Reflections From a Murky Pond

In the Civilized World, especially Britain and America, the “poor,” most especially the “working poor” misthink a lot. They truly mistake their place in the scheme of society and economics and, because of this, have replaced pride with hubris.

I wonder about people who think that those who are poor shouldn’t demand reciprocity from their employers. We should devote ourselves to something that doesn’t benefit us more than it absolutely has to? We’re meant to care about their best interests, but they don’t have to care about ours? If you’re going to put as little as possible into my training and wages, if you’re going to make sure that I can’t get enough hours to survive in order to avoid giving me healthcare, and generally make sure that I’m as uncomfortable as possible at any given time just to make sure I know my place, then how can you expect me to care about your profit margin?

— Linda Tirado
Hand to Mouth

This is an all too common failing though more detrimental to both individuals and nations when coming from the “poor.” They conflate their worth as people with their worth to their employer and almost always over-inflate and overstate that importance.

Hubris Is A Self-Punishing Sin

What these people fail to realize or, at least, fail to accept and internalize is that the only reason that they have one or more jobs is that, at the current time, it’s more feasible and/or cost effective for employers to employ them than it is to either outsource the work or replace the bulk of the labor process with automation. They can’t or won’t grasp the simple concept that they’re by and large disposable and interchangeable parts insofar as the context of their work is concerned and that this is the basic, incontrovertible nature of very low-level, largely unskilled labor.

Tags: Automation | Economics | Economy | Employment | Linda Tirado | Poverty | Society | Stupidity | Wages | War on Poverty | Wealth

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