Written by Surly1   on Medium.

QuoteThe dearest ambition of a slave is not liberty but to have a slave of his own. ― Sir Richard Francis Burton

Earlier this month, I had lunch with a friend and former colleague. It has been a while since we've seen one another and caught up, and we reminisced about the "good old days," for some time. Over our Pad Thai, he asked what advice I might have given to a 30-year-old version of myself.

I heard myself say,

"I would've told my younger self to not be such a grinder. I used to think that I was what I did, and my worth was as good as what I made. And that even if I weren't the most talented person, I would outwork your ass to succeed. What a crock. All the worship of work does is make other people successful or make money for someone else."

My friend asked me what I wished I had done instead.

"Take risks. Follow dreams. Err on the side of passion. Life is too short to spend it in service to The Man."

I thought back to this exchange when I read an article about Chinese millennials giving up the rat race to 'Lie Flat.'

Tang Ping, or "Lying flat," is a growing movement in China where young people reject traditional Chinese competitiveness to take a more relaxed, less stressed approach. Instead of striving for ever-higher pay and social status, younger workers simply 'lie down and give the bare minimum.' This flies in the face of traditional Chinese values, which embrace hard work, the purchase of apartments or cars, marriage with children — what Chinese society expects a responsible, functional adult to do. But they all seem to reflect one attitude, defined by an op-ed in the South China Morning Post, that represents "a silent protest to unfairness, often the result of structural and institutional factors that can no longer be altered by personal efforts."

Not surprisingly, the Chinese Communist Party is not amused.

Official media took notice shortly after the concept of lying flat became a hit on China's social media. Guangming Daily, a house organ of the Communist Party's propaganda department, published an article criticizing the lifestyle as an avoidance of stress, saying that it "obviously is not beneficial for economic and social development." Guangzhou-based Nanfang Daily, another government mouthpiece, also chastised the attitude as "not only unjustified, but also shameful. Such 'toxic chicken soup' has no value whatsoever."

Predictably the Chinese government has banned "lie down" and "lie flat" as search terms.

Despite criticisms from official media, many Chinese see the trend as a natural reaction to the unrelenting pressure of modern life. And it has caught on in this country as more and more people realize the casino is rigged.

Charles Hugh Smith noted in a recent blog post, Now That the American Dream Is Reserved for the Wealthy, The Smart Crowd Is Opting Out, how a new generation of Americans, recognizing that their American dreams are unattainable, are choosing not to play.

The Smart Crowd is opting out of the conventional workforce's debt-overwork-dead-end-treadmill. What clueless economists, pundits, and politicos don't dare acknowledge is that credentials and hard work are not a ticket to middle-class security; they're a ticket to impossible workloads demanded by global corporations and high-cost lifestyles anchored by student-loan debt, high rents, and out-of-reach real estate.

"Lie-flat" has come here.

People worldwide are spitting out the bit. Restaurant owners post self-pitying signs about "how nobody wants to work anymore" for their $7.25 an hour. Costs rise faster than your income no matter how hard you work, and corporations are ruthlessly extractive despite the bogus PR of "we value our employees," which is so much corporate happy-talk.

As in China, the slaveowners and other arbitrageurs of labor aren't going to take this, uh, lying down, per corporate media mouthpiece Bloomberg:
The labor market is behaving strangely. Quit rates are at their highest level in more than 20 years. Normally that would be welcome news because Americans have been changing jobs less frequently over the years, which was contributing to wage stagnation. Wages often increase when people change jobs. But the high quit rates could signal a less dynamic economy this time. Unemployment is high, and many jobs are unfilled.

There was a time when ambition was admired; now, opting out of a career garners 400,000 likes on Twitter.
Some labor economists speculate that many out-of-work Americans are taking their time to find new, better careers. They've been enabled by high unemployment benefits and stimulus payments that left them flush with savings and nowhere to spend it.

Note to Bloomberg: anyone who thinks that unemployment benefits leave you "flush with savings" should climb down from the penthouse once in a while.

In some ways it's surprising to see Americans rising up against the cult of work... But, unlike Chinese factory workers, people in the developed world have never worked so little. One study estimates that between 1965 and 2003, American men gained an extra six to eight hours of leisure time a week; women gained four to eight. And since 2003, leisure time has increased further.

