2024-12-25 at 1:42 PM UTC
The hourly wage system, in creating a linearly causal relationship between hours worked and money earned, has created an inefficient wage system. It has done this through a few effects which I will explain below:
1: As previously said, the hourly wage system abolishes the previously established system of pay for workers. This system, for our intents and purposes here, was similar to that of a modern contractor's pay. The linearly causal relationship between hours worked and money earned was originally a sort of non-linear causal relationship between effort exerted and money earned. To put it shortly, your wage was tied to your skill as a laborer, not to your ability to live at the workplace. Furthermore, this system fundamentally encourages lower productivity among workers (I can do the bare minimum and still make X/Hour).
2: Specialized workers that work much quicker than others are secretly penalized. A union plumber may be able to work 2 times as fast as his partner, but they still make the same money. This obviously disincentivizes the better plumber from working 2x as hard. Again, this is because of the disconnect between your skill as a worker and your wage. This is the fundamental inefficiency of the neoliberal hourly wage system.
3: In an hourly wage system, innovation is stifled as well. Innovation simply has no bearing on your wage, unless you are able to sell a patent. If I create a solution to a problem that makes me 2 times more efficient than other workers, it simply does not matter, as I am paid the same as those who do not innovate.
4: Not all walks of work are created equally. In a company with 10 workers, if there are 2 workers that are 2 times more efficient than the other 8 workers, the work is still dispersed equally among all employees. There is no logical rationalization for this practice, it does not even create overhead so much as it creates deadweight loss. The 8 inefficient employees will flounder about and stress themselves over the fact that they have not completed their paralyzingly large workload by 5 PM, while the efficient 2 employees will complete their tasks before lunchtime and be left at the workplace twiddling their thumbs and playing solitaire.
Simultaneously, there are instances where long hours of work produce little value, and where short burst of work create immense value. Working in fast food, you may work 40 hours a week at McDonald's, but after the expenses have been deducted from company revenue, you have only created a small amount of value, in the US perhaps less than even 1000 $. On the contrary, a fiber optic cable repairmen may reduce 100 million dollar inefficiencies by fixing an undersea fiber optic cable in just a day.
Furthermore, workers do not exert effort equally throughout the work day. A worker may be highly efficient until noon, and then become less efficient by the hour until they leave the workplace. Some workers may also be consistently efficient throughout Monday, but utterly incompetent on Tuesday. This verifiable fact serves to exacerbate the inefficiencies of the hourly wage system only further.
2024-12-25 at 3:19 PM UTC
POLECAT
POLECAT is a motherfucking ferret
[my presentably immunised ammonification]
you have a choice be a slave to the hourly wage or be a owner of your own business or private employment ,
you being young gives you an advantage we didn't have as young humans,, you are in a booming time for trades you could be making 50 an hr this year on ur own and in 3 years you could be making 300 to 500 an hr bidding jobs you learn to do in the trades
2024-12-25 at 3:51 PM UTC
As an Amazon worker that always makes rate and gets bonuses for my performance I disagree. Seems pretty efficient to me
2024-12-25 at 4:09 PM UTC
POLECAT
POLECAT is a motherfucking ferret
[my presentably immunised ammonification]
no employer ever has hesitated to replace an employee , no self employed person has ever fired themselves for having a bad day or refusing a job or fucking up.
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2024-12-25 at 4:26 PM UTC
I mean a lot of people are also paid annually or based off commission or sales or like polecat says are paying themselves.
Or making a set amount per day like $100 but it might not be a fixed amount of hours but the rate is fixed. This is more common in construction type industry.
I don't actually disagree but I think if I meditated on this arguments I would eventually. Maybe Ive just been brainwashed by the machine to not see a problem
2024-12-25 at 5:30 PM UTC
Contract, piece work, or commission.
2024-12-26 at 11:21 AM UTC
Hourly wages, and stable, fixed employment in general, is society prioritising stability over incentivised marginal productivity gains.
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2024-12-26 at 11:40 AM UTC
some prefer to be paid like a prostitute
2024-12-26 at 2:37 PM UTC
Originally posted by Charles Ex Machina
some prefer to be paid like a prostitute
That is piece work
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2024-12-26 at 2:56 PM UTC
How can voluntary economic actions ever be wrong? This assumes the invisible hand fucked up somewhere
I'm more willing to believe its always perfect and if anyone messed up it's us and our understanding of the dynamics
And if you try to chain the hand it comes back and slaps you harder 👊
2024-12-27 at 12:03 AM UTC
Maybe it's perfectly efficient and people are just meant to be losers to what seems like sheer chance but in the eyes of the market is just another cog in the machine
The smaller cogs need to be grounded up and worn down to turn a bigger cog and since they can be replaced cheaply and often it's not worth worrying too much about them in the grand scheme
I once had an idea that you would be instantly deposited crypto directly into a wallet for hourly work instead of being held through banks and taxed.
I still think that would be better but it doesn't really go against the idea of hourly wages, but maybe it could if I was more radical.
I just hate staying up until 3am on Friday for more cocaine money every payday because banks are slow
2024-12-27 at 7:28 PM UTC
We don't pay you minimum wage for your maximum mental performance.
2024-12-27 at 8:21 PM UTC
Min wage is for teens, if you're passed the age of 20 and on min wage, that's your dumb fault.
