
Servants Without Masters - overwhelm
https://write.as/harold-lee/servants-without-masters
======
empath75
> It made me intensely uncomfortable to have someone hanging around just to
> attend to my needs, and tell them to do menial chores for me.

>And yet, when I thought about it, I realized that I had no problem with
janitors or baristas doing dirty work for me.

In order for the economics of having a personal servant to work out, there
needs to be a fairly grotesque level of income inequality, driven by high
levels of societal and legal inequality. That isn’t the case when ‘being
served’ by waitstaff or a barista, who can both walk across the street and
afford the same level of service you got from them at a different
establishment.

~~~
Swizec
Funny, a personal servant makes us uneasy, but a personal/executive assistant
does not. What’s the difference? They’re both employees and both are being
paid to do tasks that need to get done but aren’t worth their boss’s time.

Is it the extra indirection of the salary coming from company instead of
personal coffers that does it? What if the person hiring the assistant has
100% ownership of the company like in the case of a small business?

~~~
DoreenMichele
When I had a corporate job, the _administrative assistant_ to the big boss in
my department had real power as de facto gatekeeper and seemed to be quite
well compensated.

It's a role that would have been called _secretary_ at one time. The title
change was intended to show more respect and try ditch some historical social
baggage for such jobs.

~~~
adrianratnapala
Which is an example of the the euphemism treadmill. Secretary means secret-
keeper and has built into it connotations at least of trust and often of
power. Which is why top officials of many great ministries ion are called
_secretaries_.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7Xgd7Cjm98](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7Xgd7Cjm98)

~~~
DoreenMichele
Yeah, that had occured to me. It just didn't really seem pertinent to this
particular discussion. It struck me as a tangent, so I opted to not get into
it.

~~~
adrianratnapala
Fair enough.

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temporaryvector
I mostly agree with this description of the current western institutions, but
I don't agree with the conclusion he came to as to why we accept these
institutions.

The same way he points out that a human master can disregard their incentives
in the interest of their subordinates, they can just as well disregard the
interests of their subordinates and even their own incentives for some kind of
personal enjoyment.

I don't think we picked the greater or the lesser of two evils, I think we
picked the more consistent of two evils. If it were possible to plot "good"
and "evil" on an axis, and if we were to plot to plot "human masters" and
"uncaring system" on this axis, we'd see two bell curves. Maybe the mean of
the "uncaring system" is farther towards the "evil" end of the axis, but the
curve would have a very sharp peak, while the "human masters" bell curve would
be a lot shallower, with a lot of variance.

I think we chose the systems we have now, or more correctly, the systems we
have now are the way they are (nobody consciously chose them) because we as a
society prefer things predictably kinda bad, rather than having the
possibility of things being really bad or really good, this is made even worse
when the outcome is decided by the whims of a person and not pure chance. At
least when the system is predictable, we can plan around the bad parts, and
introduce a system of checks and balances in an attempt to shift the mean more
towards the "good" side. A benevolent dictator might be better than the best
democracy, but a malevolent dictator is way worse than the worst democracy,
for the majority of the people at least.

~~~
x3haloed
Yes. Using a system takes partially out of the equation, which is more fair,
especially in cases where huge numbers of the involved.

~~~
x3haloed
Sorry, it takes 'partiality' out.

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krick
I feel like this is seriously under-appreciated. I never figured to frame this
into servant/master terms, but the depersonalization of human relations in the
West (especially USA) is something that bothers me for a long time now. And
it's not only not seeing a human behind a servant/master role, it is
deliberate tendency to replace humans with institutions, up to the point of
refusing to recognize personal qualities behind a institutional label, even in
cases where the quality in question is obviously personal. I mean, it's
considered normal to refuse to see, say, judge, as a person with personal
qualities and human flaws, who personally makes a decision about another
human's life. American society is educated to treat judge as a judge, period.
And contrary to what one may think, this is not something special to judges
due to their "special" role in society, but a general tendency to de-
personalize and outsource to a institution anything of consequence in society.
You should not do anything outside of your profession, please hire a
specialist. You should not try and fix your kitchen sink, a plumber will do it
better. You should not try to protect yourself, there is the police to take
care of you. You should not try to decide if anything is right or wrong,
there's a judge to do that. You should not have an opinion, there are
journalists or maybe politicians to do it for you, you just chose your side
and mind your business.

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whatshisface
The faceless interaction with a Starbucks worker is associated with their
freedom to switch between different worksites. In a culture where you have to
have a personal relationship with your servants, they have less power to
engage in the market. Yes, they're interchangeable to you and to Starbucks,
but Starbucks and you are interchangeable to them.

Anyone who works in the service industry can tell you that their customers are
terrible. Could you imagine how bad it would be if the proverbial lady
demanding to speak to the manager _was_ the manager?

