this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2026
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Without being a capitalism apologist, I opted into being employed after years of being self-employed or a freelance contractors. I don't have to do the admin and work gets delivered to me on a platter. The pay isn't as good as it could be but I also don't have to worry about taking time off for illness and I get holiday time too.
Crucially though, I opted into it. It wasn't my only option.
As a current freelancer, it’s still bullshit. I’m supposedly my own boss, but really I have like 10 bosses that like to call me without paying me.
The only real benefit is that I can say “I’m busy” when what I really mean is that I’m planning a day to sit on the couch in my gonch doing fuuuuuuuck all.
Division of labor and specialization is generally just more efficient. In our society, though, it also entails heightened exploitation and alienation. Hopefully we can eventually reconcile the contradiction.
Same here. I tolerate doing the work, sometimes even happy to do it, but the overhead, negotiation, paperwork, accounting, taxes, support, etc, is the absolute worst. Now I can turn off my phone on weekends and holidays while the pay check keeps coming in.
You didn’t opt in to capitalism because your were never out of it. You just slightly tweaked your class relations within capitalism. You went from nearly-proletarian-level petit bourgeois to fully proletarian.