-radar-discovers-mayan-civilization/
It's so adorable that you suggest the fucking Mayans had "limited hierarchy." Maybe the funniest hot take I've read today, and today has been a doozy.
My dude, if you can only imagine one system of social organization as being correct or successful, I don't think it's my intellect you need to concern yourself with.
I exist in the real world, and thus am aware of many types of social organization that currently exist.
All of them with any substantial amount of people are hierarchal.
As an example the Mayans had both "Divine kings" and a well established system of patronage within their city-states.
Frankly, your assumptions about Mayan culture are pretty racist.
Most companies' performance do not have any correlation to upper management's actions
You're suppose to put an /s at the end of sarcastic comments.
We need to remind people that they work for the employer, not the other way around
Oh and I was sitting here thinking, that employers and employees share a mutually profitable relationship. Employees provide services to employers and employers provide financial gains for their employees.
But no, modern slavery it is. Alright.
Tim Gurner, the founder and CEO of the Gurner Group
Landlord. He's a landlord.
This is the same guy who said that millennials can't afford houses because avocado toasts?
Is he really the origin of that whole thing?
Looks like yes, is the same mf again.
He went from millionaire to billionaire in 6 years.
Apparently we as a society love people like him and reward him as much as we possibly can
Certainly puts a bright smile on my face /s
Explains so much.
Sometimes I get real sad that people would destroy their rentals and pour cement down the sink.
But then I wonder if these rentals are owned by this a-hole and well... good.
He actually says they (the rich owners) need to "hurt the economy". Economic terrorist.
We toppled Saddam because he wanted to ditch the dollar. I don't think this fuckstick or Elon Marshmallow man have the same level entourage.
All the Russian oligarchs what is like to have all your assets seized, and just me tell ya, Id suffocate from laughter before I ever gave one fuck about the obscenely rich.
I'm ready to Make America Great Again, by taxing any and all assets over 10million, annually, at 75%. The squeaky wheel gets it raised to 85% Back in the oft romanticized golden days the upper tax rate was 90%
Maybe I'm alone in this opinion but I don't think someone should be able to have one idea that sells and then never have to work again. Like, if we all worked 4 hrs a week then fine, but nowadays, with modern tax chattle slavery? Naw man. Edison, Tesla, those guys had to keep inventing. Mr Mypillow can go die under an overpass.
Fuck billionaires. We need a special forces team for the IRS, they can jump from helicopters with their calculator's ribbon.
This was gold to read.
I agree. Amassing such volume of wealth that a single individual jas more wealth than many sovereign nations put together is ludicrous.
I'm not against a person making money for their work and ideas but to the point where they can take other companies from business out of spite and mess with the entire economy for sport?
I like to say I don't mind paying taxes. In my country it buys me services and civilization, regardless being far from perfect. If I made a million a year, I could not spend it. I can't imagine what it takes to spend a million.
Edison has more in common with billionaires than with inventors.
Very true, but the rest of their point is reasonable.
Forget it, he's rolling
We toppled Saddam because he wanted to ditch the dollar
Lmao imagine thinking we went to war in Iraq over Saddam wanting to be poor.
Can we stop calling russian billionaires "oligarchs" but other billionaires as just "billionaires"? Both are oligarchs.
I'm unfamiliar with the "tax chattle slavery" concept? What does it mean?
tax chattle slavery
I'm guessing the concept is that we are farmed as cattle because we consume and then the money we earn that pays for our food and shelter all gets funnelled upwards to billionaires and as an added bonus we pay taxes to pay for a government which serves the billionaires' interests not ours.
It is notable that we all talk about being part of national economies now whereas we used to talk about being a part of society.
It is notable that we all talk about being part of national economies now whereas we used to talk about being a part of society.
This ^
louder for those in the back:
THIS^
It doesn't mean anything. It's something white upper middle class kids say when they want to pretend that working for money is at all the same as chattel slavery (he also spelled it wrong), which is how slavery worked in the US.
