[lukifer]

These conditions aren't unique to warehouse jobs; the customer call-center industry is similar in many ways. Time is tracked down to the second, you are being recorded and/or monitored at all times, tardiness and absenteeism are ruthlessly enforced with no excuses, and there is relentless pressure to "hit your numbers", which are often nearly impossible. And of course, you're still expected to "always put the customer first" under these insane conditions.

If you don't live up in any respect, they're happy to let the next batch of trainees have your job. In fact, they prefer it; those with 5+ years of experience have the most to fear, as they acquire raises and cushier benefits over time, and so are often fired for the same infraction that gets a newbie a write-up.

I suppose that call centers are preferable to warehouses, in that there is little risk of injury, and there are more opportunities to move up or transfer careers. Still, this is one of the human costs of corporate capitalism in general: if you don't have rare or specialized skills, you have no negotiating power, and have to take whatever you can get. And don't even think about uttering the word "union".

[temphn]

> costs of corporate capitalism

But under non-capitalist systems such as in the USSR you were machine gunned or bayoneted for refusing to work (starting with the Kronstadt Rebellion and ending with Solidarity), and had no option to quit or leave the country.

Capitalism hasn't yet completely eradicated all drudgery from the world, but Mother Jones isn't about to acknowledge that it's better that 4000 marginal workers have jobs than not. It is horribly oppressive for a software engineer to imagine a job where you have to come in on time, but now remember your frustration at closed stores or unavailable phone support/customer service. For stores to be open at normal hours, for people to pick up the phone, for emergency rooms to be open when you need them, somebody has to care about punctuality.

[guelo]

Another less extreme alternative to soviet communism is a unionized workforce similar to what we had in the US 30 years ago before Democrats gave up the fight and American capitalists started shipping jobs overseas in order to break up unions.

[winestock]

Why is this guy being downvoted? If automation were so imminent, then why weren't the robots brought in five or ten years earlier? Why did business interests work so hard for China to get "most favored nation" trading status during the Clinton administration? Why do people go on and on about the human capital of China (iPhone factories and so forth) if not for the assembly-line grunt work?

[cynicalkane]

He's being downvoted because knee-jerk unionism is bad for discussion, just as any other kind of knee-jerk politics is bad for discussion.

[Steko]

There's nothing knee jerk about his comment, he's pointing out that there's a middle ground between these warehouses and Soviet bayonets.

[cynicalkane]

> a unionized workforce similar to what we had in the US 30 years ago before Democrats gave up the fight and American capitalists started shipping jobs overseas in order to break up unions.

This post is almost content free and to the extent it has content, it's somewhat inaccurate. Unions are just one part of why globalization saves costs. Worse, it's an inaccuracy committed for the sake of injecting politics.

[saryant]

It wouldn't make a difference. These are jobs that will be largely lost to automation as robots are increasingly able to perform these functions.

I doubt anyone would be surprised if Amazon is investing in such technology.

[lukifer]

There's a reason I used the phrase "corporate capitalism". I meant our particular flavor of government-industrial complex, not markets in general. In my opinion, either pure libertarianism or a hybrid economy of democratic socialism would both be an improvement over the "socialism for the rich" we currently live with.

[ficho]

but Mother Jones isn't about to acknowledge that it's better that 4000 marginal workers have jobs than not.

I don't think that's the issue. Whould the cost lowering productivity or making for better social conditions be so high for companies that already make so much profit? And if yes does it have to come from public pressure or enacted laws? Can't a company establish acceptable social practices by itself.

I don't care if my stuff comes in a day later if it can ease up the horror of people working there. There is something to be done in connecting people using the service with the ones making it possible and at what cost. This is just nuts

[batista]

But under non-capitalist systems such as in the USSR you were machine gunned or bayoneted for refusing to work (starting with the Kronstadt Rebellion and ending with Solidarity), and had no option to quit or leave the country.

Actually no. In anything, the socialist states were infamous for people not-working-that-much. The Kronstadt Rebellion and Solidarity had nothing to do with "refusing to work", and all to do with fighting the state power for more freedom.

That said, it's not either corporate capitalism (as described in the article) or USSR. There are plenty of options in between, starting with respect for workers as human beings, and regulations that ensure that treating people as mere cogs is not an option to gain a competitive advantage with. Kind of like we abolished slavery -- we can also abolish unpaid overtime and treating employees like shit. Take a look at Europe. And, no, the reason US has a slightly more advanced economy than, say, Sweden, is not due to harsh working conditions. It's has more to do with human capital, a large unified market PLUS tons of military might abused to ensure cheap oil and resources.

