[lbo-talk] Von Hayek was wrong

Mark DeLucas mkdelucas at gmail.com
Tue Apr 5 16:59:50 PDT 2011


My last post on the subject:

"Perhaps once you come across individuals who are indeed working for free because they can afford it, as at least some of us have, you might feel differently about the point. Take for example, open source software: people who write open source software (that is not part of their paid work, and is distributed for free), almost always have the security of a day job... and a fairly high paying one at that. That's an example of when free work is a true luxury."

Is there a point in here somewhere? That some people are hobbyists? Is that an adequate description of most free workers? Does that jibe with the article, or common sense? Is it really so remarkable to believe that most people are driven to work for free -- and let me stress, *work for free* --* *because there's a scarcity of stable white collar work, that their BA related skills, such as they are, are redundant and their resumes otherwise thin? That they're in the plain sense of the word desperate?

Your obtuseness on this score prevents you from treating the phenomenon in a reasonable way. The increasing number of free workers is simply the consequence of a lack of jobs, or, put another way, the practice of employers exploiting an over-saturated white-collar labor market, populated mostly by undistinguished college graduates who nevertheless retain hopes of one day doing something interesting and personally fulfilling. If the number of available paying white collar jobs were to rise, the number of people working for free would drop, because, get this, *people by and large dislike laboring for free*. You, on the other hand, who envision the free-working force as composed substantially of hobbyists, would expect the number to remain static -- increase even, since for you most free-workers, liberated by their steady paychecks, would indulge themselves and work for free as a labor of love. In which case, the phenomenon would probably serve in a significant way the purpose you want to assign to it, viz "isolating and thus stripping workers with some “privileges” (healthcare, collective bargaining capabilities, job security, so on)".

Whereas in reality, because most people indeed work for free only as a last or nearly last resort, the free-working phenomenon will only go so far as the recession will take it. The isolation and stripping of workers with some privileges, on the other hand, will, recession or no, proceed apace, because that process owes itself to structural changes decades in the making. My point being -- other than that people who work for free ought not be seen as scabs and treated as pariahs -- the outlawing of free-working does nothing to solve or even mitigate the problem of the systematic destruction of quality working/living standards. It would, however, screw me over just a tad, since in addition to working 50 hours a week in NYC as a bicycle messenger, I spend about an hour per night subverting the labor movement/copy editing gratis for a website. And it's not clear to me how taking away from me even this pathetically slight opportunity works to my benefit or that of the world.

On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 10:35 AM, // ravi <ravi at platosbeard.org> wrote:


> On Apr 5, 2011, at 6:58 AM, Mark DeLucas wrote:
> > "it was an observation that workers who are already privileged in some
> way
> > can afford to work for free."
> >
> > Seems like a necessary connection to me.
>
>
> Not really as I see it: implication does not work that way. If you will
> excuse a brief explication that might be obvious: "p -> q" =/=> "q -> p".
> '{individuals already privileged} can {work for free}' does not imply that
> '{everyone who works for free} is an {individual already privileged}'.
>
> If you are looking for a money quote, it seems to be this one (the first
> response from Joanna):
>
> > I don't know that it's a question of desperation, you have to have a
> certain amount of money to work for free.
>
> But really it would be pretty "weaselly" (to borrow your term of art) to
> use this when it has been qualified by the author in the immediate next
> post, wouldn't it? And why would we want to do that when we are the party of
> solidarity!
>
>
> > ... that
> > doesn't jibe with the stated fantasy (or, in your words, sensible point)
> > that all -- wait, I mean, most -- unpaid workers are idlers drawing from
> > their trusts.
>
>
> Yes that characterisation is indeed a fantastic reinterpretation of the
> sensible point. :-)
>
>
> > But your quite right that the exact demographic make-up of the
> free-working
> > population is a peripheral issue, although you yourself manage to miss
> the
> > mark.
> > <...> Because people aren't working
> > for free, as Joanne would have it, as a lark in lieu of taking a
> > post-graduate European tour, <...>
>
>
> I do see that you have your eyes squarely on the mark! Perhaps once you
> come across individuals who are indeed working for free because they can
> afford it, as at least some of us have, you might feel differently about the
> point. Take for example, open source software: people who write open source
> software (that is not part of their paid work, and is distributed for free),
> almost always have the security of a day job... and a fairly high paying one
> at that. That's an example of when free work is a true luxury.
>
> If there is a segment (of people) and process (of organisations and
> practices that replace workers with those for whom such work is not a
> necessary source of survival e.g: children of working adults who mow lawns
> for pocket money), how significant is it? I don't know. You write:
>
> > It isn't in fact "a matter of isolating and thus stripping workers
> > with some “privileges” (healthcare, collective bargaining capabilities,
> job
> > security, so on)". Free-work is just another invidious, if in the scheme
> of
> > things fairly unimportant, consequence of a much larger socio-economic
> > reconfiguration (partly aimed at "stripping workers with some
> 'privileges'")
> > that has been decades in the making -- and this is essentially true only
> to
> > the extent that said reconfiguration can be blamed for the increasing
> > scarcity of non-service white-collar jobs.
>
>
> I would like to understand this better.
>
> --ravi
>
>
>
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>



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