The best Labor & Industrial Economic Relations books: Reddit reviews

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

It's more complicated than that. If you read Why Men Earn More, there are a myriad number of reasons. There's maternity like you said. There's also women choosing to earn less because their husband can get a higher paying job if they move. There's also women choosing to work at lower paying jobs with more flexibility because family is actually a priority for them. The list goes on...

Most interestingly - women who choose not to have a family at all and be career women actually get paid more than their similarly situated male counterparts.

I'm pretty sure I'm not alone when I say this but Andrew Yang's message clicked with me almost immediately. It's no coincidence when a politician posts 100+ policies and a majority of them matches with your view.

I remember very early on Andrews bid for presidency was front page of /r/futurology. I think it is very important to maintain the effort to be inclusive and convert new voters. But I'm sure there are still a huge number of people that didn't need any convincing but just haven't heard of Andrew's campaign.

One thing that really struck me when hearing Andrew speak on Freakonomics was that this guy actually respects the academia aspect of Economics. Instead of the average politician that panders by regurgitating highschool level macroecon concepts, this guy seemed to actually understand what he's talking about. So I bought his book: https://www.amazon.com/War-Normal-People-Disappearing-Universal/dp/0316414247

And that was really what put me on 100% for Yang. If you guys haven't read this already, I highly recommend it. If Andrew was writing stuff like this when I was in school, it would've influenced all my research.

The strategy of pushing tiny snippets of Yang to the mainstream like his interviews or listing his top 10 views is great. But Yang is more than that. He has actual substance that most other candidates lack. So for the "research" phase of this post, one of the first steps should be to read this book!

I'm not sure how we can get this book into more hands? Are there political book clubs? Can we get this on more must read lists?

You could say the same for any subdivision of a company, and it seems this is often borne out in practice.

The author of Bullshit Jobs interviewed someone who would audit the operations of companies in such a way that he would end up the only person, including the companies' management, who had an actual thorough understanding of how the departments were operating and what they were doing, and he would find cases where substantial majorities of jobs in the companies provided no benefit to its operations. And many people throughout many industries, given their best understanding of what they're doing for the company and why they're being asked to do it, don't think that their own jobs are useful for the company or anyone else. The idea that executives, boards of directors, etc. would ruthlessly optimize to shed unnecessary functions or avoid ineffective methods seems to be theory not borne out by reality.

I seriously don't have much hope that will happen. After reading Andrew Yang's War on Normal people. I believe that automation and it's cascading effects will devastate the workforce in America, in turn causing massive social upheaval. That is not taking into account problems beyond automation. Ultimately a systemic collapse will likely happen in my opinion at some point in the future.

Because despite what we're all told, there really isn't such a thing as an unskilled job. There was a bestseller ten years ago Nickel and Dimed where the author set aside her graduate degree, job history, and finances to try and start with nothing and get by.

One of her experiences was that even the most unskilled jobs take skill.

Why Men Earn More - The Startling Truth Behind The Pay Gap and What Women Can Do About It - Warren Farrell

ISBN - 0814472109

Amazon link

edit - I forgot a source for gender bias in education.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-36266753

If you havent already read it I would recommend Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich. The book is a little dated, but it does a really good job of explaining why its so hard for poor Americans to escape poverty. The idea of the book is that Ehrenreich works a series of minimum wage jobs undercover to learn about the trials and tribulations of the working poor. Its a fantastic book and is a really good starting place for learning more about the working poor.

This is the syllogism they are using.

A) Black people use this social program B) Republicans want to cut this social program

Therefore, Republicans want to cut social programs because Black people use them.

So if you want to cut welfare you hate black people. If you point out that the large majority of people who use welfare in America are not black, so why you hear, "DIBRPORITONALLHY BLACK." These people have no idea what a proportion is or what it should mean. Ask someone, "What is the proper proportion that something should be of another thing?" They have no idea and can't unpack it.

Recommended reading.

Bonus points, if instead of talking about disproportionate black people they instead say "people of color" you can ask them how they got so racist that they would use an old-timey racist phrase like "colored people" AND lump in all races into one group as if Cubans, and Italians, and Arabs and Indians and African Americans and Koreans are all the same, have no special identity that matters to them and their only feature is not being white. Sounds like a white supremacist talking point, doesn't it?

Edit: People should actually just read this book instead of launching misinformed and unrelated arguments against what I said. It turns out the professional academic goes into a little more detail and cites extensive sources, unlike my exceedingly brief reddit comment. Literally, go read a book. It's very short, because half of it is citations.

I have a copy of this if you wanna read it and REALLY blow your mind, or if you're an Audible member I've got a ton of credits and will gladly gift you a copy, heh.

https://www.amazon.com/Bullshit-Jobs-Theory-David-Graeber/dp/150114331X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1548784009&sr=8-1&keywords=bullshit+jobs

That's a general rule of all work, including paid work. If you're paying someone by the hour then you're bloody well going to get your hour's worth, even if the value of that work is zero or negative. That's what leads to the phenomenon of upwards of 40% of all jobs, public and private, being bullshit jobs.