It's a disgusting turn of phrase that demeans the horrors of actual slavery in the US.
75% on 10M is 7.5M. This is how you get people to end up paying $0, because that rate is far to high. Its like saying for every $1 you earn, you will get $0.25C. Yeah you wouldn't be happy with that.
30% of 10M is better than 0% of 10M. If I had that money and they wanted to charge me 75% tax, I would rather pay a smart accountant 1M and get to keep 9M.
let me introduce you to the progressive tax rates.
Imagine I earn 100k$/year. Let's say the tax rate is 30% at this point (I'm pulling these numbers from a hat), so I pay 30k, I'm left with 70k.
Next year I'm promoted to vice-CEO (I'm pulling these positions from a hat) and earn 500k$/year. Luckily my state says that at 250k$ the tax rate jumps to 50%. This means I pay 30% on all earnings up to 250k (30%250k=75k) and 50% on all above that (50%(500k-250k) = 125k), effectively I'm left with 300k in my pocket, more than 4x what I earned before despite the tax hike.
The next further year I became the final boss of capitalism - the CEO. Earnins jump again to 2mil$/year. Again luckily, my state says that all earnings above 1mil are taxed 75%. So again I pay the 30% on all earnings up to 250k (30%250k=75k), 50% on earnings between 250k and 1mil (50%(1m-250k) = 375k) and 75% on the earnings between 1m and 2m (75%*1m=750k). I'm left with 800k in my pocket, almost triple of what I earned last year despite the tax hike.
anyone richer than lower middle class will fight tooth and nail against progressive tax rates, but the fact is that at these levels of salary even if you're left with like 25% it's still a hideous pile of money.
I know what this is, but they didn't say that. But they said pay 75% on all assets worth 10M. So if you own a house or a yacht, car, etc worth 10M. They suggest you pay 7.5M in tax on that every year.
Ending the yacht and luxury car industry will surely help the poors make money by simply... removing a bunch of their jobs
Ending slavery surely helps the slaves by simply removing a bunch of their jobs.
It's disgusting and offensive to compare paid labor, especially highly skilled/paid labor such as fucking yacht manufacture, with slavery.
Check your privilege bro.
Next year I’m promoted to vice-CEO
These are the people trying to tell you how to run an economy lol
anyone richer than lower middle class will fight tooth and nail against progressive tax rates
Literally has never been true
The keyword here is over 10M.
You know, not the 10 millions, but anything that exceeds 10M.
So if you have 11M, you'd pay 750.000.
IMO it's the only way to not bring back kings with unlimited power over normal people.
Keyword was really Assets, but everyone read that as Income...
Class war ia called war for a reason.
Don’t eat junk food. Compost.
Can we feed them to the wolves?
Pretty sure they shouldn’t be eating junk food either.
Compost, spread it on a farm. We can leave a row up for the deer and let the wolves have some easy-mode fun,
🍽️
Time for us to all agree if we're on the jury for a murderer of a billionaire; there is reasonable doubt.
Jury nullification is better. “Yeah, they did it, but we don’t see it as a crime”
He may have eaten that billionaire, but it was for the good of the people so we're gonna let this one slide
"Temporary insanity, acquitted"
"Obvious crime of passion"
FYI insanity plea is arguably the worse sentence if successful because you're sent to a secure medical facility and can be held indefinitely until they decide you are "better"
This is going to be a very novel use of the Twinkie defense.
I'm hungry.
Yeah, that's someone who has so much money he doesn't understand it.
If a $4 latte a day is a significant financial burden for you, you will never own a home. If you can own a home, that $4 latte will have no effect on that.
And the avacado toast? The health effects alone are likely to pay for itself in the medium-term.
I mean it's one piece of toast. What could it cost? $10?
