Skilled labor = real human deserving of a fair wage.
Unskilled labor = meat machine that we need to pay by law, but we gladly wouldn’t pay them a dime if we could get away with it because they aren’t real people.
For me it’s not really an us/them opposition, my disgust is with how unskilled laborers are viewed/treated because of our lack of education. That somehow makes us subhuman and undeserving of a living wage. That we should be thankful for a minimum wage.
I have no issue with skilled laborers, I have an issue with owners/CEO/etc… us laborers of all skills are in the same boat. Best friend works for Intel, Intel makes tons of money, friend gets pay cut and added responsibility. ¿Que?
The problem lies in the fact that we need to categorise these subjects to write more effective policy. And it doesn’t matter what words you use, they always get these connotations as familiarity grows.
To add to this, the whole education level dictates importance thing never made sense to me anyways. I may see a doctor once or twice a year, but I need garbage collected every week. On the level of social importance it strike me then that the garbage person is therefor more important than a doctor.
Education requires no skill, you just kiss professor’s ass and do as you’re told, your reward is a diploma. Here, is that reductionist enough for you?
By the way, cashier job can’t be learned within days, you need to be literate and know at least basic math and average kid goes to school for at least 8 years so fuck you. I can’t even think of a job that requires no education.
Is it made less difficult to achieve a living wage for everyone by affirming, or by challenging, the practice of characterizing some labor as “unskilled”?
Close, but that’s not a job. It’s no coincidence that the destructive practice of using your wealth to suck wealth out of society without adding anything beneficial is called Rent-seeking
You’re comparing the bottom person at a restaurant with a mid level engineer. You should be comparing an engineering intern with a dishwasher or something. Both are somewhat replaceable (but try running anything without them).
Compare an actual engineer with a restaurant manager or head chef. Both of those require experience and education.
An entry level engineer is going to have 2 years of additional math, or coding, or whatever after highschool. I was cooking burgers and running a register at 14. It’s easy to learn. Most people can cook a burger as a part of their existence, no training but the specific way they want. Far far more easy to replace and train.
I guess one thing I learned reading this thread, there are very few unskilled jobs nowadays.
Maybe old time admin assistants just collating papers, making copies, etc but even then those are really just unskilled tasks moreso than an unskilled job. They also had appointments to set up, calendars and rolodexes to manage, organization, etc.
I think any unskilled job can be made skilled labour if you’re thoughtful about how you do it, and do it well.
You’re gonna tell me catching a stray cat, butchering it correctly and making mincemeat that tastes no different from cow to average customer doesn’t require copous amountso of knowledge?
Don’t get me started on making a dead rat look like a KFC chicken nugget.
Skilled labor meaning it took more than a twenty minute introduction for the job. If the guy flipping burgers can cook multiple burgers at multiple Temps, than that would classify as skilled labor. They guy that drops the fries in the fryer and just has to wait for the ding, not skilled labor. Another example, a welder who knows how the mixture of gas affects the welds, skilled labor. It’s knowledge of why and how to get to the end result rather than following basic instructions just because that’s what you were told.
Every single action can be mastered to perfection, then relearned from the basics. There’s endless depth to everything
Fruit picking can be grabbing, twisting/pulling, then putting a thing into a basket. You can do it faster and more precisely to use less energy, you can stack fruits so more fit without bruising, you can change how you walk and hold the basket to strain yourself less. You could relearn it so you toss it all in a basket still on your back, perfectly so they don’t bruise or bounce out of place. You could learn to identify how long until a fruit ripens and chart an optimal path day by day, or even learn to smell them out.
An “unskilled job” is a job where you can get someone up to basic competence quickly. It’s an effort to use people like a fungible unit of man-hours, and to make up the difference by essentially being strategically wasteful.
A better fruit picker will have more and better fruit in less time, a better fast food cook will make a better burger. By standardizing it, you can reduce the floor - you can throw out bruised, under ripe, or overripe fruits. Maybe you can even process the rejects make juice or fruit snacks from them… You can use machines to minimize the cost and chemicals to cover for inferior ingredients
But you also cap the ceiling. An amateur fruit picker or chef can make better food than McDonald’s or Dole, because capitalism doesn’t care about “better”, it incentivizes everything to be “good enough” and punishes quality control beyond that… It’s far more profitable to put more effort into marketing an inferior product than to produce something of higher quality.
And that’s why everything sucks - because it’s more profitable to lower standards than to produce better goods.
We worry about AI alignment with little reason, but we’re blind to the fact corporations are not aligned with human values
Warehouse fulfillment is skilled labor. Fast food work is skilled labor. I’m having a hard time thinking of an example of a truly unskilled labor job.
Skilled labor is economists jargon, so the meaning of it does not match the dictionary definition.
No one is saying there is literally no skill involved in unskilled labor.
Skilled labor = real human deserving of a fair wage.
Unskilled labor = meat machine that we need to pay by law, but we gladly wouldn’t pay them a dime if we could get away with it because they aren’t real people.
-Asshat Owners
Technically skilled as in requiring education (financed by the state), unskilled can learn on the job within days.
But politics has a way with twisting those words into a us/them dichotomy.
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For me it’s not really an us/them opposition, my disgust is with how unskilled laborers are viewed/treated because of our lack of education. That somehow makes us subhuman and undeserving of a living wage. That we should be thankful for a minimum wage.
I have no issue with skilled laborers, I have an issue with owners/CEO/etc… us laborers of all skills are in the same boat. Best friend works for Intel, Intel makes tons of money, friend gets pay cut and added responsibility. ¿Que?
The problem lies in the fact that we need to categorise these subjects to write more effective policy. And it doesn’t matter what words you use, they always get these connotations as familiarity grows.
