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The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World

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Lusis

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« Reply #15 on: <09-05-13/1748:39> »
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The thing, is that truthfully this is just silly. Human nature is always going to find the best pay for the least work. I could see overtime, but a constant schedule like that is going to burn out your workers and drive them off to better pastures.
There are no better pastures. If you are a Megacorp wageslave, you probaly consider yourself lucky. There's a wasteland out there full of predators and your place in the Corp keeps you away from it. If you walk, you're risking that the other corps will mark you as unruly and no one will hire you. Assuming you have no contract and can legally walk.

Also, the idea of work and time off kind of blends together in a wageslave's life. You might be pushing paper, but then suddenly be called out to a morale session, where you hear speeches and sing the Corporate song, etc. Your entertainments when you are relaxing have to be Corp approved, as does your spouse. And of course, all your friends are at the Corp, so you'd be leaving them, too.

The wage system its self is an illusion. You can't for example save up to buy a sportscar, and you don't need one anyway. Your wages and company benefits insure you get to live a better lifestyle than a Barrens rat, no more, no less. Part of this is done through uniformly low wages, partly through tricks like company stores and debts.

There's a perception that the Corp will take care of you if things go bad. This may not be true, but it's definitely believed. There is definitely a security advantage. And it's also a reliable lifestyle.

What options do you think an unskilled person has? The Corps work together to insure there are no other opportunities. Work in a Stuffer Shack. Turn into a Barrens Scavenger (With no actual skills, even including a familiarity with the Barrens) Turn to crime (With no actual criminal skills).

While sounding rather sinster enough for a dystopian plot, the fact is that you couldn't do this for long unless you have people drugged, or shoot them if they leave. Even then, the levels of productivity will be in the crapper for the average worker.

As far as runners go, our characters are sociopaths who would barely get along in modern society.
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Crunch

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« Reply #16 on: <09-05-13/1752:09> »
umm... That's way nicer than working conditions for most people for most of the people during the Industrial Revolution.

Lusis

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« Reply #17 on: <09-05-13/1801:18> »
umm... That's way nicer than working conditions for most people for most of the people during the Industrial Revolution.

Yet things got better; which is my point.

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Lusis

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« Reply #18 on: <09-05-13/1806:06> »
ETA: Don't get me wrong, I love the SR universe, but there's a definite slant to the dystopian ideal in the backstory, when it seems they could definitely go more middle-of-the-road and have plenty wrong in SR society.
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GiraffeShaman

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« Reply #19 on: <09-05-13/1807:20> »
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umm... That's way nicer than working conditions for most people for most of the people during the Industrial Revolution.

Not to mention being a worker in current day El Salvidor, for example. I somehow doubt it's a picnic. It's all about maintaining uniformly bad conditions or wages, so that there is no alternative.

Why do fastfood workers stay in there jobs currently? It obviously doesn't pay well, and the job doesn't look fun. And they even do have some alternatives. But part of the reason they don't move is that that type of job pays a uniformly bad wage. Going to another store would change nothing. To stay in that industry is to accept a uniformly low wage, short of becoming a manager.

Lusis

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« Reply #20 on: <09-05-13/1811:39> »
Why do fastfood workers stay in there jobs currently? It obviously doesn't pay well, and the job doesn't look fun. And they even do have some alternatives. But part of the reason they don't move is that that type of job pays a uniformly bad wage. Going to another store would change nothing. To stay in that industry is to accept a uniformly low wage, short of becoming a manager.

Lack of marketable skills. Low skills=low wages=lack of job prospects.

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GiraffeShaman

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« Reply #21 on: <09-05-13/1829:17> »
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Lack of marketable skills. Low skills=low wages=lack of job prospects.

Not really. The economy is massive and there are numerous opportunities and prospects. I picked fast food because the wages are uniformly low and it doesn't look fun, the two components most people care about with a job. There are equal or better paying jobs, that require little skill, yet aren't as irritating to do. In short, there are options.

Many of these options are gone in SR, just like a Third World country. Being a wageslave is actually a good deal, or so it appears to the slaves, but it also consumes your life. It's like being an  Outer Party Member in the novel 1984.

Lusis

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« Reply #22 on: <09-05-13/1846:46> »
Being a wageslave is actually a good deal, or so it appears to the slaves, but it also consumes your life. It's like being an  Outer Party Member in the novel 1984.

Eh, except you don't have to worry about a bullet for not falling in line (most of the time).

I'd like to see a sourcebook written from the view of wage-serfs about the corps and SR society. It would flesh-out the story much better IMO than the format that is in there now.
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Crunch

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« Reply #23 on: <09-05-13/1852:37> »
umm... That's way nicer than working conditions for most people for most of the people during the Industrial Revolution.

Yet things got better; which is my point.

No, your point was that no one would put up with those conditions. Most of humanity has for most of history.

Lusis

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« Reply #24 on: <09-05-13/1931:01> »
umm... That's way nicer than working conditions for most people for most of the people during the Industrial Revolution.

Yet things got better; which is my point.

No, your point was that no one would put up with those conditions. Most of humanity has for most of history.

LOL. I know what my point is; which is that people will seek better conditions, or make them. Those in the IR did not put up with them for long. They sought greener pastures.
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Crunch

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« Reply #25 on: <09-05-13/1955:36> »
umm... That's way nicer than working conditions for most people for most of the people during the Industrial Revolution.

Yet things got better; which is my point.

No, your point was that no one would put up with those conditions. Most of humanity has for most of history.

LOL. I know what my point is; which is that people will seek better conditions, or make them. Those in the IR did not put up with them for long. They sought greener pastures.

I think maybe you should look at some of the history of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century. It doesn't seem to have been quite as simple as you make it out to be.

Lusis

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« Reply #26 on: <09-05-13/2008:44> »
umm... That's way nicer than working conditions for most people for most of the people during the Industrial Revolution.

Yet things got better; which is my point.

No, your point was that no one would put up with those conditions. Most of humanity has for most of history.


LOL. I know what my point is; which is that people will seek better conditions, or make them. Those in the IR did not put up with them for long. They sought greener pastures.

I think maybe you should look at some of the history of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century. It doesn't seem to have been quite as simple as you make it out to be.
ok, and you read-up on the latter 19th up until present times.  ::)
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CanRay

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« Reply #27 on: <09-05-13/2013:30> »
We really need to get CanRay a snow globe or something.
What, so I can get even more homesick than ever?
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Crunch

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« Reply #28 on: <09-05-13/2013:59> »
I've read it. The argument that because things got better once they can never get worse again doesn't seem to hold much water.

Lusis

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« Reply #29 on: <09-05-13/2019:31> »
I've read it. The argument that because things got better once they can never get worse again doesn't seem to hold much water.
Umm that's not the argument at all. Just that when people are free to sell their labor as they see fit, they will always seek the most pay for the least amount of work. That's human nature.

ETA: People will always seek to improve their situation also. Might not work out the way they wanted...but....
« Last Edit: <09-05-13/2022:05> by Lusis »
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