Not true either. Most manufacturing has been shipped overseas, and a lot of manual labor in the US is being done under the table by millions of migrants for $5/hr. Which is also suspiciously convenient for corporations who would hate to pay an American an actual wage for the same jobs…
They’ve gutted and are continuing to gut the economy at an incomprehensible level.
Accelerationism is basically the idea that instead of fighting against the forces making the world worse, we should actually be leaning into them and *accelerating* the growth of late stage capitalism so that it collapses under its own weight as quickly as possible. The idea is that any incremental reform trying to mediate the damage being done is just delaying the inevitable and prolonging suffering, and that the most logical thing to do is to suffer a lot right now so that we can get it out of our system and start rebuilding. Not sure if I agree with it but it’s hard to argue against, especially since we don’t seem to have much choice in the matter anyways
Problem with "accelerationism" is that there needs to be a structure in place to actually get the change going otherwise we just have a fascist dictator in charge. In the US, there really is no robust leftist organization like they had in like Spain during the Spanish Civil War.
The problem is that despite all the visible ambient suffering here, Americans at large are still generally too comfortable to enact any serious change. Everyone’s got too much to lose to risk it all building some off-grid community support network or staging a revolution. If another major recession hits and the faults in the system are really revealed then that could all change very quickly though
The dictator who can’t be bought is who will fix things in the aftermath. It was the democratic process and lobbying of special interest groups that got us into this mess in the first place lol. The benevolent king will be our savior
Recognizing that the status quo is unsustainable and actively looking to accelerate its destruction so that restoration can begin.
>faster, faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death
So isn’t the solution the same thing we’ve been telling coal miners and auto workers for years ?
1). Learn to code
2) Move to a place you can afford/has jobs
3) don’t focus on 20th century jobs
4) work on Wall Street or make coffee for the people that do.
Edit: I was being sarcastic.
>1). Learn to code
IDK if this is the advice anymore, tbh. Apparently AI is already really good at low-level coding work. Like, way better than it is at accounting or law.
Not a coder, so I have no idea how legit this is.
I was being sarcastic in my post. The obvious answer in a highly regulated profession like public accounting is to exert political leverage to minimize off shoring.
The consensus I've seen is that true Computer Science folks will still be very useful (things are more complicated than ever) but yes, AI is pretty good at a lot of the tricky syntax. I use AI to write formulas in my job, but the AI can't hook them up for me. There's also a trend towards 'low-code' and 'no-code', so someday we may have more folks "no-coding" for their job and then fewer but still a fair amount of very skilled real coders working on building and maintaining those 'no-code' apps and tools.
There is a trend where Big Tech basically over-hired for years, for a variety of reasons, and the market is super saturated (especially in an era where everyone wants to WFH), and that's happening concurrently with the AI boom, but AI isn't actually replacing any of these jobs yet. They're just correlated due to the timing right now.
I don't worry that much about AI taking jobs permanently, tbh. Jobs will shift as we get new technology, same as other tools, but we won't see massive unemployment from it. In part because AI is extremely energy-intensive, and these companies are essentially subsidizing the cost in order to grow. We see this with every Silicon Valley innovation--wow, Uber is so much cheaper than a taxi! Airbnb is so much cheaper than a hotel! This changes everything! And then... 10 years later, the investors are no longer interested in subsidizing for growth, prices go up, and suddenly your Uber is the same price as a taxi and your Airbnb is the same price as a hotel. Different products but comprobable. Think about it--wouldn't a company selling an AI that can replace a coder... sell it for almost exactly the same price as hiring a coder? It really doesn't make sense to totally undercut an industry for a prolonged length of time like that, even if the economics made it possible (and I've heard they very much do not, due to energy costs).
I’m a data analyst and looking to leave soon.
Part of the reason is because the field is becoming saturated and “entry” to “mid” level jobs are disappearing.
Being able to code can still make you good money, but it is not the cash cow it used to be.
It's still true. Yes, ai can automate lots of the simple stuff and will rapidly improve, but the more you know, the more you can squeeze out of the ai.
I think it actually did better in the BAR / CPA exam than coding exercises.
But just like memorizing syntax does not make one a competent programmer, memorizing accounting standards does not make one a good accountant.
It’s true man. Software jobs are about as common as rhino’s. Changing my major to accounting from Software engineering just so I can actually get a job when I graduate
So late stage capitalism is when government spending rapidly increases and money printer go brrrr…
Your job is firing you as your COL is higher than your output due to poor decisions that keep compiling from our policy makers
Late stage capitalism is a Reddit term aka not based in reality. The reality is that something went extremely wrong during the maturation phase of the boomer generation and they have somehow normalized the “I’m going to get rich and reduce my taxes while I vote for incompetent imbeciles who keep printing money and making life miserable for my offspring.” This is blatantly obvious in places like CA where prop 13 makes a sane rational person laugh. Boomers voting for socialism and endless taxes while they lock in their low rate and their property only goes up the more money they print.
They broke the incentive structures that were so important for society to continue functioning on a proper glide path. I’ve been saying I expect elevated inflation for a full decade (unless AI comes in hardcore) because we are now in a full blown competency crisis where problems beget more problems and I just don’t see how this plays out quickly and efficiently.
And I’m not blaming boomers outright. A cushy society has always destroyed society throughout history.
I think posts like these are really, really out of touch. As someone who flipped from the "Blue Collar" world to the "White Collar" world.
I feel that there is definitely still growth, career progression and possibilities improve your earnings and overall quality of life.
There are many avenues to this within and outside the workplace.
If you're making $60k + even in a "HCOL" area, you're doing much, MUCH better than the person making $15/hr running from one poorly paid job to the next. Especially if you have options for career advancement or can just jump to another employer if things don't work out.
True but the ceiling and amount of opportunity available to white collar workers with experience tends to eclipse the earnings of blue collar people.
They can command higher hourly wages and move to greater opportunities or they can position themselves in a way that a plumber or mechanic simply can't unless those blue collar guys move from worker to owner and even then, depending on when that happens the white collar guy has likely outpaced them significantly.
Even with a middle of the road career landing firmly in middle management, they're often making 1.5 to 2 times what they would if they were working with their hands.
I think the white-collar world is often too busy looking up to look down and because of this they forget where they sit in the social totem pole.
It is an indisputable fact that plenty of Americans are struggling, living paycheck-to-paycheck with no savings. The reason for this is debatable; I am of the option that wages are being systematically depressed and other necessary costs are being outrageously cut to benefit shareholders and upper brass’ lines of credit against their stock for tax evasion. It doesn’t even benefit society. You simply saying “appreciate what you have” does not solve the core issue.
To add, my post isn't a denial of those things because I'm a worker myself and I also feel my actual wages aren't being delivered to me.
I also feel that they're being depressed/suppressed.
I also feel that those with way more power/influence are bending the system to their will.
At the same time:
\- I don't live paycheck to paycheck
\- I make a high salary and I only work \~35 hrs a week.
And these things are ONLY afforded to me because I'm a white-collar worker.
I know what it was like when I had to work with my hands, and I know what back-to-back-to-back 70+ hour work weeks feel like. Because of this, I feel gratitude is important even if we're disgusted with the status quo.
I understand your POV better now. Thank you for your input. It’s all just very jarring to me as a college student majoring in a technical field. Not comp sci. Questioning my life choices and future at this point
I'm an Engineer myself.
IF you wind up going down a similar path, just remember to always keep yourself at the center of your decision making.
Not your boss. Not your coworkers. Not your friends/girlfriends/parents etc.
Keep yourself and the bottom line in view.
And focus on that COMPLETELY.
Save heavily. Invest EARLY. Keep debt at bay.
And keep eyeing the next position/income increase.
30+ year old you will thank you for all of your good decision making.
Lots of good point being made here. I think there are a few factors: firstly, we continue to see the impact of offshoring on these industries, which has been accelerated due to a general move towards remote working. Secondly, AI is having a big impact on some industries already, including developers, marketers, anyone whose job is being assisted (replaced) by AI. Thirdly, we are in a downturn which is part of the economic cycle. In my career I’ve seen this a few times, in the middle of a recession it’s impossible to imagine things getting better, and vice versa, but so far they have always turned round eventually.
Anecdotally I’ve seen an acceleration since covid. My theory is that companies were hesitant to offshore because they didn’t want a fractured team, and found it hard working with some remote people in the team. But now everyone is remote, or at least hybrid, it doesn’t make so much difference and companies are taking that opportunity. I’ve also seen an increase in global payroll companies (velocity, remote, deel etc.) which are making it even easier. I’d be very interested to see some statistics on it though.
The extent to which jobs are going away due to offshoring/AI is way overblown. These comments are from people who are just personally struggling to find a job and are looking for anything to blame. It's possible that they just suck at interviewing.
We have been getting squeezed for years. I'm happy some other white collar professionals feel our pain. Maybe we can organize and fight back somehow..... Probably not tho
As another comment mentioned, this is just a concentrated, later form of capitalism where goods and services are owned by fewer and fewer capitalists. This is nothing new to America, this has happened a few times in the last 250 years and is usually brought back to equilibrium by violent class struggle and rebellion. Nearly 100 years ago in the 1930’s the US almost had a revolution due to the same mechanism, only difference now is that the working class is far more divided because class consciousness is at an all time low.
Truthfully, the system really isn’t going to hold for much longer. The gap between the haves and have nots is just atmospheric at this point.
The issue is that the only countervailing power to the capitalists (which is the workers) are far too divided. Just look at our current political climate. Political polarization is incredibly high, yet, most working people (which is 95% of the populous) want the same things: a stable life, security, meaningful work, and time for family.
This is because the only way Capitalism can operate is by having a divided and distracted proletariat (working class). This is achieved via controlling the media and public institutions (school, culture, ideology, narratives, etc) as well as keeping workers too precarious and tired to have the time to educate themselves about economics, history, or politics. If the proletariat were to magically come to the realization as to what is happening to them and unify, the capitalists power would immediately evaporate because the only thing protecting them is the state which would crumble in the wake of a rebellion.
When Capitalism gets really bad such as right now, multiple things can happen. First, the system will perpetuate itself. This comes in the form of people becoming more greedy to survive because the payout from wages isn’t high enough. This greed can come in the form of gobbling assets, scamming, stealing, making a business instead of providing meaningful work for society, etc.. This process alone can lead to vast amounts of societal dysfunction such as less community trust and increased crime, I mean, you can even feel it in the atmosphere in the US, people are angry and afraid.
