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Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher happened (and to a lesser extent Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney in Canada, Robert Muldoon in NZ, and Malcolm Frazer in Australia). There was a nasty shift to conservative, selfish, reactionary politics in the English-speaking world at the end of the 1970s and in the early 1980s and this cheapened and eroded the foundations of fair society which we are now trying to rebuild.
Put another way, the Overton window shifted way to the right in all those countries in that timeframe and it has generally stayed there. I guess it was a last ditch reaction to the upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s and (at the same time) the oil crisis which led to the resurgence of that brand of conservative politics.
Paul Thomas Anderson portrayed it excellently in “Boogie Nights” - the way that everything went to shit the moment the clock struck midnight to end the 1970s and start the 80s.
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One problem is that there’s a popular idea out there that “basic familiarity with digital imaging software” is the only skill set that really matters when hiring a graphic designer. Which is kind of like assuming that anyone who knows how a paintbrush works is an artist worthy of their own gallery exhibition.
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Totally agree, i’m sure some people overestimate their own skills because they have access to design tools but clients are just as bad with said misconception. Just because technically everyone can do it doesn’t mean that the work should be done for cheap. Do you want it done right and well? Fucking pay your designer.
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Musicians often play for free if they’re at the bottom of a small local bill that doesn’t bring in many customers, and that’s fine, but when they prove they can draw a crowd then it’s time to expect compensation.
However the “pay to play” scam some places use is ridiculous. I know one promoter who demands that smaller acts buy tickets to their own gig, and then have to sell them in order to break even (not sure what I think about that-- seems predatory, but it also forces the band to promote the show, and helps improve the size of the crowd, which makes the show better.)
There are caveats to this maxim “never work for free”, as others have pointed out. Sometimes there are benefits beyond money, but if someone can afford to pay you, and your work is valuable enough that people seek it out, then you should get paid.
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One thing that’s changed since the seventies is Thatcherism (or neoliberalism or plutocracy or whatever name you want to give it; be suspicious that something so distinct and rampant is so resistant to being named). In a single generation, we’ve absorbed the message that working hard for someone is the source of all moral worth, and yet ascribing value to your own labor is evil socialism.
It’s toxic for everyone, but if you’re doing creative work you’re fucked two ways, because not only are you expected to beg for your job daily, you also can’t do anything less than the best work you’re capable of, even if you’re being paid little or nothing to do it.
Of course, there’s also the other kind of working for free, where your friends and family think that because you enjoy doing something for yourself, you’ll enjoy doing it for them. That’ll always happen; you just have to explain to people how it works.
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That might have changed once the student loan bills really started coming due.
If life is truly transactional, then there isn’t truly anything “free”. Your recompense naturally comes from somewhere, even if you don’t know where that is. Another consideration about currency specifically is that it’s really only useful if you agree to the TOS it is issued with.
There were 4 billion people in 1974. There are now more than 7 billion.
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I’m a consultant with lots of formal education, training and 35 years experience in my field. A manager in the security department of a large Canadian pharmacy chain wanted me to do a security assessment, specification and detailed design to a problem door a the back of a location “to see if I could do a good job for us on future projects”. I declined the ‘offer’ and struck the company off my list of potential clients. I suspected this type of behavior might have been still happening because I’d just left the employ of an organization and new Security Director that had been in the same company. He paid me to leave because I had more experience and expertise than he did, though that reason didn’t come to light (from other staff that had known him for many years) until I was gone.
The hilarious part is that the other arms of the organization can’t stand him and his team; they hire me to do the work at my full consulting rate.
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Wow, shockingly similar experience here. They lost every bit of talent I had trained for nearly a decade after I left.
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This is the one that gets me. I love chain sawing, felling, and bucking trees. I learned to do it because I need lots of split wood for my art (wood fired ceramics.) But it’s still hard physical work. And taking down a tree, and making it into fire wood is expensive, people charge a lot of money to take down a tree. Yet, my friends think nothing of having me do it and expect me to cheerfully do it for free for them. I don’t mind a trade, I’ll fell the trees near your cabin in exchange for free stays at your cabin say.
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Shit! I’m a prostitute.
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I think this all started around the same time that fully salaried and employed people stopped charging overtime for overtime work. Eventually, the “gift” of your work overtime became the cost of remaining employed. Thanks for that, schmucks.
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Nobody ever died from money, but people die from exposure all the time!!
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So, I have this cabin… and these trees… what are you up to?
In interviews I’ve offered a:‘let me show you how good I am at this job and pay me this much now, and if I am as good at it as I tell you I am, pay me this much more starting in 3 months’. It’s worked. It’s never, to my knowledge, cost me a job.
But free? Never.
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Both work and love = 4 as established by Black, Dylan et al. If Wv = L then love has differing truth values dependent on the “what am i doing here” value or v. When v is, “yes, i’m happy with this”: v = 1. When, v is, “no, i strongly disapprove of this”: v = 0.
For values of love that are true v is yes.
Conclusion you’re either 4 it or you’re not. While remuneration of some kind may affect v either way you’ve got work for love*.
*I played hooky from work today to take care of my sweets who is down with a bug and made this pseudo-logical musical triptych for free.
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Hope they feel better soon 
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you might want to revise that theory. even the lottery can be deadly.