To add to this, the whole education level dictates importance thing never made sense to me anyways. I may see a doctor once or twice a year, but I need garbage collected every week. On the level of social importance it strike me then that the garbage person is therefor more important than a doctor.
I think its unintended but by that definition then carpentry or other trades which used to be learned by apprenticeship on the job aren’t skilled?
Education requires no skill, you just kiss professor’s ass and do as you’re told, your reward is a diploma. Here, is that reductionist enough for you?
By the way, cashier job can’t be learned within days, you need to be literate and know at least basic math and average kid goes to school for at least 8 years so fuck you. I can’t even think of a job that requires no education.
Some more sarcasm and condescension
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Is it made less difficult to achieve a living wage for everyone by affirming, or by challenging, the practice of characterizing some labor as “unskilled”?
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You seem to be inserting an appeal to purity, by characterizing certain skills as “special”.
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An appeal to purity is not good, in case you are not aware if the term.
Sure. To the economist the terms are jargon, but to the bootlicker they are sacred words. Your heresy is unwelcome.
Landlord
Close, but that’s not a job. It’s no coincidence that the destructive practice of using your wealth to suck wealth out of society without adding anything beneficial is called Rent-seeking
That requires no labour though.
Warehouse fulfillment and fast food. It takes little education and training. I can be doing it in a week. Tops.
It’s far harder and longer timeframe replacing an engineer for example.
That’s not skilled labor though, that’s white-collar office worker stuff.
A better example would be a lathe operator.
White collar has nothing to do with skilled or not. It’s a calculation on time and cost to replace.
I don’t know anything about lathe operators but it’s very clear that it’s harder to replace engineers vs cooking fast food.
probably the “labor” part
You’re comparing the bottom person at a restaurant with a mid level engineer. You should be comparing an engineering intern with a dishwasher or something. Both are somewhat replaceable (but try running anything without them).
Compare an actual engineer with a restaurant manager or head chef. Both of those require experience and education.
An entry level engineer is going to have 2 years of additional math, or coding, or whatever after highschool. I was cooking burgers and running a register at 14. It’s easy to learn. Most people can cook a burger as a part of their existence, no training but the specific way they want. Far far more easy to replace and train.
I don’t think the issue is with the term skilled, I think it’s with labor.
Unskilled labor is McDonald’s.
Skilled labor would be like a machinist or a plumber.
It takes a lot of training, maybe an apprenticeship, etc. maybe even vocational school.
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I guess one thing I learned reading this thread, there are very few unskilled jobs nowadays.
Maybe old time admin assistants just collating papers, making copies, etc but even then those are really just unskilled tasks moreso than an unskilled job. They also had appointments to set up, calendars and rolodexes to manage, organization, etc.
I think any unskilled job can be made skilled labour if you’re thoughtful about how you do it, and do it well.
Whatever job Eminem had in 8 Mile on the Up/Down button machine?
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You’re gonna tell me catching a stray cat, butchering it correctly and making mincemeat that tastes no different from cow to average customer doesn’t require copous amountso of knowledge?
Don’t get me started on making a dead rat look like a KFC chicken nugget.
This one is just condescension. But the pattern is there
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No it doesn’t. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Kn9EpGqrOE
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Skilled labor requires a degree, unskilled labor does not.
I’d asume some of the jobs where you just test meds all day doesent require any skill
The only one I can think of is the guy that carries the nitroglycerin into the train tunnel when they’re digging it.
It’s so unskilled that if you mess up, you die and don’t even learn a lesson. The job is literally walk without splashing this liquid.
This job doesn’t exist anymore. Human rights and all, but a lot of train tunnels are coated in the blood of “unskilled labor”.
All skilled labor can be represented by the unskilled labor required to recreate it, ie training.
Skilled labor meaning it took more than a twenty minute introduction for the job. If the guy flipping burgers can cook multiple burgers at multiple Temps, than that would classify as skilled labor. They guy that drops the fries in the fryer and just has to wait for the ding, not skilled labor. Another example, a welder who knows how the mixture of gas affects the welds, skilled labor. It’s knowledge of why and how to get to the end result rather than following basic instructions just because that’s what you were told.
Fruit picker, maybe? I know it’s physically hard but is that skilled?
The skill is being able to endure hard labour
Every single action can be mastered to perfection, then relearned from the basics. There’s endless depth to everything
Fruit picking can be grabbing, twisting/pulling, then putting a thing into a basket. You can do it faster and more precisely to use less energy, you can stack fruits so more fit without bruising, you can change how you walk and hold the basket to strain yourself less. You could relearn it so you toss it all in a basket still on your back, perfectly so they don’t bruise or bounce out of place. You could learn to identify how long until a fruit ripens and chart an optimal path day by day, or even learn to smell them out.
An “unskilled job” is a job where you can get someone up to basic competence quickly. It’s an effort to use people like a fungible unit of man-hours, and to make up the difference by essentially being strategically wasteful.
A better fruit picker will have more and better fruit in less time, a better fast food cook will make a better burger. By standardizing it, you can reduce the floor - you can throw out bruised, under ripe, or overripe fruits. Maybe you can even process the rejects make juice or fruit snacks from them… You can use machines to minimize the cost and chemicals to cover for inferior ingredients
But you also cap the ceiling. An amateur fruit picker or chef can make better food than McDonald’s or Dole, because capitalism doesn’t care about “better”, it incentivizes everything to be “good enough” and punishes quality control beyond that… It’s far more profitable to put more effort into marketing an inferior product than to produce something of higher quality.
And that’s why everything sucks - because it’s more profitable to lower standards than to produce better goods.
We worry about AI alignment with little reason, but we’re blind to the fact corporations are not aligned with human values