These days? In this country? In this economy? I wish…
You jest but there's literally a hipster coffee shop in SF that famously sells a $10 toast...as of 2014 when I first heard about it from my roommate who worked there so it's probably $15 by now.
It's the 21st Century's "let them eat cake". Hopefully he'll see the same fate as Marie Antoinette.
Man I wish I could buy a $4 latte. Prices for everything are just insane these days. I feel like a basic bitch coffee and croissant at any random place is gonna be $10 now. They're trying to tell us it's monetary inflation and/or supply chains but that's all bullshit. I'm in Northern Europe right now and even in pricey chic downtown areas it'll be like €5 tops.
What picture are you seeing? That head would not look good anywhere.
Well the trash can it would fall into would be fine
Just a reminder that in France, it was people like him that were deciding who went to the guillotine. The French Revolution was a win for the bourgiousie against the aristocracy. People constantly refer to it when talking about rich people. But it was a capitalist coup.
Think "modern US Republican Party" and you'll understand the dynamics of the French Revolution. Wealthy businessmen whipping up the common man to be their front-line. Was capitalism better than aristocracy? Sure. But the situation is different now.
IMO, we really need to find a better point of reference than guillotines
Also it was called the Reign of Terror for a reason, but 17 year-old edgelords never actually finished the chapter on the French Revolution.
Violent coups always are. They create a power vacuum, and it is NEVER filled with people who want to do nothing but give you free things.
I don't support capitalism, but thinking guillotines for the rich (even figuratively) are the answer is short-sighted.
He does not know that he is asking for a general strike.
But that is what he is asking for here.
This is an economy that lost billions in minutes because someone had access to a fake blue check-mark.
Humans like him are not to be feared.
Brave statement from a man who is only alive because the poors would rather not get arrested
See, Republican voters THIS is who you should be hating, not teachers teaching history.
This guy for president!
“We need to remind people they work for the employer, not the other way around,”
Whelp I guess if you work for him in any capacity you should show Mr. DumbFuck who actually needs who to survive.
I have the urge to write a wall of text but I literally can’t. This shit is a no brainer, imagine being yet another know it all trust fund baby who gets their way by hurting people into manipulation.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely
Does he not know that they are selling their labour to him? He is the client that needs them, they don't need him. They can take their product elsewhere.
You dont get that rich by actually studying in school.
"We need to see unemployment rise," he argued. "Unemployment has to jump 40 to 50 percent, in my view.
this actually made me laugh and feel way better; he's just a complete fucking moron and around as cruel as average
"aggrieved billionaire"... If any sane person had more than a billion dollars, I don't think it would be possible for them to be aggrieved. (barring a loss of a loved one.)
How the fuck are you that rich and able to get angry at anything, let alone complain.
Fucking psychopaths all of them.
We all thought @MrBusinessMan@lemm.ee is obviously a parody account that is too cartoonishly evil to be believable, but then we find out that this guy exists.
This guy makes a great point! My employees have been significantly more uppity since the unemployment rate has been down, but at least they don’t have a union, I’ve heard horror stories from some of the other business owners at the country club.
If this is an attempt at comedy, it's a poor one. Sarcasm is over valued.
It's not sarcasm, it's satire.
Did you not read the previous comment that summoned him here??
I'll cover that and go for the axe market. No automation; good old fashioned hand work. Down to basics: a stick with sharp metal piece at the end.
He's just saying what the Bourgeoisie has been thinking and doing since the beginning of capitalism, nothing new to see here.
Elites have been saying this well before capitalism. Capitalism sucks, but heirarchy is the problem.
The French would like to have a word with you?
Before Capitalism, there was Aristocracy. It sucked. It got corrupt. So we replaced it with something else that sucked and was corrupt.
Is it your belief that ancient Egypt was capitalist, or that the people interred in pyramids were not elites?
Just curious which of those you think is true.