~~~
0815test
It's also associated with the freedom to specialize in an _industry_ , and not
just in relationship-specific capital. A Starbucks barista is far more
comfortable and effective at making coffee than a jack-of-all-trades personal
servant would be, and can also avail herself of expensive machinery to that
purpose - so "depersonalization" (which is literally unavoidable - a barista
_cannot_ possibly know her customers socially the way we expect of a servant!)
comes with very real benefits.

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awillen
I definitely understand the desire to be served by people you don't have any
kind of a personal relationship with, but I don't think it's inherently
terrible. I like to keep my business/transactional and personal relationships
separate as much as possible.

Purely transactional relationships have clearly defined rules - I pick my food
on DoorDash's app, someone delivers it, I pay and tip. Done. Once the
relationship becomes personal, any request becomes more complicated than just
a transaction. This definitely applies at work - it's weird that I have to
build up and use social capital within an organization in order to get things
done. It's an inefficient system of distributing resources (charming/friendly
people get what they need, instead of everyone optimizing for what's best for
the business), and if I don't have the social capital, it can be uncomfortable
to ask for the things I need to do my job.

I think there's something to be said for a hard separation of the personal and
professional/transactional, though obviously that total separation isn't
possible in real life.

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DoreenMichele
_It’s not obvious, then, why “inverse Confucianism” has taken hold._

Probably at least in part because humans tend to actively reinforce pecking
order. Institutions will let you escape it.

Humans will actively seek to put you back in your "place" and maintain the
status quo where they are socially superior to you.

If you graduate college and get a better job, the college is okay with that.
So is society, so long as you pay your student loans.

But mentors, masters, etc want to remain _above_ you, even if they have to
tear you down to keep their superior position. And it's really poisonous,
insidious stuff to deal with.

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tlb
The reason hierarchical relationships always seem to exist in the context of
an organization, is that that's why civilization invented organizations in the
first place. To mediate and de-personalize power.

To get large-scale things done in the world, some people need to make plans
and other people need to carry them out. And the last 5000 years of
civilization has been an exercise in defining exactly how people are expected
to do that.

In a fully developed civilization (which we are, at least, approaching) power
dynamics between people are always contained in an institutional framework
with explicit limits and rights. Otherwise, power tends to get abused.

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christiansakai
I was born in Indonesia. In here most (if not all) of middle class in big
cities have live in servants. The servants came from rural areas of the
country where opportunity to work is low. Some of their families in rural
areas might have a small land, but still not enough to be used as a farm.

There are some horror stories on masters abusing their servants, but my family
treated our live in servants well though we are not by any means rich. Most of
the work for the servants are light such as cooking, washing clothes, watering
plants, helping moms taking care of the babies, etc, and they can do whatever
they want, watch TV in their own room or in our lounge, etc.

Inequality? Sure. That is one thing that I can't fix. But one thing for sure
that I know. Most of our servants like working with us, and actually do not
want to choose other jobs or work for other families despite higher pay.
Average tenure of our servants were about 4 - 5 years. Our longest servant has
been with us before before I was born (I am 32).

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bjornsing
How anybody can think that some form of servitude under a human master is more
"likely to be human-friendly" is just beyond me... If this guy wants to be
somebody's property, and given a "flogging for good measure" then by all
means, but stay the hell away from me.

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lordleft
'What individualism has bought us is not the end of servitude, but merely the
cloaking of masters.'

A really provocative and intriguing article. I'm not sure if I agree with all
of it, but I do notice that some Americans are myopic to any description of
freedom that cannot be expressed as an arrangement between two supposedly free
economic actors. For example, some Americans are particularly resistant to
describing the relationship between a boss and his or her subordinates as
inequitable and potentially exploitative, even though a boss can sometimes
exert more control over an employee's life than the state can.

~~~
whatshisface
You can change your boss, unless there's something seriously wrong with the
local labor market. Your boss' highest threat? They can change you. Unless you
are a farmhand in the middle of the Great Depression that's pretty fair.

~~~
frgtpsswrdlame
The ability to move between lots of autocratic states wouldn't be seen as
freedom. The most probable result of your decision to move around in the local
labor market is that you just end up under another boss who restricts your
freedom.

~~~
whatshisface
I'm not sure how you would enforce freedom of movement if every country in the
world was autocratic, but if that happened somehow then one of the countries
could simply become free and take all of the best people from every other
country. Sure if every employer was wordlessly conspiring to torture their
employees for no reason things would be pretty bad, but that's not what
happens.

~~~
newen
You're making it sound a lot nicer than it actually is. Few issues are: you
don't know if you're going to get a good boss before accepting the job, your
boss can change attitude with no notice, power dynamics are impossible to
ignore, your boss can fire you for no reason much of the the US, very
difficult to know company culture without knowing insiders, you get fired and
your life becomes significantly more difficult while your employer is mildly
inconvenienced.

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mwerty
Weird conclusion. The best managers/masters tend to be predictable.
Institutions by their nature have norms that enforce this. It's not even close
to the same thing.

