Worker "Experience"

[Peachman2000]

You know the popular slogan used by Right Wingers, "Minimum wage jobs help gain experience"? I was thinking about it, and I asked my own question. How does working a minimum wage job at McDonalds help you gain "experience" in fields such as a Lawyer, Doctor, It technician, or really any other job? It doesn't make sense. Wouldn't experience be better gained through College work studies? Where you can study the actual field that you are going into. I don't get how mopping up floors can help prepare you for performing a surgery, or teaching students. What is your opinion on this matter?

[Tim Cornelis]

I don't conservatives say that. Internships give experience in specific fields, general jobs give experience in discipline and whatnot.

[Armchair Partisan]

They help you develop discipline, work ethic, and deference to authority. Isn't that great? Capitalism is wonderful!

(Though at my university, I haven't heard anyone suggesting that such menial jobs would help you become better computing engineers. On the other hand, we have quite an anomalous situation here: with a massive demand for IT staff, it's easy to find an internship, which is actually paid quite a lot of the time, as well as full jobs. Jobs are relatively scarce in other fields, though: "work experience" maybe an excuse used to rationalize the grim reality of the majority of university students having to do menial jobs because they can't find a job in their own fields.)

[John Nada]

They mean it's jobs for teenagers and wives(or women going to be wives), and if you're neither then you're a loser who deserves to suffer along with them.:glare: If you don't pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get promoted to regional manager of McDonald's or find a better career, it's all your fault and don't go around hating all the hard-working rich people. They didn't get to where they were being negative and lazy. It's hard being the great-great-great-grandchild of a "captain of industry". Fuck, you should be grateful they even helped a parasite such as yourself.:(

It's all part of this "Protestant work ethic" ideology and Christian masochism in general(though it's spread beyond Protestants or even Christians). Work hard and be righteous, God will reward you and prosper, and if you're not prosperous than you must be a lazy-ass sinner who deserves to suffer. But that's alright because there's always heaven if the Lord doesn't answer you prayers.

A secularized religious doctrine, replaces God with the "Invisible Hand of the Free-Market".

[ckaihatsu]

They mean it's jobs for teenagers and wives(or women going to be wives), and if you're neither then you're a loser who deserves to suffer along with them.:glare: If you don't pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get promoted to regional manager of McDonald's or find a better career, it's all your fault and don't go around hating all the hard-working rich people. They didn't get to where they were being negative and lazy. It's hard being the great-great-great-grandchild of a "captain of industry". Fuck, you should be grateful they even helped a parasite such as yourself.:(

It's all part of this "Protestant work ethic" ideology and Christian masochism in general(though it's spread beyond Protestants or even Christians). Work hard and be righteous, God will reward you and prosper, and if you're not prosperous than you must be a lazy-ass sinner who deserves to suffer. But that's alright because there's always heaven if the Lord doesn't answer you prayers.

A secularized religious doctrine, replaces God with the "Invisible Hand of the Free-Market".


While I doubt anyone would phrase this kind of moralism so *explicitly*, it's a wonder that in this day and age this kind of worldview-line could even be *sneaked-in* to someone's consciousness -- though I know it still happens *somewhere* every day, of course.

I mean to say that this social-control mythology is *so* outdated that all one has to do is line it up next to anything that's actually empirical-*ish* -- like bourgeois economics -- and the whole construct implodes by comparison and falls like ashes to the ground. (One might simply ask 'Where does the work-value *go*?' and economics must answer in terms of wages, profits, and taxes, which are all solidly non-supernatural.)

And, for the more reflectively-adventurous, the 'invisible hand' nonsense can be dispelled with the mere thought of 'Does the world reflect a meritocracy, or not -- ?'

Because if not, then what would the point of the 'invisible hand' *matter*, anyway -- !

[John Nada]

While I doubt anyone would phrase this kind of moralism so *explicitly*, it's a wonder that in this day and age this kind of worldview-line could even be *sneaked-in* to someone's consciousness -- though I know it still happens *somewhere* every day, of course.At least very late at night on Christian infomercials or Sunday morning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_Gospel