Janet Yellen wrote a memo in 1996 about this.
https://theintercept.com/2023/01/24/unemployment-inflation-janet-yellen/
The rich want workers to have weak bargaining power. It's class warfare, plain and simple.
Correct. This is why I have a problem with people (ironically, mostly poor) who call non-working people lazy. It's not laziness to insist on making somewhere near the value you produce. If a company makes $250,000/yr off an employee, it's unethical to nickel and dime then of making $30,000 to $40,000 or judge them for not working for $30,000.
It’s not laziness to insist on making somewhere near the value you produce
This is not why most non-working people don't work. Mostly it is childcare costs or disabilities.
If a company makes $250,000/yr off an employee, it’s unethical to nickel and dime then of making $30,000 to $40,000
People are paid based on the market value of their skills, not the value they provide the company. You sell your skills. If you don't have skills that cannot be found elsewhere (e.g. you do manual labor), your bargaining power is diluted because literally anyone can do your job.
This is the reason unions were invented.
This is not why most non-working people don’t work. Mostly it is childcare costs or disabilities.
Fair point, but for most it still amounts to making less than your work is worth.
People are paid based on the market value of their skills, not the value they provide the company.
Which is a breach of the EMH, and evidence the whole process fails. The more the Efficient Market Hypothesis is false, the more employees not having more leverage is a failure of capitalism. If goods are not traded somewhere near "real value", then supply and demand go from being the effective tool capitalists claim to being downright wasteful at best, and Police-Theft at worst.
And for the record, many people ARE paid based on the market value of their skills. Just ask fishermen. It's just still a minority payment structure because companies have no problem manipulating the labor pool, taking short-term losses to keep wages down. If you go back less than 100 years, they were doing it as blatantly as having towns where all goods in and out had to go through them and employees were paid in credit for those goods.
This is the reason unions were invented.
Unions are, and always will be, the small band-aid for big problems. I support them (though I've seen a few shifty ones who used non-voting workers as leverage for benefits for voting ones), but they will never solve the problem. A well-governed economy is one where the unions sit back and go "well shit, we got nothing to ask for because we already have it, and if we ask for more it'll bankrupt the employer". I'd like to point reference again to many classes of fishermen, paid in shares. You got 18 year old kids making $200,000/yr "unskilled" (scallopers, for reference), NOT because there's nobody else willing to do the job for less, but because they're paid by tradition based upon the value they create.
Which is a breach of the EMH, and evidence the whole process fails
No it isn't, because,
If goods are not traded somewhere near “real value”, then supply and demand go from being the effective tool capitalists claim to being downright wasteful at best, and Police-Theft at worst.
This just shows your misunderstanding of the concept of value.
A well-governed economy is one where the unions sit back and go “well shit, we got nothing to ask for because we already have it, and if we ask for more it’ll bankrupt the employer”
Here we largely agree. Unions are kind of like the LGBTQ or deaf communities, in that ideally they would have no reason to exist.
As a side note you may want to consider that fishermen are paid well because it's not a job many people want to do or can do (as it is often dangerous and always tied to a specific locality) and thus competition for the role is not as broad, meaning wages go up exponentially. Same reason linemen, which is also about the same skill level, make so much money.
Just because you don't agree (or didn't understand) with what I was saying about the concept of value doesn't mean I am misunderstanding it. You don't have a monopoly on how value works.
Have a great day. I don't intend to reply again.
I don’t intend to reply again.
Always cracks me up when people say this. Peace out bro, thanks for not sharing more misinformation. Have a great day yourself.
I would say that he's an aristocrat complaining about the uppity bourgeois. Many of the tech worker he's talking about are upper middle class.
The modern usage of the term Bourgeoisie typically does not reference "the middle class" but "the owning class". The wealth distribution of capitalism has changed since the 1780s.
Remember, in France there was a time where being a successful business owner had a ceiling because you couldn't easily buy power with money, so you were "middle-class".
Because you have to be an asshole to make a job of commodifying something everyone needs like housing.
