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Is there a dumber term ever used in socialist writing than "Professional Managerial Class"
- Thread starter ItWasMeantToBe19
- Start date
So your point is, if I'm reading you right, "I think bus driving is a very important job that has been significantly impacted by COVID, showing you how a job might have value even if its a health risk". Which is.... well I never disagreed with this.
Bus drivers fall under the umbrella of "essential despite health risks so it should stay". Gym trainers do not because I'm not sure you really grasp why the obesity epidemic is what it is and/or you think the solution is nudging people towards exercise which is a very market-oriented solution. I tend to be skeptical of those off hand.
OP
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So no one at all is taking the subway in San Francisco right now or other metros.
Are the people who maintain the train tracks inessential workers who are clearly working bullshit jobs.
This pandemic reveals how much more valuable many service workers, such as store clerks, restaurant staff, and medical workers are. That's pretty black and white. Beyond that I think it is very hard to credibly read too much about the fabric of society into a very specific and unusual set of circumstances that has been so arbitrarily disruptive. If we were in the middle of a famine due to locusts, an entirely different set of circumstances would be in place
OP
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Waiters... the least valuable people in the world... Get dunked on, waiters.
My point in saying that is that bus drivers are clearly essential.
Yes, well, that's why I don't like capitalism because that's how it measures a person's value. I should mention that just because you don't produce value (by the metrics I'm laying out here) I think you should starve or be unhappy. I don't tie a person's right to life with their productive value.
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Well maybe my state is different because all of the buses look totally empty in Salt Lake City.
But do you think subway track maintenance people work bullshit, not valuable jobs.
Because no one is riding the subway right now.
I think pretty much everyone acknowledges that administrative bloat and the unnecessary selling off of administrative duties to middlemen is at least more often than not expressive of a kind of disorder or economic inefficiency. That's imo why 'management' is used as the paradigmatic example of 'useless and often pseudo-nepotistic/class-bound work'. The other reason is that in something like common management we'd expect to see more of the adversarial attitude, in that it enforces boundaries, essentially recreates the relationship of wealth extraction but within the work place, at least, in its worst expression. This is sort of evocative of why Marx focused so much on the work day as essentially being the social manifestation of distinct class interests. Well, who do you think enforces the length or tasks or 'quality' a work day? And would we need as much of that if everyone had a stake in their place of work?
Basically, I think you're being way too literal, it's not that disciplines like 'product management' are ideologically incompatible or anything. Some people are presumably better at logistics and setting and meeting deadlines. Whatever, who cares.
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Transit ridership is down, therefore bus drivers are less required from a pure volume perspective. Now I agree that bus drivers are essential for other reasons, but the idea that the pandemic is revealing the value or non-value of different types of worker is very complicated. I just don't think that should be our argument
I certainly agree with that; what I'm worried about is that while this language is useful in tackling corporate managerial bloat, it can be perverted into a weapon used against intellectuals, academics, artists, or activists.
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You: "COVID exposes which jobs are valuable."
Me: "What the fuck are you talking about, subway workers are super important and public transit is down 97%"
You: "It's not literally zero so argument over even though public transit still being open right now is probably doing a huge amount of harm to society by helping spread this virus."
I don't disagree with that. It's very complicated I'm just pushing back against the implication that bus driving isn't essential during the pandemic when it evidently is as low income essential workers need the fucking bus.
And has been in the past but I need to talk about value in objective terms somehow. I guess the best I can do here is generic a solidarity disclaimer. All teachers, transit workers, artists, etc, I support you, you form the bedrock of society.
I'd have to walk 3 hours to work or spend 100$ on cabs if Buses stopped.
People need to get to work. If they can't work, they don't eat. If the trains were all shut down, people would die. If ridership is at 100%, people would die. The hard part right now is finding the right balance of deaths-from-COVID and deaths-from-economic-paralysis to keep society going.
Similarly, people need to drive to work, but driving kills the planet, so the tricky part is letting people drive to work in the short term while minimizing climate change deaths in the long term.
Yeah I very much agree with this.
A lot to unpack here OP. Will try and write a more fleshed out response when I get to a keyboard later tonight. But yes, Internet podcast slacktivist dipshits are pretty worthless too.
I mean, people who use the phrase PMC seem to care! Maybe I am being too defensive, or maybe I'm just reading too much into how some jerks online seem to talk, but the animosity towards the PMC seems aimed less at the people setting the work day, and more at anyone who works in an office in NYC
And driving deaths as well, if people abandon public transit en masse the short to medium term will see tens of thousands of deaths from increased automotive fatalities.
Not too mention that transit functions as a defacto subsidy for the transportation of wage workers who cant afford to drive and park
Devil's advocate moment, if people abandon private transit en masse the medium term will see tens of thousands of deaths from increased viral spread and collapse of the automotive industry.