Capitalism hasn't yet completely eradicated all drudgery from the world, but Mother Jones isn't about to acknowledge that it's better that 4000 marginal workers have jobs than not.

Having a job at those conditions or not is not the only two options --we only make them to be. It's like you're saying "it's better than 4000 slaves have an owner to feed them than not".

It is horribly oppressive for a software engineer to imagine a job where you have to come in on time, but now remember your frustration at closed stores or unavailable phone support/customer service.

Yes, people have been taught to behave like spoiled children, and expect others to work for them 24/7. To the detriment of their own working conditions, because you are a consumer for a few hours at most, but you are an employee most of your day.

[ekianjo]

> the reason US has a slightly more advanced economy than, say, Sweden, is not due to harsh working conditions. It's has more to do with human capital, a large unified market PLUS tons of military might abused to ensure cheap oil and resources.

Russia: huge human capital. Check. Large unified market. Check. Tons of Military Might abused to ensure cheap access to ressources. Check. Oh wait, I can do the same thing for China, too.

Of course those are NOT the only factors to predict how rich people are going to be. The economic system is the only KEY differenciator to build an economy. That should have been obvious by now, after we had so many great examples in the 20th century. Let's not spread the old false myths around.

[lukifer]

> The economic system is the only KEY differenciator to build an economy

Are you kidding? Socio-cultural values, religious beliefs, natural resources, foreign policy, domestic policy, monetary systems, infrastructure, none of these things matter at all?

Your inferences from history might have value if we had a reliable World Simulator, where we could change and control variables at will and observe the results. But we don't; extrapolating any kind of simple narrative from history pretty much guarantees you're at least partially wrong. Reality is complex, and is under no obligation to work in ways that make intuitive sense to us talking monkeys.

[ekianjo]

Socio-cultural values. Japan has totally different values from the US. China, same.Apparently that does not prevent them from all being prettu successful economically speaking.

Religious beliefs. Huh ? Japan, China, same as previous point. Totally different from Europe or US. But otherwise pretty successful countries. Where's the correlation between economy and religion?

Natural resources. Japan has no access to natural resources on their land. Singapore has no resources. Luxemburg has no resources. Switzerland has no resources. Holland has no resources. Funny how all those countries have rather healthy economies.

Foreign policy Agree on that one. But policies which do not support free exchange of goods tend to do rather badly. Cuba, anyone?

Domestic policy Domestic policy in China and in the US are totally different - you will find very few common points there. That does not seem to impact significantly their economic success, at least on the short term.

Monetary systems You have a point there, but since all countries have abandoned the Gold standard for long, basically we are all on fiat currency currently, no matter in which part of the world you live in. Money is now paper everywhere, it's hardly a differentiator.

Infrastructure Infrastructure usually derived from an economic system. It's when you have a growing economy and growing needs that you worry about infrastructures. Building roads and airports when people are starving is useless.

So, not many of the things you mentioned matter at all, I'm afraid. But feel free to prove me wrong.

[lukifer]

You're implying direct causal links. I'm talking about synergies, all the components I mentioned (and many others I didn't) operating together as a system.

Religion affects how people vote. Voting affects foreign policy. Foreign policy affects international trade. And on and on.

For a more concrete example: American capitalism isn't composed just of our currency and the laws on the books regarding incorporation, property, etc. It includes our belief systems about capitalism: the American Dream, Horatio Algers, Ayn Rand, "greed is good", the invisible hand, build a better mousetrap, and on and on. It includes the moral values of consumers, who might make a purchasing decision based on whether it has a green label, or says "Made in the USA". It includes the expectations of workers regarding conditions: Chinese workers put up with the conditions at FoxConn, whereas most Americans would quit or strike (for now, anyway).

> But policies which do not support free exchange of goods tend to do rather badly.

I challenge you to give me an example of a society that engages in a completely free exchange of goods. Even proto-libertarian countries like Switzerland still outlaw trade of certain things (drugs, organs, humans), levy taxes of some kind, and socialize some economic activity (health care, public safety). The only countries that do not are those without a functioning government, in which case trade cannot be free, because there is nothing stopping someone from taking what they want by force.

That said, I agree with the notion that societies do better when they allow people to become rich. But I take umbrage with the idea that our flavor of capitalism is inherently the best one, and the only other alternative is to become Cuba.

[Intermernet]

Just to throw a spanner in the works, Australia has VERY similar socio-cultural values as the USA, lots of natural resources, racist foreign policy, US based financial infrastructure (free trade, anyone) and really, we're quite different from the USA in many ways.

