I don't hear it said enough in explicit terms, so it's worth saying now.
Meritocracy is bad, you should not want it as a leftist.
On top of what you've said, I'd add that it's an op, never true, and the original word is a parody of the idea. Even if it worked in theory, it's not a good thing.
From each according to their ability, to each according to their need. That is what we're aiming for.
You don't need a hierarchy based on talent to do that. That will erase the thing you're trying to achieve. People can manage themselves on democratic grounds, more or less.
This isn't even hypothetical. For a while, the game company Valve operated this way. They voted on each other's salaries, they had no official titles or bosses. Employees in aggregate are generally pretty good, in a non toxic environment, about evaluating the talent of another employee and coming up with what a fair salary would be.
Workplace democracy might seem like a meme, but it's a real, practical thing.
I don't know for sure that they have. But I remember hearing about their model in 2012, and no one has reported on it since.
They've gotten weirder and greedier now, and they basically don't make games anymore, so I have no idea if that model is still being used.
From each according to their ability, to each according to their need. That is what we’re aiming for.
They voted on each other’s salaries, they had no official titles or bosses. Employees in aggregate are generally pretty good, in a non toxic environment, about evaluating the talent of another employee and coming up with what a fair salary would be.
The Valve scenario is a great example of what we should be working for right now, but it's pretty far from "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need." If your coworkers vote you a high salary, they're doing that more on some meritocratic principle than on consideration of what you need.
Until we're in a completely post-scarcity society, workplace democracy (combined with the means of decent living guaranteed to everyone) is a better target than "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need." A democratic workplace where income is determined by peers gives workers incentives for being more productive, which (at least according to Blackshirts and Reds) was lacking in the USSR. It also acts as a check against the most productive workers turning reactionary.
Actually its a good thing if Amazon fines you when your tracking device detect you moving boxers at a slower than average rate.
This is such a flawed reddit tier idea by the type of people who don't support unionizing because of the logic that "it will make it impossible for their bosses to reward their hard work".
No consulting firm that recommends Amazon/Wallmart/McDonalds implement "accomplishment based compensation" is going to be selling their idea on the basis that it will allow for them to pay more money to their employees for the same amount of productivity.
Also, this would only undermine worker solidarity. Unions must act to protect those in less materially/physically privileged positions. I can easily imagine this sort of compensation would only become an excuse to remove elderly employees, or those experiencing mental/physical health problems. Sure, they can stay working, but only if they are willing to take "minimum salaries for minimum achievements".
Finally, if there's one thing I learned from Bullshit Jobs, it's that so many people don't work hard because they see their jobs as utterly pointless, if everyone was able to work at least some sort of fulfilling job, or even receive training/freedom if none are available, I guarantee average job satisfaction and productivity would skyrocket. Look no further than the masses of people willing to build railroads without compensation in Sankara's Burkina Faso to see that.
I read an argument by a sports writer months ago that probably the toughest part of being a pro-athlete, one almost never talked about, is the supersaturation of stats and how they're treated as though they measure ones entire value. Basically, baseball players get so much self-worth from their WAR, and Ballers from their PPG, that to experience a fall off in one of these stats can be emotionally devastating, particularly because you know it'll lead to a smaller pay in the future. Meanwhile you have guys like Morey, 538, or Sabermetrics diehards, who really do believe that you can come up with an advanced stat so perfect that it will account for someones entire worth as a player.
No one sympathizes with this painful aspect of being a professional athlete though, because they get paid so high that we don't think they have a right to complain. But make no mistake, soon there will be a Basketball-reference equivalent for Amazon employees, your pay will be based on what an algorithm spits out, and only then will we be able to emphasize with what having a bunch of numbers determine how million of people value you feels like.
soon there will be a Basketball-reference equivalent for Amazon employees
There already is. Cruder metrics (e.g., sales figures, billable hours) have been used like this for decades.
The problem is once you start doing it like this you quickly realize that a lot of positions, especially managerial ones are actually accomplishing jack shit, so then you redefine what accomplishment means so you can preserve the power structure and you're almost back at square one, only worse. And of course there are positions and tasks that cannot be quantified as easy. I.e. what do you do with r&d which can take long time without producing results. In addition people tend to game the metrics, when they are measured on these metrics.
Bruh you smart as hell. Most managers at my job don’t do as much actual productive work as the really hard working average associates. In terms of raw, physical stuff that actually gets accomplished, it’s not the managers doing the heavy lifting. But at the same time, basing compensation off of accomplishment is problematic. I’m a lot stronger and faster than some of my fellow employees who do the same tasks as me, but it wouldn’t be fair to pay me more just because I do more. I only do more by virtue of my random luck to be a physically fit person. If compensation was based on accomplishment I would not want the old people I work with breaking their backs to keep up with someone like me ya know.