The setting of the work day is imo just a relatively distinct way for the particular class dynamics between the PMC and working class shake out. The idea is essentially that people in the PMC recognize their relative privilege in the current order of things and thus are more likely to identify with the 'bosses' and thereby are socially and economically positioned to essentially recreate the same hierarchy in miniature. Broadly, they're the cohort that buys into neoliberalism because relatively speaking it advantages them and they're a lot less likely to identify with workers issues because of their social circumstances. So it probably would include a lot of office workers in NYC, but it would exclude a lot of them, too. A concept is only ever as useful as what it's intended to grasp imo.
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All of this is true in conditions other than a highly contagious respiratory pandemic. I don't think anyone in here is seriously arguing that transit and transit workers are not valuable, or essential. Just that the ability of the coronavirus to act as some sort of scrying lens to see the "truth of society" is highly specific and limited
I mean that's why it's a balance. I just meant that there are more associationed harms on private transport which aren't climate related
It's generic sure but it's still more reassuring than nothing.
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Let's say California gets sick of dealing with the virus and decides to take more extreme measures.
They ban everyone from entering stores, every store must do curbside pickup now.
What do the stores do? Well, they lay off all their cashiers, hire a web designer to improve their website, hire a logistics person to handle the difficulties of curbside pickup, hire a server person to handle the increased server load and they move to curbside pickup only.
What is the benefit to society? It's massive, it's a huge benefit to society right because a major virus vector is eliminated. Dozens to thousands of lives are saved depending on the scope.
Does this mean that cashiers are actively harmful to society and are working jobs so bullshit that they are literally killing people? No, it's a totally random outcome of a hyper specific health problem.
They ban everyone from entering stores, every store must do curbside pickup now.
What do the stores do? Well, they lay off all their cashiers, hire a web designer to improve their website, hire a logistics person to handle the difficulties of curbside pickup, hire a server person to handle the increased server load and they move to curbside pickup only.
What is the benefit to society? It's massive, it's a huge benefit to society right because a major virus vector is eliminated. Dozens to thousands of lives are saved depending on the scope.
Does this mean that cashiers are actively harmful to society and are working jobs so bullshit that they are literally killing people? No, it's a totally random outcome of a hyper specific health problem.
This pointless back and forth over which jobs are valuable is just dancing around the more basic, fundamental question of civilization, "who gets to eat?".
Capitalists: The wage slaves get to eat, and the wealthy of course
Wage slaves: What if I can't get to work/my job was automated away?
Capitalists: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Socialists: Everyone gets to eat
Liberals:
Republicans:
Capitalists: The wage slaves get to eat, and the wealthy of course
Wage slaves: What if I can't get to work/my job was automated away?
Capitalists: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Socialists: Everyone gets to eat
Liberals:
Republicans:
OP
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I do not disdain waiters whatsoever, what the fuck, this is obvious sarcasm about the fact that if you say that COVID-19 exposes which jobs are important, you end with non-socialist/cruel/insane definitions of valuable jobs with waiters being the least valuable possible job (as well as Zoom programmer being the most valuable job).
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Person: PMC do not have valuable jobs as shown by COVID-19
Me: This makes no sense *gives examples that show how weird it is use to COVID-19 to judge value to society*
As someone in academia, I wouldn't fret over the academics; it's an incredibly exploitative system dressed up as a privilege, and they are absolutely deserving of the criticism.
Probably useful for people to read this interview with the person that coined the term PMC as sort of a primer on the subject
www.dissentmagazine.org
On the Origins of the Professional-Managerial Class: An Interview with Barbara Ehrenreich - Dissent Magazine
How do we recognize the similarities between people of different class positions without papering over the differences?
I think the emphasis on instrumental value that capitalist market economies impose on society is a much bigger threat to these disciplines. In fact that very difference marks the separation between the applied and formal disciplines (formal disciplines like philosophy or art only ever make complete sense as something pursued 'for their own sake'). Marxian thought for instance certainly doesn't want to reduce everyone down to a base means of subsistence (what he called brute communism iirc) but provide the means for everyone to realize as much of their humanity as possible, by making all fields of work our universal human inheritance, rather than as we do now guarding and separating the different fields of labor, sometimes to secure profit for private persons (a 'trade', for example), or through economic disadvantagement that sees most people not have the leisure necessary to ever realize themselves through artistic pursuits, etc.
Marx said something to the effect that we should all be able to, say, paint in the morning, manage a factory floor in the afternoon, test drinking water quality in the evening, etc, essentially according to our whims and as much as would satisfy us. Obviously it's hard to imagine how we get there (Marx said we can't anticipate it, we'll have to figure it out on the ground), but the idea is essentially that these things would be made far less vulnerable than they are now, because people would be far more free to choose their own work, instead of how it is now, having their work handed to them to secure a wage.
