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Comment by catlifeonmars | Hacker News Reader

The relationship between owners and workers has always been extractive. The adversarial relationship is built in. That doesn’t mean that you can’t have a good relationship with your employer, but there is always a conflict of interest, so to speak.

I’ve had great relationships with my bosses, but they’re always under pressure to extract more work from the workers. In turn, their bosses are also pressured to do the same.

So yes, it’s not the default and you and I have both been lucky.

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Classifying a relationship as adversarial presumes a competitive context. I don't believe we are in competition with our employer but in a cooperative relationship, so we're talking game theory. A good employer cooperates with their employees to achieve business goals, a bad manager defects and prioritizes their personal goals/desires above the shared business goals. Your relationship falls out of this behavior (assuming no personal issues).

What about a farm worker who tills the land? Is every farmer/farm worker achieving business goals through _cooperation_? What about seasonal farm workers? I guess the farmer can set up incentive payments, but even so, are you saying there no adversarial component to the relationship?

Any relationship can be framed however in different ways that embody different ideals. What one person views through an adversarial lens, another can view through a cooperative lens. All (above board) worker/employer relationships can be seen as cooperative. Neither entered into the agreement by force and each is getting something out of it.

Yeah the framing is just a tool to do different analysis. Both can be useful simultaneously.

Isn't there competition for your own time? I'm thinking of crunches, or justifying a schedule despite workhour efficiency varying way too much (what are you going to achieve if you finish your last task at 16:40 on a Friday?)

This has almost never been my experience in ~20 years of working. Other than a few fleeting assholes, all of my work relationships have essentially been collegial, with all parties, regardless of position, looking at how we can best get the work done that’s in front of us. I’ve never felt exploited or used and never felt I was exploiting those I managed.

I think if one sees their work this way, maybe it comes true? It’s a very cynical way of looking at things.

You’ve never worked in retail or service industries, have you?

I have, and your reply is a pretty weak fallback from

  The relationship between owners and workers has always been extractive. The adversarial relationship is built in.

I’m sure extractive relationships exist, but it’s certainly not an iron law of work, and I’m not even sure it’s that common in most modern workplaces.

Why is this a weak fallback?

Since we’re speaking anecdotally: I’ve also worked in service industry, and I have personally observed employers/managers abusing their power to elevate themselves at the expense of their employees. Does that make you reconsider? I would hazard to guess it doesn’t.

My point being that anecdotal evidence isn’t particularly useful.

> I’m not even sure it’s that common in most modern workplaces.

I don’t know what to tell you honestly. This is an incredibly naive take

Edit:

I feel I’ve been uncharitable in responding to you. I think we are likely talking past each other and what an “extractive” relationship is. I don’t think people are malicious. Most people (IMO) are essentially good and maliciousness is relatively rare. That said, if you work for an employer, you will always be resisting pressure from above to do more work for less pay. Maybe you’re lucky and you have an excellent middle manager (I have had some) who are skilled at preventing shit from rolling downhill. The fact remains the pressure exists and eventually, someone breaks. Maybe they have a bad day, or fall into financial distress, or the economy sucks. It doesn’t really matter. The people who pay the highest cost are the people at closer to the bottom of that hierarchy.

This is an oversimplificstion. The relationship between the person holding the scarce resource, and the person holding the common resource, has always been adversarial.

As labor becomes more skilled and less common this dynamic changes.

I’m looking at the status quo. Which still puts vastly more negotiating power in the hands owners of capital in most economies today. I agree it’s an oversimplification and there are some markets where this is not the case.

If I consider my experience it’s clearly still in the minority, so I still consider myself fortunate.

Yeah we're on the same page.

I figured it was worth mentioning since the status quo among HN users, skews closer to markets where this does not apply, than the status quo of the general population.

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