07/31/2013
But nobody calls for a knowledge worker when the woods are on fire.
I rather like that line.
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I had read this post when you first put it up.
I grow impatient with hearing about “the information economy,” about “knowledge workers” and their privileged position in our economic life. Pundits seem to have a sort of gnostic view of the economy, speaking as if it were a totally incorporeal thing consisting only of financial transactions.
This is probably why I was a bit miffed when someone put up today in his FB page that if you think the minimum wage isn't enough you should increase your knowledge so you don't have to work minimum wage jobs. The problem with that kind of mentality is that it does not acknowledge the essential services which many such jobs provide for society. At least, I'm not certain which jobs are minimum wage, but I am pretty certain that people who do manual labour for a living make much less than those who don't and they should at least be able to make enough to live on.
I like the post and your one-liner from it!
Posted by: Louise | 08/02/2013 at 01:32 PM
I'm impressed (and pleased) that you remembered it.
Amen to the other things you said. The picture gets complicated when you talk about laws to enforce it, but as a moral matter it's really beyond debate.
Posted by: Mac | 08/02/2013 at 02:04 PM
Brings this to mind: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bT8MI_lq5Q
Posted by: Paul | 08/06/2013 at 04:55 PM
Ha! Exactly.
Posted by: Mac | 08/06/2013 at 05:13 PM
heeheehee!
Posted by: Louise | 08/06/2013 at 05:46 PM
I went back and read the original.
I agree mostly. But as a worker in the Gnostic economy- one specializing in data storage- we're a cost. We aren't a profitable segment of the economy.
Our services make other people more efficient, but what I produce is largely imaginary, stored entirely in a computer's memory.
It is the people who make actual goods that should be better rewarded than I am, and I don't understand why they aren't.
Posted by: Ted Seeber | 08/07/2013 at 05:26 PM
Oh, and since somebody else posted a youtube video, I think this is appropriate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W_wd9Qf0IE
The life of your average code monkey is not pretty.
Posted by: Ted Seeber | 08/07/2013 at 05:30 PM
That's great. I was sort of a code monkey at one time, but I was already older and married.
It's not that great a mystery why some of us "knowledge workers" are paid more than a lot of people who work with their hands: there aren't as many of us, and we're needed to make all the other machinery of society work. But that shouldn't be the end of the story. It doesn't justify sweating those who are more easily replaced and therefore vulnerable.
Posted by: Mac | 08/07/2013 at 09:09 PM