They are going mask off about how poverty is a feature and not a bug of our system. Without poverty the ability to exploit workers is extremely diminished. Utterly despicable, yet mfs will still defend them...
It's more that they see it as a motivator and fail to see how sociopathic that is.
i love how people are supposed to return to the office just so these fucking ghouls don't lose their office building parlays
I think it's because of the high risk high reward factor of taking on a ton of leverage which is usually needed for RE. That tends to attract people looking for quick big returns without a ton of work, who are arrogant enough to think they'll succeed where many others fail (and believe me, plenty do fail).
The result is that only the most successful ones survive, and since they were arrogant douchebags to begin with, they think they are extra special.
This the people that work for his company need to learn the definition of Secessio plebis and execute it.
As global demographics begin their decline the value of labour can only come up. Plus the more specialised the workers the more power they possess. This guy is a delusional moron who’s fighting inevitable changes. In order to get 40% unemployment they have to assume massive losses, and we know they do anything to prevent small losses, so threat is more empty than his brain.
Just read the article, and holy shit is this guy delusional. 50 percent unemployment would cause massive unrest, if not total collapse of many branches of the economy. The fact he wasn't laughed out of the room speaks volumes about these billionare circlejerk events.
Not to mention he seems to be confused as to why business owners don't already just layoff a ton of people to send some sort of message and put them in their place.
Hmmm... I wonder why that hasn't happened... its almost as if there was some reason business owners would actually need good workers... That can't be tho, must be something else... 🤔
Businesses don't need the working class silly, they take on the burden of employing them out of the goodness of their hearts.
😂
It was like someone here on Lemmy who was talking about how it was the taxpayers who made 'meaningful contributions' to society. I was like, "what about the people who make your food and clean your hotel room when you go on that luxury vacation?"
There's this weird balance with businesses. While narcissists and sociopaths make the wealthiest business owners, many successful business owners are merely "unpleasant".
Look at Musk. If he were competent (and the Twitter thing wasn't originally just an attempt to manipulate stock prices), the whole "buy and gut" attitude can be quite effective at making money. Dump compliance folks. Dump critical personnel and let them "figure it the fuck out", etc. I've seen businesses run by sociopaths do things like that all the time.
And hell, let's look at Musk a bit more. Everyone talks about how much money Twitter is losing. Nobody is talking about how much money Musk is losing (or not losing). First, a full 1/3 of the purchase price are loans in Twitter's name (!!!). That puts Musk on the hook for only $30B directly... which he paid in equity of other companies (making the purchase tax-sheltered).
Burned utterly to the ground (the product and the staff), 2023 might be their first profitable year since 2019 (albeit as a MUCH smaller company), and I'm guessing Musk is collecting a fair chunk of change in salary and bonuses. Ironically, I'm guessing he's still going to amortize the "losses" as he builds his own ROI.
Yes, a better leader would have created a successful Twitter. And YES, Musk never really wanted to spend that much on it. But I firmly believe he's taking it to the bank anyway.
And as horrific as most CEO's are, a lot of them don't have this type of behavior in them. Which is the other side of the "reason business owners need good workers". Not every CEO is willing to embrace "profit-focused mass-layoffs"
I was in disbelief when I read that too, but on second pass the quote was the rate should increase by 40-50%. So to 6% from 4% or whatever the current rate is in Australia.
Still, wishing to fucking double the unemployment because the proles have the audacity to want to be treated as human beings is fucking disgusting.
According to this ambulatory pile of turds the workers should approach their employers like Oliver Twist wanting a second helping of gruel - "May I have my wages, sir, please?" The owner class has gotten way too comfortable saying the quiet part out loud.
Oh I’m not arguing how insane it is. These people are literally delusional, and the fact they’re constructing these fictions means they’re beyond reach. Hes talking about 250,00 people losing they’re jobs.
