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Antiwork

Surplus labour question…

Firstly, I like the idea behind this sub. I hate work. I think if the planet got their act together and there was more equality people could live much better lives and hopefully avoid living just to work. The system seems particularly bad in the US with wages vs prices of things and all the wealth going to a minority of people. That being said I see a lot on here about surplus labour being stolen by companies for profits ie you get paid 15 dollars an hour and they charge customers 30 so you're not getting paid your value. What's never mentioned is the resources and stuff it's taken to be able to get to the point of charging customers 30 dollars per hour. Like opening a store, paying the bills, building a reputation/brand, often putting loads of hours in up front unpaid or at best with a risk…


Firstly, I like the idea behind this sub. I hate work. I think if the planet got their act together and there was more equality people could live much better lives and hopefully avoid living just to work. The system seems particularly bad in the US with wages vs prices of things and all the wealth going to a minority of people.

That being said I see a lot on here about surplus labour being stolen by companies for profits ie you get paid 15 dollars an hour and they charge customers 30 so you're not getting paid your value.

What's never mentioned is the resources and stuff it's taken to be able to get to the point of charging customers 30 dollars per hour. Like opening a store, paying the bills, building a reputation/brand, often putting loads of hours in up front unpaid or at best with a risk of not being paid or even being bankrupt because your business fails. All that seems to be ignored. So let's say you make coffee and get 15 dollars and hour and make the company 30… Surely you can just go sell coffee yourself and get the whole 30. Except obviously you can't, because as I mentioned what's never considered is the fact of having to pay building rent, having to buy cups in bulk and store them, source ingredients, do lots of admin tasks in the background, take the hit when customers don't pay or complain, do accounts or pay an accountant etc. Often for small business owners this can mean working for less than your staff if you totalled up all the hours put in. In which instance ironically you could say the staff are stealing some surplus labour from the owner!

But all you ever see on here are people expecting to swoop in and take all the profits once all that's set up and running smoothly. Ie all of the upside and none of the down. And it comes across as pretty entitled. Sure you get paid 15 dollars but there's no risk of you not getting paid that, you're first to be paid, the owner takes the risk.

Now all that being said I agree the systems fucked and huge corporations are imo a bad thing for society in general and job opportunities and renumerations aren't as good as they were in the past but I also think people's attitudes to work are worse too. I saw a post on here before someone starting somewhere and basically refusing to talk to/build relationships with co workers because they wanted their breaks to themselves for example.

Anyway those are just my thoughts, I'm not criticising antiwork at all – I'd love there to be a UBI and machines be able to afford everyone to have way more leisure time and I really feel bad for US workers in particular, just interested in what people think.

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