Housecleaning isn't a bullshit job, but once you're in the zone you tend to want to keep going. It's the same as women from 'traditional' backgrounds and cooking: they end up with orders of magnitude more cooking experience than any professional chef, because their entire working day is centred around the kitchen.

He did extensive research before arriving at his current position. He lists anecdotes to make the problem more real and personal, but his policies are based on evidence on the ground. He makes a strong case for the problems we're undergoing in his book and cites all his sources in the bibliography.

You bring up a solid point, however you're falling into the just world fallacy. Not everyone that can't put together a 1000 dollars 'deserved' it. My guess is that at least 50% of that 63% number are hardworking americans working multiple jobs that simply can't break out of the paycheck to paycheck trap. The cost of living has been outpacing pay for 30 years.

I agree that some people simply don't budget properly or are miss appropriating or aren't using their time to get skills etc. but that's simply not the entire story at all

There's a good book on this called Nickeled and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich.

This is not coming from a bleeding heart liberal either. I'm a libertarian that wants to see welfare reduced but that doesn't mean there aren't some serious problems with the economy right now.

There was an amazing book called Nickel and Dimed that discussed this. Basically a decently well-off woman took a bunch of minimum wage jobs to see what it was like to live off minimum wage. She wrote about how difficult it was to make ends meet and how hard she worked, but in the back of her mind she always knew this was temporary. She'd signed up for this "experience" and at then end of it she'd go back to her easier life. It helped her mentally push through a lot of the bullshit she had to deal with, and she said she couldn't imagine how terrifying and exhausting life would be for someone who didn't have her fallback.

The War on Normal People. It has little to nothing to do with his candidacy FYI, mostly just about how bad the situation is for regular Americans (from multiple perspectives) and how much worse it is about to get. Highly recommend

Edit: also I believe there's a free audio version out there if you don't want to buy!

I will echo what was already written, but I will address two major points. The first is your acute state of mental health, and the second is philosophical background on the question you asked concerning work.

If you are having suicidal ideation than you need to get help to stabilize. If its possible, talk to professionals, and develop a support network if possible, that knows how you feel. You need to disconnect from the 'conspiracy' world a bit, and focus on something positive. Enjoy nature, and engage in some activity where you are physically moving with people you love.

Books that are topical and I found very helpful, center around what the meaning of 'work', as a category that structures our world as it actually is. The first books is Shop Class as Soulcraft. In this work, the author, who actually worked for a Global Warming denial propaganda farm before quitting, engages in an exploration of the difference between skilled manual labor and unskilled labor, and what the differences are for being a human.

The second book, I am somewhat apprehensive to post, but I think it is really insightful. That is the 1844 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of Marx, especially the section called, " Estranged Labour". It is an exploration of what work really is, as an activity that connects human beings, where we satisfy each others needs, and in doing so reproduce a social organism, and it is an exploration how we become alienated, and how these activities start to appear as forces outside of our control, that control us, and are deeply exploitative. They don't have to be that way.

I hope this was somewhat helpful, and I hope you feel better soon.

Hey, you should read the book "Bullshit Jobs", which is about the exact phenomenon of people being paid for (and required to stick around for) non-work or fake work.

That’s just ignorant.

No we can’t function as a society without childcare, without nurses...

We can totally function without diamond miners... without marketing... without creative financial instruments...without gasp mid-level assistant managers...

Social workers do a helluva lot more for society than corporate HR or Assistant management does...

There’s far more male bullshit jobs than female and they are far more taxing on society as a whole

I read a book a few months ago that touched on that point (the author seemed like an ass though). The gist was that as we've shifted away from work with tangible things, we've lost our sense of purpose and meaning in our work. A report on a business goal can be changed and tweaked to the point that any result appears like a success. But if you build a wooden table and it's not level, it's objectively not a success. Making it level brings you fulfillment because you've succeeded at something with no abstraction, unlike the other guy who can just move the goalposts in their fantasy world. We can grow most at the level with the least abstraction.

Yes. How about the infamous "Bullshit Jobs" episode of Hidden Brain podcast: https://www.npr.org/2018/08/28/642706138/ And the book that the cast is about: https://www.amazon.com/Bullshit-Jobs-Theory-David-Graeber/dp/150114331X The cast is free I would start with that if interested.

I thought this was one of the most popular episodes but I'm wrong, it's not in the top ten.

As someone who has a BA and an MFA and a teaching degree but spends a lot of his time working with his hands (I teach art in a public school), I found this book to be of great value.