Fall back in line, you curs...

Unlike the world as seen from the Bloomberg penthouse, and even amidst a degraded and broken educational system, young Americans have the wit to see that the ladders of advancement have been pulled up. That there is simply no point anymore to 60- and 80-hour weeks in pursuit of unattainable goals. And the most personally satisfying move is to opt out.

In his article, CH Smith noted that

Clueless economists are wringing their hands about the labor shortage without looking at the underlying causes, one of which is painfully obvious: the American economy now only works for the top 10%; the American Dream of turning labor into capital is now reserved for the already-wealthy.

My problem is that I remember the society that has been stolen from them. People owned their own homes. They took family vacations every summer. They had a boat or a cottage on a lake. They had great insurance; their kids got new glasses every year. Braces for their teeth. College at a state school was cheap, such that kids could work the summers to pay for it. Even without college, there was good money to be made. Factory jobs with pensions and retirement plans. Show up, punch a clock for 30 years, and you were set.

It's time for us to look more closely at the class divide in our own country, which is actually a matter of state policy set by a property-first legal code and a tax system that transfers wealth from workers into the pockets of the top 10 percent. And a corporate media that inculcates our own hidden beliefs about people thought to be worthless because they earn less, people criminalized by city ordinances for being poor. In America, the only unforgivable crime is to be poor. Or homeless. And if you're born poor, likely you'll stay that way, running the treadmill of "trying to save up a down payment as housing prices accelerate away from the hapless savers."

We are told that our happy future is in an "ownerless society" unburdened by property: note that Uber has no cars, Airbnb has no real estate, Alibaba has no inventory, and Evergrande has no money. And pretty soon neither will you.

And here we are: the country is racist, the economy rigged, the health care system broken, the government captured by corporations and the billionaires who own them, and the corporate media utterly servile. And if you protest the status quo, you are labeled "divisive." Or Facebook puts you in jail for 30 days. Perhaps the most potent weapon of a population held captive is to "lie flat" and fail to cooperate with the profit-generating machine.

Who should be surprised that people are opting out of a loser's choice in a sucker's game? Why play when you can't win? And what will the capitalists do about it?

Lie Flat

I am very happy that I did not take that attitude in my life. 

I have provided for my old age and taken care of my family. 

The winds blew me to where I am in life.  But it was not random.  Raising the sail, and choosing not to lie flat brought me to a safe harbor.  I have myself, and those who gave me opportunity to thank for where I am.  There was some luck.  Mostly it was my deliberate effort.  My choices.

The idea that opportunities now are not what they were has some merit.  But single men have no right to complain.  Opportunities exist for those who look for and make them.  Single men squander their freedom.

If single men complain I'll ask them how much they spend on drinking in a week.  And who lies down?  Able single Men do. 

Single men live exceptional lives and have the luxury to lie down.  Men with ordinary lives (those with obligations) know they are selfish fools if they lie down.

Lie flat is a fucked up attitude but many people can be confused by it..  The thought of not being compensated ENOUGH for you time is truly disturbing.  But for the professional victim, and the entitled, it becomes a cause célèbre.  A professional victim will claim some jobs are below them, though they may be qualified for no others.

Insofar as the money trick wants people people to value work, and the money trick perpetually cheats the worker, I'll agree that not being compensated ENOUGH for your time is disturbing.  But this concern is not in the calculus of those who lie flat. 

I think they just want free shit.

it comes down to this. 

My objection to Lying down assholes is that it is a decision which is 'All About Them'.  Professional victimhood, and as selfish as any heartless employer who thinks workers in poverty is the natural order of things.

What about the collective?


Life not fair?

Then do something about it.  Don't just lie down and complain. 

*  If a dozen people lie down together it is called a strike.  That is something to be admired and something altogether different.

The whine of the entitled is to be despised.  Loafers and the rich are in the same social class.

I sort of did the lie flat thing.  When I quit my last "real" job trucking and went back to just coaching gymnastics, I took a big earnings cut (about 50%) to just work at something I enjoyed and made just enough money to keep a roof over my head and own a couple of good used ICE vehicles, 1 of which I could have lived in once I retired, which was sort of my plan until I ended up a cripple.