(Also double is 100% increase)
Also double is 100% increase
Man, I really cannot math today
It would cause a literal revolution.
If you read the article, he says a 40% increase in unemployment. That would like (for simple math) increasing the rate from 5% to 7%.
The current unemployment rate in the US is 3.8% and Aus it's 3.5%. So he wants them at 5.3% and 4.9%, respectively.
Tim Gurner, Australian property developer.
Get fucked Tim
Somewhere out there is a conservative going "they worked hard for what they have and shouldn't be punished for their success."
Sounds like someone’s previous policies led to a brain drain in their business and now he’s hoping other employers will blindly follow this rhetoric (and shoot themselves in the foot) so he can poach their employees for his company gain.
I’m fine with billionaires eating each other so we don’t have to.
CEO of what? Just say it.
Gurner Group
Whatever the fuck that is...
Someone needs to punch Dumbo in his gob.
Property developer...
It's funny how the mind makes odd connections but for some reason William Burroughs's 'Words of Advice for Young People' springs to mind:
We don't like to hear the word "vampire" around here
We're trying to improve our public image
Build up a kindly, avuncular, benevolent image
"Interdependence" is the keyword, "enlightened interdependence"
Life in all its rich variety, take a little, leave a little
However, by the inexorable logistics of the vampiric process
They always take more than they leave...
We should seize all his shit
Says the lazy and CLEARLY arrogant billionaire...
Billionaires need to touch grass
You mean buried six feet under it?
Sure. If you also bury grass with them
I’d prefer if they tried to touch the bottom of the sea in an OceanGate submersible.
Yeah, touch grass as their corpse falls into the grave.
Also we all have to learn to sing la ca ira.. you know, so we can be classy about it.
I think we should push them out to sea on tiny rafts.
Counterpoint, corporate bankruptcies have to jump to put arrogant Billionaire CEOs in their place.
There's always more work that needs doing, but there are only so many CEO positions out there. Hell, the gig economy has shown that the minimal number of people in a "company" is literally 1, so we don't even need CEOs at all. Seems to me that CEOs should be careful about throwing stones because their house is looking awfully glass-like.
Fuckface.
Disgusting.
Sounds and looks like a douchebag
/c/nottheonion
Sounds like you have a serious reading problem there.
I think he meant they were inspired in their writing to provide an answer to fuckwits like the one in the article. Evil capitalists are not a modern occurrence, they existed in the whole of human history unfortunately
Well, to be fair one doesn't need to be a philosopher to see this truth in his everyday life: why is that the only class capable of organising strikes which can paralyze society is the WORKING class and not the managerial one? Maybe because it's the working class providing the services and activities needed to maintain our societies functional?
Try organising a strike of the management and banking system, my guess is that we would keep on living as nothing really happened (given that banks would maintain our access to our founding, on the contrary I still think workers would be able to survive much longer than the corporate counterparts should they be able to attain a minimum level of cooperation).
Of course the resourcing to violence by the ruling class through police forces and mandate working could be an issue but those working for law enforcement should be ready to attack their friends and families and I don't think everyone of them would be able to do so
I do absolutely agree with you, the mistake we are making is the value we place on management jobs: as of today society thinks of managers as above the production workers but, in reality, it should be the other way around.
A good management can increase the profitability of a workforce but will never be able to do the same job the workforce does.
On the contrary workers can and have proven to be able to do the management work if tasked with this request and can even do better. This scares the managers who are doing whatever they can to hide this truth from their employees.
We just need to understand the power we do have in our hands to finally win this uphill battle against interest groups, and COVID has greatly helped us in this sense. Even in your case you could arrange a strike with your colleagues to force your manager to understand how shit he is at his job and force him to resign by going to his direct superior should he not be able to change his ways. Should he be the owner of the company: leave. It's better to be between jobs that to be chained to a desk which makes you unhappy everyday of your life IMHO.
