A lot of people will say things like that when they're no (longer?) in position to actually make a difference - it's a safe way to garner sympathy and attention without actually making the decision and be responsible for its consequences. I can guarantee you he wouldn't have the same opinion if he was still in his position and had political power to be able to actually allow this.
People working multiple jobs are universally frowned upon by the slave masters not only because this allows the slave to be less financially dependent on the master (which means they won't accept as much abuse as they would if they had no other source of income), but also because the extra money affords them a lifestyle that can rival those in higher, more prestigious positions. Same reason remote work is under constant pressure, since it used to be a perk exclusive to higher positions and seeing the peasants enjoy it doesn't fly too well.
Exactly. Ive also noticed a lot of former faang VPs now trying to become influencers on LinkedIn by sharing the "internals" of big co promotion and other processes. Amazing they would never talk about this while in the role but suddenly they are now ultra generous! Don't get me wrong. The revealings are actually pretty spot on but timing is very dubious!
I don't think cynicism explains why an exec would not share the "internals" of the organization they are currently in. They are in a position of trust which has the expectation of not sharing said "internals". Betraying that trust would, rightfully, cause them to be sanctioned. Once they are out of the position, they have the option to divulge or not so some choose to do so.
Definitely not cynicism. The other way even. There is a definite amount of sociopathy and Kool aid selling needed as you guys higher up the ladder. You are a bit free from it when you leave the ladder. And forget real altruism, there is an element of perceived altruism when you look like you are "spilling the beans".
It's not voluntary unless/until you can find me a place where housing/land is free.
Sure, the slavery is "distributed" across multiple actors such as landlords & profit off the whole concept of property as an asset, but ultimately the net result is the same - you have to work just to be afforded shelter.
The end result is that you work or you die (out of exposure, medical bills, etc). Not much different from the slavery from the old days?
The conspicuous difference is that you can choose who to work for and in consequences employers have to compete for labor, which is why the overwhelming majority of people make more than minimum wage.
You're also setting up a catch 22 where things like housing construction, which require labor to exist, are a prerequisite to not having slavery, but if no one has to do labor to construct housing then where does it come from?
Minimum wage is an arbitrary construct that may have been reasonable when it was initially introduced but due to dysfunctional politics/corruption (or "lobbying") hasn't been updated to reflect the cost of living especially with regards to property prices, so making minimum wage isn't a high bar.
> where things like housing construction, which require labor to exist
That's why I mentioned land and not only housing. In fact in most places the land is more expensive than the building on top. Even if you hypothetically wanted to just put a tent somewhere and not require on any external labor, you'd still need to buy/rent the land first.
> Minimum wage is an arbitrary construct that may have been reasonable when it was initially introduced but due to dysfunctional politics/corruption (or "lobbying") hasn't been updated to reflect the cost of living especially with regards to property prices, so making minimum wage isn't a high bar.
Irrelevant. The point is that you could set the minimum wage to zero and people would still make wages higher than that because employers have to compete for labor.
> That's why I mentioned land and not only housing. In fact in most places the land is more expensive than the building on top.
But this is really not any different -- depending on how you define it land is either a scare resource you can't get any more of at all or something that requires labor to create more of, e.g. by building sea platforms or similar.
And people don't actually need any particular amount of land in order to have shelter. You can build an arbitrarily large amount of shelter on a given piece of land by building an arbitrarily tall building. In theory there is a limit on how tall a building you could make, but in practice if we built buildings of the largest size we know how to build on the amount of land that actually exists we would have dramatically more housing than is needed for everyone.
So the limiting factor is not actually land, it's construction, which somebody has to do in order for you to have shelter.
I'm pretty sure slaves from any era would kill to have my job where I work from home, have various insurances and investments through my employer, make a lot of money that I can spend on whatever I want and more. When you abstract concepts enough, everything becomes similar but current employment in developed countries is nowhere near slavery.
Slaves from the previous era would sure kill for your job... but you might very well kill for this job 20 years down the line when all your perks have evaporated and inflation/property prices/taxes have reduced your currently-high-salary to what is effectively minimum wage?
Keep in mind that no employer/business is providing these perks out of the goodness of their heart - they do so because the market is (was?) extremely competitive, but it's not a given that the market will stay competitive.
In slavery, the enslaved is property. Their spouse and children can be sold off, you can be used as a breeder of more slaves, you eat what you can forage or what is handed to you, if you don't work harder you and your family are physically beaten. Some slaves had their achilles tendon's ruptured so they couldn't run but still could work in fields. That is just getting started and I'm not an expert in the matter (just took a few history classes).
So.. there are some really stark differences. "Wage slavery" does have similarities to an extent, but it is still a world apart.
The qualitative difference between slavery and a job is that a slave is not allowed to choose a better option if one is available. A slave is barred from taking higher paid work, work with better conditions, etc. Even if it would be beneficial for their master (e.g. they do higher value work and all of the money goes to their master) they do not have the freedom to choose. A slave does not have the freedom to improve their circumstances even if it is a win-win situation. That is the qualitative difference between slavery and a job.
Really? I've never heard this and a quick google doesn't bear this out. Also, it's not clear to me what they would actually do to you if you didn't...put you in prison? Release you as punishment?
If people start using prison as this "one weird trick they don't want you to know" to not pay rent, this problem will be solved pretty quickly too (if it isn't already, as the other commenter suggests forced prison labor is a thing in some places).
You only addressed the lighthearted part of my response. I'd be much more interested in your reaction to my main point - you appear to be defining slavery as having to care for yourself. Surely you do not believe that you are owed a life of leisure do you?