Not sure how this fits with the geographic based theories on climate vs. behavior.

[batista]

Socio-cultural values. Japan has totally different values from the US. China, same. Apparently that does not prevent them from all being prettu successful economically speaking. Religious beliefs. Huh ? Japan, China, same as previous point. Totally different from Europe or US. But otherwise pretty successful countries. Where's the correlation between economy and religion?

Your argumentation continues in the same vain.

But he didn't said that Socio-cultural values have to be THE SAME for economic success.

He said that socio-cultural values are a FACTOR for economic success, which is a quite different thing.

For example, regarding cultural values: Japan has different values from the US, and China too. That doesn't mean that those kinds of values (Japan/China and US values) are not ALL suited for a successful economy, and a country with a different set of values (say, Mexico) wouldn't do as well.

So, the correlation of social values to economic success (which no economist/sociologist really argues against btw), is not that only ONE kind of value system can produce economic success, it's that different value systems do either well or bad on economy.

Same for religion, etc.

Natural resources. Japan has no access to natural resources on their land. Singapore has no resources. Luxemburg has no resources. Switzerland has no resources. Holland has no resources. Funny how all those countries have rather healthy economies.

Funny, how all those countries have different KINDS of economies. Natural resources is a huge factor for China or US like economic success. Not for Singapore (= a corporate hub), not for Kayman Islands (= a tax shelter), etc. That said, Japan without easy ACCESS to natural resources, on the other hand, would have been a complete failure.

[JohnnyBrown]

Another key difference is that the set of thoughts whose public expression could get a person killed, and the actual danger from expressing them, has been much smaller in the US than in those two countries for the past hundred years or so.

We've had our inquisitions here, but I think people tend to recognize them and call them what they are pretty quickly. See Eleanor Roosevelt's very public comments about McCarthyism.

[ekianjo]

I think freedom of expression plays a role somewhere, but not sure how critical it is in order be successful economically. If you take a look at China, again, if you vocally oppose the government you would end up in prison pretty fast, but that does not prevent people from engaging in commerce with relative large freedom. Commerce and Freedom of expression are not necessarily tied together.

Though, on a libertarian point of view, I agree that freedom makes sense in all aspects of life, not only in economic affairs.

[moldbug]

Good thing you're not a racist, JohnnyBrown. I take it the name "James Watson" doesn't ring any instant bells for you.

It's very easy to confuse an absence of persecution, with an absence of people who agree with you being persecuted. That just shows that you're on top and your enemies are on the bottom. Ie, all's right with the world.

Of course Eleanor Roosevelt didn't like McCarthyism - it was an attempt to persecute people like her. Eleanor Roosevelt was the alpha queen of the purge of the "isolationists." Not to mention the McCarthyites, who got purged pretty good themselves. You'll note that there's not a lot left of them. There's a lot left of Eleanor Roosevelt, however.

It's true that America doesn't generally shoot the people it purges, work them to death by forced labor, etc. We don't need to. Our methods are much more efficient than that.

[JohnnyBrown]

Good points. Also MLK and Malcolm X could stand as pretty prominent counterexamples to my argument.

[batista]

Russia: huge human capital. Check. Large unified market. Check. Tons of Military Might abused to ensure cheap access to ressources. Check.

Russia is only about 100-110 million people. One third of the US. So the "large unified market" is much smaller, as is the "human capital" pool, by which I don't mean people, but scientists, inventors, etc. And the military might that Russia has and uses to gain cheap access to resources is so smaller compared to the US it's not even funny. Plus, Russia is recovering from both the USSR state bureaucrat dictatorship AND the US/IMF BS doctrines imposed on the during the Yeltsin era.

Oh wait, I can do the same thing for China, too.

Well, unlike Russia, China DOES have all that. And China is doing rather well. It's on the up and up, and already poised to a larger economy that the US. So, if anything, this supports my argument.

[ekianjo]

Oh yeah, China is doing rather well NOW. How about China, like 20 or even 30 years ago ? It was a poor country, underdeveloped. And you know what changed ? Their economic system. Just that. It was so sudden in China you can easily trace the roots of their economic boom. It supports my argument, rather than yours.

[pyre]

  > And you know what changed ? Their economic system.

So the thing that we should all aspire to as a species is the venerable Chinese sweatshop? The 'perfect storm' of capitalism, anti-unionism, and corporatism?

[yummyfajitas]

...PLUS tons of military might abused to ensure cheap oil and resources.

Wait, what? Does the US pay less to import oil or steel than Sweden or something?