I guarantee you that any factory in the world would absolutely shut the fuck down without leadership. If the banking system shut down, you absolutely would not continue life as normal, because you'd have the cash you currently have and that's it. No digital payments, no card payments of any sort, no bank account. Most merchants would not be able to function at all. All of those transactions are handled by banks (credit processing was my gig before this one, and everything shuts down if those workers aren't working). It would be a nightmare scenario.
"Well we'll just make the laborers the leaders" yeah we already do that. Plant leader is an operations job, and almost always someone with a history working in plants (it doesn't have to be a plant, I just currently work in manufacturing)
Managers don't strike because managers are not allowed to work with unions - a rule devised by unions
https://www.google.com/amp/s/guide.unitworkers.com/union-eligibility/amp/
On the other hand I can bring you countless examples of factories and plants shut down due to mismanagement caused by the company upper echelons. The presence of a management is not the reason why companies provides their goods and services to their customers, it's the workforce behind them the reason why they are able to maintain their businesses.
Point proven, there are many instances of companies whose management left due to financial hardships which were picked up by their unionised workforce who were able to continue and grow the company business (https://www.mitbestimmung.it/workers-buyouts-a-growing-trend-in-italy-50-companies-saved-by-workers-in-last-5-years/). I'm not aware of any example of the contrary tho, can you bring any to the table?
The banking system: as far as private banking goes I'm with you, a stop the their activities would be a blow to the world economy. But, even in this turbo-capitalist system, we still do have central banks which answer to the states and which would be required to intervene in a catastrophic event such as a general strike to limit its ramifications. We would loose access to our savings, that's true, but with enough cooperation between workers and states, I'm sure we would be able to bring the bankers to their knees.
Lastly, here in Europe we do have union for managers and CEOs, none of whom has ever called for a strike. One might think it has to do with the fact that they are the ones taking the decisions and therefore don't need to have their voices heard but the reality is far more mundane: nobody would give a shit should they quit their job and workers would be more than qualified to obtain their positions should they never come back to work.
Point proven, there are many instances of companies whose management left due to financial hardships which were picked up by their unionised workforce who were able to continue and grow the company business
This is called "succession planning" and is a consequence of the hiring practices I described above.
nobody would give a shit should they quit their job
I have direct experience in a multinational organization, and during COVID we lost a lot of middle and senior leaders, not just including but especially in Europe, due to the Great Resignation. It would be literally impossible for me to explain in a single comment how disastrous that was for the company.
You not knowing something is true does not mean it is false.
This is not a "succession planning" the owners of the companies left and the workers were faced with a choice: loose their jobs or take the place of those who betrayed them. They went for the latter option and re-arranged the companies structures by themselves, proving that workers can do the management job without problems. Read the article that I attached to my comment please. I still haven't heard one single example of the contrary from you.
It would be literally impossible for me to explain in a single comment how disastrous that was for the company.
It was such a disaster that you are not able to explain it in a comment nor to find an external reference which may do that in your place. Must be hard being this comfortable in your world view without any supporting evidence. Furthermore I reckon this company is still up and running. Tell me, would an equal percentage of the working force had left instead of the middle and senior management do you think you would still have a job today?
This is not a “succession planning” the owners of the companies left and the workers were faced with a choice: loose their jobs or take the place of those who betrayed them
Then having the skills to step in is literally "succession planning."
proving that workers can do the management job without problems
This is just promoting from within but in dire circumstances.
It was such a disaster that you are not able to explain it in a comment nor to find an external reference which may do that in your place
My company was sued by investment stakeholders for misleading them as a result of the lost productivity, but to post which company it is would doxx me more than I am comfortable with. Fortunate 500 companies do not make these things public more than they are legally required to.
As for me having a job today, my position was ended as part of a necessary restructure after the above scandal. I got a sweet severence though.
The company was divested from the greater whole and was eventually bought again, about 3 weeks ago.
if an equal amount of the operations workforce left
A huge part of my job during COVID was retaining these employees.
