>But I think it's a big mistake to even momentarily indulge the idea (even as a hypothetical) that one can get paid "whatever one wants" when that decision is structurally not theirs to make.
I think the key difference here is that you're approaching this as something that needs to be structured, that there should be a structure in place that allows people to select from a list what they're going to make.
The capitalist perspective is that people can make whatever they want, as long as they are able to persuade someone to give it to them (within the confines of the law). So it's not an absurd hypothetical. There are, of course, no guarantees.
But I don't want this thread to veer too far off-topic, if that ship hasn't already sailed.
>Do you have any sympathy for the notion that these stressors are reduced or eliminated when workers and managers cooperatively decide what to make and how?
Sure I do. The concerns you're listing are among everyone's core psychological needs. People need to feel that they are being treated fairly, that their input is taken seriously, and that they have a reasonable degree of autonomy over their time.
When we don't feel these things are happening for us, the appropriate and natural reaction is angst, or psychic pain, and it's intended to drive us to find a way to correct/balance these stress profiles.
After we've been exposed to these and other psychological stresses without resolution for too long, our body gives up and we enter a state of burnout.
You're suggesting that the cure for burnout is an upheaval in the structure of property ownership. I believe that if it helped at all, this would be an indirect effect at best. In any case, such drastic suggestions are out of scope for the immediate question of addressing burnout in the real world.
There are ways to improve current companies (without fundamentally restructuring their core ownership or authority systems) so that they meet these needs better. There are ways to get these needs filled at home, which, while it won't entirely reduce antipathy toward work, may help mitigate the damage.
>I think the key difference here is that you're approaching this as something that needs to be structured, that there should be a structure in place that allows people to select from a list what they're going to make.
Let me be clearer - I am not referencing a proposed structure, I am saying that under the current existing structure, employees cannot choose what to make, because that is in the end the owner's decision, not theirs. That's what I mean by "structurally not theirs to make".
Alternatively, arriving at mutually agreeable decisions about both compensation and work product is (and has been) achievable under cooperative ownership e.g., as long as the employees are categorically indistinguishable from owners and governors.
>People need to feel that they are being treated fairly, that their input is taken seriously, and that they have a reasonable degree of autonomy over their time.
I agree very much, which is why I point out that at a structural level, capitalism specifically denies all three of these to the worker. The owner alone decides how much value the owner takes from what the worker produces, not the worker. The fact that the owner decides on this foundational matter necessarily means that the input of the worker is second-rate input. And when the owner is the sole decider of what and when to make stuff, the worker's autonomy is necessarily subordinate to the owner's.
>In any case, such drastic suggestions are out of scope for the immediate question of addressing burnout in the real world.
In the real world, there are huge, cooperatively owned enterprises profitably employing tens of thousands of people each. Such companies haven't banished burnout -- no utopias anywhere, I'm afraid -- but they are not suffering the burnout crisis that capitalist organizations are. One to check out:
>The owner alone decides how much value the owner takes from what the worker produces [...] And when the owner is the sole decider of what and when to make stuff, the worker's autonomy is necessarily subordinate to the owner's.
You're assuming that the owner is operating in a vacuum. That is not the case. The worker has the ability to find another employer whose terms are more agreeable, start their own business and attempt to get people to pay them directly for a service, or even to exit the labor force entirely.
If you believe that the owners do not feel the need to compete and that the marketplace is therefore not functioning, that's a separate issue that doesn't depend on ownership structures as such.
>In the real world, there are huge, cooperatively owned enterprises profitably employing tens of thousands of people each.
Sure, but while these are typically very socially-conscious organizations, they aren't non-capitalist and they don't give everyone the level of control and autonomy that you're intimating.
>The worker has the ability to find another employer whose terms are more agreeable, start their own business and attempt to get people to pay them directly for a service, or even to exit the labor force entirely.
But that doesn't change the relationship except to not begin it, because that is quitting. There remains a structurally subordinate relationship between owner and worker that quitting does not change.
>they don't give everyone the level of control and autonomy that you're intimating.
That is false. Tens of thousands of Mondragon (for example) co-op worker-owners collectively and democratically decide how, when, where and why to work and have done so successfully for many decades. Workers there face significantly less burnout and I suggest it is specifically because of the fundamental change they made to the working relationship by making everyone more or less the same -- there is no greater than a nine times multiple difference in compensation between highest and lowest paid employee for example, and everybody must arrive with some modest capital in order to work there. This is of course unthinkable under capitalism, which is oriented toward concentrating power and capital in a stockholder and governor/owner class, not vesting these things in the people who create all the value.
Speaking of unthinkable, let me observe that as you and I have proceeded, you have edged away from the "real world" you claim to occupy and headed toward an ideological shelter world where what is possible is determined not by existing things but by your certainty that those things don't exist.
I think the key difference here is that you're approaching this as something that needs to be structured, that there should be a structure in place that allows people to select from a list what they're going to make.
The capitalist perspective is that people can make whatever they want, as long as they are able to persuade someone to give it to them (within the confines of the law). So it's not an absurd hypothetical. There are, of course, no guarantees.
But I don't want this thread to veer too far off-topic, if that ship hasn't already sailed.
>Do you have any sympathy for the notion that these stressors are reduced or eliminated when workers and managers cooperatively decide what to make and how?
Sure I do. The concerns you're listing are among everyone's core psychological needs. People need to feel that they are being treated fairly, that their input is taken seriously, and that they have a reasonable degree of autonomy over their time.
When we don't feel these things are happening for us, the appropriate and natural reaction is angst, or psychic pain, and it's intended to drive us to find a way to correct/balance these stress profiles.
After we've been exposed to these and other psychological stresses without resolution for too long, our body gives up and we enter a state of burnout.
You're suggesting that the cure for burnout is an upheaval in the structure of property ownership. I believe that if it helped at all, this would be an indirect effect at best. In any case, such drastic suggestions are out of scope for the immediate question of addressing burnout in the real world.
There are ways to improve current companies (without fundamentally restructuring their core ownership or authority systems) so that they meet these needs better. There are ways to get these needs filled at home, which, while it won't entirely reduce antipathy toward work, may help mitigate the damage.