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This is a common complaint by individuals who generally lack empathy and who don't believe luck has much effect in life, and it is used as an excuse to justify bad corporate behavior and the cutting of social safety nets. Not surprisingly, this belief is grounded in faulty logic, which I will explore in detail.
Failure 1 - Society is not a meritocracy with enough jobs and training for everyone: This theory of job placement is based upon the failed assumption that one can "earn" a job in all circumstances. For this reason, they believe that no one "owes you a job," but once you have the skills, you will be employed. This failed line of reasoning only works in a world where there are clearly enough jobs for everyone - so the only thing holding a person back is their own abilities, where on-the-job training is common so people can gain new skills as needed, and where corporations only hire people based upon skill, not based upon: connections, exploitation of cheap labor, age, race, etc. In short, it doesn't work in the real world.
Failure 2 - Any belief derived from the Just World Fallacy is also a failure: This "nobody owes you anything" belief is clearly derived from the Just World Fallacy and ties into the notion of the "entirely self-made man." The Just World belief system dictates that "everyone gets what they deserve in life" - which then leads to the corollary, "people who get bad things in life deserve it." This leads to various groundless proclamations and spewing of hatred such as all unemployed people are "lazy," "stupid," "have no skills" and so on. As with the rest of this system of beliefs, the facts don't support it, but people who buy into such notions do so to bolster their egos and convince themselves that they are the "entirely self-made man" and thus have "earned" everything they've obtained in life... for that reason, facts are of little interest to them since their self worth is tied up in ignoring the facts.
Failure 3 - Failure to recognize payment into the system - people buy jobs with education and experience. While one can say that nobody "owes" anyone anything, it is disingenuous to pretend that the time and effort a person puts into their education and career should count for nothing. People don't spend tens of thousands of dollar on college educations and work for years or decades in their field for fun - they do it to earn money through a job, So, proclaiming that none of that is worth anything is basically invalidating a person's payment into the system by denying them what they are purchasing - a job. In many ways, it wouldn't be different than taking the check a customer signs for a car and then refusing to deliver the car since "nobody owes you a car." Yes, that's technically true - nobody "owes you a car"... except you paid for it... just like all the people out of work paid for a job with an education and years of hard work and experience.
Summary: In short, pay no heed to the people who spout off nonsense about "nobody owing you anything" since they want a society where people pay up front and may get nothing for their efforts. Not one of them has any idea how such a dystopian society will function, particularly one with run-away poverty and corporate rule,and they really don't care provided it doesn't affect them, of course!
Last edited by Rambler123; 03-11-2014 at 07:01 PM..
There's a popular conservative/libertarian narrative that holds that the job market is a meritocracy, so that anyone who can't get a job must not deserve one. People who complain about their job prospects are therefore nothing but a bunch of whiners. People who go around saying these things are basically Social Darwinists who have no empathy for others and no understanding of how the job market actually works.
This. Too many people lack empathy and don't realize how tough things really are.
Speaking of owing. My director and I recently hired someone for a new position, a new grad. Being I was the one who wrote the job posting, I encouraged new grads to apply for the position. We hired someone quickly because we did not have much time to fill the position. If I have it correct, we received eight applications and three job seekers sent them in quickly enough for interviewing the first week the ad went up. We interviewed all three and accepted the new grad.
I contacted two of the interviewees not accepted and all those who applied, and even had conversations with some of them about our profession. Why did I do this? Because morally speaking, I feel that I owe fellow decent professionals and HUMAN BEINGS good treatment, especially when some of them are desperately trying to find work or even start their careers!
Of the three people we interviewed, all we good, two are currently employed and obviously know how to do their jobs well, and the one we accepted is a recent grad who was trying to find her first job in her profession. So, being that we couldn't hire all three and we could only pick one, I chose to hire the new grad because the other two were working, had some experience, and because I morally felt that I "OWED" a noob a fair shot, even though it inconvenienced ME to train her! People said to me stuff like, "Oh, someone with no experience. You're gonna have to train her; that's more work on your plate."
Another person said, "She has no experience. That's rough." I replied, "Didn't YOU at one time have no experience? You had to be hired to get the experience, right?! Imagine if no one gave you a shot!" No response from her after that.
Another person said, "She has no experience. That's rough." I replied, "Didn't YOU at one time have no experience? You had to be hired to get the experience, right?! Imagine if no one gave you a shot!" No response from her after that.
Of course. In the minds of the "entirely self-made man" people, they "earned" that first job completely - no lucky breaks involved - and it was purely through their hard work, skills, and so forth that they were hired... with no experience... over other candidates. It's total nonsense - everyone was without experience at one time, and thus somebody had to take a chance on them - but that never matters to the "self-made man" people. They block out any instances where luck mattered and repeat the mantra that they alone earned everything they've obtained in life... and thus those less fortunate are "getting what they deserve."
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cerebrator
Another person said, "She has no experience. That's rough." I replied, "Didn't YOU at one time have no experience? You had to be hired to get the experience, right?! Imagine if no one gave you a shot!" No response from her after that.
Well, no, I volunteered and interned for years to get the experience.
Speaking of owing. My director and I recently hired someone for a new position, a new grad. Being I was the one who wrote the job posting, I encouraged new grads to apply for the position. We hired someone quickly because we did not have much time to fill the position. If I have it correct, we received eight applications and three job seekers sent them in quickly enough for interviewing the first week the ad went up. We interviewed all three and accepted the new grad.
I contacted two of the interviewees not accepted and all those who applied, and even had conversations with some of them about our profession. Why did I do this? Because morally speaking, I feel that I owe fellow decent professionals and HUMAN BEINGS good treatment, especially when some of them are desperately trying to find work or even start their careers!
Of the three people we interviewed, all we good, two are currently employed and obviously know how to do their jobs well, and the one we accepted is a recent grad who was trying to find her first job in her profession. So, being that we couldn't hire all three and we could only pick one, I chose to hire the new grad because the other two were working, had some experience, and because I morally felt that I "OWED" a noob a fair shot, even though it inconvenienced ME to train her! People said to me stuff like, "Oh, someone with no experience. You're gonna have to train her; that's more work on your plate."
Another person said, "She has no experience. That's rough." I replied, "Didn't YOU at one time have no experience? You had to be hired to get the experience, right?! Imagine if no one gave you a shot!" No response from her after that.
You sound like an awesome human being. One day the person you train and help may be in a position to help you.
So the basic idea of this thread is that thinking that no one owes anyone a job is due to a sense of entitlement?
Personally I would think it's just the opposite. Anyone who thinks that they're owed a job is a self-entitled child.
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