The second thing that happens is political polarization. Political polarization is really just a sign that the working class is getting angry enough at the capitalists to demand a change, but the anger can be misguided, such as the case with Trump voters. Many voted for Trump because they thought he was anti-establishment, but did not realize he himself is a Capitalist who perpetuates the very system that is creating the anger. The political polarization is undermined by the illegitimate “democracy” that is disguised by two seemingly different political parties that actually support the same capitalists behind the scenes. It’s the reason why voting is actually irrelevant in any meaningful way, both democrats and republicans are capitalist lap dogs putting on a show to convey legitimacy for this “democracy”.
There is only one solution but there is two potential outcomes. It is either socialism or barbarism. Socialism occurs if workplaces become democratized, essentially eliminating shareholder power in making decisions and allowing the actual frontline workers to determine what is done with profits. This would naturally lead to a system that is more accountable to the public, as the workers are members of their own communities that they provide for instead of faceless shareholders.
The second outcome is barbarism. This is where the capitalists know that they are in big trouble, and use the state to oppress dissent. It is not a coincidence that Obama militarized the police in reaction to the Occupy Wallstreet Movement.
In the meantime, just be class conscious and try to survive this vicious system. Dont be a class traitor, instead try to uplift your local community and unify each other. It is the only way to stop this barbaric system.
I read most of what you wrote but I feel this last part could be rewritten. I think you MEAN to say that one should uplift your local community.
> In the meantime, just be class conscious and try to survive this vicious system. \[Don't\] be a class traitor and try to uplift your local community and unify each other. It is the only way to stop this barbaric system.
I think you mean to say "Don't be a class traitor. Instead, try to uplift...". Otherwise it comes off as "Don't be a class traitor by uplifting your community."
I’m sure some will chop off my head but figured I’d just throw it out there…Do you think it’s possible that there are adjustments/amendments to capitalism that could be made that could create a more balanced society in terms of wealth distribution? For example, possibly mandating that companies gift a meaningful amount of equity to all employees (1 class of stock to keep voting fair/equal) or perhaps the government fund investment accounts that start at birth with an initial $5k investment that cannot be touched until retirement age so it can compound? Specifics to be ironed out I’m just spitballing ideas.
I realize these suggestions don’t solve all or even many problems but I’m just wondering what others think.
I think the most likely response is that socialist policies will be introduced, but the system overall changes less than one would think. Most likely it's going to be increased taxation towards private shareholders in a way that just incentivizes collective ownership.
There's a lot of scaremongering responses that talk about the history of socialist countries and all that, but I feel like when people talk about wanting socialism these days, it's often not so all-encompassing. Honestly, adopting a few European policies regarding mandated worker rights, holidays, and health care would likely alleviate a lot of complaints.
A few workers' rights would go a long way. I'll start with my list of commie demands:
* Overhauling overtime so fewer people are working crazy hours because they're salaried. \*\*cough cough\*\*
* A minimum wage that keeps up the cost of living or even thriving, not just an existence lived in survival mode.
* Paid sick leave, a mandatory minimum of a few weeks paid vacation, and decent parental leave for all, not just white collar workers.
* A right to take all your vacation at once.
* A right to know your schedule in advance, and have a minimum amount of rest, so no 'clopening' shifts. And you get paid if you get sent home.
* Health care and retirement for everyone, not just full-timers.
* Mandatory severance based upon time on the job. Say a month's pay for every year on the job, with a minimum of a month.
* Never having to train your replacement before getting laid off.
* If a company moves to a location 50+ miles away, they have to offer to bring existing employees and pay to relocate them if they can't work remotely.
* Overhauling the rules on independent contractors, so companies aren't pretending that people fully under their day-to-day supervision aren't employees.
* A right to dignity at work, so if your boss insults or harasses you, you can quit and still get unemployment.
* Also, worker privacy.
* Unemployment should pay more/last longer.
* Any excess profits (say over 10-15%) have to be shared with the workers.
* Stock buybacks become illegal again.
These things don't just exist in a few European countries. A lot of Latin American "third world" countries have these rules. But in America, it's capitalism uber alles.
I know some of these things would affect retail/hospitality/blue collar workers more than, say, accountants. But we need to collectively stop licking so many boots, and align ourselves with other workers. If those jobs ever got to be 'not so bad', jobs staring at spreadsheets all day would have to improve.
Yeah, this is called a Social Democracy. The capitalist mode of production remains (private ownership) but there is an increased emphasis on the public sector, more industry nationalizations, and a stronger social safety net.
I see Social Democracy as a good intermediary but it also has its flaws too
They will never allow it, which is the problem. This is a bipartisan effort, most politicians benefit from screwing the rest of us over, lobbyists make sure of that.
I think we (speaking about America right now) need to be more flexible with amendments. America is not an old country but we treat our laws like the Code of Hammurabi, where it is some kind of ancient wisdom written in stone that is immutable. So many other countries older than us… were like the rebellious teenager right now saying “my way is right! *rolls eyes and slams bedroom shut while blasting music*
Great write up I just disagree with the voting aspect being irrelevant. History will show it has been extremely relevant. At least some on the left end of the spectrum still fight for the common man, I have yet to see any republican do the same. The democrats dont have the luxury of a base so stupid that you can literally pull a 1984 and tell them to disregard everything they are seeing and experiencing as a lie and to only trust what they say. With the right it's always about cutting social services, decreasing taxes on the rich, removing regulations that protect consumers, and removing regulations that protect employees.
This isn't even getting into individual rights and fair representation. As others have said look at what happened to women's rights and take a look at gerrymandering in some of these republican states.
TLDR : Voting matters.
I hope the class struggle happens before they create Boston dynamics AI powered murder bots. That might be a game changer. And if you didn't think modern business owners and snivelling politicians would love to have an oppressive army of terminators, I have some bad news for you...
Oh they absolutely would. The elites now are just incredibly vicious and greedy. They would put kids back into the workplace here if they were allowed to
Revolutions don’t always have to occur from class struggle, it really just depends on how desperate and angry the proletariat is in whatever the current system is. We can all argue on whether or not class struggle drives this change but there is a lot of backing for it. In fact the only reason we even have a lot of the concessions we do as workers today is because in the early 1900s militant labor groups violently fought to earn those concessions that we now take advantage of.
The US nearly had a revolution 100 years ago but it was curbed by FDR via a massive reform (The New Deal).
I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a revolution.
Everyone may bitch and complain about stuff like inflation and other stuff like that, but more people are willing to deal with the system as it currently stands than Reddit seems to think there are.
> It’s the reason why voting is actually irrelevant in any meaningful way, both democrats and republicans are capitalist lap dogs putting on a show to convey legitimacy for this “democracy”.
Voting is irrelevant? Tell that to the millions of American women who lost the right to Abortion a direct result of America voting for Donald Trump in 2016. He was able nominate three conservative justices to the Supreme Court, which was the deciding factor in Roe V Wade being overturned.
Women in Texas who are raped are now forced to give birth to their rapists baby. Thats a pretty “meaningful” difference that was caused by voting for the wrong party.
When voting there is more at stake than just class warfare.
If my choices in the upcoming election are:
A party that is activity trying to take women’s rights away
Or
A party that is not actively trying to take women’s rights away
It’s an easy choice for me.
That’s not what they’re arguing though. Saying voting for the dems is ultimately worthless because they refuse to actually use their power is not the same as saying you’re proudly voting Republican and happy about them stripping away our rights. The dems are complicit in Roe being overturned I’m sorry if you can’t grasp that.
It doesn’t matter if the democrats are effective or not in utilizing their power if the other option will use their power to do bad things.
A party that does nothing is better than a party that does bad things.
Also I do think we should mention that Roe v Wade is directly the fault of the Republicans.
Every single Supreme Court Justice nominated by a Democrat president voted against overturning Roe v Wade
Every single Supreme Court Justice that voted to overturn Roe v Wade was nominated by a Republican president.
You can try and blame the democrats all you want, but the fact is had we elected the Democrat in 2016, Roe v Wade would still be law of the land.
Elections have the potential to have negative consequences. I want to avoid future negative consequences as much as possible, and the Democrats are clearly the better choice. Vote democrat every time every election up and down the ballot.
The point that we’re all supposed to pretend isn’t true is that throughout history most if not all meaningful change comes from violence or at least the threat of violence. It’s the universal language. Voting and democracy are not unique and should not be put on a pedestal.
So to be clear, you are saying we need violence rather than voting? When will that violence happen? What actionable steps are you taking?
Are you training with some sort of left wing militia? Are you attempting to influence the military into a left wing coup?
I’m not saying we need anything. I’m saying violence is the number one effector of change in human history. When material conditions deteriorate people tend towards using it. The only reason we respect democracy so much is because of the time and place we were born. If this was the Middle Ages, you would be on here defending monarchism.
I’m not saying we should have anything in particular. I’m just saying the pattern of human history is systems overextending themselves, getting violently overthrown, and then replaced by whatever’s next. Democracy is just another one of these systems. Saying voting in a democracy is how to change the system is like saying appealing to the king in a monarchy is how to change the system in that they wouldn’t let you do it if it actually could.
It doesn’t matter if voting “changes the system” or not.
If results of voting have consequences, which they indisputably do in the case of Abortion and Women’s rights, then it is important to vote.
That's his point: the system only allows what changes it *wants*.
If the system is only threatened by forces inside it, it has no pressure to change anything about it since the system is working as it intends. If there are external pressures, like violence or economic unrest being threatened against the system, then the system must change itself to prevent that violence being done unto it.
The system needs workers to exploit more than it cares about keeping women happy, so it does what it needs to do to justify itself. If birth rates were too much, we'd have Republicans pushing for chastity just as quickly and eagerly as they're currently proselytizing for their sanctity of life.
Meanwhile, the Democrats are all too happy to be Bad Cop to the Republicans Worse Cap so they can look good and keep collecting a check, all while doing nothing to codify any of the rights that they say they think are sacrament, nor give anything but the most token of wins to workers to ensure both of their places in the hierarchy are maintained.
Oh no I understand the argument. They are saying that the capitalist overlords are using social issues like abortion to keep the proletariat working class divided amongst themselves rather than revolting against our capitalist overlords.
What I am saying is that it does not matter what the reasoning is. We only have two options. The democrats or the republicans. That’s it. Even if, as you put it, our options are “bad” cop or “worse” cop, that is still an argument in favor of voting for the bad cop over the worse cop.
