Is it morally right to have people working for you?

[BlackoutsBox]

I think it comes down to different 'types' of people at different 'stages' in their life. There will always be new people or people at a very simple stage to do what we would call 'grunt work' or dirty jobs or very tasking jobs that don't use much thought but are very much necessary in this physical universe we find ourselves in. There is a theory developed originally by Bertrand Russel that states there are only two kinds of jobs that truly exist: Those of moving physical material from one place to another, and those of telling others to do so. You may protest this idea at first and think of a bunch of jobs that don't seem to fall into those two categries right off the bat, but if you stop and REALLY think about it you will see that they do. It also may seem that the second one is the better choice, but it depends what stage and state you are at in your life.

This is why you find most fast food restaurants staffed with teens - because it is an ok match for that time period of life. I worked at McDonald's once when I was 16 and it was a crap hole and still is but in some sense it was fine and fun for that time. It may build a little character during that time, but later it would have been humiliating to me because you are just a hamburger robot. You would never in hell catch me there now because I personally have expanded far beyond that. It doesn't mean that someone working there now is to be looked down on. People eat hamburgers don't they? Then those people are just as important as the president, if not more so.

For me personally, now I will usually only do work freelance or limited time projects. I can't imagine just working at a place where I go in every day and there is no expected end time to my relationship with that project. I am an actor in NYC yet not 'famous' yet but I do production work in film, television, and radio to support myself as I climb through the acting world, and I would never go back to a standard employee style setup. That is me though, I never liked it to begin with. People who run their own businesses all think that everyone feels the way they do and this is simply not the case. If everyone was at the same stage and state at the same time, and everyone refused to work for someone else and decided to run their own business, everything would crash and no one would succeed, but luckily the world and market and the stages and states of people always perfectly balance out. Many people would feel terrible and insecure being self employed and they like the structure and reliability and social setup of working for someone else somewhere else. Neither is the 'better' or 'right' thing to do, it is an individual choice.

It is true that you are never going to be 'rich' working for someone else but the term 'rich' is very relative and you may be very happy, stable, creatively forfilled and secure without being what some entrepreneurs consider 'rich'. Those same entrepreneurs might indeed make a lot more cash, but they may have a lot of other issues that come with self employment that you may not want to deal with.
Also you may change over time and want to work for someone else, or start your own business. In either way you are always kind of working for someone else. When you start your own business it still must provide some service or product for someone else, but it is more fulfilling to some very independent creative spirits because they can do what they really want to do because they are creating the business. On the same token though, I know a few guys who run their own business but it is stuff like cutting sheet metal and moving parts to and from junk yards.. Blech I think, but it floats there boat, and all of it is needed. This is the wonder of the universe.

Again, it always boils down to personal choices and tastes, and the state and stage that you are in and at in your life.

It's good to do what brings you the greatest excitement and joy - period.

- Blackout -

[Manomanman]

Not everybody wants to put their life on hold and spend 1000's of hours creating a business.

Those people need jobs.

Steve Pavlina provides it to them, much like a weed dealer provides a dime bag.

Is this wrong? Absolutely not. Consistent with his philosophy, it's okay for a person to admit that they just want a job. If they consciously admit to themselves that they like it, or that they're settling and it's okay, then there's nothing wrong with that. He's advocating that we live consciously, which we can do even when we voluntarily put ourselves into bondage.

I have a job right now, I'll have a job for awhile. Making that big leap of faith into the entrepreneurial world takes LIFE RESTRUCTURING. It's not for the timid.


Question for the OP: Should we pity pornstars and prostitutes? They're self-employed, but some could argue that "they have nothing else to turn to."

[Parthon]

Pity? No. Compassion? Yes.

Not all porn stars and prostitutes hate it, but many are trapped in the high money it can provide with few skills so they are stuck in the industry. It's more a fault of society rather than those specific people.

I say compassion though, because pity implies a particular superiority complex perhaps.

[munish]

Originally Posted by Froztwolf

Steve Pavlina and Timothy Ferris both speak of how bad it is to be an employee as opposed to running your own enterprise through passive income.

Both of them (Mr. Ferris to a considerably larger degree) have income systems that depend on employees, either their own or somebody else's.

I believe strongly that it would be unsustainable for everyone to stop being an employee (despite what Ayn Rand says) and yet if you keep employees, surely you are benefiting of their ignorance and/or risk-aversion.

Thus my question: Knowing that being an employee is worse than running your own business, is it morally correct to have people working for you?

Steve also says it is better to starve than to do a dead end job.

[Some Random Loser]

Originally Posted by munish

Steve also says it is better to starve than to do a dead end job.

In some places you can have both