Bruh you smart as hell
I know. My mom told me so :P
The more time passes the more my dislike for managers grows. At best they are overpaid secretaries, most of the time - just the capitalist equivalent of petite lords and nobles. The decision making they do could and should be done by workers.
If compensation was based on accomplishment I would not want the old people I work with breaking their backs to keep up with someone like me ya know.
Old people should be retired and living on a pension, and young people should at least be guaranteed a decent standard of living. That would fix a ton of the problem you're describing.
Oh 100%. I feel some kind of way about all the 50 and 60 year old guys who have to work alongside me. If my back is aching I just know there’s have got to be killing them 24/7. They deserve better at that age than to have to sell their rapidly deteriorating bodies
Well, the prevailing understanding is that this is not true. Performance based rewards only work on very simple tasks and has a negative effect on higher level tasks. Check out this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1SDV8nxypE
Morpheus voice: what if I told you productivity and quality of goods were not the end goal of humanity?
Dude this is one of those things that are so terrible on so many levels that it makes me dizzy just thinking about it. I hope this post isn't supposed to be an endorsement of that because this is just awful.
fuck yeah! fuck with our ability to feed and clothe ourselves to "motivate" us to work "harder"!
and of course, they'd surely not end up spending less on wages than they were to begin with
no way jose.
I read a book called Drive! by Daniel Pink whose underlying premise was this:
People dont give a shit about pay as long as their needs are met. Which is true for me atleast, I dont want more pay often I want more free time. Especially if my taxes make working more a diminishing return or in general make my life more miserable. The book barely mentioned the pay part too, which was an obviois indicator that the book is garbage.
It says that: What you as a business owner needs to do is align your employees wants with your own. And if that means giving them more free reign and less working hours, that's good. You should do that.
My problem was how seedy and manipulative it is, the assumption that you can and that you should try to manipulate people to have your fucking gross capitalist goals. It also had the jeff bezos-y squeeze every bit of juice out of the lemon you can, but in five hours instead of 8.
That sounds pretty typical of management texts I've had to read. Often they have a surprising (to me) awareness of what makes working at the bottom rung of an organization miserable and alienating, but improvements to that situation are always subordinated to the needs of "the organization" (i.e. the bosses). I expected Pure Ideology going into reading them, but often instead found class consciousness, albeit of a kind that is deeply cynical at its core.
yeah, like i wish all my desires and needs were what the company i wanted. my life would be easier but that's just a stronger argument for a democratic workplace
OOF LIFE
"Looks like your work isn't up to my standards, so I wont be paying you for this one. Better get back to it."
Almost like it demoralizes people that care about their work while incentivizing people to simply put in the hours and not give a fuck.
You're right, but I don't know that we as socialists should encourage this framing. It allows too much room for CEOs and PMC ghouls to point towards market growth parameters (which are still stolen labour abstacted into capitalist numerology) and claim this justifies their obscene salaries.
I can also see how this line of reasoning could be twisted to support underpaying those perceived as being less productive because the chosen metric fails to capture their contributions.
The framing, even if it were made in good faith (which I doubt), is still woke capitalism at best. No amount of optimisation will make wage labour fair and no amount of emplyee fulfillment research will stop capitalist alienation. These are baked into the code of the system.
These are baked into the code of the system.
Yes. How do we reach these libs?
There is no one way to reach people, since cultural background and material conditions change a lot. Ironically, I think this article could be a great entry point with white collar libs. For every middle management bootlicker who's paid not to think too hard about it, there are at least 10 people under him, who know full well that their jobs are mostly bullshit. Starting a conversation on fair wages can be used to expose a serious contradiction in their way of life. On the one hand, they are exploited and mistreated by their bosses, and most know it deep down. On the other, the capitalist system, if applied "fairly" (by its own rules) would see them driven homeless and starving. At this point bring up the reserve army of labour, and how much power management hold over them. Challenge their ideas of freedom and democracy, when the owner is a feudal lord in all but name. Shit like that.
Cool, who cares? If someone who "cares" about their work is demoralised by the "lazy bastards" getting as much money as them, they're fucked in the head and need reprogramming.
I don't care about my coworkers dicking around on the job because I know that we don't get paid more for working harder anyway and it leads to more of us just putting in the hours and not giving a fuck. I think people took the wrong message from what I said, perhaps I could have worded it better? That and they deserve better pay to begin with just for putting up with a job that sucks and is dehumanizing.
