• Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      All labor is skilled labor, but packing boxes sure as shit isn’t more skill than a short order cook.

      • Cowbee@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I’ll do you one in reverse: all labor can be represented in the unskilled labor required to recreate it. If unskilled labor is x, and skilled labor is 2x, skilled is just a higher quantity of unskilled labor as expressed per hour.

        • tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 year ago

          I don’t think you are saying they are actually interchangeable in that way, but employers think like this and will hire multiple ‘unskilled’ people to do a job that would take one ‘skilled’ person. In reality the work done by unskilled people will not be the same as the skilled person.

          • Cowbee@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Yes, skilled labor isn’t normally represented in multiple people selling unskilled labor, but rather the unskilled labor of training and whatnot.

        • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          No. Because that is assuming that all work has more primitive forms that are still extent. There really isn’t a market for unskilled heart surgery. Lots of work is binary, you can and should do it, or you can’t and should definitely not try.

          The model you are advocating is a gross simplification that wouldn’t even be applicable to basic machine parts.

          • Cowbee@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            No, you’re grossly misinterpreting what I’m saying.

            Heart Surgery is represented as the condensed unskilled labor of decades of experience before even being able to perform one. All of that training requires decades of hard training to replicate.

            I’m not implying that you can get 40 dudes with no training to do heart surgery together.

            • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              How would that even work? Who is training the surgeon? Where does the unskilled labor go, does it hover about the person like a spirit?

              Maybe humans are more complicated than “well since this guy has a CPR cert his labor is 1.2x the person without”.

              • Cowbee@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                You’re still thinking of it in completely the wrong way. All skilled labor is, is unskilled labor for training, and current labor. Nobody gives a shit who trained who, or where it magically needs to hang.

                  • Cowbee@lemm.ee
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                    1 year ago

                    Almost. Labor + labor = skilled labor, as skills are just embodied labor.

                    No, I’m not studying to become an economist, but I am familiar with economics.

              • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                I think the observation is that little or no broad difference emerges between training for providing skilled labor, versus simply providing labor that may be considered as unskilled. In either case, one provides labor, with or without the intention of developing skill, but certainly converging toward such an effect.

      • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Every skill is different from others qualitatively, not ranked hierarchically, one above or below another.

        • canni@lemmy.one
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          1 year ago

          My skill is shitting in a corner, I’ve practiced and I’m very good at it, and I don’t want no electricity scientists saying they’re better than me goddammit.

        • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Both are just following instructions. I just put a fry cook slightly higher because a mistake on their part could burn the building down. A box filler, not so much.

          • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            May I hold a box packer in higher regard, because of all the days I would lose from being shipped the wrong item, or would I be missing the concerns of broader relevance?

      • Stuka@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I get what you’re saying, but calling any position a cook at McDonald’s is uhh…generous.

    • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Don’t let that question distract you from how he illustrates her point: the capitalists get away with exploitation by distracting workers into fighting among ourselves. It’s so easy for them: even in this thread everyone sails right past this main point into arguing about whether an Amazon warehouse worker or a McDonald’s cook should earn more.

      • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I would add, though, the deeper observation, that among the means of imposing division is the constructed distinction and terminology embodied by “unskilled labor”.

        The concern for workers is not which worker belongs in which category, nor even which categories should be given and how they should be named, but rather, how to challenge both the distinction and also the processes and conditions from which it emerges.

      • fosforus@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        So what’s the reason that I don’t have to work as an Amazon warehouse dude or McDonald’s cook? I’m not really a capitalist, 95% of my income comes from my work.

        • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          I don’t quite see the relevance of your question. People can do different jobs. We don’t need to fight with one another about them, when the real significant inequality is between what employees receive versus those who cream the value off the top.

    • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      2023, words mean anything you want them to mean and the only thing that is real is our outrage. That’s why a cardiologist is just as skilled as someone stacking boxes.

      • unfreeradical@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The meanings of terms are often determined and enforced socially through particular systems that carry power in society.