>On Feb 9, 2010, at 10:52 AM, Joanna wrote:
>
>>First, the whole wet dream of capitalist success is to get so rich
>>you don't have to work; others will work for you and you will thrive
>>upon the profits they generate. But nobody is very explicit about
>>that.
>
>That's not really true of today's capitalists - they work very long
>hours.
that may be the actual case, but the fantasy for the folks who also typically spout off about lazy socialists is the dream of not having to work. I know this because, invariably, I like to ask them about this. I suspect that, like the acquisition of the drive to accumulate, accumulate, accumulate, today's capitalists who weren't born into that class must also acquire a shift in thinking from it being about having enough money not to work to one in which they are constantly working.
Reading Auletta's Googled, one of the things he talks about is how disorganized management is there. Brin and Page refuse to have administrative assistants, organizing everything according to GoogCal, of course. But this means that, because they are micromanagers in some aspects of the business, they don't show up for meetings, show up for the wrong ones, etc. etc.
But they are also not easily findable, since no admin is keeping track of them. And that means that, some days, they can't be found because they take off in the Tesla sports cars or go kite surfing or biking or work out whenever they please.
Auletta notes that the model that inspires them is academia where there was free time to think and not be beholden to filthy lucre - hence the 20% every employee is allowed to work on their own projects.
Perhaps what today's aspiring capitalists want is control over when and where they labor which, I can attest from personal experience having moved from academia to a job which was make my own schedule and then to the asses in seats from 9 to 6 model, makes a whole lotta huge difference in your day-to-day existence. The increased stress of the asses in seats between 9 and 6 model as opposed to the ability to organize your day as you need was palpable for me.
The whole, you must work hard to prove you earned your wealth thing isn't surprising to me, though. It's no doubt something that was engendered by the struggle between old and new money. New money had to prove they earned their right to be there and in that process helped shape the workerist ethos typical of today's capitalist class.
shag
-- http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)