[batista]

Are you kidding? The US has had its hands on oil and other resources the world over, ensuring favorable prices, preferential treatment and US petrol companies' control over oil springs. To the point of overthrowing governments, including Iran's democratic one back in the day, when they took a oil policy they didn't like. Here's a small example:

Iraq's massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days. The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article21325...

or:

The Carter administration – the most “idealist” of the post-World War II presidencies in terms of its rhetoric – openly acknowledged in National Security Directive (NSD) 63 (and after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan) the need to ensure “the availability of oil [from the Middle East] at reasonable prices.” Carter’s administration announced that any “attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States. It will be repelled by the use of any means necessary, including military force.” This policy of targeting unfriendly governments that reside in regions tangential to the Middle East was further reinforced in other official policy documents. In discussing U.S. policy, the Reagan administration explained in NSD 27 the need “to ensure the U.S. access to foreign energy and mineral forces” as a key aspect of “national security” priorities. Carter established a similar concern in NSD 63, discussing U.S. interest in dominating Middle Eastern oil as also extending to the “horn of Africa.”

(...)

Policy motivations – simply put – have long been driven by concern with dominating Middle Eastern oil supplies by force, and with support for repressive, U.S.-friendly regimes in geographic areas (such as North Africa) that are tangential to the Middle East. With regard to oil concerns, President George H. W. Bush articulated U.S. policy toward the Middle East, explaining in National Security Directive 26 that: “Access to Persian Gulf oil and the security of key friendly states in the area are vital to United States national security. The United States remains committed to its vital interests in the region, if necessary and appropriate through the use of military force, against the Soviet Union or any other force with interests inimical to our own.”

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/10/24/what-the-establishmen...

or this:

http://www.salon.com/2011/06/11/libya_9/singleton/

[simplefish]

With all due respect...are you trolling, or did you not read the comment you're replying to?

The original comment was, basically, an assertion that oil a globally traded commodity where prices are set for the entire market, and the price paid for any given barrel is the current market price, which will be precisely the same for all market participants (not counting the impact of taxes, subsidies, and differences in regulatory climate. (Is this true? Hint: The answer is "yes".)

Not only did your comment and links not actually disprove this assertion (not surprising, given that it's rather obviously true), but nothing you said even really disagreed with it, which leads me to believe you're not even a troll, just clueless.

Every single example you gave could well lead to lower oil prices for both American and Swedish consumers; none of them could plausibly lead to lower oil prices for American consumers but higher ones for Swedish consumers. Want to play again?

[yummyfajitas]

My question is whether Sweden pays a higher price for oil (ignoring taxes) than the US, not whether the US attempts to keep oil prices low.

None of your links address the question I actually asked.

If Iraqi oil is fully exploited, I agree this will result in lower oil prices. But oil prices are set by the global market - the price Sweden pays = global price + shipping cost, same as the US.

[savramescu]

This is not about the price of oil. Sweden and the US may pay the same price. But who's extracting it? Who's making the profit in the sale?

[marshallp]

"Corporate" or "crony" capitalism is the key word. In real capitalism people would be in charge of their own production and not subject themselves to the above. Their are all sorts of laws on the books to prevent the poor from being charge of their own value (taxi laws, food licensing, planning permits etc.) as well as curbs on investment (you can't invest in the host upcoming company unless you're already a millionaire) and lending (poor people aren't eligible for loans to start busineses). Not to mention the biggest evil - public schools, where poor children are subjected to deskilling of their natural talents (schooling is important - why not give vouchers and let small businesses operate school - in third world countries this is the norm and they far outperform government schools).

[patio11]

I worked in a call center for two summers to pay for college. It was actually not that bad. I was certainly tracked, monitored, and given aggressive performance targets, but as an inbound CSR you don't have many calls that make you cry.

They offered us shifts in the warehouse when we didn't need 100% utilization on the phones. I never took them up on that, despite that juicy extra quarter an hour.

[lukifer]

There's a huge degree of variability in the industry; I worked for four different call centers before I broke into web-dev, and some were much worse than others.

The absolute worst ones are the out-sourced centers that handle in-bound calls for multiple other companies. Because they have no stake in the long-term outcome and are paid solely by their numbers (cost per call), they have little incentive to train their staff well, pay well, follow through with customers, etc. Working for Comcast and AT&T directly was degrading and Dilbertesque, but they weren't as bad as the outsourced centers or the warehouse environs described in the article.

[yuhong]

Of course, customer support is different from packing goods, which makes this flawed. I think a lot of the problems comes from companies treating customer support as a cost.