this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2023
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
- Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
- We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.
Our Goals
- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
- Better worker representation, including but not limited to unions.
- Better and fewer working hours.
- Stimulating a massive wave of worker organizing in the United States and beyond.
- Organizing and supporting political causes and campaigns that put workers first.
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When I was in college, they were still teaching Maslowe's Pyramid as textbook knowledge. I've since heard people try to walk it back as a flawed model, but...I think it's a useful concept here.
If you are struggling to meet your biological and safetey needs, you bet your scrotal meat money can buy happiness. Too many people on this earth could have their lives permanently changed for the better with 2,000 American dollars.
On the other hand, the set who scolds the piano tuner to make sure BOTH full grand pianos in the main hall are in tune with each other this time, who legitimately struggle to think of anything else they could actually buy and end up going to restaurants where they pour chocolate sauce on your bare hands for you to lick off as an "experience" genuinely aren't made happier by addition of cash...they're operating at the interpersonal and self-actualization levels, and not particularly well because, well...they're deeply flawed humans whose dads can afford generations of yes men. Nothing can buy these people happiness, especially money.
I don't know, people find reasons to be unhappy. Supplying your baseline needs could certainly alleviate stress and help keep you content, but without purpose beyond themselves there tends to be a trend of disillusionment and depression. It's no secret the amount of substance abuse is prevalent in wealthy families.
There's a 2010 study that supports both these statements, where an increase in income equals an increase in happiness - up to a point (plateauing around 60-90k, in 2010 money). However, a more recent study from 2022, shows that an increase in money up to a larger point (500k) increases happiness. I'm unsure why the data have a drastically different number this time, inflation doesn't account for that dramatic of an increase. Though, a percent of people in the newer study (15%) do line up with the original study with happiness plateauing around the 100k mark, which matches up given inflation. Interestingly, one of the authors is the same for both studies.
Here's a cbs article on the two studies.
We even learned this objectively during the pandemic. Even though it wasn't really that much money, poverty rates declined due to the stimulus payments.
Additionally there is some merit that money can’t buy your attitude and therefore happiness in life in general. (Assuming we could define healthy relationships as happiness) You can see people with very little still have flourishing relationships with those around them that a rich people will struggle with.
There’s always the consideration that without money you can be assured the people who are your friend are legitimately there for who you are. They say it’s lonely at the top and I believe that means that those who know you have money and trying to be your friend there’s always going to be question about legitimacy.
That's interesting. Who is trying to walk Maslow's Hierarchy back? And to what end? I mean, I can think of a few motives, but I have no way of knowing if I hit the mark. Perhaps to convince the poor that having more money won't meet their needs?
Per Wikipedia:
Hence the "pyramid" model of "the bottom layer must be solid before work can start on the next layer up" is...probably not science.
In the early 2000s we learned it in more of a nucleus model to address the pyramid criticisms. As someone who grew up poor and lives comfortably now, I can attest that it's a real thing. I miss the struggle in a morbid way. Life was somehow more defined.
I find it useful to think of as a teacher as the mechanism behind the principle of readiness, for two separate reasons:
Students who are tired, hungry, thirsty and busting for a toilet are not going to focus on a lecture about aerodynamics. The lecture is less immediate than their other needs.
Students who don't see a need to learn aerodynamics aren't going to bother to put in the effort to pay attention. Yes, higher learning can fulfill those higher, more intellectual needs up toward the self-actualization end of the pyramid, but it's not a guarantee. It is the responsibility of the teacher to inform his students which needs his lesson will help his students fulfill. By high school, students intuitively understand this, and might ask an algebra teacher "Why do we have to know this?" It amazes me how often that answer comes back "To graduate." As a flight instructor, I always found "So that you don't hit the trees at the end of the runway, catch fire and die" is more motivating to students.