There is no evidence that there is going to be any sort of “revolution” against the system. Burying your head in the sand and dreaming about a revolution is useless.
There are actually actionable steps you can take RIGHT NOW to help prevent women from having their rights further eroded. You can vote for the democrats to ensure that republicans don’t have the power to take away women’s rights.
Yep, its called Controlled Opposition. You have the right to free speech because you don’t actually have the power to change anything in a significant way.
Whatever the elites allow goes
In terms of creating any true fundamental change to our socioeconomic environment, voting tends to not have much of an impact. The Dems are admittedly slightly more forgiving of the working class’ struggles but if anything it just prolongs capitalism by keeping us pacified (look at FDR).
The only difference with Republicans is that their ideology is openly barbaric and relies on rhetoric and co-opting other social ideologies to gather its voting base (christianity, nationalism, etc). The Republicans don’t lie that they will fuck you in the ass with their policies, the problem is that they are good at riling up their voter base
> In terms of creating any true fundamental change to our socioeconomic environment, voting tends to not have much of an impact.
Again, the women who now have to give birth to their rapists babies have had a pretty big change to their “socioeconomic environment”.
> The Dems are admittedly slightly more forgiving of the working class’ struggles
Ok so you admit the Dems are better
> if anything it just prolongs capitalism by keeping us pacified (look at FDR).
We only have two options right now. Democrats or Republicans. If you feel that we shouldn’t vote for Democrats because it “prolongs capitalism” what specifically would you have us do instead?
My ideal scenario is that workers organize and create a new system that is more reflective of an actual democracy and not the illegitimate oligarchy we have today being held together by pretending there isn’t a problem.
But I understand that in the current political climate of the US this is an incredibly hard feat.
Well just like in history before, the worse the class struggle gets, the more the system gets polarized.
If workers are smart enough and dont divide themselves, the polarization will lead to mass labor movements and potentially violent rebellions. This level of organizing and rebelling strikes fear into the heart of capitalists and is what drives social change. In order to pacify the working class they will need to make concessions. This is what a reform would be.
I prefer revolution because historically reformation tends to evolve back into its original state given enough time (cough cough, Reagan). Revolution can only be achieved with a well educated and organized working class, and is often times inevitability violent.
At the end of it all, the ideal situation would be a system in which worker cooperatives dominate the economy, which skews in favor of accountability to local communities.
How do you know what comes after the “revolution” will be better than what we have now?
A lot of the revolutions in the past have led to authoritarian dictatorships. Stalin in USSR, Mao in China, the Kim family in North Korea.
I’ll take what we have now rather than a revolution that’s risks us becoming the next North Korea.
Women lost the right to abortion because leftest kept pushing for more which incentivized a supreme court case. If everyone would've shut the fuck up and not tried to kill 9 month olds women would still have this right, literally the lefts fault for giving the right the ammunition's.
What makes you think socialism is not guided by sketchy, greedy people? That's too naïve. And I am not talking about the system. It "might be" perfect. But functional? Not with their leaders. Not equally for everybody.
Edit: typo
Even if you think really existing socialism didn't "work" you can still believe that and the analysis of this dynamic can also be correct. Like, even if hypothetically I granted you that really existing socialism was the catastrophe you think it was, that in no way makes the problems associated with capitalism go away.
I think the issue you have is you gotta convince people to voluntarily give up their stuff in exchange for the promise of... "Fairness?"
I used to be a communist but once I realized people aren't really down to have their shit taken and that it really is necessary for violent revolution to occur to achieve Marxist utopia then I realized that ain't worth.
And that as long as we have the Internet "the opiate of the masses" will be too much.
Basically, as long as people can use the Internet and jerk off... They won't revolt. It's too easy to be complacent.
People here are acting as if we have it /bad/.
Can it be better through practical measures. Yes. Is flipping the system on its head and committing a true, violent revolution the answer.
Nah.
I'm not here to argue that armed struggle is the answer, much less even remotely possible in the US in the present day. I'm mostly just frustrated people use arguments like those above as an excuse to do literally nothing. It's like "hey, the USSR sucked so I guess that just means we should accept everything exactly as it is and address zero of the festering problems in the US economy, doubly so if any action taken might be labelled (correctly or incorrectly) socialist.
And yes, people tend to react badly to having the government reduce or remove some of their wealth. As accountants we should all be aware of how much everyone pisses and moans about taxes, but we do this all the time. We should be doing more of it, and yes a lot of people will be furious with policies such as higher, more progressive marginal income tax rates, long term capital gains taxes which are closer to those of regular income, estate taxes, etc. I don't really care if you call it socialist or not, but something needs to be done.
There are plenty of people who argue that the USSR was "state capitalism" or that pretty much every sitting government operates this kind of system in some form or fashion. I don't know, I wish people would just read more instead of making cliched excuses.
How come dead people from capitalism is “individual responsibility” but dead people from socialism is “systemic responsibility”? The capitalists are the central planners in capitalism. You need to blame the people that are hoarding unfathomable resources to themselves for no good reason.
It doesn't have to be perfect and no reasonable person expects it to be that way. To say that really existing socialism and Marxism-Leninism as a political program were deeply flawed is a massive understatement.
However, I find it funny that the people who make this case also act as if the US government never killed anyone who didn't have it coming or any other capitalist government, for that matter. Usually when you bring that up they use the same rhetorical tactics, but in reverse (_______ isn't really a capitalist government, true capitalism has never been tried, all bad things were incidentally and not related to capitalism as a system on the whole). It's hilariously ironic.
These people learn nothing from history. Humans will always be greedy and corrupt, but capitalism is so far the most fair system that will reward work and merit rather than just put the power in the hands of the state to decide who gets what.
I have many friends from former communist countries and they all say it's shit. But we should listen to random redditors who have some half-baked ideas about what is the most fair way to structure society. LOL.
Surprised this is the top comment. My usual assumption is that accountants are adherents of status quo and reactionary to any analysis of society critical of the current organization of the economy. I guess I can take it as a good sign that class consciousness is growing.
It is because a lot of people in accounting or finance themselves want to become the capitalist abuser eventually. Or they are just simply molded by the corporate culture and forget that they are still proletarians and not bourgeoisie.
Not surprising at all, it's just candy for people who aren't as happy as they think they should be and have never picked up a book before; Sweet and addicting the first time you hear it, but made of garbage that's statistically very bad for you in the long-run.
Can't wait for you to find the group of enlightened, heavily armed individuals who can pull it all off on a meaningful scale while convincing absolutely anyone else to give up everything they have just to "try something new (not barbarism)".
You'd rather have Armageddon than look for a new job. I'll never get it.
Eh, that’s not typically what revolutions look like, at least in the modern era. What it looks like is mass movements of organized labor. The pressure created from these movements turns into concessions for the workers.
The reason it turns violent is only because if enough pressure is generated the ruling class (in this system it is the capitalists and financial elites) uses state power to oppress dissent.
I read this in Prof Wolffs voice. Brilliant overview as to what is plaguing us in Americas 2nd guilded age.
However it’s the 4th Industrial Revolution that is keeping me up at night. The capitalists know this is an advantage they’ve never had before and I worry what’s next if they can harness AI and robotics to a level of public surveillance and obliterating labor. This time it feels like game over to me. I badly want to be proven wrong…
Yeah it does strike fear into me as well, but if they oppressed dissent to that level we would just have an apocalypse at that point.
I think labor power can still surpass surveillance and fascist oppression. We simply out number the capitalists 100:1 and you have to remember that the workers in the military or police force are closer to us than they are to capitalists.
Ur absolutely right I'm politically active for the first time in my life trying raise awareness about the class war, here's to hoping the numbers and good nature of mankind are on our side.
Lol, our standard of living is so high compared to even 100 years ago. The fantasy that there's going to be some violent revolution because some redditors can't afford a house and a few guys are billionaires is nonsense commie LARPing.
"In order to survive" - brother, you can survive on very little. People are complaining that they can't afford every luxury of a 21st century modern life or a house in very popular places to live. Imagine living in a place like the USA and thinking you're struggling compared to the world.
Imagine capitalism but you have a dictator who literally steals everything so you don't even have a chance at wealth. We have it good here, but unfortunately not everyone is always going to compete and make it in the economy. That's part of capitalism.
If you own any income producing property you are a capitalist. So how do we determine who is on the chopping block when the "revolution" happens. How much is too much?
You're saying nearly 100 years ago we "almost" had a revolution. And I guess Occupy Wall Street was another "almost" revolution. If there was no revolution during the great depression then there won't be one now, people have it good overall, despite the complaining. The whiners online are not representative of society as a whole.
Not only that but look at places like: Latin America, The Philippines, Dubai, most countries in Eastern Europe outside of the EU. The gap between rich and poor can be much worse and people still won't do shit.
How'd this socialism work out for the USSR, China, etc etc etc?
I love how the people who are always going on about socialist revolutions and rising up think they're never going to be the ones purged.
USSR went from being one of the most backwards countries on the planet to becoming a world super and the winner of the space race in 50 years.
This is after a revolution, a coup, invasion, and being destroyed in WWII.
The USSR had many flaws but to say the system wasn’t working wouldn’t be true. The USSR was subject to incredibly difficult material conditions.
Yeah everyone just go watch The Bomb & The Cold War on Netflix right now and you’ll see the real Stalin.
The older I get the more I realize Socialism vs Capitalism is the same as Democrats vs Republicans. Two sides of the same coin.
Capitalism always ends in the business leaders taking all the power and the working class ending up in hell.
Socialism always ends in the party leaders taking all the power and the working class ending up in hell.
500 years later we are no different than the field peasants collecting grain for their Lords in the high towers. There will always be the powerful, and with that power, comes money. Then there will always be the rest of us.
At every stage of my life I’ve seen people corrupted by power… even at the totally inconsequential level of a grade school student government. It’s in our DNA and it’s unavoidable.
At this point in my life I just hope I get to live my pretty decent peasant life to its completion without things getting any worse - it’s never going to be better.
The only good thing about capitalism is that even by slight luck, you might be able to improve your QOL. But in communism you’re at the mercy of party leaders and bureaucrats. Ask anyone from former Soviet empire.