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CryptoPunk
Institutions, rather than individuals, as masters, makes the master - servant
relationship far more consensual. You choose to serve others in the context of
a job, and when that job's over, they no longer have any power over you.

A personal master servant relationship carries over to places where the
servant may not consent to. It's a personal relationship, meaning it
encompasses your entire person. It's far harder shed that relationship than it
is a job.

Making the master role institutional, and one where the person filling it is
interchangeable, also means that it's meritocratic. Anyone can fill the
master's role, because it's ultimately about how useful they can be in that
role (e.g. by spending more money), rather than about them having a personal
status of 'master', which they need not contribute value to maintain.

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gfody
> we’ve settled on the greater of the two evils

in retrospect it'll've been the smoothest option for our eventual transition
to submitting to algorithm/machine bosses. first get comfortable submitting to
humans acting like machines, then replace them with machines.

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killjoywashere
> this is really a case of Nietzschean slave morality run amok. Individualism
> isn’t about freedom so much as it is envy of the powerful and dominant. We
> therefore have a strong instinct to pull down anyone who’s in a position of
> personal authority, but this instinct doesn’t care about domination that
> doesn’t appear to be done by a human-shaped agent.

This is also known as the crab mentality. If you try to pull just one crab out
of a pot, the others will grab on mercilessly, until the first crab's legs are
ripped off.

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lazylizard
Um. Bullying poor neighbors is how we solve elder n childcare. Bullying
Bangladesh n India is how we solve hard manual labor. How does the author
imagine singapore maintain all that greenery? Or how is the place kept clean?
Or how can the people below median income afford to have kids(do u know how
much a flat with 2 bedrooms cost here?)..or pay for their parents' healthcare?

~~~
lazylizard
Without the maids. Retirement in singapore probably generally wouldn't work.
Elder care is basically a combination of legal threats to the next generation
to financially support their parents, maids and low living costs(in terms of
public healthcare, food and transport).

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jacknews
People prefer the rule of law to the rule of a man

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PavlovsCat
> Individualism isn’t about freedom so much as it is envy of the powerful and
> dominant

How does individualism, "the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or
social outlook that emphasizes the moral worth of the individual", imply envy?
That's just a weird non-sequitur assertion.

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x3haloed
I feel Ike the feeling of being served on our society has everything to do
with economic equality. There are professions that pay more or less, and
people with professions that pay more are able to afford services that people
with lesser paying professions can provide. Using words like "profession" and
"service" tend to imply that these are normal, usual things that happen in
"free" societies, a.k.a. capitalistic societies. If I'm not mistaken, this is
essentially the exploitation of the working class that Marx was talking about.

If everyone earned the same living, then there would be very little serving
happening, because everyone's time is effectively worth the same amount, and
thus it wouldn't make sense to give away all your money to people to perform
services for you that you could have done yourself if you didn't have a job.

The reason that people serve other people in our society is that we're
unequal, and there are socio-economic reasons for that. I believe it has more
to do with economic inequality than Nietzchean slave morality.

~~~
rahimnathwani
"If everyone earned the same living, then there would be very little serving
happening"

So, if lawyers and surgeons' compensation were similar, lawyers would do their
own operations, and surgeons would represent themselves in court?

You seem to be arguing that, if all specialisations have equal market value,
then there are no/few gains from specialisation.

~~~
x3haloed
No. And that’s a good point. But:

1\. I don’t think that fits into the category of servitude that the other was
talking about. 2\. Why would one put in the effort required to go through
specialized school and certification processes if there wasn’t a huge payout
waiting for them? I think only the most passionate would bother.

~~~
rahimnathwani
Re #1, you're probably right, they were probably talking about serving where
the one doing the serving is less well off that the customer. But in a world
where everyone earns the same, this category by definition doesn't exist. So
it's not a meaningful point.

I may be wrong about what they meant, in which case the preceding paragraph
may be attacking a straw man.

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detcader
I like the job Nathan Robinson did on this topic with his essay "Service With
A Smile" at Current Affairs:

> In every restaurant, except a buffet (and I am not pro-buffet), I feel like
> an aristocrat who pays someone to put on his clothes for him. I know I can
> supposedly mitigate this by being polite and tipping well. But it’s the
> whole concept of paying someone to feed me that I don’t like. Yes,
> obviously, it’s better if I pay someone well than if I pay them badly, and
> better to be appreciative than abusive. It doesn’t make any more of a
> difference to my gut reaction, though, any more than it would if I found out
> that the millionaire who pays a valet to tie his cravats for him is
> extremely generous in compensating said valet.

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adamsea
If you smile and ask the barista how their day is, then the interaction isn’t
faceless.

~~~
pasabagi
Then they smile, and say 'great, thankyou!', except actually their dog died
the other day, and they're just saying that because their manager is right
there, and the company policy is 'service with a smile'.

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ReedJessen
save this.

