Livable4All

The Status Syndrome

- why people abuse service workers and don’t want a boring basic income

by C.A. L’Hirondelle - May 22, 2012

This is dedicated to all the frontline people who provide low-status low-pay service to others and to those who endure daily insults and joy-killing indignities as part of their job. And it is written to encourage more people to read and examine the ideas of the book Somebodies and Nobodies by Robert W. Fuller.  

“The other day I had just closed my teller wicket and put up a closed sign when this lady walks up without being called. She is talking on her cell phone and doesn’t even make eye contact or notice that I just closed my section and proceeds to put her card in and pull out her wallet. I finally get her attention by saying‘sorry to interrupt your phone call but I’ve just closed this computer down’.
In an effort to be nice, I offered to help her down at the next computer even though I was on my break. She then rolls her eyes at me and let’s out a big annoyed ‘sigh’ - as if showing what an inconvenience I am causing her and continues to talk on her cell phone. 
Once we’re at the next computer she puts her card in and continues to be oblivious to the fact that I’m waiting for her to get off her phone and tell me what she needs — despite that we are clearly very busy and there is a large line up of people waiting behind her. I say ‘excuse me miss’ in a very polite way and she responds with ‘what!!?’ I explain that I don’t know what she needs and she finally says ‘ya, give me $20 and pay this bill’ sounding very annoyed that I asked what she needed —as if I should have known, or how dare I interrupt her conversation— and goes back to talking on the phone. I finish the transaction and give her the cash and she then walks away without a good-bye or thank you or at the very least, eye contact. 
I felt like I was being treated like a lesser human being and for the rest of the day I fantasized about smacking that cell phone off her face.” — anonymous bank teller in a large Canadian city, 2009.

STATUS SYNDROME AS PROPAGANDA

It is no secret there is growing income inequality in the world. And part of the propaganda perpetuating income inequality is the idea that income is determined by people’s individual qualities, and not the social advantage they happened to be born into, or they luck they’ve had buying or selling land (or some other commodity) at the right moment. People are encouraged to believe they are ‘Somebodies’* because they are more intelligent, harder working, better with money, or morally superior to others.

“Our current standing is measured by the rungs below and above us.” - Robert W. Fuller, *Somebodies and Nobodies, 2004

SOCIAL STATUS AS AN ADDICTION

The Status Syndrome makes people addicted to their social status — they become dependent on external validation for their imagined or actual status, and if they lose status (real or imagined) they become angry and resentful. “I’m a Somebody”, “I used to be a Somebody” or “I should be a Somebody” is the lament.

This is where we get the terrible phenomenon of people abusing service workers: retail clerks, bank tellers, café, bar, and restaurant workers. The Status Syndrome leads people to seek affirmation that they have a higher status than others and service workers make easy targets.

The dynamic of masters and serfs, of nobles and servants, still thrives in the frontline retail service sector.

STATUS SYNDROME AS ABUSE

The abuse can be subtle —treating the service workers like non-people— to overtly insulting, demanding or abusive behavior. The bad behavior flourishes as businesses fear losing customers and workers fear losing their jobs (or getting bad references).

Often there is also an unacknowledged age war. Unwise older people who cling to expectations from former glory days of being a ‘A Somebody’, and because they have regrets, pain and sadness at being at the end of their lives, may resent the youth —especially the cheery youth— of those serving them. I have twice witnessed the discomfort some people feel if they happen upon low status workers having fun on the job - they lash out with a kill-joy comment to remind the lower-downs of their inferior place in the world.

And if you feel some such tendency to engage in such petty behavior, stuff it back up where it came from, take a deep breath, and reflect on why you are being triggered.  

So the service industry becomes a battle zone, the site of many tiny skirmishes. Often this can take the form of petty complaints: Too hot, too cold, too sweet, too bitter, too stale, too slow, too unfriendly, too this, too that, ad infinitum… a medieval reenactment of nobles and serfs.

HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT AND CORPORATE DUPES

Unlike family members, service workers cannot talk back or walk away from someone treating them rudely; they are slaves to economics of the times. High unemployment creates conditions for all these petty tryannies. Many people desperately chasing fewer jobs creates ripe conditions for compliance and exploitation. If service workers weren’t afraid of losing their jobs, abusive customers (and bosses) would be enticed to modify their behaviour.

To further complicate matters, there are also large powerful corporations who abuse both employees and customers. Some employees become melded to the status of their corporation, become loyal corporate dupes, abuse customers on their employers behalf, and then find out too late that their beloved corporation will not hesitate to spit them out when they have no further use for them.

STATUS DELUSIONS AS BARRIER TO ECONOMIC JUSTICE

The Status Syndrome is also a psychological reason why some people don’t support a guaranteed income. People would rather live under the false hope of being ‘A Somebody’ (and ignore the harm they would cause) than have the opportunity to live a happy Nobody life.