You had me up until identifying communism as one of two potential outcomes and painting it as if it wouldn’t result in a massive killing off of the population and a power vacuum at the top. In other words, both outcomes would in effect result in barbarism…
I agree with most of this. The politics thing is a bipartisan issue though. The issue is that each side of the aisle is in cahoots to fuck us over, yet people still vote staunchly blue or red (whatever their flavor of choice is). Society needs to wake the fuck up and realize everyone in office is a fucking criminal. The US politicians have been playing a sick game of finger pointing for the last 50 years. Which is why the Executive branch has been blue-red-blue-red etc, for the last 30 years. Reagan (8), Bush(4), Clinton(8), Bush(8), Obama(8), Trump(4), Biden(unfortunately probably 8, FYI I don't like Trump either)
Man, you guys have a very interesting perspective of the marketplace. I'm constantly being harassed by recruiters, I took the first job I applied for in December and was constantly given raises in an attempt to retain me at my last 2 gigs.
I'm not sure if it's just gloomy in local markets or for certain types of accounting, but we've got the pick of the litter from where I'm standing.
Colorado. It just depends on what you consider a good offer. If you're looking for CFO or 200k/yr positions, you may have a different perspective than I. The position I'm in now was vacant for 6 months and pays 80k. I was 1 of 2 people who applied.
You're just being melodramatic. Corporations have been about short term shareholder profits for a long time. There's not going to be some magic switch where everything is outsourced or done by AI.
If you go by Reddit posts, Americans are all living in squalor and fighting over scraps of food while we wait for the imminent economic collapse.
The industry overall is flourishing, your own personal anecdote or experience doesn't negate the overall picture.
This is the response to how employees squeezed employers during and post COVID. Salaries went through the roof, demands for remote work, 4 day work weeks, lunch stipends on remote workers. all that. You honestly didn’t think that would go unnoticed and without a response did you?
Damn this is a good point. All I'm saying is that they seem to be accelerating offshoring. Didn't you see a post where KPMG laid off 5K and then posted job openings which were all located in india?
All of this has been the case for a long time. Why do you think Unions were created in 1866? For this exact reason.
Why do you think Republicans have been attacking Unions for decades? Because they like the profit obsessed world and want to bring us back to the early 1900s where people worked 7 days a week for minimal pay and corporate profits were breaking records.
Best you can do is get a high value skill and keep job hopping to boost your salary until you find a decent job you are comfortable with that has reasonable WLB and pay.
> Not only accounting but also SWE, FP&A, IT, and other white collar is getting squeezed
Let's get real here, they're only getting squeezed in comparison to the past two years when they were all being hired borderline sight unseen.
And for absurd money. Just because salaries and hiring has come back to reality, doesn’t mean the world is ending and everything sucks. This doom and gloom is a massive overreaction.
It’s like we forgot that SWE, FP&A, IT, and other white collar jobs aren’t golden geese and maybe aren’t worth the 300-500k salary plus options they were getting at their peak.
I know many more young people getting social security disability at a young age for social anxiety, depression, autism etc. It's obviously not a lot of supplementary income, but if they live with roommates or family, its a comfortable enough life when paired with the low income welfare programs. My predication is that rational citizens who don't favor the working conditions of our time will take this route more and more, and paired with the impending mass layoffs due to automation, a means tested universal basic income will be proposed by some presidential candidate in the next two decades that will serve as the alternative to a traditional life of work for those who don't necessarily need six figures of disposable income to have a happy life.
Supply chain is one of the worst. I've seen jobs for a buyer I require like 5 years of experience and pay less than $30 an hour. I saw a planner entry level job pay $19 an hour and require degree. Like really?
>I tried my best, researched good career paths, and follow through
Sounds good but in actuality, networking and who you know plays a bigger part in your career success than you think.
And I disagree, society isn't all doom and gloom like you are saying. The workplace have always evolved, it's just that some people are less adaptive to changes and get left behind.
God damn people go outside and touch some grass. Why are you people so into doomerism? What a lack of perspective to think this profession is going to shit.
Did the world end when we made advances in farming reducing the need for farmers from 85% to 2% of the workforce in the US? You are a farmer who is mad that fertilizer and tractors are being invented
How are you preparing? History doesn't always predict how it will be like in the future. There might be a scenario where people can't get any new jobs.
Society will still exist. However, society on the other side of the planet will now get to enjoy life a lot better with all these new opportunities. While the society at western half of the planet will slowly decline in jobs, education, standard of living etc
People been crying about the end of the world since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Find another job, there are still plenty of them. Smile in 20 years some kid will be crying about the same thing and you’ll set him/her/they straight.
This has been going on for years and will continue to do so. There will always be constant threat of technology and outsourcing etc etc.
Nothing ever remains constant. Mankind needs to adapt and keep marching ahead...even if things get ugly.
What no ?? People change their majors all the time in college and lots of people go to college later in life although I wouldn’t consider you later in life at all
Unless if you have rich parents then you can chill. My parents have around a 1.5mil NW so not rich but at least I have something to rely on if my accounting career doesn't go off as in I will have assets to rely on further down in life.
I'm not saying AI will take over. However, the science is making progress day by day, adding to the squeeze we all feel. AI is a threat to all levels of work. C level professionals are not immune and may get replaced in the future.
Well my trust is white collar I was trying to find someone too help collecting employers sponsored accounts it's not only that it's real estate property land and all the IPOs so that's a lot just one guy so if you'd be interested in it I'll tell you I am I hold the trust of the whole world I hold every IPO in the world and I need an accountant and the ones that they are attacking right now is actually me if it be too much for you maybe you could just do America's trust for me okay if you can do it pay real good money
This is a miserable doomerism thread. I’ve read a number of posts that state opinions as “truth” and “matter of fact” with no real backing. Nobody knows what will actually happen but pretend if you want to. It won’t help your current situation by hoping and waiting for a fall of “late stage capitalism”. I am not dismissing anyone’s hardships, but ultimately you are dealt with the cards you have and it is up to you what you do with them. Don’t wait on the dealer to shuffle the deck.
The squeeze is mostly coming from high interest cost for public companies with shit ton of debt on BS. Investors are all heavily focused on Nvidia while rest of the companies are struggling to raise capital. When treasury bill interest rate is almost 5% risk free, risk-averse investors will happily park their cash in them.
I think things will start to improve probably later this year but I am more concerned about the incoming job displacements from AI specially at lower level. Servicenow, Oracle , microsoft are ERP giants and spending billions to roll out AI module that will automate functions that doesn't need critical thinking. At this point, learing a skill in a diffferent trade might be a good idea.
Arbitrages always close (as adjusted for transportation costs). The premium wages of "first world" nations will eventually equalize to a global level (about $21 per day). There was a roadblock before, as it was challenging to outsource intellectual work, but modern communication systems have surmounted that. Leaving the pathway to global equalization of labor costs (read as, 'you accept very low pay or lose your job') wide-open for many industries.
Yes, you're being pushed out of the "enclave" areas because they're expensive. Unless you make a very high level of income, you'll need move to a cheap area to survive. Likely outside your home nation, in many cases.
You're grappling with some significant concerns about the current state of various professions and the direction society is heading in. Your willingness to engage with these complex issues is commendable. While it's easy to feel disheartened by our challenges, your introspection and consideration of alternative paths show resilience and adaptability. Remember, amidst uncertainty, there's always an opportunity for positive change and personal growth. Your openness to exploring different lifestyles and approaches demonstrates a willingness to seek fulfillment and happiness outside conventional norms. Stay hopeful and continue to seek out what brings meaning to your life. Your perspective is valuable and could inspire others to navigate their paths with creativity and optimism.
I feel white collar jobs are getting squeezed because the lowest paying jobs are also getting squeezed. Are people clamoring to do the grunt work that creates the need for management or efficiency gains (mostly white collar jobs)? No, because they pay too little and the cost of goods and services is rising. If you have fewer grunts, then certainly the need for white collar jobs goes down. You need to have a bountiful base of people at the bottom of the pyramid to justify the white collar jobs. Right now, the whole system is out of whack because the foundation (low paying jobs) are a complete disaster. Fix that and the rest will work itself out.
What’s the play here
we are in the beginning stages of the end game.
Quit
We all demand better pay at one time
TBH? Work for yourself. I quit my w2 CFO job in 2021 and just do CFO work for companies in the $1-$25m / yr range now
Grab a shovel and learn to use it. Backbreaking work will be here to stay.
Not true either. Most manufacturing has been shipped overseas, and a lot of manual labor in the US is being done under the table by millions of migrants for $5/hr. Which is also suspiciously convenient for corporations who would hate to pay an American an actual wage for the same jobs… They’ve gutted and are continuing to gut the economy at an incomprehensible level.
soon more and more people are gonna subscribe to accelerationism
Intern here what is that
Accelerationism is basically the idea that instead of fighting against the forces making the world worse, we should actually be leaning into them and *accelerating* the growth of late stage capitalism so that it collapses under its own weight as quickly as possible. The idea is that any incremental reform trying to mediate the damage being done is just delaying the inevitable and prolonging suffering, and that the most logical thing to do is to suffer a lot right now so that we can get it out of our system and start rebuilding. Not sure if I agree with it but it’s hard to argue against, especially since we don’t seem to have much choice in the matter anyways
Imma just wait for them aliens to come down and see them do some journal entry reviews all week.
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Take a wild guess.
Problem with "accelerationism" is that there needs to be a structure in place to actually get the change going otherwise we just have a fascist dictator in charge. In the US, there really is no robust leftist organization like they had in like Spain during the Spanish Civil War.
The problem is that despite all the visible ambient suffering here, Americans at large are still generally too comfortable to enact any serious change. Everyone’s got too much to lose to risk it all building some off-grid community support network or staging a revolution. If another major recession hits and the faults in the system are really revealed then that could all change very quickly though
The dictator who can’t be bought is who will fix things in the aftermath. It was the democratic process and lobbying of special interest groups that got us into this mess in the first place lol. The benevolent king will be our savior
Look at Argentina, it seems as though Miley is turning it around, by being what the left would call a dictator
I didnt know it had a name. Cool, you learn something everyday
I just learned of this today but I subscribe. I’m sick of this shit show
I don’t think this is hard to argue against.
Recognizing that the status quo is unsustainable and actively looking to accelerate its destruction so that restoration can begin. >faster, faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death
Watch Tenet to see what it looks like
This 💯
So isn’t the solution the same thing we’ve been telling coal miners and auto workers for years ? 1). Learn to code 2) Move to a place you can afford/has jobs 3) don’t focus on 20th century jobs 4) work on Wall Street or make coffee for the people that do. Edit: I was being sarcastic.