There are a lot of dimensions to this dilemma: parental disapproval, the student debt trap, societal status, looming automation, etc. It's easy to lose sight of the fact that there's an important spiritual component to this issue too. A path to connection with the soul can be found through working with your hands. I've found that to be true, and quite profoundly meaningful in my life. I spent a lot of time wrestling with whether I had disappointed family expectations that I ought to have a "professional career" (I come from a family with a lot of lawyers, but there's also a musician in the flock), a self-imposed debate that lasted decades. I've come to some semblance of peace about it.

I also enjoy pointing out to the overly anxious parents in my very progressive, highly affluent school district that my plumber makes more money than I do.

The most effective thing the rich has ever done is manipulate the middle class into thinking that poverty is the poor man’s fault. Meanwhile, people have actually lived, tested, and then lived it again.

Spoiler alert: The middle class are brainwashed as hell into thinking they know what happens to the poor.

From just reading the title made me think of this book.

https://www.amazon.com/Nickel-Dimed-Not-Getting-America/dp/0312626681

Summarizes a lot of the hardships and how the system makes things harder for lower income people that I've seen on posts here.

Like I said, you don't understand UBI proposals. You wouldn't print money to fund UBI it would be entirely funded by using it to replace other forms of cash relief (disability, unemployment, food stamps, etc.), through no longer having to pay for an expensive bureaucracy to staff these programs, and through a VAT tax. I'm not for UBI right now, but you should at least read up on it if you're going to have an opinion on it. Our debt is honestly overblown. Most of it is owned by either US citizens or the US government and our interest rate is either right at current inflation rates or below. This means we effectively have no interest, or our debt is making us money (but again UBI would have no affect on the national debt).

Here's a good book on it: https://www.amazon.com/War-Normal-People-Disappearing-Universal/dp/0316414247

You can probably get it on Libby for free if you have a library card.

Most programmer jobs are bullshit jobs even when they don't look like it. This is a very good example of how to look at your company structure and its market to understand if you're actually working a bullshit job.

https://www.amazon.it/Bullshit-Jobs-David-Graeber/dp/150114331X

>Sure, you have the potential to make good money in trades, but it's not a guarantee.

Is is also not a guarantee that we should expect good money by going to college.

This was an incredibly influential book that removing vocational classes from high school was a terrible idea, and we have a generation of people that can't "do" anything.

And that’s a huge part of why it’s a dying art. Even the people that want to do it, have the aptitude and ability to it, still run into parts issues or quality issues that make it not worth their time. Check out this book. I have no affiliation with the author or seller. It’s just a good read and relevant to this discussion.

I'm not so sure about that.

In 1979, the Pearl River Delta Economic Zone was formed and since then all 9 cities in the zone (which does not include Hong Kong or Macau) saw explosive growth and it really had little to do with Hong Kong itself.

Dongguan, for example, was booming with economic activity mostly thanks to the shoe and toy industries that set up shop there in the 80s and 90s. From 1983 to 2001, it grew from 168k to over 4M. There's actually a great book called Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China that describes the life of migrant factory workers during this time.

The other thing that happened was Foxconn setting up shop in Longhua in 1988. They started out making very basic electronics components but by the late 90s were making high-margin components for Intel and Sharp. Then there was as certain fruit company that started making a lot of very popular devices in Guangdong in the mid 2000s.

With these 1st tier OEMs and CMs in the region came a number of smaller suppliers that made the tools, equipment and lower-level materials used by these companies. The economic ecosystem there is incredible and it is spread throughout the Guangdong region. Pretty much every inch of land in the province that isn't a mountain is developed and the skyline of Guangzhou is actually as impressive as Shenzhen.

I'm not sure which student loan company you work for, or how much they're paying you to shit post this with the standard issue feigned "internet objective" persona, but you're doing a poor job of it. I mean, it's either that, or you simply lack empathy, and I'm sure you'll pop off with some quip about how you "pulled yourself up by your bootstraps". Tell you what - let's save some time. You don't bother posting, and instead, go do some reading, or even listen to the audio books - I think you're either arguing in bad faith, or out of your depth here, so I'm just trying to save you keystrokes.

Such as hours worked, pay rises, promotions, agreeableness, hard work, maternity leave etc.

That delves into the reason why which eliminates the pay gap

He didn't try to rape them at all. The women were making it up. Stop believing what your feminist allies tell you to believe. You only view this place as sexist because it doesn't go along with your narrative

I'm not saying that. I'm saying that women are more likely to take time off which is a variable

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Men-Earn-More-Startling/dp/0814472109

It is. Your mental gymnastics aren't going to work here

I would heavily recommend Ehrenreich's Nickled and Dimed, https://www.amazon.com/Nickel-Dimed-Not-Getting-America/dp/0312626681/ref=sr_1_1?crid=O7MLCUZHO02V&dchild=1&keywords=nickled+and+dimed&qid=1607166748&s=books&sprefix=nickled+and+dimed%2Caps%2C187&sr=1-1

Mind you the field work was done 20 years ago, and it has gotten much worse since then.