Often literally
Eh, they are also much more likely to be regular people who would do what people think cops are for, like stopping actual violent crimes and then getting murdered by cops who show up after as has happened many times.
I’ve known a few and it is definitely a mixed bag.
in theory, yes. in practice, its incredibly variable. i don’t think they get the same insane power trip that cops go on, they’re often just people who needed a job and won’t give you trouble if they can avoid it, whereas cops become cops for a reason. hell, since we’re the last two people out of the building, the security guy at my job literally encourages me to steal from work and he does the same. they can be chill, they want to slack off just as much as any other worker.
if you’re being offered a position or something comrade, don’t feel bad. take it. just be cool about it.
Their job is to protect private property interests with the threat of violence and/or calling the official cops that can do even more violence, so yes.
A security guard that is intentionally bad at their job and just eats snacks behind a desk is pretty low on the totem pole of evil, though. It’s the ones that take themselves somewhat seriously that are the biggest problem.
It depends. I work security at a tribal casino, so I feel a little better that the assets I’m protecting are used to help the native population reestablish themselves. Also alot of the time we are the first responders to medical situations and have saved lives because of our presence.
They can be class traitors, for sure.
I wouldn’t put them into the same category as cops because security is usually just about protecting specific individuals/property and their powers with regards to enforcement are very limited compared to cops.
Do they uphold the current class system? I mean, yeah and they’re at the pointier end of it but I’m also upholding the class system by not being on a permanent strike and instead creating value for capitalism and purchasing commodities and shit.
Some dude looking at surveillance cameras all day or who stationed at a festival or patrolling some factory at night or whatever isn’t really upholding/enforcing the state, a white supremacist system, and acting as the attack dogs of the government and all of that shit.
They can definitely use their position of power to do that and, in that case, fuck that particular person. But to me it’s a bit like asking if all unions are good - what they do and how they do it is more important than the general label that they fall under.
I don’t have a special place in my heart for security guards but most of them are getting paid to be the fall-guy for when shit goes down and otherwise just to provide a sense of surveillance and enforcement, like the human version of a fake camera dome or those signs people put up at the front of their houses that say that there’s a security system installed there. They are basically just a glorified doorperson who dresses up in a costume that skirts the line of impersonating a police officer, at least most of the time anyway.
Edit: I’m not an American (small mercies I guess?) and I live in a developed country so security guards here are very rarely cops who moonlight, nor do we have security guards who get stationed outside of places like banks that are armed with assault rifles who are very much ready to start gunning people down like you can often find in developing countries. What this means is that this comment is probably more reflective of the role and function that security guards perform in my country than it is a genuine assessment of the entire span of security guards globally.
I have worked security. There are two types of guards. Idiots and murders. No inbetween. Plenty of guards are out to keep the situation safe so the police don’t get involved. Bouncers for example. I used to work with several bouncers that sold drugs so it was in their best interest to keep the party chill so everyone was safe and there were no cops.
This is a little “People are black and white.”
I too used to work nightclub security. There were plenty of in betweens. They were the ones just looking for a night job, while they got off the ground pursuing something else. Myself included.
Maybe. It is a smaller self selected subsection of the population though. Normal well adjusted people don’t wake up and join thr security industry. As an example we here both are/were in it and we are here. Clealry no normally well.adjusted person ends up here.
Just as at first the capitalist is relieved from actual labour so soon as his capital has reached that minimum amount with which capitalist production, as such, begins, so now, he hands over the work of direct and constant supervision of the individual workmen, and groups of workmen, to a special kind of wage-labourer. An industrial army of workmen, under the command of a capitalist, requires, like a real army, officers (managers), and sergeants (foremen, overlookers), who, while the work is being done, command in the name of the capitalist. The work of supervision becomes their established and exclusive function.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch13.htmIn Chapter 13 of Capital, Marx compares the functions of a security guard to being “like a real army”. While the quote gives managers, foremen, and overlookers as examples, a security guard also fits. A security guard is also someone who is under the command of the capitalist and supervises the capitalist mode of production as their “established and exclusive function”.
In 2004, the Department of Economic at the University of Massachusetts published an essay which coined the term “Guard Labor”, written by Professor Samuel Bowles and Assistant Professor Arjun Jayadev. The essay is written in reference to the prior quote from Chapter 13 of Capital.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/econ_workingpaper/63/
We will see that a significant portion of an economy‘s productive potential may be devoted to the exercise of power and to the perpetuation of social relationships of domination and subordination. We then measure these resources in labor units using the concept of guard labor, finding it to be a significant fraction of the U.S. labor force. Turning to evidence from other economies, we document substantial country-differences in the extent of guard labor and a strong statistical association between the extent of income inequality and the fraction of the labor force that is constituted by guard labor.
Nonetheless it may be of interest to count the fraction of the labor force occupying the roles of guard labor identified in the model: supervisory labor, private guards, police, judicial and prison employees, military and civilian employees of the department of defense (and those producing military equipment), the unemployed, and prisoners.
The essay makes the point that security guards and police are both part of the larger group, guard labor, which serves to “sustaining the status quo distribution of property rights”. The essay also finds that economies with higher percentages of guard labor are also associated with higher levels of economic inequality.
I mean, it depends. Some cops moonlight as private security. But you don’t have to be a cop to work private security. And if you work private security and aren’t a cop, you do have to tread a finer line of legality.
EDIT: It’s worth mentioning that everything also varies state to state. IIRC some states don’t even require licensing to work as private security, which boggles my mind.
Probably, I’m ignorant on this but they get deputized while on the job by the state where I live at least.
they mostly just call the cops when things happen, otherwise they’re a nuisance
mostly yes
Well, they don’t have the right to enforce the capitalist law, so…
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Yes.