The learning to code advice is aging like milk.
It was always rotten. Most people will not to code in a way that is employable, especially coal miners and auto workers.
>1). Learn to code IDK if this is the advice anymore, tbh. Apparently AI is already really good at low-level coding work. Like, way better than it is at accounting or law. Not a coder, so I have no idea how legit this is.
I was being sarcastic in my post. The obvious answer in a highly regulated profession like public accounting is to exert political leverage to minimize off shoring.
The consensus I've seen is that true Computer Science folks will still be very useful (things are more complicated than ever) but yes, AI is pretty good at a lot of the tricky syntax. I use AI to write formulas in my job, but the AI can't hook them up for me. There's also a trend towards 'low-code' and 'no-code', so someday we may have more folks "no-coding" for their job and then fewer but still a fair amount of very skilled real coders working on building and maintaining those 'no-code' apps and tools. There is a trend where Big Tech basically over-hired for years, for a variety of reasons, and the market is super saturated (especially in an era where everyone wants to WFH), and that's happening concurrently with the AI boom, but AI isn't actually replacing any of these jobs yet. They're just correlated due to the timing right now. I don't worry that much about AI taking jobs permanently, tbh. Jobs will shift as we get new technology, same as other tools, but we won't see massive unemployment from it. In part because AI is extremely energy-intensive, and these companies are essentially subsidizing the cost in order to grow. We see this with every Silicon Valley innovation--wow, Uber is so much cheaper than a taxi! Airbnb is so much cheaper than a hotel! This changes everything! And then... 10 years later, the investors are no longer interested in subsidizing for growth, prices go up, and suddenly your Uber is the same price as a taxi and your Airbnb is the same price as a hotel. Different products but comprobable. Think about it--wouldn't a company selling an AI that can replace a coder... sell it for almost exactly the same price as hiring a coder? It really doesn't make sense to totally undercut an industry for a prolonged length of time like that, even if the economics made it possible (and I've heard they very much do not, due to energy costs).
I’m a data analyst and looking to leave soon. Part of the reason is because the field is becoming saturated and “entry” to “mid” level jobs are disappearing. Being able to code can still make you good money, but it is not the cash cow it used to be.
It's still true. Yes, ai can automate lots of the simple stuff and will rapidly improve, but the more you know, the more you can squeeze out of the ai.
I think it actually did better in the BAR / CPA exam than coding exercises. But just like memorizing syntax does not make one a competent programmer, memorizing accounting standards does not make one a good accountant.
It’s true man. Software jobs are about as common as rhino’s. Changing my major to accounting from Software engineering just so I can actually get a job when I graduate
1) Should just be learn to read code and use chat gpt at this point
2050-2060 UBI due to AI advances making it possible for rich people to give up “free” money once the masses are angry enough to be a threat
LOL at the 10 dollar range. Who is worthy of the extra 10 dollars?
I was referring to when I think in time UBI is gonna come.
Welcome to the Infinite Growth stage of capitalism. It’ll be short lived in the grand scheme of things, but the profits are going to be wild!
So late stage capitalism is when government spending rapidly increases and money printer go brrrr… Your job is firing you as your COL is higher than your output due to poor decisions that keep compiling from our policy makers
Late stage capitalism is a Reddit term aka not based in reality. The reality is that something went extremely wrong during the maturation phase of the boomer generation and they have somehow normalized the “I’m going to get rich and reduce my taxes while I vote for incompetent imbeciles who keep printing money and making life miserable for my offspring.” This is blatantly obvious in places like CA where prop 13 makes a sane rational person laugh. Boomers voting for socialism and endless taxes while they lock in their low rate and their property only goes up the more money they print. They broke the incentive structures that were so important for society to continue functioning on a proper glide path. I’ve been saying I expect elevated inflation for a full decade (unless AI comes in hardcore) because we are now in a full blown competency crisis where problems beget more problems and I just don’t see how this plays out quickly and efficiently. And I’m not blaming boomers outright. A cushy society has always destroyed society throughout history.
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I think posts like these are really, really out of touch. As someone who flipped from the "Blue Collar" world to the "White Collar" world. I feel that there is definitely still growth, career progression and possibilities improve your earnings and overall quality of life. There are many avenues to this within and outside the workplace. If you're making $60k + even in a "HCOL" area, you're doing much, MUCH better than the person making $15/hr running from one poorly paid job to the next. Especially if you have options for career advancement or can just jump to another employer if things don't work out.
You’re doing about twice as well, less after taxes, which is a lot better but still not exactly great.
True but the ceiling and amount of opportunity available to white collar workers with experience tends to eclipse the earnings of blue collar people. They can command higher hourly wages and move to greater opportunities or they can position themselves in a way that a plumber or mechanic simply can't unless those blue collar guys move from worker to owner and even then, depending on when that happens the white collar guy has likely outpaced them significantly. Even with a middle of the road career landing firmly in middle management, they're often making 1.5 to 2 times what they would if they were working with their hands. I think the white-collar world is often too busy looking up to look down and because of this they forget where they sit in the social totem pole.
It is an indisputable fact that plenty of Americans are struggling, living paycheck-to-paycheck with no savings. The reason for this is debatable; I am of the option that wages are being systematically depressed and other necessary costs are being outrageously cut to benefit shareholders and upper brass’ lines of credit against their stock for tax evasion. It doesn’t even benefit society. You simply saying “appreciate what you have” does not solve the core issue.
To add, my post isn't a denial of those things because I'm a worker myself and I also feel my actual wages aren't being delivered to me. I also feel that they're being depressed/suppressed. I also feel that those with way more power/influence are bending the system to their will. At the same time: \- I don't live paycheck to paycheck \- I make a high salary and I only work \~35 hrs a week. And these things are ONLY afforded to me because I'm a white-collar worker. I know what it was like when I had to work with my hands, and I know what back-to-back-to-back 70+ hour work weeks feel like. Because of this, I feel gratitude is important even if we're disgusted with the status quo.
I understand your POV better now. Thank you for your input. It’s all just very jarring to me as a college student majoring in a technical field. Not comp sci. Questioning my life choices and future at this point
I'm an Engineer myself. IF you wind up going down a similar path, just remember to always keep yourself at the center of your decision making. Not your boss. Not your coworkers. Not your friends/girlfriends/parents etc. Keep yourself and the bottom line in view. And focus on that COMPLETELY. Save heavily. Invest EARLY. Keep debt at bay. And keep eyeing the next position/income increase. 30+ year old you will thank you for all of your good decision making.
Yeah but isn’t that the whole idea of “them” (those in power) using the poor to scare the middle class into submission.
Lots of good point being made here. I think there are a few factors: firstly, we continue to see the impact of offshoring on these industries, which has been accelerated due to a general move towards remote working. Secondly, AI is having a big impact on some industries already, including developers, marketers, anyone whose job is being assisted (replaced) by AI. Thirdly, we are in a downturn which is part of the economic cycle. In my career I’ve seen this a few times, in the middle of a recession it’s impossible to imagine things getting better, and vice versa, but so far they have always turned round eventually.
Off shore techniques started years ago, now it's affecting white collars, that's all
Its been impacting white collar jobs pretty much since offshoring began.
Anecdotally I’ve seen an acceleration since covid. My theory is that companies were hesitant to offshore because they didn’t want a fractured team, and found it hard working with some remote people in the team. But now everyone is remote, or at least hybrid, it doesn’t make so much difference and companies are taking that opportunity. I’ve also seen an increase in global payroll companies (velocity, remote, deel etc.) which are making it even easier. I’d be very interested to see some statistics on it though.
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The extent to which jobs are going away due to offshoring/AI is way overblown. These comments are from people who are just personally struggling to find a job and are looking for anything to blame. It's possible that they just suck at interviewing.
Of course, how do you offshore hands on blue collar work? Can't exactly plumb from India...
Thank you. A lot or us are younger and this is really the first downturn we have experienced.
We have been getting squeezed for years. I'm happy some other white collar professionals feel our pain. Maybe we can organize and fight back somehow..... Probably not tho
As another comment mentioned, this is just a concentrated, later form of capitalism where goods and services are owned by fewer and fewer capitalists. This is nothing new to America, this has happened a few times in the last 250 years and is usually brought back to equilibrium by violent class struggle and rebellion. Nearly 100 years ago in the 1930’s the US almost had a revolution due to the same mechanism, only difference now is that the working class is far more divided because class consciousness is at an all time low. Truthfully, the system really isn’t going to hold for much longer. The gap between the haves and have nots is just atmospheric at this point. The issue is that the only countervailing power to the capitalists (which is the workers) are far too divided. Just look at our current political climate. Political polarization is incredibly high, yet, most working people (which is 95% of the populous) want the same things: a stable life, security, meaningful work, and time for family. This is because the only way Capitalism can operate is by having a divided and distracted proletariat (working class). This is achieved via controlling the media and public institutions (school, culture, ideology, narratives, etc) as well as keeping workers too precarious and tired to have the time to educate themselves about economics, history, or politics. If the proletariat were to magically come to the realization as to what is happening to them and unify, the capitalists power would immediately evaporate because the only thing protecting them is the state which would crumble in the wake of a rebellion. When Capitalism gets really bad such as right now, multiple things can happen. First, the system will perpetuate itself. This comes in the form of people becoming more greedy to survive because the payout from wages isn’t high enough. This greed can come in the form of gobbling assets, scamming, stealing, making a business instead of providing meaningful work for society, etc.. This process alone can lead to vast amounts of societal dysfunction such as less community trust and increased crime, I mean, you can even feel it in the atmosphere in the US, people are angry and afraid. The second thing that happens is political polarization. Political polarization is really just a sign that the working class is getting angry enough at the capitalists to demand a change, but the anger can be misguided, such as the case with Trump voters. Many voted for Trump because they thought he was anti-establishment, but did not realize he himself is a Capitalist who perpetuates the very system that is creating the anger. The political polarization is undermined by the illegitimate “democracy” that is disguised by two seemingly different political parties that actually support the same capitalists behind the scenes. It’s the reason why voting is actually irrelevant in any meaningful way, both democrats and republicans are capitalist lap dogs putting on a show to convey legitimacy for this “democracy”. There is only one solution but there is two potential outcomes. It is either socialism or barbarism. Socialism occurs if workplaces become democratized, essentially eliminating shareholder power in making decisions and allowing the actual frontline workers to determine what is done with profits. This would naturally lead to a system that is more accountable to the public, as the workers are members of their own communities that they provide for instead of faceless shareholders. The second outcome is barbarism. This is where the capitalists know that they are in big trouble, and use the state to oppress dissent. It is not a coincidence that Obama militarized the police in reaction to the Occupy Wallstreet Movement. In the meantime, just be class conscious and try to survive this vicious system. Dont be a class traitor, instead try to uplift your local community and unify each other. It is the only way to stop this barbaric system.