Slaves were forced to work all day in the sun without shade performing brutal physical labor. They were forced to work in the rain without cover, in the snow without protection from the cold. In mines, and in other dangerous jobs where injuries were frequently fatal. They were beaten regularly for all sorts of stupid and made up reasons. They were raped. And tortured. And murdered. They were bought and sold like things, and children were torn from their parents because they were just things.
To call one of the cushiest jobs that has ever existed in human history "slavery" because of some minor restrictions on your ability to make even more money on the side...I don't even have the words to describe just how ridiculous you come across right now.
> because this allows the slave to be less financially dependent on the master
Just a little back of the envelope economics: if everyone thinks the way you do -> labor supply doubles -> wages go down -> working two jobs is now the expectation
Similar economic side effects to having both genders in the workforce. This lifestyle only "works out" so long as most people are unwilling to do what you're doing
Short of some radical changes around the whole concept of "property", I think this may end up being the norm anyway considering property price inflation?
After all, people need a place to live, so if there's more value to extract, why wouldn't the landlords (and all the industries supporting them) cash in on that?
I agree that it shouldn't matter for lower paying jobs and those that don't need a non compete. For higher paying jobs, I think it's reasonable for a company to set a base pay or pre approval before having a second job.
It _should_ matter from a perspective of not paying enough money for an employee to meet basic needs and have enough discretionary spending to not need a 2nd job.
I think slave is (way) too strong, but I earn more than that, and until I'd paid off my house I considered myself a "wage-slave", in as much as I couldn't afford to stop working. Another term I used for myself was "techno-whore", since I sell my technical skills for money. I could choose to end that by moving to a LCOL area instead of the VHCOL area that supplies those wages, but I don't because there are advantages to being where I am.
Still, costs are in line with those wages, so my mortgage was costing me ~$5k/month, my electricity was peaking at $1k/month, my water was $500/month, my property taxes were $1500/month, etc. etc. etc. A high salary doesn't necessarily mean unbound wealth, it just makes living in that VHCOL area comfortable.
Sadly, I still can't afford to stop working, but that's more down to the completely terrible form of "healthcare" that the US employs, and not my actual job.
Engineers making 300k is a US-specific phenomenon and was only as a result of the very competitive SWE job market (itself as a result of "free" VC money which has now ran out).
There's no guarantee it won't become like the UK or most of Europe where software engineering salaries are miserable.
I wouldn’t use the word slave, but a lot of these companies have moonlighting agreements and verbiage like “will dedicate your full business attention” to ensure you aren’t building anything that isn’t for them.
It shouldn't matter if (and it is a big if) management is actually managing employees deliverable outputs. But if you have management that isn't capable of measuring and managing what the employees deliver, then they revert to just managing the employees time.
The recent push for return to office seems to indicate that many places are not capable of managing what their workers actually produce.
> The recent push for return to office seems to indicate that many places are not capable of managing what their workers actually produce.
It's not that they can't, it's that the people in power to make this change would themselves be obsoleted if they do so. Many higher-level positions derive their perceived usefulness and prestige by the number of reports under them and the amount of busywork produced even if said busywork is counter-productive to the bottom-line.
A laser focus on deliverables would signify the death of middle-management and various "facilitator" positions who currently enjoy cushy jobs without contributing anything essential.
Remote work is about trust. The biggest fear for the employer is that you are slacking off, because they cannot physically see if you're even there. If an employer realizes that you have accepted another full time job contract they would feel cheated, even if your output is excellent. I worry that the rational position for the employer would be to try to force their next hire to not be fully remote, and to try to implement more measures to monitor and control the existing remote positions.
I've never really understood the opposition to this besides non-competes et al. Ultimately I think work should be about delivery of a product or service not time spent, and if an enterprising person can deliver a business a product or service and at the same time deliver something else for another business, why shouldn't they be able to?
I've always noticed this disturbing tendency in some people to assume that since they employed you they own your entire life. I think they need to adjust their attitudes.
Contracts are on case-by-case basis but generally no. On the other hand, that's why so many companies do not want to hire contractors even when the task is well-suited for such an arrangement. They want a butt in a chair financially dependent on them first, and the deliverable second (if at all).
Disclaimer: contractor so my response might be obviously biased.
20 years ago I worked 3 jobs simultaneously. During the day I managed an infrastructure engineering team and at night I worked as 3rd shift lead in a NOC. During downtime in the NOC, there was plenty of it, I worked on freelance technical writing jobs. I think everyone in that NOC worked a day job. People would occasionally be found out and fired. I only maintained that pace for a couple of years before deciding I'd like to have a social life and sleep a full 8 hours again.
I started working fully remote in 2018 and considered jumping on the multiple job train again but decided against it. I retired a few months ago, at 53, and now part-time manage a horse farm which is more work than 3 simultaneous tech jobs was.
I read an article linked off HN about how the reason that companies want you to come back to the office is because they want to have control over you - rather than them wanting to have the output you provide (I'm wording that wrong and wish I could find the article to quote it). But I think that's very related to this.
A lot of people will say things like that when they're no (longer?) in position to actually make a difference - it's a safe way to garner sympathy and attention without actually making the decision and be responsible for its consequences. I can guarantee you he wouldn't have the same opinion if he was still in his position and had political power to be able to actually allow this.
People working multiple jobs are universally frowned upon by the slave masters not only because this allows the slave to be less financially dependent on the master (which means they won't accept as much abuse as they would if they had no other source of income), but also because the extra money affords them a lifestyle that can rival those in higher, more prestigious positions. Same reason remote work is under constant pressure, since it used to be a perk exclusive to higher positions and seeing the peasants enjoy it doesn't fly too well.