You know it’s been quite a while that I took my business law class, but there was a legal defense that I remember learning about called, doctrine of avoidable consequences, which prevents a person from recovering damages that could have been avoided through reasonable efforts.
For 13 years, OP chose to work as a part-time worker at a grocery store for an average annual raise of $0.05.
Obviously, OP isn’t trying to take their employer to court or anything to recover damages, but dang, could they have made a reasonable effort to avoid these consequences. Like this is borderline negligence for their own well-being haha
Ever since Adam Smith, those trying to prove that contemporary forms of competitive market exchange are rooted in human nature have pointed to the existence of what they call ‘primitive trade.’ Already tens of thousands of years ago, one can find evidence of objects — very often precious stones, shells or other items of adornment — being moved around over enormous distances. Often these were just the sort of objects that anthropologists would later find being used as ‘primitive currencies’ all over the world. Surely this must prove capitalism in some form or another has always existed?
The logic is perfectly circular. If precious objects were moving long distances, this is evidence of ‘trade’ and, if trade occurred, it must have taken some sort of commercial form; therefore, the fact that, say, 3,000 years ago Baltic amber found its way to the Mediterranean, or shells from Mexico were transported to Ohio, is proof that we are in the presence of some embryonic form of market economy. Markets are universal. Therefore, there must have been a market. Therefore, markets are universal. And so on.
All such authors are really saying is that they themselves cannot personally imagine any other way that precious objects might move about. But lack of imagination is not itself an argument. It’s almost as if these writers are afraid to suggest anything that seems original, or, if they do, feel obliged to use vaguely scientific-sounding language ( ‘trans-regional interaction spheres’, ‘multi-scalar networks of exchange’) to avoid having to speculate about what precisely those things might be. In fact, anthropology provides endless illustrations of how valuable objects might travel long distances in the absence of anything that remotely resembles a market economy.
The founding text of twentieth-century ethnography, Bronislaw Malinowski’s 1922 Argonauts of the Western Pacific, describes how in the ‘kula chain’ of the Massim Island off Papua New Guinea, men would undertake daring expeditions across dangerous seas in outrigger canoes, just in order to exchange precious heirloom arm-shells and necklaces for each other (each of the most important ones has its own name, and history of former owners) — only to hold it briefly, then pass it on again to a different expedition from another island. Heirloom treasures circle the island chain eternally, crossing hundreds of miles of ocean, arm-shells and necklaces in opposite directions. To an outsider it seems senseless. To the men of the Massim it was the ultimate adventure, and nothing could be more important than to spread one’s name, in this fashion, to places one had never seen.
Is this ‘trade’? Perhaps, but it would bend to breaking point our ordinary understanding of what that word means. There is, in fact, a substantial ethnographic literature on how such long-distance exchange operates in societies without markets. Barter does occur: different groups may take on specialties — one is famous for its feather-work, another provides salt, in a third all women are potters — to acquire things they cannot produce themselves; sometimes one group will specialize in the very business of moving people and things around. But we often find such regional networks developing largely for the sake of creating friendly mutual relations, or having an excuse to visit one another from time to time; and there are plenty of other possibilities that in no way resemble ‘trade.’
Let’s list just a few, all drawn from North American material, to give the reader a taste of what might really be going on when people speak of ‘long-distance interaction spheres’ in the human past:
Dreams or vision quests: among Iroquoian-speaking peoples in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was considered extremely important literally to realize one’s dreams. Many European observers marveled at how Indians would be willing to travel for days to bring back some object, trophy, crystal or even an animal like a dog they had dreamed of acquiring. Anyone who dreamed about a neighbor or relative’s possession (a kettle, ornament, mask and so on) could normally demand it; as a result, such objects would often gradually travel some way from town to town. On the Great Plains, decisions to travel long distances in search of rare or exotic items could form part of vision quests.
Traveling healers and entertainers: in 1528, when a shipwrecked Spaniard named Alvar Nuriez Cabeza de Vaca made his way from Florida across what is now Texas to Mexico, he found he could pass easily between villages (even villages at war with one another) by offering his services as a magician and curer. Curers in much of North America were also entertainers, and would often develop significant entourages; those who felt their lives had been saved by the performance would, typically, offer up all their material processions to be divided among the troupe. By such means, precious objects could easily travel long distances.
Women’s gambling: women in many indigenous North American societies were inveterate gamblers; the women of adjacent villages would often meet to play dice or a game played with a bowl and plum stone, and would typically bet their shells beads or other objects of personal adornment as the stakes. One archeologist versed in the ethnographic literature, Warren DeBoer, estimates that many of the shells and other exotic discovered in sites halfway across the continent had got there by being endlessly wagered, and lost, in inter-village games of this sort, over very long periods of time.