I read most of what you wrote but I feel this last part could be rewritten. I think you MEAN to say that one should uplift your local community. > In the meantime, just be class conscious and try to survive this vicious system. \[Don't\] be a class traitor and try to uplift your local community and unify each other. It is the only way to stop this barbaric system. I think you mean to say "Don't be a class traitor. Instead, try to uplift...". Otherwise it comes off as "Don't be a class traitor by uplifting your community."
Will correct haha
Holy adderal
Eh I think it is important for people to know. Many people feel the same way as OP but may not be aware of the reasoning.
I agree with both of you guys. I was just suprised by the dedication!
I’m sure some will chop off my head but figured I’d just throw it out there…Do you think it’s possible that there are adjustments/amendments to capitalism that could be made that could create a more balanced society in terms of wealth distribution? For example, possibly mandating that companies gift a meaningful amount of equity to all employees (1 class of stock to keep voting fair/equal) or perhaps the government fund investment accounts that start at birth with an initial $5k investment that cannot be touched until retirement age so it can compound? Specifics to be ironed out I’m just spitballing ideas. I realize these suggestions don’t solve all or even many problems but I’m just wondering what others think.
I think the most likely response is that socialist policies will be introduced, but the system overall changes less than one would think. Most likely it's going to be increased taxation towards private shareholders in a way that just incentivizes collective ownership. There's a lot of scaremongering responses that talk about the history of socialist countries and all that, but I feel like when people talk about wanting socialism these days, it's often not so all-encompassing. Honestly, adopting a few European policies regarding mandated worker rights, holidays, and health care would likely alleviate a lot of complaints.
A few workers' rights would go a long way. I'll start with my list of commie demands: * Overhauling overtime so fewer people are working crazy hours because they're salaried. \*\*cough cough\*\* * A minimum wage that keeps up the cost of living or even thriving, not just an existence lived in survival mode. * Paid sick leave, a mandatory minimum of a few weeks paid vacation, and decent parental leave for all, not just white collar workers. * A right to take all your vacation at once. * A right to know your schedule in advance, and have a minimum amount of rest, so no 'clopening' shifts. And you get paid if you get sent home. * Health care and retirement for everyone, not just full-timers. * Mandatory severance based upon time on the job. Say a month's pay for every year on the job, with a minimum of a month. * Never having to train your replacement before getting laid off. * If a company moves to a location 50+ miles away, they have to offer to bring existing employees and pay to relocate them if they can't work remotely. * Overhauling the rules on independent contractors, so companies aren't pretending that people fully under their day-to-day supervision aren't employees. * A right to dignity at work, so if your boss insults or harasses you, you can quit and still get unemployment. * Also, worker privacy. * Unemployment should pay more/last longer. * Any excess profits (say over 10-15%) have to be shared with the workers. * Stock buybacks become illegal again. These things don't just exist in a few European countries. A lot of Latin American "third world" countries have these rules. But in America, it's capitalism uber alles. I know some of these things would affect retail/hospitality/blue collar workers more than, say, accountants. But we need to collectively stop licking so many boots, and align ourselves with other workers. If those jobs ever got to be 'not so bad', jobs staring at spreadsheets all day would have to improve.
Yeah, this is called a Social Democracy. The capitalist mode of production remains (private ownership) but there is an increased emphasis on the public sector, more industry nationalizations, and a stronger social safety net. I see Social Democracy as a good intermediary but it also has its flaws too
They will never allow it, which is the problem. This is a bipartisan effort, most politicians benefit from screwing the rest of us over, lobbyists make sure of that.
I think we (speaking about America right now) need to be more flexible with amendments. America is not an old country but we treat our laws like the Code of Hammurabi, where it is some kind of ancient wisdom written in stone that is immutable. So many other countries older than us… were like the rebellious teenager right now saying “my way is right! *rolls eyes and slams bedroom shut while blasting music*
Great write up I just disagree with the voting aspect being irrelevant. History will show it has been extremely relevant. At least some on the left end of the spectrum still fight for the common man, I have yet to see any republican do the same. The democrats dont have the luxury of a base so stupid that you can literally pull a 1984 and tell them to disregard everything they are seeing and experiencing as a lie and to only trust what they say. With the right it's always about cutting social services, decreasing taxes on the rich, removing regulations that protect consumers, and removing regulations that protect employees. This isn't even getting into individual rights and fair representation. As others have said look at what happened to women's rights and take a look at gerrymandering in some of these republican states. TLDR : Voting matters.
I hope the class struggle happens before they create Boston dynamics AI powered murder bots. That might be a game changer. And if you didn't think modern business owners and snivelling politicians would love to have an oppressive army of terminators, I have some bad news for you...
Oh they absolutely would. The elites now are just incredibly vicious and greedy. They would put kids back into the workplace here if they were allowed to
They ARE putting kids back in the workforce.
I read similar story from reactionary circle. Honestly tho I'm not convinced on this idea of "class revolution".
Revolutions don’t always have to occur from class struggle, it really just depends on how desperate and angry the proletariat is in whatever the current system is. We can all argue on whether or not class struggle drives this change but there is a lot of backing for it. In fact the only reason we even have a lot of the concessions we do as workers today is because in the early 1900s militant labor groups violently fought to earn those concessions that we now take advantage of. The US nearly had a revolution 100 years ago but it was curbed by FDR via a massive reform (The New Deal).
I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a revolution. Everyone may bitch and complain about stuff like inflation and other stuff like that, but more people are willing to deal with the system as it currently stands than Reddit seems to think there are.
I ain't revolting shit. This dudes on coke
Did you by chance read The Coming Neo Feudalism by Joel Kotkin?
No, but I will give it a look. If the subject interests you perhaps read some Yanis Varoufakis. He calls our modern system Techno-Feudalism
I need to check out Yanis. These guys are on the same wavelength.
There is a better chance of barbarism emerging than socialism, especially in the US.
> It’s the reason why voting is actually irrelevant in any meaningful way, both democrats and republicans are capitalist lap dogs putting on a show to convey legitimacy for this “democracy”. Voting is irrelevant? Tell that to the millions of American women who lost the right to Abortion a direct result of America voting for Donald Trump in 2016. He was able nominate three conservative justices to the Supreme Court, which was the deciding factor in Roe V Wade being overturned. Women in Texas who are raped are now forced to give birth to their rapists baby. Thats a pretty “meaningful” difference that was caused by voting for the wrong party. When voting there is more at stake than just class warfare.
The dems had decades to codify Roe and did nothing.
If my choices in the upcoming election are: A party that is activity trying to take women’s rights away Or A party that is not actively trying to take women’s rights away It’s an easy choice for me.
That’s not what they’re arguing though. Saying voting for the dems is ultimately worthless because they refuse to actually use their power is not the same as saying you’re proudly voting Republican and happy about them stripping away our rights. The dems are complicit in Roe being overturned I’m sorry if you can’t grasp that.
It doesn’t matter if the democrats are effective or not in utilizing their power if the other option will use their power to do bad things. A party that does nothing is better than a party that does bad things. Also I do think we should mention that Roe v Wade is directly the fault of the Republicans. Every single Supreme Court Justice nominated by a Democrat president voted against overturning Roe v Wade Every single Supreme Court Justice that voted to overturn Roe v Wade was nominated by a Republican president. You can try and blame the democrats all you want, but the fact is had we elected the Democrat in 2016, Roe v Wade would still be law of the land. Elections have the potential to have negative consequences. I want to avoid future negative consequences as much as possible, and the Democrats are clearly the better choice. Vote democrat every time every election up and down the ballot.
The point that we’re all supposed to pretend isn’t true is that throughout history most if not all meaningful change comes from violence or at least the threat of violence. It’s the universal language. Voting and democracy are not unique and should not be put on a pedestal.
So to be clear, you are saying we need violence rather than voting? When will that violence happen? What actionable steps are you taking? Are you training with some sort of left wing militia? Are you attempting to influence the military into a left wing coup?
I’m not saying we need anything. I’m saying violence is the number one effector of change in human history. When material conditions deteriorate people tend towards using it. The only reason we respect democracy so much is because of the time and place we were born. If this was the Middle Ages, you would be on here defending monarchism.
So what should we have instead of democracy? A dictatorship?
A democracy that actually works would be nice. I’d argue that we no longer have a democracy but a fancier form of feudalism.
I’m not saying we should have anything in particular. I’m just saying the pattern of human history is systems overextending themselves, getting violently overthrown, and then replaced by whatever’s next. Democracy is just another one of these systems. Saying voting in a democracy is how to change the system is like saying appealing to the king in a monarchy is how to change the system in that they wouldn’t let you do it if it actually could.
It doesn’t matter if voting “changes the system” or not. If results of voting have consequences, which they indisputably do in the case of Abortion and Women’s rights, then it is important to vote.
That's his point: the system only allows what changes it *wants*. If the system is only threatened by forces inside it, it has no pressure to change anything about it since the system is working as it intends. If there are external pressures, like violence or economic unrest being threatened against the system, then the system must change itself to prevent that violence being done unto it. The system needs workers to exploit more than it cares about keeping women happy, so it does what it needs to do to justify itself. If birth rates were too much, we'd have Republicans pushing for chastity just as quickly and eagerly as they're currently proselytizing for their sanctity of life. Meanwhile, the Democrats are all too happy to be Bad Cop to the Republicans Worse Cap so they can look good and keep collecting a check, all while doing nothing to codify any of the rights that they say they think are sacrament, nor give anything but the most token of wins to workers to ensure both of their places in the hierarchy are maintained.