You could say I laid flat when I quit banking because I couldn't stand wearing the penguin suit and making gobs of money by selling dogshit in gift boxes to the low hanging fruit while kissing my bosses ass to get the next promotion.  I still worked pretty hard though at my other jobs which I didn't like either for other reasons, so it wasn't truly lying flat.  Coaching gymnastics was easy work just playing with the kids really.  The only thing I didn't like about that job were the owners who wrote my paycheck.  If I had owned my own gym it would have been perfect, but I was very bad with money after college.  Spent all my big paychecks on drugs and pussy.  Lived paycheck to paycheck after quitting the banking biz until I went into trucking.  By the time I quit that and had some savings, I was too damn old to start a gym from scratch.

Anyhow, I never made any great effort to get ahead and be a big success financially.  After my marriage failed, I realized I didn't want a house or expensive car or even a wife.   There was nothing I needed to work hard for.  All I needed was the Maslow basics plus a computer for communications.  It only took making a lower middle class wage to do that.  It made it very easy to move around and live nomadically.  Very low stress once I got rid of the bitch wife.  I could do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted with nobody telling me what to do.  No responsibilities, kids to worry about or wife to make happy.  I got rid of the last of my old debts with bankruptcy prior to going out trucking and never went in debt again.  No bills to worry about.  I was about 40 when I went out in the truck, free and clear of everything, spent 7 years doing that and saved a small nest egg and then coasted coaching gym for another 8 year before breaking my neck and going out on disability at 55.

Last 12 years would have been perfect if my health had been better, but I wouldn't have been able to retire at 55 if I had been healthy.  So that was a tradeoff.  In any case, I wasn't much of an asset to the capitalist class as a worker through my life.  Just skating by was enough for me.

RE                                                       

QuoteJust skating by was enough for me.

RE                                                       

Loafers and the rich are in the same social class but just skating by is not the same thing as doing nothing.  A person can just skate by without feeling entitled, like the world owes them, just because they are a beautiful flower.  Someone just skating by is still contributing.  One still pulls their weight.

It is a garden of Eden sort of thing.  Eat from this tree, but not that one.  And most of what we do in life is indifferent without great consequence, so there are many trees from which to eat.

An example of eating from the wrong tree follows:

Today I arrived at work to learn that there had been a burglary in the store warehouse when the store was busy and everyone was in front at noon yesterday.  $6000.00 in merchandise taken by a crew of three.  One walked through the warehouse and opened our garage door and cameras show them walking the warehouse isles taking shit to a beater car in back. 

Later they came back after the excitement died down because they guessed correctly that there was not a new padlock on our back door yet.  That was about 4 pm and everyone was in front again.  The first time they used our own bolt-cutters to snap the padlock.  The bolt-cutters I have used to break the seal on a semi truck with, the motherfuckers.  It was a good day to have off. 

Now all the doors at work have locks and the garage door is barricaded by the forklift and pallets.  Cameras have the A-holes checking the door at 6 AM last night.

Scary shit because if someone gets in their way someone is going to be hurt.  In the last year the shoplifting problem has been huge, but this burglary is on a whole new level.

Relative to some, loafers and the rich are indeed special flowers.

Quote from: K-Dog on Dec 30, 2023, 11:45 PMToday I arrived at work to learn that there had been a burglary in the store warehouse when the store was busy and everyone was in front at noon yesterday.  $6000.00 in merchandise taken by a crew of three.  One walked through the warehouse and opened our garage door and cameras show them walking the warehouse isles taking shit to a beater car in back.

Not to be picky, but these guys aren't loafers.  They're thieves.  Very bad, small time thieves called Burglars.

The owners of the warehouse are also thieves. They steal by charging customers more than they pay for the stuff they keep there and pay their workers less than their labor is worth.  They pocket the difference as profit and loaf all day counting their money.  They are very good, big time thieves called Capitalists.

I'm not sure of the difference between skating by and loafing.  The CCP ideologues feel the young workers aren't trying hard enough.  They don't try harder because they don't get anything for it.  They work just as much as they have to to get what they need to survive.  That is just what I did.

The unemployment rate among young Chinese is 20%.  That's not because they don't want to work, it's because the only jobs available are really low paid crap jobs that are go nowhere.  So they just work enough to get money for food and a dozen of them share a one bedroom apartment.  They are just skating by, not loafing.

RE