Evil capitalists are not a modern occurrence, they existed in the whole of human history unfortunately
Lol no. Capitalism is not when some people are richer than you
That's exactly what capitalism is. The root definition of capital is: "wealth in the form of money or other assets owned by a person or organization or available for a purpose such as starting a company or investing"
So yes, if someone has money available for anything other than basic necessities and sufficient to help him start a business enterprise he or she can be defined as "capitalist".
Just because we didn't use this name for kings, nobles and priests in the past doesn't mean that capitalists never existed before the advent of Marx
Lmao I too love to misinterpret definitions and build my entire worldview around that
Just because we didn’t use this name for kings, nobles and priests in the past doesn’t mean that capitalists never existed before the advent of Marx
Truly spectacular.
Almost as spectacular as the void left by your reply. You assess I misinterpreted the literal vocabulary definition of "capital" yet you don't provide any alternative definition to counter my argument
lmao
Risus abundat in ore stultorum
You assess I misinterpreted the literal vocabulary definition of “capital” yet you don’t provide any alternative definition to counter my argument
I don't feel the need to get into the weeds on the meaning of words with you. You're not intent on living in reality - in fact, you believe Marx coined the term "capitalists."
Risus abundat in ore stultorum
Strong agree.
I don't feel the need to get into the weeds on the meaning of words with you.
Oh my, I'm sorry you commented on my post, I'll try to avoid you commenting again in future to my replies. Facepalm
You're not intent on living in reality - in fact, you believe Marx coined the term "capitalists."
I've never said Marx coined the word "capitalists". I agreed with the OP to this thread that he was together with Hegel the one rationalising and explaining class warfare to the masses.
Strong agree.
Less LMAOs and more debate then
Give an idiot a microphone and such
Arrogant ? How.
it's stupid that you aren't even allowed to say like 'i wish a TOS violation would happen'
No I honestly wish it harm and ill health. If it's acting sub-human it's getting treated that way. ( :
Righto wish version of Nigel Thornberry, you keep attacking us poor arrogant workers and we'll keep prepping to eat the rich, which as you make us poorer and poorer and raise prices of everything, is starting to become less of a mantra and more of a survival tactic.
I would like mine served with a side of mashed potatoes and garnished with thyme, please.
We need to remind people that they work for the employer, not the other way around... There's been a systemic change where the employees feel that the employer is extremely lucky to have them, as opposed to the other way around."
Gurner then predicted that enacting massive layoffs would lead to "less arrogance in the employment market."
I'm a fairly unapologetic capitalist and think overall it's a pretty good model. But that might be the most staggering out of touch arrogant opinion I've ever read and that's REALLY saying something. Not everyone wants their own business (I sure don't). And businesses need employees to do their thing. It's a symbiotic relationship. How can he not see that?
Seems like you’re the one who is more out of touch to be honest…
Billionaires REALLY understand how things work. They have class consciousness. They know it’s us against them.
Lemmy is such a confusing place. People yell at you and downvote for expressing just about any opinion, any direction. Guess I'll go fuck myself then.
He's not wrong about that, but I think the root of the problem is with management. There's a problem with lazy and terrible management, not workers. At the company I work for, there are teams and teams of lazy good for nothing people everywhere. Most of them maybe do an hour or two of real work every week. When I talk to them, they are bored, aimless, and feel as though their work doesn't really matter. I strongly believe it's due to lack of leadership. Not management. Leadership. The department has no real goals. There are no projects solving real problems. Everything is just maintaining some janky tech debt or building some manual process because management likes their spreadsheets a certain way.
When there's a liquidation of management and a culling down to actual leaders, the workers will want to work. They'll find things to do because that's what people do in a good environment under a good leader.
The arrogance is primarily a management problem. There are too many in power that are at our above their level of incompetence. It's the Peter Principle on steroids.