The reason simply is late stage capitalism, there's not enough upside anymore, so why bother do a good job? That's how I explain it. I noticed that as well with almost all employees, there was a shift. And it feels like it's got to do with misaligned incentives. Why bother working yourself stupid if you'll never own a house if you don't become a slave to the loan? There's no upwards movement/middle class anymore.
I don't want to put quite that fine a point on it, but generally I agree. I think people see that wages have been stagnant for a long time and spending power has gone down. Working harder gives them marginal, if any, life improvement. I'm reminded of the Lithuanian immigrant character Jurgis Rudkus from Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle", whose response to continual setbacks was "I will work harder", only to ultimately be ground down and devoured by a job and life circumstances that could never be sated no matter how hard he worked.
My employer has no bonus system whatsoever for regular employees so even if I did put in extra effort and the company made more profits, all of that would go into management's pockets.
And as you said, even if I miraculously made 20% more, I still wouldn't be able to afford a house.
So why bother? Of all the things I can do with my energy, making management richer is very much not a priority.
Yup, and even that is way harder nowadays. I feel like the VC backed startup thing is dead and there are no big moonshots anymore from underdogs having a big idea.
Everything capitalism, especially of the American variation, promised us isn't being delivered anymore. The numbers are pretty clear, so I don't understand how anyone in their right mind can argue against that.
It's precisely because of the VC backup startup thing that capitalism isn't delivering. VC startups only exist if there's a bunch of people with a lot of money who don't care about anything except making more money. What we need is lots of businesses succeeding on a small scale rather than failing on a small scale while burning VC cash in the hope that they can become big enough to succeed.
I agree with this. It's a slight shift in perspective from the article: it's not just "Who cares" but "Nothing matters". It's not so much about people not caring as about people feeling that caring is pointless because everything that happens is outside their control. Even quite local dimensions of life that used to be more controllable are becoming corrupted by giant corporations, rampaging politicians, etc.
In this environment, caring becomes not just "not worth it" but can be actually detrimental, as it opens you up to a lot of pain. To pick a random banal example, if you care what you eat, you'll be disappointed when the local tasty restaurant is replace by a McDonald's, but if you don't, you won't.
I have to add that the author's exhortation at the end still strikes me as a bit tone-deaf. There are plenty of people who want to care, and even still do care, about things. We don't need to tell people to care. What we need to do is take a sledgehammer to everything and everyone that makes not-caring the easier choice.