“When we accept the nobody within us, we lose the impulse to nobody others. When we identify the somebody inside, we tap into our capacity to make a public contribution.” —Somebodies and Nobodies  

There are even some who get their identity and status from being a ‘radical’ political activist or union member and they oppose the boring adoption of a boring guaranteed income because they are addicted to having an underdog orworker-hero status (or of being a savior to ‘the poor’).

On the flip side are people who berate themselves for being ‘losers’, even though they are caught in a system that requires high unemployment to function.

REAL MEANING VS. FAKE STATUS

It is cause for optimism that there are many people who have avoided the Status Syndrome. Their sense of well-being is not status dependent. If they are externally successful, they have a sense of luck and gratefulness. Many people (both with and without status) are driven by a bigger purpose. Often this involves creating some form of art, inventing things to help others, providing unpaid care, or working to create positive social change…   regardless of whether they get any appreciation or financial reward. They get value from doing, not from ‘having’. (See Eric Fromm’s To Have or To Be.) 

But those in the ‘passionate but poor’ category have to put up with being put down by those who only view success through a lense of status. The intrinsically motivated will share something about their passion and will be met with the question: “But did you make any money from that?” There is sometimes a high price to pay for being internally motivated: social stigma, isolation and poverty. Naturally getting some kind of acceptance for one’s art is preferable to being poor and ostracized.

The Status Syndrome is entrenched but it has no future it doesn’t make anyone happy except sadists. It also creates a pressure cooker situation with unpredictable outcomes.

“The past is filled with examples of revolts and revolutions through which nobodies have managed to curtail the prerogatives of the somebodies.” —Somebodies and Nobodies

“A rank-based strategy aimed at equalizing dignity stands in sharp contrast to the class-based Marxist strategy aimed at equalizing wealth. In practice, communism merely created a new elite, which arrogated wealth to itself. A rank-based strategy anticipates rather the redistribution of recognition and respect in the wake of a dispelled somebody mystique.” — Somebodies and Nobodies

Further reading: 
The Status Seekers
The Theory of the Leisure Class
Somebodies and Nobodies
To Have or To Be

This is a series of articles on guaranteed income, redefining work and productivity. See also:

Failsafe Humanity

Letters to LIFE 
reprinted with permission

FailSafe Humanity 
by Sharon Lee Robertson - April 2005

For the past year or so I have been working on a book with the working title of “FailSafe Humanity”. The basic assumption of the book is that 1st & 2nd world nations may well be facing a future characterised by severe economic and therefore social dislocation resulting from any one of several ‘causes’ or combination of ‘causes’.

These ‘causes’ include: climate change and effects on agriculture and water supplies; problems with oil supply, financial chaos, war and the political environment that supports it.

One basic historical reference is the Great Depression in the United States following the stockmarket crash and the withdrawal of ‘cashflow’ from society. I use it as an example as it is one in which all the human misery that resulted from ‘the crash’ derived from the simple lack of ‘cashflow’ within the society. All the factories, all the raw resources, all the human skills were intact.

So, logically, the misery was occasioned by nothing more than hubris and stupidity on the part of a small section of the elites - the misery was not the result of some ‘act of God’ like flood or the potato famine in Ireland - no - it was the product of social organisation including it’s ‘organising narrative’.

It is my feeling and judgement that something similar to the Great Depression may well confront us within the next 10-30 years. As a ‘failsafe provision’, I suggest in my book that it be written into Law that if certain ‘trigger’ events take place, that there should be an immediate creation and distribution of what is essentially a ‘basic income’ to every person living within the domestic territory governed by a national government.

In effect, it shifts the ‘value base’ of the currency in circulation from a ‘capital goods’ basis to a ‘social capital’ basis so that it is, in effect, a ‘free money’ - at least from the point of view of ‘the worker’! The purpose of such a distribution would be to conserve as much of the basic social organisation of production and distribution of essential goods and services as might be possible.

Sometimes some people say things like welfare payments being like ‘money down the toilet’ - but nothing could be further from the truth! Welfare payments where they are made are, in effect, ‘transfer’ payments. Governments make the payments to individuals out of tax revenue (received from businesses and the workers), but the individuals then ‘transfer’ that money back to the larger community: rents, food, power, schools, transport, etc. which then forms part of the ‘income’ of the recipient and helps pay for the provision of the service, whatever it might be.

A fair proportion of that ‘transfer’ income also goes to the banks in the form of ‘interest’. If the financial institutions collapse for whatever reason, then in effect the whole system is at risk of collapse UNNECESSARILY! Maintenance of society wide ‘cashflow’ sufficient to sustain the lives of individuals has to be a key ‘failsafe provision’.