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I always took it as a MGS4 reference. Also:
However, it's very easy to see that lots of jobs only exist because of failings in the way society is currently organised. For example, most of the welfare system is pretty much pointless because really all it's doing is acting as a wage subsidy. Left to the market, wages would collapse beneath the level required for people to sustain themselves. We know this because that's what they were at before the introduction of the minimum wage.
Just so we're clear, I worked in the welfare system for years and I knew my work was worthless. No matter how hard we worked, there would always be more people in need. It's a Sisyphean task. The real solution is to just give homes to anyone who needs them, set a minimum wage that someone can actually live on, and provide support without bullshit for the rest. As it is, we've had a system of assessments for disability introduced in the UK that's mainly about bullying and harassing the most vulnerable in society.
Finally, you're wrong about how much workers revolutions valued scholars or artists. They had funny ideas about art (tho Constructivism is dope), but the Bolsheviks were intensely historical. It's why we know so much about what they thought and did; they documented it all. Whatever you think about their motives, you have to admit it's impressive they built an educated historical movement out of illiterate factory workers.
Most of making software isn't actually writing code, and you don't have anywhere close to a 'worthless' job insofar as the software you write or the businesses you support are useful. Any job that is involved in producing things that are actually socially useful isn't worthless.
However, it's very easy to see that lots of jobs only exist because of failings in the way society is currently organised. For example, most of the welfare system is pretty much pointless because really all it's doing is acting as a wage subsidy. Left to the market, wages would collapse beneath the level required for people to sustain themselves. We know this because that's what they were at before the introduction of the minimum wage.
Just so we're clear, I worked in the welfare system for years and I knew my work was worthless. No matter how hard we worked, there would always be more people in need. It's a Sisyphean task. The real solution is to just give homes to anyone who needs them, set a minimum wage that someone can actually live on, and provide support without bullshit for the rest. As it is, we've had a system of assessments for disability introduced in the UK that's mainly about bullying and harassing the most vulnerable in society.
Finally, you're wrong about how much workers revolutions valued scholars or artists. They had funny ideas about art (tho Constructivism is dope), but the Bolsheviks were intensely historical. It's why we know so much about what they thought and did; they documented it all. Whatever you think about their motives, you have to admit it's impressive they built an educated historical movement out of illiterate factory workers.
The insidiousness of market capitalism is when maintaining the means-testing industry overshadows the distribution of welfare. Management for management's sake is the critique behind "PMC" as a pejorative. Same reason why the non-profit industry is both extremely lucrative and expansive. The goal, "help people" becomes supplanted by the byproduct, "make money". Capitalists would have us believe that money is the byproduct, but all evidence indicates otherwise.
Probably useful for people to read this interview with the person that coined the term PMC as sort of a primer on the subject
On the Origins of the Professional-Managerial Class: An Interview with Barbara Ehrenreich - Dissent Magazine
How do we recognize the similarities between people of different class positions without papering over the differences?
I think this probably pinpoints the debate we're currently having with the term: over the course of the last US primary the term PMC was deployed basically as a way of referring to "wealthy people, who didn't support Bernie Sanders, who are the reason why he is losing, because they are not workers" (setting aside the pundit thing, the problem with pundits is its own absolute hot mess of an issue that we could have a completely separate conversation about).
But...things weren't that simple (to use even one data point: https://www.npr.org/2020/03/06/8116...nties-with-lower-incomes-more-voters-of-color) To the extent which the PMC exists, which I think it does based on that interview and the points people raised in here, it doesn't fill the clean rhetorical function that people have been using it for
Probably useful for people to read this interview with the person that coined the term PMC as sort of a primer on the subject
On the Origins of the Professional-Managerial Class: An Interview with Barbara Ehrenreich - Dissent Magazine
How do we recognize the similarities between people of different class positions without papering over the differences?
I read this and it's pretty striking in that he seems to explicitly avoid naming any specific types of jobs as those likely be PMC type jobs - but he does name politicians that would be standardbearers for the PMC (the usual suspects). He also seems to say that the kinds of white collar workers that we might want to antagonize with this term, are also forming coalitions with true blue collar workers (citing technologists with janitors and cafeteria staff in a teacher's union strike).
So though I kinda have an idea, I'm still hoping to hear from people in this thread or on this forum what kinds of things would be in this group based on what it is (and not by the usage as a "ultraleft slur" like the article suggests, since I'm also assuming people ain't using it like that around these parts).
I don't care that people are being mean, I care that they're deriding intelligence. Anti-intellectualism is the refuge of bullies and idealogues. There's a legitimate critique to be made of white collar middle management culture but stretching that to cover journalism and academia is using that criticism to extol the virtue of ignorance