We could multiply examples, but assume that by now the reader gets the broader point we are making. When we simply guess as to what humans in other times and places might be up to, we almost invariably make guesses that are far less interesting, far less quirky — in a word, far less human than what was likely going on.
Notice what’s missing from most of these: A profit motive.
There are, technically, “markets” in every human culture we can identify. There are exchanges of goods & services, even in the most socialistic of societies.
There is not always any attempt to get “profit,” to wind up with more value than you had before.
(Gambling may have a profit motive. Gambling may also have competitive motive: the goal can be winning, with the prize being wanted as a trophy more than for its technical value.)
I’m so happy that that business is able to afford granting people all those bonuses. Really, great for them!
We’ll just say goodbye to small businesses who can’t afford to pay higher than the minimum wage. Massive corporations don’t care, so you probably shouldn’t either.
Yes, we will.
If you can’t afford to pay your employees, your business deserves to fail.
That’s the entire point.
“But. But. Small businesses!!!”
Aren’t fucking special. People can’t afford to live on minimum wage. The end.
People love to trot out the small businesses or whatever but I’ve worked for a variety of small businesses and here’s the difference:
+ Small Business A, where they care about their employees, treat us like family, value our work and the service they and we provide, and know that they are a seasonal labor force that can’t award certain package offers not only because it’s out of the business model budgets but because we’re a weekends-only 3 month work force. They pay us above minimum wage and in trade, as well as having agreed discounts with other small businesses during the duration of the season.
+ Small Business B, which overworked and underpaid their employees, had no idea how to manage cash flow operations, disregarded employee and customer feedback, overextended capital for “a good opportunity”, refused to hold employees to any sort of training standard, didn’t maintain a standard form of consistency, had huge spoilage costs, and generally made a mess of themselves. They had previously failed at another store front and thought a LARGER store front was the answer, despite it being 40 minutes away from their kiosk and only primary cash flow store, and when it, unsurprisingly, started to fail, they ended up losing everything.
It is not the employee’s responsibility to maintain a small business’s operability. Small business owners that don’t know how to run a business don’t deserve to run a business. That’s ~the invisible hand of the market~ yall capitalists love to jerk it with so much
ahhh i finally got that email. from the boss. you know the one: we’re losing clients because the robots are getting better at your job, therefore you need to start doing your job not only better and faster but also with more of a Human Touch™ and for the exact same wages fuck you
Lying on the floor of this hypercapitalist clownhell like how the fuck do you guys deal with it. You’re not stupid you know what’s going on even if you claim not to. This guy is like yeah I mean honestly she’s not wrong I used to really struggle with the same thoughts. You just need to lean into delusion. I’m existing in a constant state of delusion.
3. Higher educated folks tend to have a better understanding of their self worth, reducing how much the rich can exploit them.
4. Higher education also fosters innovation and entrepreneurship, leading to more small companies, more competition, and an even smaller exploitable work force.
Something I don’t think gets talked about enough is that the house-flipping trend has not only resulted in ugly, poorly laid out houses, it’s resulted in houses that are literally already falling apart by the time they’re sold. There are vast numbers of new houses that are being built with the explicit expectation that they’re going to be torn down and rebuilt in ten years or less to keep up with contemporary trends, so they’re only designed to last five to ten years before falling to pieces. Like, I live in an ugly little house that hasn’t seen major renovations since the 1970s, and it’s in better physical condition than a lot of newer houses that were built last year.
I know that doesn’t sound like a big deal if you think of it in terms of ha ha, rich people overpaying for shitty houses, but flip it around and consider: what does our ostensible housing surplus actually mean if an increasing number of those houses will be functionally uninhabitable within a decade?
could you IMAGINE if jobs asked to see your tumblr ajsjskksksks the url alone is enough to disqualify half of you hoes let alone your blog descriptions
Put your LinkedIn profile AND ONLY YOUR LINKEDIN PROFILE on your resume and if they ask for social media information refer them to your resume. “Oh I’ve listed my relevant social media pages on my resume”
IF they ask for your twitter, facebook, or Instagram specifically tell them you’re not presently active on any of those accounts. “Currently I’m not an active user of those sites”
Make sure you use pseudonyms on twitter and insta, don’t tag co-workers, and keep your facebook private. Ask your friends not to tag you in their pictures either.
Never discuss work on your social media, never refer to your job by name, never tag your location when your going to/from work, and never ever discuss any difficulties with your job online. Doing so will only ensure you get fired.
[Image Description: tumblr reply from user hxlianthuus. It says “employers will ask for your Insta, fb, and twitter, but who asks for your tumblr????? no one” End ID]
Fun fact: lots of applicant tracking systems pull your accounts from your email and phone number.
For the love of god, create a job application email. DO NOT use a personal email, especially not one that has silly words in them.
I also recommend a separate phone number, so they can’t trace your FB account.
