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Comment by vegetablepotpie | Hacker News Reader

This article spells out the incentive structure that leads to low-status men underperforming.

> Some of the jobs he can get don’t pay enough to give him the self-respect he feels he needs, and others require him to get along with unpleasant customers and coworkers, and to maintain a submissive attitude toward the boss.

> The educated class decides cohabiting partnerships are just as valid and important as marriage. And they also believe it’s okay to walk away at a moment’s notice from a cohabiting relationship… Poor and working-class people follow suit.

Tightening constraints from the employer class around employment, and loosening constraints from middle class individuals on cultural expectations leads to low status men abandoning their partners.

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Same as it always was.

Or perhaps moving a factory workforce into the service industry has been degrading? (Since of course we shipped the factories overseas.)

Having done both I vastly preferred the service industry. Factory job had more unpleasant coworkers and boss (thanks to grueling physical labor) plus a submissive attitude towards unpleasant machinery.

The factory money was better though.

> a submissive attitude towards unpleasant machinery.

Are you referring to litteral or methaphorical machinery here? Actual machinery can be a pain.

Your 'a submissive' attidude is a good wording for the 'are you a fag or what' mindset many seem to have to work conditions that suck.

I worked a summer mounting rear axis on trucks, so my experience is kinda limited. But it was really bad and the clock was ticking for each axis in a way that made you hate your job in a week. The first day was fun...

you mean rear axles, no? Not rear axis, which isn't a named thing.

Oh ye 'axle' I thought is was the same word as axis.

> Same as it always was.

I feel like it's an industrialization thing. Before industrialization people would farm their own land, set up their own shops etc. Sure there would be people above you, but they wouldn't and couldn't micromanage you.

The peasant surely didn't have morning standups with their lord.

> farm their own land

Peasants didn't have "their own land". All land belonged to the aristocracy, and you would farm the their land.

Look no further than the native land of JD Vance and you can find sharecroppers. However, these days no self-respecting man would sharecrop. "I'll just sit at the house."

Even the official end of feudalism, at least in the UK, was at least a century before the Industrial Revolution.

But the aristocracy didn't micromanage that, is my point. Unless you were a slave I guess?

>> Some of the jobs he can get don’t pay enough to give him the self-respect he feels he needs, and others require him to get along with unpleasant customers and coworkers, and to maintain a submissive attitude toward the boss. Same as it always was.

> Or perhaps moving a factory workforce into the service industry has been degrading? (Since of course we shipped the factories overseas.)

The sentences literally following this quote have an idea on the question:

"It used to be high-status to hold a job and take care of your family. Not so much anymore.

Those who sit at or near the apex of the social ladder (who decide what behaviors are prestigious) have decided that family stability is unimportant."

As a meta aside, not specifically reacting to you, the amount of people commenting on article they haven't read at all is bothering me more and more.

Yes, some people have to be hands-on building the physical world or they will not be happy. And by unhappy, I mean constant nagging doubts of inferiority and uselessness. Eventually you are going to check out under those circumstances.

I have felt guilty my whole life working white collar, but I'm useful and people need and want me, so I get by.

Well fortunately for those people it's easy to find construction jobs now, as long as they're willing to relocate.

I would correct the quote as such:

>Don't pay enough to live in a way that his family and community respects his contributions and sacrifices, if such pay even gives him room to contribute at all.

>Require him to get along with customers and coworkers that may be abusive and prejudiced, for no other reason than that the position is "supposed" to be servile and manned by a lesser person.

>[Require him] to maintain a complete physical and psychological affect of arbitrary "professionalism", servility, and agreeability, even while dealing with higher-status individuals who are not only allowed to be emotional, aggressive, and competitive, but who actually benefit from it in their career.

TFA spends a moment on what I think might be the crux: that the elite set rules they don't have to abide by. This is unfair, and poor young men recognize that it's unfair, and they're punished when they point out that things are unfair, because breaking the masquerade makes people uncomfortable, and nothing is more important than the comfort of high-status individuals.

As much stability in the family structure of poor folk may be breathing its last breath, noblesse oblige is long dead.

but this is the nature of all employed work: "submissive attitude toward the boss." Even if you're the CEO of a major corporation, you still have a submissive attitude towards shareholders.

It's rare but some people work in co-ops. Though I guess you could say they are not doing "employed work"?

In any case, there's forms of labour out there that can be more empowering to the worker.

>It's rare but some people work in co-ops. Though I guess you could say they are not doing "employed work"?

Aren't you still beholden to the board (which theoretically is elected by you, but still)?

Subordination does not equate to submission, it's not really the same thing

Fine nuance of exactly the type that's hard for folks to get behind today. If we could get people to consider nuanced positions, many of our problems would already be solved. Even in engineering orgs I've been a part of, navigating the challenges of seniority, hierarchy, and status has been really challenging.

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