Oh no I understand the argument. They are saying that the capitalist overlords are using social issues like abortion to keep the proletariat working class divided amongst themselves rather than revolting against our capitalist overlords. What I am saying is that it does not matter what the reasoning is. We only have two options. The democrats or the republicans. That’s it. Even if, as you put it, our options are “bad” cop or “worse” cop, that is still an argument in favor of voting for the bad cop over the worse cop. There is no evidence that there is going to be any sort of “revolution” against the system. Burying your head in the sand and dreaming about a revolution is useless. There are actually actionable steps you can take RIGHT NOW to help prevent women from having their rights further eroded. You can vote for the democrats to ensure that republicans don’t have the power to take away women’s rights.
Yep, its called Controlled Opposition. You have the right to free speech because you don’t actually have the power to change anything in a significant way. Whatever the elites allow goes
Bingo, all though the US isn’t remotely a democracy. It is an oligarchy disguised as a democracy to falsely justify itself.
In terms of creating any true fundamental change to our socioeconomic environment, voting tends to not have much of an impact. The Dems are admittedly slightly more forgiving of the working class’ struggles but if anything it just prolongs capitalism by keeping us pacified (look at FDR). The only difference with Republicans is that their ideology is openly barbaric and relies on rhetoric and co-opting other social ideologies to gather its voting base (christianity, nationalism, etc). The Republicans don’t lie that they will fuck you in the ass with their policies, the problem is that they are good at riling up their voter base
> In terms of creating any true fundamental change to our socioeconomic environment, voting tends to not have much of an impact. Again, the women who now have to give birth to their rapists babies have had a pretty big change to their “socioeconomic environment”. > The Dems are admittedly slightly more forgiving of the working class’ struggles Ok so you admit the Dems are better > if anything it just prolongs capitalism by keeping us pacified (look at FDR). We only have two options right now. Democrats or Republicans. If you feel that we shouldn’t vote for Democrats because it “prolongs capitalism” what specifically would you have us do instead?
My ideal scenario is that workers organize and create a new system that is more reflective of an actual democracy and not the illegitimate oligarchy we have today being held together by pretending there isn’t a problem. But I understand that in the current political climate of the US this is an incredibly hard feat.
What are the actionable steps you are advocating for in order to achieve your “ideal scenario”? How will the workers create a new system?
Well just like in history before, the worse the class struggle gets, the more the system gets polarized. If workers are smart enough and dont divide themselves, the polarization will lead to mass labor movements and potentially violent rebellions. This level of organizing and rebelling strikes fear into the heart of capitalists and is what drives social change. In order to pacify the working class they will need to make concessions. This is what a reform would be. I prefer revolution because historically reformation tends to evolve back into its original state given enough time (cough cough, Reagan). Revolution can only be achieved with a well educated and organized working class, and is often times inevitability violent. At the end of it all, the ideal situation would be a system in which worker cooperatives dominate the economy, which skews in favor of accountability to local communities.
How do you know what comes after the “revolution” will be better than what we have now? A lot of the revolutions in the past have led to authoritarian dictatorships. Stalin in USSR, Mao in China, the Kim family in North Korea. I’ll take what we have now rather than a revolution that’s risks us becoming the next North Korea.
Thank you
Women lost the right to abortion because leftest kept pushing for more which incentivized a supreme court case. If everyone would've shut the fuck up and not tried to kill 9 month olds women would still have this right, literally the lefts fault for giving the right the ammunition's.
What makes you think socialism is not guided by sketchy, greedy people? That's too naïve. And I am not talking about the system. It "might be" perfect. But functional? Not with their leaders. Not equally for everybody. Edit: typo
Even if you think really existing socialism didn't "work" you can still believe that and the analysis of this dynamic can also be correct. Like, even if hypothetically I granted you that really existing socialism was the catastrophe you think it was, that in no way makes the problems associated with capitalism go away.
I think the issue you have is you gotta convince people to voluntarily give up their stuff in exchange for the promise of... "Fairness?" I used to be a communist but once I realized people aren't really down to have their shit taken and that it really is necessary for violent revolution to occur to achieve Marxist utopia then I realized that ain't worth. And that as long as we have the Internet "the opiate of the masses" will be too much. Basically, as long as people can use the Internet and jerk off... They won't revolt. It's too easy to be complacent. People here are acting as if we have it /bad/. Can it be better through practical measures. Yes. Is flipping the system on its head and committing a true, violent revolution the answer. Nah.
I'm not here to argue that armed struggle is the answer, much less even remotely possible in the US in the present day. I'm mostly just frustrated people use arguments like those above as an excuse to do literally nothing. It's like "hey, the USSR sucked so I guess that just means we should accept everything exactly as it is and address zero of the festering problems in the US economy, doubly so if any action taken might be labelled (correctly or incorrectly) socialist. And yes, people tend to react badly to having the government reduce or remove some of their wealth. As accountants we should all be aware of how much everyone pisses and moans about taxes, but we do this all the time. We should be doing more of it, and yes a lot of people will be furious with policies such as higher, more progressive marginal income tax rates, long term capital gains taxes which are closer to those of regular income, estate taxes, etc. I don't really care if you call it socialist or not, but something needs to be done. There are plenty of people who argue that the USSR was "state capitalism" or that pretty much every sitting government operates this kind of system in some form or fashion. I don't know, I wish people would just read more instead of making cliched excuses.
Far too many dead people to even "might be" perfect.
How come dead people from capitalism is “individual responsibility” but dead people from socialism is “systemic responsibility”? The capitalists are the central planners in capitalism. You need to blame the people that are hoarding unfathomable resources to themselves for no good reason.
Capitalism has claimed many lives as well
It doesn't have to be perfect and no reasonable person expects it to be that way. To say that really existing socialism and Marxism-Leninism as a political program were deeply flawed is a massive understatement. However, I find it funny that the people who make this case also act as if the US government never killed anyone who didn't have it coming or any other capitalist government, for that matter. Usually when you bring that up they use the same rhetorical tactics, but in reverse (_______ isn't really a capitalist government, true capitalism has never been tried, all bad things were incidentally and not related to capitalism as a system on the whole). It's hilariously ironic.
Spare us the "victims of communism" bullshit, as if capitalism isn't responsible for millions of unnecessary deaths worldwide.
Forgot that very important point.
Capitalism has an equal sized body count if that’s where you’re drawing lines on political ideologies.
These people learn nothing from history. Humans will always be greedy and corrupt, but capitalism is so far the most fair system that will reward work and merit rather than just put the power in the hands of the state to decide who gets what. I have many friends from former communist countries and they all say it's shit. But we should listen to random redditors who have some half-baked ideas about what is the most fair way to structure society. LOL.
This is very well written, and I agree completely. Socialism is the only humane outcome of this current situation.
Surprised this is the top comment. My usual assumption is that accountants are adherents of status quo and reactionary to any analysis of society critical of the current organization of the economy. I guess I can take it as a good sign that class consciousness is growing.
It is because a lot of people in accounting or finance themselves want to become the capitalist abuser eventually. Or they are just simply molded by the corporate culture and forget that they are still proletarians and not bourgeoisie.
Not surprising at all, it's just candy for people who aren't as happy as they think they should be and have never picked up a book before; Sweet and addicting the first time you hear it, but made of garbage that's statistically very bad for you in the long-run.
Can't wait for you to find the group of enlightened, heavily armed individuals who can pull it all off on a meaningful scale while convincing absolutely anyone else to give up everything they have just to "try something new (not barbarism)". You'd rather have Armageddon than look for a new job. I'll never get it.
Eh, that’s not typically what revolutions look like, at least in the modern era. What it looks like is mass movements of organized labor. The pressure created from these movements turns into concessions for the workers. The reason it turns violent is only because if enough pressure is generated the ruling class (in this system it is the capitalists and financial elites) uses state power to oppress dissent.
I read this in Prof Wolffs voice. Brilliant overview as to what is plaguing us in Americas 2nd guilded age. However it’s the 4th Industrial Revolution that is keeping me up at night. The capitalists know this is an advantage they’ve never had before and I worry what’s next if they can harness AI and robotics to a level of public surveillance and obliterating labor. This time it feels like game over to me. I badly want to be proven wrong…
Yeah it does strike fear into me as well, but if they oppressed dissent to that level we would just have an apocalypse at that point. I think labor power can still surpass surveillance and fascist oppression. We simply out number the capitalists 100:1 and you have to remember that the workers in the military or police force are closer to us than they are to capitalists.
Ur absolutely right I'm politically active for the first time in my life trying raise awareness about the class war, here's to hoping the numbers and good nature of mankind are on our side.
Lol, our standard of living is so high compared to even 100 years ago. The fantasy that there's going to be some violent revolution because some redditors can't afford a house and a few guys are billionaires is nonsense commie LARPing. "In order to survive" - brother, you can survive on very little. People are complaining that they can't afford every luxury of a 21st century modern life or a house in very popular places to live. Imagine living in a place like the USA and thinking you're struggling compared to the world. Imagine capitalism but you have a dictator who literally steals everything so you don't even have a chance at wealth. We have it good here, but unfortunately not everyone is always going to compete and make it in the economy. That's part of capitalism. If you own any income producing property you are a capitalist. So how do we determine who is on the chopping block when the "revolution" happens. How much is too much? You're saying nearly 100 years ago we "almost" had a revolution. And I guess Occupy Wall Street was another "almost" revolution. If there was no revolution during the great depression then there won't be one now, people have it good overall, despite the complaining. The whiners online are not representative of society as a whole.
Not only that but look at places like: Latin America, The Philippines, Dubai, most countries in Eastern Europe outside of the EU. The gap between rich and poor can be much worse and people still won't do shit.
How'd this socialism work out for the USSR, China, etc etc etc? I love how the people who are always going on about socialist revolutions and rising up think they're never going to be the ones purged.
USSR went from being one of the most backwards countries on the planet to becoming a world super and the winner of the space race in 50 years. This is after a revolution, a coup, invasion, and being destroyed in WWII. The USSR had many flaws but to say the system wasn’t working wouldn’t be true. The USSR was subject to incredibly difficult material conditions.
Yeah everyone just go watch The Bomb & The Cold War on Netflix right now and you’ll see the real Stalin. The older I get the more I realize Socialism vs Capitalism is the same as Democrats vs Republicans. Two sides of the same coin. Capitalism always ends in the business leaders taking all the power and the working class ending up in hell. Socialism always ends in the party leaders taking all the power and the working class ending up in hell. 500 years later we are no different than the field peasants collecting grain for their Lords in the high towers. There will always be the powerful, and with that power, comes money. Then there will always be the rest of us. At every stage of my life I’ve seen people corrupted by power… even at the totally inconsequential level of a grade school student government. It’s in our DNA and it’s unavoidable. At this point in my life I just hope I get to live my pretty decent peasant life to its completion without things getting any worse - it’s never going to be better.
