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Antiwork

Passion-driven work is nonsensically exploited

Passion-driven work is the kind of work best (or usually) performed by someone who has great passion for it, such as the work done by game developers, character actors in Disneyland, or research scientists. People who work in these fields are usually paid very little when you consider the level of skill required to do their work. For example, Disneyland actors are paid around $13 per hour for their time, while their work is extremely tiring, demanding and requires uncommon skills. I often hear people say that those who enjoy their work don't need to be paid as much because the enjoyment is part of their pay. I disagree heavily with this to begin with, but let's assume it's correct for a moment so we can analyse it.   Let's say for argument's sake that if you enjoy your work, then it's reasonable for you to be paid less for…


Passion-driven work is the kind of work best (or usually) performed by someone who has great passion for it, such as the work done by game developers, character actors in Disneyland, or research scientists. People who work in these fields are usually paid very little when you consider the level of skill required to do their work. For example, Disneyland actors are paid around $13 per hour for their time, while their work is extremely tiring, demanding and requires uncommon skills.

I often hear people say that those who enjoy their work don't need to be paid as much because the enjoyment is part of their pay. I disagree heavily with this to begin with, but let's assume it's correct for a moment so we can analyse it.

 

Let's say for argument's sake that if you enjoy your work, then it's reasonable for you to be paid less for it. Why is it then that the capitalist middlemen don't drop their prices accordingly, seeing as it's this work of passion that produces the goods being sold? Why doesn't Disneyland lower its prices seeing as the passion of what they do is payment in itself? Why doesn't EA Games lower its prices or reduce its excessive microtransactions, given the number of passionate individuals working in their teams? Why do scientists that do groundbreaking research rarely see even a fraction of the money made from their journals being published or their research being applied to products?

 

The capitalists that own works of passion disproportionately double-win. They can simultaneously claim that their workers deserve less pay due to their passion, and also keep their prices high due to consumers being willing to pay what they do for their products. Capitalists simply pocket the extra income from other people's passion without any rhyme or reason. It doesn't make any sense the way it works, but there it is.

I don't have any great point behind all this, just pointing out yet another way that capitalists thrive by exploiting others using nonsense-logic.

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