It is not ‘money’ that creates anything real - it is the investment of the time and energy of the people that ‘creates’ everything real. We have all been ‘conditioned’ to the value of money, psychologically. That has to change. Most Basic Income groups seem - still - to assume that any ‘basic income’ has to be derived from some form of re-distribution of taxation revenues. But should those revenues diminish significantly…? Doomed to failure, sooner or later. Best bite the revolutionary bullet of ‘overturning the tables of the moneychangers’.

“FailSafe” is sort of a ‘backdoor’ approach such a revolutionary ‘overturning’ - by posing the possibility in a hypothetical way in an ‘if/the’ context. Except, of course, the context isn’t all that ‘hypothetical’.

If ‘Point A’ is the present, and ‘Point B’ is some future point in time, with transit between being rather difficult, it seems to me that the kind of ‘basic income’ I suggest might - at least- ‘buy some time’, that is - maintain the continuity of life(time) through the difficult times.

I’d be interested in ‘talking’ to anyone who thinks along the same lines?. So far, I’m the only one I know who thinks as I do.

***

Note: there is no longer a working address for Sharon Lee Robinson, only a mailing address from 2005 — PO Box 36, Koolunga SA 5464, Australia.

Reflections on 2002 BC fight back coalitions: the great divide

Written in 2002 BC, Canada after the newly elected Liberals (neo-liberal or neo-conservative) came to power and began making large budget cuts. 

author anonymous for now 

The Great Divide (alt title, Towards a Principled Resistance)

Many of coalition meetings with community groups, grassroots activists and union members meetings were held around after the Liberals were elected in 2002 that emphasized “unity” and “solidarity” but without ever defining what this would mean; and what we were uniting for.

Finding a basis of unity might involve three things: agreement on a problem or problems; why there is a problem; what are some solutions. 

At the coalition meetings the unity was only found in uniting against cuts and the party in power: some only wanted to get rid of the BC Liberals and get the NDP in power; some were only concerned about decimation of union jobs; or higher tuition fees; or environmental degradation; and a few who brought up draconian cuts to welfare.

But welfare cuts were regarded as just one of many issues; poverty was not seen as a broad issue underlying the other issues. The role of the unions is to protect their members from poverty and to improve their wages and working conditions. Unions whether they like to admit it or not are in fact anti-poverty organizations.

As public services are cut, those who have money will not be directly affected. The less money you have the more you are impacted and vice versa. And regarding the role of poverty on the environment — ecological devastation can be driven by economic desperation.

Poverty is not just one of many issues; it is a pivotal, foundational issue that affects over half the world’s population and is the biggest threat to people’s health and well-being. Yet most people at these coalitions did not see poverty as a priority issue. Some specifically said that it would not generate support from the public.

There was no concept in using the term solidarity that people on the edge of the economic cliff would be pushed off first. The stress of resisting the constant increasing pressure will become too much for some, especially those who are isolated. This was rarely acknowledged in broad based coalitions and those who did talk about the urgency ended up alienating others.

So people begin to self-censor; they don’t want to be considered difficult. But to speak urgently and not have that reflected back in any way is disheartening to say the least.

Imagine running for help to tell others that someone is stuck in a burning building. You run to a social justice meeting and everyone seems concerned but then it gets ‘tabled’ to the next meeting. Or you tell poverty researchers and they decide to study the building to see how long it takes for it to burn and how loudly the person trapped inside is screaming. Or counselors show up to ask the person how they are feeling about being roasted alive. Or a job club coach shows up and scolds the person for not changing their bad attitude and that there are lots of non-advertised ‘hidden’ ways out of the building. Or some charity workers will show up to throw some bottles of water into the burning building so the person can have a drink before they die. 

Coalitions dynamics mirror society dynamics. The same measuring sticks are used to determine the status of participants; more money and resources have more say than those with low status and low resources. 

For example people often voiced worry about offending union leadership or the middle class of the general public. However, nobody worried about offending the poor or unemployed. 

Yet to have an broad understanding of the problems society faces, as well as why and how these problems arose, we need a bottom up analysis that includes everybody. Deeper discussions at these coalitions were avoided because of how quickly things would break apart as the depth of the divide was revealed. So divisions just simmered below the surface.

Placing poverty as just one of the many issues denies the primacy of need. No one can survive without each day getting food, sleep and warmth. Saying poverty is just one of many issues denies that there is a baseline of basic needs. 

An Atlanta Labour Council president (Stewart Acuff Labour Studies Journal, Spring 2000) identified implications of lack of unity: “When we as a labor movement refuse to confront injustice, we lose our moral authority to lead…”

We all gather around the ill patient (our society, our culture, our earth) and never try to find out the cause of the illness. How can we have a cure when we have no diagnosis?

The solutions advocated by the coalitions against cuts could be summed up as economic growth, good jobs, generous public services and charity to fill in the gaps.