The "experience" is "piety". For the bourgeoisie, shitty jobs are something their parents made them do as a teen to "instill a good work ethic" or a story about the family, "before they worked hard and succeeded". And since that's the ruling class, it spreads out and down to the rest, even the proletariat.
I mean to say that this social-control mythology is *so* outdated that all one has to do is line it up next to anything that's actually empirical-*ish* -- like bourgeois economics -- and the whole construct implodes by comparison and falls like ashes to the ground. (One might simply ask 'Where does the work-value *go*?' and economics must answer in terms of wages, profits, and taxes, which are all solidly non-supernatural.)In the US at least, contrary to popular belief, the rich are more religious. So since religion says there's an all-powerful, all-knowing God who controls everything, there must be a reason why this is so. So they ascribe these numbers and people working for them to some divine providence. That the proletariat tends to be less religious(true or imaginary), then by this logic the bourgeoisie are bourgeoisie because they were religious. It's an illusory correlation, hence you hear unabashed rightists say poverty is caused because things like having kids out of wedlock or reduced church attendance. It's cognitive dissonance turned "common sense".
And, for the more reflectively-adventurous, the 'invisible hand' nonsense can be dispelled with the mere thought of 'Does the world reflect a meritocracy, or not -- ?'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatalism If capitalism isn't fair, in the apologist's mind it's for a reason. Perhaps a mystery that will only be revealed at the Last Hour?:unsure: Or is it they are doing something wrong, and the bourgeoisie are doing something right.
Because if not, then what would the point of the 'invisible hand' *matter*, anyway -- !
The rich only select from the heap what is most precious and agreeable. They consume little more than the poor, and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity, though they mean only their own conveniency, though the sole end which they propose from the labours of all the thousands whom they employ, be the gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires, they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_Moral_Sentiments#Overview

In the bourgeoisie's collective mind, just giving the workers a job is doing the workers a favor. It's Original Sin "Human Nature".:rolleyes:

[Luís Henrique]

I think there are different things mixed up here.

Menial jobs will give you actual experience in... menial jobs. This is partly what others have highlighted: experience in work discipline, money handling discipline, teaming with others to get things done, negotiating your own wage, etc. They won't prepare you to perform highly skilled jobs such as surgery or IT, except in the very limited sence that a surgeon or a IT wizard still needs to obey orders, work in teams, control his/her own wage, etc.

It seems it was a practice, among the American middle classes, to put their kids in part-time jobs for this purpose - but it used to be understood that those kids would eventually benefit from their familiar structure, contacts, and wealth, to be directed into proper adult jobs when occasion came. I don't know whether, with the increasing degradation of work conditions and status of labour, this practice is still possible.

Anyway, the goal of the system is not to turn everybody into highly skilled workers. Menial jobs have to be done, and if everybody was entitled to a college carreer, nobody would wash the dishes or collect garbage.

On the other hand, some menial jobs do require previous experience. Thus you can have actual aprenticeships, in which people will work for a lower wage to gain skills in a given trade. This also stands for college professions: a freshman lawyier will often be employed in some kind of internship, in which s/he will mostly help senior lawyers, selling his labour force not only for some money, but also for "experience".

Luís Henrique

[Counterculturalist]

It seems it was a practice, among the American middle classes, to put their kids in part-time jobs for this purpose - but it used to be understood that those kids would eventually benefit from their familiar structure, contacts, and wealth, to be directed into proper adult jobs when occasion came. I don't know whether, with the increasing degradation of work conditions and status of labour, this practice is still possible.


The practice is certainly, if not impossible, becoming more and more untenable. Proper "proletarian" jobs for adults that don't require higher education are disappearing, and the ones that remain are becoming closer and closer in their conditions and level of compensation to jobs that used to be reserved for teenagers.

Meanwhile, conservative rhetoric about these sorts of menial jobs is almost hysterically incoherent and hypocritical. People struggling to make ends meet are advised to take these jobs rather than use social services. When these jobs don't pay or don't provide enough hours for a living wage, people are told "these jobs aren't for you, they're for kids so that they can practice for a 'real job.' How dare you be so irresponsible as to try to raise a family with 'kids' jobs.'"

It's a wonder that the suburbs haven't been burned to the ground yet.

[Working Class Hero]

One good thing to read would be Harry Braverman's Labor and Monopoly Capital. It talks about the deskilling of the proletariat and the effects it's had on workers.

[MarxSchmarx]

Honestly the minimum wage is a red herring.

I'd say in an ideal world, it is important for those who have high skills to at least appreciate, if not actively take part in, the work involved in the so-called "menial" tasks. Top flight chefs and nuclear engineers should not be treated as being beyond cleaning hotel rooms or gutting fresh caught fish.

Of course, we don't live in an ideal world. So maybe the next best thing is to have the future "Masters of the Universe" learn to mop floors, show up to shifts, you know, the stuff the rest of us have to do every day.

I think what we in capitalist society call "experience" is really akin to developing credibility with one's co-workers, on-the-ground-familiarity with actually difficult position, and recognition that there is dirty work that needs to get done, all facets that we would expect of our workers in a post-capitalist to understand.

Think of outdoor telephone repair people. Shouldn't we have them ride around for a few years with an experienced electrician before we expect them to work on our communications systems? They could be paid whatever range, but I'd argue that beyond their salary, the "experience" of working on the ground with a senior technician would be invaluable for somebody inspired to uphold the networks of communication. I anticipate us retaining these sorts of practices even after the problems posed by capitalism become largely resolved.

[Troika]

I'd call it more of a means of treading water than a red herring. It'd be nice if people were actually able to provide for themselves on one 40 hour a week job. I don't really see the shitlords at the top being willing to shine my boots any time soon.