It’s the legal and social infrastructure we all tacitly support.
I’m not necessarily mad at anyone for that, but at a certain point it seems like we keep coming back to the same things.
And for the record, while I am read in Marx, I’m more of a Proudhon fellow, I think worth making that distinction.
Well stated, somebody's clearly done their reading on Marxist theory :)
I've been struggling recently with limitations on "managing upward" I've seen thus far in my career -- eventually incentives become aligned such that no "good" manager that represents their employees well to leadership and says "no" when necessary has stuck around very long. I suspect it's largely systemic but I appreciate the way you've highlighted why.
The only cases I've seen where incentives align in favor of the rank and file employee tend to be ambitious projects as "growth" opportunities -- but of course this tends to be more often than not in the form of "experience" rather than necessarily higher "pay". Good managers still try to proactively find opportunities and make sure the team keeps growing. Eventually you "fix" the pay part by switching jobs, but I do wish we had a better system where I could just be "loyal", grow expertise in a relevant area, and be fairly compensated without having to worry about basic things like healthcare.