Yet advocating economic growth and jobs for all is a death wish. It means we must:

1) Use up finite natural resources in a quest for infinite economic growth. Basically destroy the planet as fast as we can for short term riches.

2) Increase consumption regardless of health or environmental consequences in order to give people jobs (more junk food eaten, means more jobs selling/making junk food. It also means more jobs for the medical/pharmaceutical industry when more people and children get sick. What is good for the economy is bad for our health.

3) Continually drive to replace people with machines to become more profitable, productive for more economic growth. However this means less jobs, while pretending that growth is healthy and that everyone is free to compete for nonexistent jobs.

4) Deny natural resource limits. If everyone in the world were to live like the typical north american suburban ideal, we would need 7 more planets.

5) Recognize that our hard work is killing the planet. The more we develop and produce the faster we destroy resources that took millions of years to form.

To have a principled resistance we must understand the roots of our current economic system. We must understand that:

1) All hoarding systems including our present form of capitalism create poverty. This is because wealth is actual control over natural resources, the products made from natural resources, and people’s labour. These things are all finite. When the few amass wealth, they take it from the many. (See Dirty Secrets by Michael Parenti)

2) Those wielding economic power got their power wealth by taking indigenous people’s land from all over the world.

3) Those wielding economic power got their power and wealth by enclosing the commons and privatising as much as they could get away with. Nature’s free gifts were taken away from common people, fenced off and used for private gain. This not only steals access to natural resources that people need to live, but it then steals people’s lives as they are forced to work for others in order to get the things they need to live. Before they could go directly to the land and get/grow what they needed. Now they must sell their labour at a loss to meet their needs.

4) All economic power is based on getting (taking/using) women’s labour for free. There would be no consumers and no workers and no society if women did not do the work of creating and nurturing the next generation. This is a precondition for all other economic activity. This type of work, and in fact all types of unpaid work of benefit to the community is deemed “non-productive.”

A principled resistance would strive to create a world were everyone can live happy, healthy lives within natures limits.

We would redefine work

We would share equally all necessary work and do away with work for work’s sake.

We would share equally in nature’s free gifts.

We would strive for full lives not full employment. In the short run this would mean implementing/creating a universal income benefit, guaranteed basic income at a livable level (aka basic income, citizen’s income or guaranteed annual income).

***

Anonymous asked: In a post-GLI world, people might do more of all the currently usually unpaid but essential "work" (often considered "women's work") like raising children well, comforting the sick and dying, telling local stories and contemplating the universe, being a good friend, making the world a more interesting and friendly place including by dancing, preserving local history, creating locally useful tools, studying and practicing to be a kinder person, helping make peace, writing good essays, thinking deeply about science and religion, advising people on how to stay well cheaply by eating more vegetables, fruits, and beans, and getting their vitamin D, giving more gifts specific to localities and individuals, and so on. (pdfernhout)

———-

Thanks PDFernhout 

Anonymous asked: I guess the question is not whether people in a GUI-world would stop working. quite the contrary, they would do what they feel urged to do. But perhaps more important is whether these occupations would be occupations also directed to the benefit of the community or in connection with others. Perhaps this is what lies in the background of those admonitions that with a GUI everyone would live in a private hammock. At least, one could argue, current work-organization seems to be also a way to organize collaboration that is not about oneself and one's own interests.

—- Response—-

Note: Guaranteed universal income - GUI or Guaranteed Livable Income GLI - Introduction and list of other names here. 

Anonymous question: Would essential necessary work still get done and organized if there were a guaranteed income?

Many notable thinkers have estimated that 50-80 percent of current economic activity is not actually productive, but is part of a system that needs a lot of busywork and waste to keep it functioning. See J.W. Smith’s The World’s Wasted Wealth. See also Buckminster Fuller’s Critical Path.

“We find all the no-life-support-wealth-producing people going to their 1980 jobs in their cars or buses, spending trillions of dollar’s worth of petroleum daily to get to their no-wealth-producing jobs. It doesn’t take a computer to tell you that it will save both Universe and humanity trillions of dollars a day to pay them handsomely to stay at home.” BF Critical Path

Questions need to be asked to determine what work is essential, what work is necessary and what work is beneficial. 

For example, see the essay: What is Productive? and Questions on Work

See also The Manly Mythology of Work

Responses to “What work would you do in post-GLI world?”

antihuman_c   I would write comedy, fix computer & broadband issues and plant trees (while planning the extinction of mankind obviously) (via Twitter)

_hazrul   The same job I’m doing now. More willing to take risk though. (via Twitter)

trapdinawrpool   I’d burn all the studies on poverty and hunger that I have accumulated but then that would greatly increase the threat of AGW

djhanks   I would read and write and make and dig and think and learn and dance and sing and play and sleep.

perkinstony Youth football coach