Political thoughts.

For a moment, let's say that a manager is not more important than a janitor. We'll take this road, because people like the idea of freedom. Freedom does not mean that an entire world is closed off to you because you have no money, so in order to get things you need to be an idea man. You need to be a manager. For a moment, and for the sake of discussion, lets think that "the slacker" is not an unmotivated, unintelligent bum, but instead they do find joy in certain task that others find undesirable. And why not? The world would fall apart without a janitor or a garbage man because if you got rid of those jobs people would be forced to clean up after themselves. Progress would come to a grinding halt because CEO's, the men with the plans, would have devote time and brain space to small unimportant tasks, and therefore have no time to come up with ways to make the world a better place to live.

Reward on education and skills is a utopian dream. Here me out though: A business doesn't run in layers. One department doesn't work harder than another department, it just works differently. You can remove unproductive and lazy people, or people who aren't a good fit, or any other excuse you can find for removing an individual. Remove a group, a department, a community, and the business will fall apart.

Engineers are awesome,and I will sing our praises until the end of time. Data analysts are gods among men. With no sales knowledge, or a sales staff, then we are just hobbyists. Sales without a product is a crazy man with a cardboard sign. Without leadership or direction, these guys wander and flounder and create novilities and toys. But without a good work force, "Leadership" is that asshole at family get-togethers that bosses you around with any contributions.

Why does an "idea man" get more? I can take classes in management, business, and arts for creativity. I can work my weekends at a market or sell drugs to learn how to hustle like a player. An idea man isn't special, and established companies have shown that a CEO can be fired or traded. Rewarding the hard work it takes to get there in the first place I'm all for. To get to that level of trust and skill takes years of hard work and fuck ups and success. And a CEO of company that makes money globally as opposed to locally, I can see the reasoning in why they would make more. Why should a CEO who's worked his way to the top make more money than a maintenance man who's work as long and has hard.

I say maintenance and not janitor because the modern janitor does more than clean spills. Cleaning the floors and building, repairing machines that break, watching over the maintenance of a fleet, and making sure a building is taken care of can all fall under the duties of the maintenance department. Not all companies handle this in the same way, mind you. Some find that big specialized tasks need to be hired to outside companies. But the head of maintenance is the one who deals and orchestrates with them. Cleaning is a task that different companies deal with differently, so janitor may be a thing doesn't technically exist where you work. It doesn't exist at my job. We have people who clean, but that isn't there only job. They work production, but during slower points in the day, they're job is to help clean. The reason I'm focusing on this concept is because of a webpage on objectivism decided to make an example out of why a CEO is better then a janitor. I can't find this again, sadly, but if I do, I'll link it here.

New man on the job, sure, don't pay him that much because he's fresh face, eager to work, but doesn't know shit about anything. But why is someone who is the head of a department like maintenance paid less then head of management? It's not education, really. The education it takes these days to know anything is extensive. Sure, your college may not be as expensive as the other guys. That's a whole other discussion that I could rant about, but for now let's say that's not the cost of education that's important, but what you do with it. Remember, for discussion we live in a utopia.

Not years of experience, either. For comparison, what's the difference between 2 fifty year old men who both went to school when they where 18, and graduated to find paying jobs. Assume that one is the CEO and one is the head of Maintenance. The way they dress and hobbies are different, values might not be the same, but experience wise they are same in their respective fields.

Accountability is an issue. One of these men reports to the other. One man makes decisions that affects how smoothly and well a company runs, a job that has a huge impact on others jobs. The other wears a nice suit and drives a nice car.

My point isn't to belittle either job. My point is to say "What is the value of a person?" At it's core, capitalism likes to say that it rewards hard-workers, that each man is free. But it still puts a different value on different jobs. This is not my final thoughts on this, it's just the beginning. Something capitalism has given us is ideas on how to share limited rescorces. It's just that it's cheerleaders come off as pretty fucking clueless. If you can't afford a car, and your options are "McDonald's or don't eat out" in walking or biking distance of where you live, then you don't eat at McDonald's because you like the taste. That's a reference to another webpage, which I swear will be linked later tonight. Of course, you can go shopping and eat in. Where I live, the shopping options aren't good. Unless it's a supermarket, stores don't carry a lot of produce because it went bad months ago before it got here. I live in PA, but all the small markets are getting their stock from Hannaford's in Massachusetts. Like, the stuff that couldn't be sold in New England comes down here. My options for a quick meal in is frozen pizza, or really anything with a long shelf life and little nutritional value. When faced with choice like that, the mind begins to think "Sure, freedom exists. To people with money."

Really, though, what makes the internet great is that if you don't agree with me, I'll probably here it. Post any thoughts in the comments below, or tell me opinions @aristotlesmstk at twitter, or it's on Facebook if that's your poison. Me, I'm gonna finish this book on Emma Goldman's essay and go back to stumbling political and mathematical websites.