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0 pointsbooleandilemma2y ago0 comments

It's whether you have hire/fire powers and you make money off of other people's labour

I think creating a hierarchy of managers and workers is just another tool that the people with power use to control everyone else.

Surely my direct manager has more in common with me than the CEO? Am I wrong to think this? Wouldn't the CEO see both managers and their teams as mere workers?

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digdugdirk2y ago

100% correct. That was the gist of my original point. In Corporate America, unless you're in the C-suite or sitting on the board, you're not in the club. The corporate ladder makes it seem as though the middle management levels are on the path to being upper class, but they're in the same position as everyone else. They just drive a nicer car while doing so.

tormeh2y ago

Technically CEOs are also working class, since they mostly live off of their salary. A lot of this is voluntary, since with a bit less spending I'd imagine most BigCo CEOs could easily cope on capital income from the investments their salaries have afforded them. I wonder how that affects their classification...

RecycledEle2y ago

I see the divide as being between those of us who created wealth by working vs. those who do not create wealth and instead play zero sum and negative sum games.

AnthonyMouse2y ago

That's something else entirely.

You could have someone who is solidly in the investment class and only works three hours a year, but during those three hours they tell their pet executives to put the capital into energy storage tech and new housing construction and do a lot of good in the world.

You could have a low-level white collar worker who isn't making very much money at all, all of it in wages, who decides to screw over the company's customers with something economically inefficient because it gives them some advantage in internal corporate politics.

lmm2y ago

> You could have someone who is solidly in the investment class and only works three hours a year, but during those three hours they tell their pet executives to put the capital into energy storage tech and new housing construction and do a lot of good in the world.

If they're making skilled capital-allocation decisions that most people couldn't, that's work. If they're being charitable in the allocation of their ill-gotten gains, that doesn't make them any less ill-gotten.

Rentiers inherently make their money in a zero-sum way; it's perhaps not the only way to be zero-sum, but it is a major one.

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