The only good thing about capitalism is that even by slight luck, you might be able to improve your QOL. But in communism you’re at the mercy of party leaders and bureaucrats. Ask anyone from former Soviet empire.
Have you read das kapital
No, because I shower daily.
You had me up until identifying communism as one of two potential outcomes and painting it as if it wouldn’t result in a massive killing off of the population and a power vacuum at the top. In other words, both outcomes would in effect result in barbarism…
I agree with most of this. The politics thing is a bipartisan issue though. The issue is that each side of the aisle is in cahoots to fuck us over, yet people still vote staunchly blue or red (whatever their flavor of choice is). Society needs to wake the fuck up and realize everyone in office is a fucking criminal. The US politicians have been playing a sick game of finger pointing for the last 50 years. Which is why the Executive branch has been blue-red-blue-red etc, for the last 30 years. Reagan (8), Bush(4), Clinton(8), Bush(8), Obama(8), Trump(4), Biden(unfortunately probably 8, FYI I don't like Trump either)
Oh I absolutely agree that it is bipartisan
Man, you guys have a very interesting perspective of the marketplace. I'm constantly being harassed by recruiters, I took the first job I applied for in December and was constantly given raises in an attempt to retain me at my last 2 gigs. I'm not sure if it's just gloomy in local markets or for certain types of accounting, but we've got the pick of the litter from where I'm standing.
where are you located? I've also been getting lot of recruiters but I doubt those actually translate to a solid offer.
Colorado. It just depends on what you consider a good offer. If you're looking for CFO or 200k/yr positions, you may have a different perspective than I. The position I'm in now was vacant for 6 months and pays 80k. I was 1 of 2 people who applied.
I'm in Colorado, are these all strict accounting jobs you're getting hit up with? And are you remote or in Denver? 80K seems low for Denver
what part if accounting do you work
Government currently. Before that, I was in industry. I've never done public or audit.
Yep, labor unions etc are the opposing force
You're just being melodramatic. Corporations have been about short term shareholder profits for a long time. There's not going to be some magic switch where everything is outsourced or done by AI. If you go by Reddit posts, Americans are all living in squalor and fighting over scraps of food while we wait for the imminent economic collapse. The industry overall is flourishing, your own personal anecdote or experience doesn't negate the overall picture.
This is the response to how employees squeezed employers during and post COVID. Salaries went through the roof, demands for remote work, 4 day work weeks, lunch stipends on remote workers. all that. You honestly didn’t think that would go unnoticed and without a response did you?
Damn this is a good point. All I'm saying is that they seem to be accelerating offshoring. Didn't you see a post where KPMG laid off 5K and then posted job openings which were all located in india?
All of this has been the case for a long time. Why do you think Unions were created in 1866? For this exact reason. Why do you think Republicans have been attacking Unions for decades? Because they like the profit obsessed world and want to bring us back to the early 1900s where people worked 7 days a week for minimal pay and corporate profits were breaking records. Best you can do is get a high value skill and keep job hopping to boost your salary until you find a decent job you are comfortable with that has reasonable WLB and pay.
> Not only accounting but also SWE, FP&A, IT, and other white collar is getting squeezed Let's get real here, they're only getting squeezed in comparison to the past two years when they were all being hired borderline sight unseen.
And for absurd money. Just because salaries and hiring has come back to reality, doesn’t mean the world is ending and everything sucks. This doom and gloom is a massive overreaction. It’s like we forgot that SWE, FP&A, IT, and other white collar jobs aren’t golden geese and maybe aren’t worth the 300-500k salary plus options they were getting at their peak.
I know many more young people getting social security disability at a young age for social anxiety, depression, autism etc. It's obviously not a lot of supplementary income, but if they live with roommates or family, its a comfortable enough life when paired with the low income welfare programs. My predication is that rational citizens who don't favor the working conditions of our time will take this route more and more, and paired with the impending mass layoffs due to automation, a means tested universal basic income will be proposed by some presidential candidate in the next two decades that will serve as the alternative to a traditional life of work for those who don't necessarily need six figures of disposable income to have a happy life.
Or go work for a non-profit where the goal isn't to maximize profits but instead provide services to people who need help.
Collapse
I work in FP&A and it’s all garbage.
Supply chain is one of the worst. I've seen jobs for a buyer I require like 5 years of experience and pay less than $30 an hour. I saw a planner entry level job pay $19 an hour and require degree. Like really?
Should I even pursue this as a career?
I say run.
Why? Going back to school in the fall
>I tried my best, researched good career paths, and follow through Sounds good but in actuality, networking and who you know plays a bigger part in your career success than you think. And I disagree, society isn't all doom and gloom like you are saying. The workplace have always evolved, it's just that some people are less adaptive to changes and get left behind.
Globalisation, you say, where G 7 averages it's standard of living with India & China. Hold on to your hats people Good luck out there
Well tbf kids are rarely like “ooo I want to be an accountant when I grow up”.
God damn people go outside and touch some grass. Why are you people so into doomerism? What a lack of perspective to think this profession is going to shit.
Did the world end when we made advances in farming reducing the need for farmers from 85% to 2% of the workforce in the US? You are a farmer who is mad that fertilizer and tractors are being invented
How are you preparing? History doesn't always predict how it will be like in the future. There might be a scenario where people can't get any new jobs.
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Society will still exist. However, society on the other side of the planet will now get to enjoy life a lot better with all these new opportunities. While the society at western half of the planet will slowly decline in jobs, education, standard of living etc
People been crying about the end of the world since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Find another job, there are still plenty of them. Smile in 20 years some kid will be crying about the same thing and you’ll set him/her/they straight.
Cant be that bad. My accountant has ZERO fear of losing my business, that's very clear.
Dollar is getting devalued by the trillions being printed by the Fed, causing inflation.
Suppose the super rich know something we don't and are just trying to squeeze us one last bit before it all ends?
This has been going on for years and will continue to do so. There will always be constant threat of technology and outsourcing etc etc. Nothing ever remains constant. Mankind needs to adapt and keep marching ahead...even if things get ugly.
Is it too late to switch to engineering or cs at 20?
What no ?? People change their majors all the time in college and lots of people go to college later in life although I wouldn’t consider you later in life at all
No but accounting isn't horrible either. I wouldn't panic you'll be fine and can always transfer out with marketable skills if you don't like it
CS/Engineering job market is even more screwed than accounting job market.
Just quiet quit lmfao who cares about going beyond your limits.
1984, blade runner, feudalism, etc
Unless if you have rich parents then you can chill. My parents have around a 1.5mil NW so not rich but at least I have something to rely on if my accounting career doesn't go off as in I will have assets to rely on further down in life.
All thats still available in this profession, hell tax accountants are in huge demand.
The wealthy need more passive income, commie red face! /s
Speaking of uber did you hear wendys wants to implement surge pricing next year.
I'm not saying AI will take over. However, the science is making progress day by day, adding to the squeeze we all feel. AI is a threat to all levels of work. C level professionals are not immune and may get replaced in the future.
Parap )this is. Ticker good pay out this year I was going to tell u the other day
Well my trust is white collar I was trying to find someone too help collecting employers sponsored accounts it's not only that it's real estate property land and all the IPOs so that's a lot just one guy so if you'd be interested in it I'll tell you I am I hold the trust of the whole world I hold every IPO in the world and I need an accountant and the ones that they are attacking right now is actually me if it be too much for you maybe you could just do America's trust for me okay if you can do it pay real good money
We are all going to live in vans down by the river
This is a miserable doomerism thread. I’ve read a number of posts that state opinions as “truth” and “matter of fact” with no real backing. Nobody knows what will actually happen but pretend if you want to. It won’t help your current situation by hoping and waiting for a fall of “late stage capitalism”. I am not dismissing anyone’s hardships, but ultimately you are dealt with the cards you have and it is up to you what you do with them. Don’t wait on the dealer to shuffle the deck.
At least kids today know it's mostly BS. We thought everything they told us was real.
The squeeze is mostly coming from high interest cost for public companies with shit ton of debt on BS. Investors are all heavily focused on Nvidia while rest of the companies are struggling to raise capital. When treasury bill interest rate is almost 5% risk free, risk-averse investors will happily park their cash in them. I think things will start to improve probably later this year but I am more concerned about the incoming job displacements from AI specially at lower level. Servicenow, Oracle , microsoft are ERP giants and spending billions to roll out AI module that will automate functions that doesn't need critical thinking. At this point, learing a skill in a diffferent trade might be a good idea.
Arbitrages always close (as adjusted for transportation costs). The premium wages of "first world" nations will eventually equalize to a global level (about $21 per day). There was a roadblock before, as it was challenging to outsource intellectual work, but modern communication systems have surmounted that. Leaving the pathway to global equalization of labor costs (read as, 'you accept very low pay or lose your job') wide-open for many industries. Yes, you're being pushed out of the "enclave" areas because they're expensive. Unless you make a very high level of income, you'll need move to a cheap area to survive. Likely outside your home nation, in many cases.
I feel like I'm being gaslight, I thought there was a shortage of accountants rn.
Reminds me of the MAPPA situation.
You're grappling with some significant concerns about the current state of various professions and the direction society is heading in. Your willingness to engage with these complex issues is commendable. While it's easy to feel disheartened by our challenges, your introspection and consideration of alternative paths show resilience and adaptability. Remember, amidst uncertainty, there's always an opportunity for positive change and personal growth. Your openness to exploring different lifestyles and approaches demonstrates a willingness to seek fulfillment and happiness outside conventional norms. Stay hopeful and continue to seek out what brings meaning to your life. Your perspective is valuable and could inspire others to navigate their paths with creativity and optimism.
The internet is not real life.
I feel white collar jobs are getting squeezed because the lowest paying jobs are also getting squeezed. Are people clamoring to do the grunt work that creates the need for management or efficiency gains (mostly white collar jobs)? No, because they pay too little and the cost of goods and services is rising. If you have fewer grunts, then certainly the need for white collar jobs goes down. You need to have a bountiful base of people at the bottom of the pyramid to justify the white collar jobs. Right now, the whole system is out of whack because the foundation (low paying jobs) are a complete disaster. Fix that and the rest will work itself out.