I’ll do you one in reverse: all labor can be represented in the unskilled labor required to recreate it. If unskilled labor is x, and skilled labor is 2x, skilled is just a higher quantity of unskilled labor as expressed per hour.
I don’t think you are saying they are actually interchangeable in that way, but employers think like this and will hire multiple ‘unskilled’ people to do a job that would take one ‘skilled’ person. In reality the work done by unskilled people will not be the same as the skilled person.
My skill is shitting in a corner, I’ve practiced and I’m very good at it, and I don’t want no electricity scientists saying they’re better than me goddammit.
Both are just following instructions. I just put a fry cook slightly higher because a mistake on their part could burn the building down. A box filler, not so much.
May I hold a box packer in higher regard, because of all the days I would lose from being shipped the wrong item, or would I be missing the concerns of broader relevance?
Don’t let that question distract you from how he illustrates her point: the capitalists get away with exploitation by distracting workers into fighting among ourselves. It’s so easy for them: even in this thread everyone sails right past this main point into arguing about whether an Amazon warehouse worker or a McDonald’s cook should earn more.
I would add, though, the deeper observation, that among the means of imposing division is the constructed distinction and terminology embodied by “unskilled labor”.
The concern for workers is not which worker belongs in which category, nor even which categories should be given and how they should be named, but rather, how to challenge both the distinction and also the processes and conditions from which it emerges.
So what’s the reason that I don’t have to work as an Amazon warehouse dude or McDonald’s cook? I’m not really a capitalist, 95% of my income comes from my work.
I don’t quite see the relevance of your question. People can do different jobs. We don’t need to fight with one another about them, when the real significant inequality is between what employees receive versus those who cream the value off the top.
Packing boxes at Amazon is skilled labor?
All labor is skilled labor, but packing boxes sure as shit isn’t more skill than a short order cook.
I’ll do you one in reverse: all labor can be represented in the unskilled labor required to recreate it. If unskilled labor is x, and skilled labor is 2x, skilled is just a higher quantity of unskilled labor as expressed per hour.
I don’t think you are saying they are actually interchangeable in that way, but employers think like this and will hire multiple ‘unskilled’ people to do a job that would take one ‘skilled’ person. In reality the work done by unskilled people will not be the same as the skilled person.
Yes, skilled labor isn’t normally represented in multiple people selling unskilled labor, but rather the unskilled labor of training and whatnot.
You clearly haven’t seen me at work.
Every skill is different from others qualitatively, not ranked hierarchically, one above or below another.
My skill is shitting in a corner, I’ve practiced and I’m very good at it, and I don’t want no electricity scientists saying they’re better than me goddammit.
Both are just following instructions. I just put a fry cook slightly higher because a mistake on their part could burn the building down. A box filler, not so much.
May I hold a box packer in higher regard, because of all the days I would lose from being shipped the wrong item, or would I be missing the concerns of broader relevance?
I get what you’re saying, but calling any position a cook at McDonald’s is uhh…generous.
“food assembly position” is more like it
that’s most chain restaurant kitchens though…
Don’t let that question distract you from how he illustrates her point: the capitalists get away with exploitation by distracting workers into fighting among ourselves. It’s so easy for them: even in this thread everyone sails right past this main point into arguing about whether an Amazon warehouse worker or a McDonald’s cook should earn more.
I would add, though, the deeper observation, that among the means of imposing division is the constructed distinction and terminology embodied by “unskilled labor”.
The concern for workers is not which worker belongs in which category, nor even which categories should be given and how they should be named, but rather, how to challenge both the distinction and also the processes and conditions from which it emerges.
So what’s the reason that I don’t have to work as an Amazon warehouse dude or McDonald’s cook? I’m not really a capitalist, 95% of my income comes from my work.
I don’t quite see the relevance of your question. People can do different jobs. We don’t need to fight with one another about them, when the real significant inequality is between what employees receive versus those who cream the value off the top.
Sure as hell is if the company needs it to happen