I don’t know what line of work your friends were in, but prior to the current economic dustup, negotiation wasn’t a thing for most jobs. And I don’t mean that it was hard or rare. I mean you literally had no option to negotiate. Companies job offers were take it or leave it.
That sort of widespread treatment of workers as cogs and not an individual is part of the anger of the antiwork movement
Religious or spiritually oriented people don't have this issue as much, as their primary relationship and identity is to something greater than their circumstances, and this gives them faith in alternatives, which means leverage in that bargaining relationship with the world.
They're not just tugging on a leash and calling it freedom, as for them faith itself means there is no leash. There's an underlying belief in the punk and antiwork mentality that unless someone has suffered like they have, we can't understand their truth, but this ignores that nobody would choose to suffer like they did unless they had first given up their identity as having been created by someone invested in their happiness (e.g. being actually loved). It produces some great music and culture, but it's based on a solvable problem.
The whole punk ethos is predicated on an appeal for dignity by people who first believe they don't have it because it was taken from them somehow. Someone made them rage, probably with shame or humiliation. The political beliefs that flow from it are a full psychosexual orientation. I'm not saying they're wrong, but I am saying it is a distinct experience that can't always be shared, and that's what makes reconciling it with opposition almost impossible. Didn't expect to go there, but it's all pretty Freudian.
> A corpse rules society – the corpse of labour. All powers around the globe formed an alliance to defend its rule: the Pope and the World Bank, Tony Blair and Jörg Haider, trade unions and entrepreneurs, German ecologists and French socialists. They don’t know but one slogan: jobs, jobs, jobs!
I would argue the punk movement is not about rage but about anarchy and disobedience towards a conformist society. It's more about being an offensive social drop-out, a splinter under the bourgeois' skin - Not out of rage but out of revulsion.
Of course, everyone on HN has their anecdote about their brother's cousin's girlfriend's former roommate successfully negotiation $1M in stock options at Facebook, but those cases are likely 4-5 standard deviation outliers.
>Anti-work people as well as punks at least to some extent usually strife for a world of generosity and what comes with it.
I see a lot of expectations for others to be generous to them not the other way around, its the have nots that are complaining, the haves are able to fund this dream of making this true through charities or social experiments like places here. https://www.npr.org/2021/03/04/973653719/california-program-...
>I like the idea of a world full of generosity
I do too, I like the idea of world peace, no crimes, and kindness everywhere. I've lived in places that had that kindness in poorer areas than where I live in "shitty countries". If you localize and select, its not impossible or even rare.
>I currently live a happy stable privileged life and would still love to see my income to support a basic income for example.
In Denmark, your dreams can come true, they tax at high rates (over 50% sometimes), have great social support, and then internet tells me it has some of the lowest corruption rates or is the lowest.
I don't see that at all. If you follow the /r/antiwork subreddit, then it's really not about people expecting free stuff or generosity for nothing in return. People just don't want to be treated like shit by their managers.
People expect not to be fired because they refused to come in on their day off for the 3rd time in a row. People expect to be able to attend family events that they told their boss weeks in advance. People just expect to be treated decent by their employer.
Nobody seriously expects stuff for free. Anti-work is about people saying, if you keep walking all over me just to feel good about yourself, then go do the work yourself, I don't need the paycheck enough to deal with your abuse.
AKA expecting others to be generous.
>People expect not to be fired because they refused to come in on their day off for the 3rd time in a row.
They could take days off that aren't scheduled if they were skilled or non disposable workers or if they chose a job without a shitty boss. Whose fault is it to work with a shitty boss? If you stay in an abusive relationship, who chose to stay?
Not treating someone like shit isn't the result of generosity, it's the result of not being an arsehole.
That’s rude and presumptious, like the very behavior you dislike.
My default is not to expect others to be nice and generous, like if you work for an asshole do you expect them not to be an asshole? Is that an intelligent assumption?
I have realistic expectations.
For a line cook at McDonald’s, yes, replacement is easy so wages are lower and fixed.
For an account manager in a highly relational field, it is much harder to replace this role and so that individual could leverage that skill-scarcity into better wages.