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The biggest problem I see with the US today is we lack a national narrative for success. From ~1950 - ~1980 it was something like "Get a good job, work hard an

by csense 10y ago

The biggest problem I see with the US today is we lack a national narrative for success. From ~1950 - ~1980 it was something like "Get a good job, work hard and you'll be able to succeed." By whatever combination of political, social and economic factors, the country was able to provide opportunities for the majority of people with aspirations of a comfortable middle class lifestyle to achieve them. Earlier in the country's history it was "Go west, young man" -- the frontier served a similar social function of giving just about everybody willing to put in the effort demanded the ability to move up a notch economically -- maybe several notches. Now we've reached a point where many ordinary people no longer have that sort of opportunity. It's tearing our society apart. We need to figure out how to fix it. I've heard a lot of HN'ers talk about how "Detroit deserved to be disrupted since American cars weren't innovative." OK, maybe true, but the guy screwing bolts on cars now has to go work at McDonald's for a third of the wage and no benefits. He had approximately zero influence on how cars were designed, and now he's struggling to support his family. What was once a shining city in the industrial heartland of America is now a bandit-infested ruin. "Go work for a startup" is also (understandably) a common sentiment on HN. OK, that works for people like us, but we all know there are a lot fewer decent programmers out there than people who can screw bolts on cars. We need something that can be done by most people, not only the 1%'ers of the intellectual food chain. This country's made of ordinary folks who just want a comfortable middle class lifestyle. Our society used to be able to provide paths to achieve that, accessible to all, and that was the key to our success. Now we've lost the ability to do so, despite our technological advancements. America's a broken system. How can we fix it?

metaphorm 10y ago
> America's a broken system. How can we fix it? it's not nearly as complicated or intractable as everyone makes it out to be. the basic problem in the system is concentration of wealth at the top and wage stagnation at the middle and bottom. the solution is progressively distributed pay raises in private sector employment, concentrating on raising the wages of those on the bottom and in the middle of the economy. this will massively stimulate demand in the economy and produce an economic growth spurt. the reason this doesn't happen is because the ideology of shareholder capitalism is completely sociopathic and has caused business managers to behave like sociopaths in the pursuit of short term gains. so the situation is not that we have no idea what needs to be done to fix the problem, it's that we have no idea what needs to be done to remove the deeply entrenched causes of the problem. but honestly, a lot of these people with their broken pathological ideology, well, they gotta go. they are unfit to lead.
- jdmichal 10y ago
  I think the answer is employee-owned companies. This necessitates falling away from capital-driven growth machines, because introduction of capital dilutes ownership and destroys the whole concept. And then you have to figure out how to be competitive with those capital-driven growth machines, which is a real problem when sales are driven by whatever is cheapest at Walmart / Amazon.
  - metaphorm 10y ago
    I agree with that solution. The best real world example of it is the Mondragon Corporation[0], but it's an interesting and versatile idea and I'm sure many different versions of it could be successful. I really favor this type of solution because it solves the alienation problem without throwing out the baby with the bathwater. This is a business structure that appropriately distributes the profits of labor, and I think that is the only thing that will get us out of our current predicament. The current American system of funneling profits to the 0.0001% while locking the working population into lifelong wage slavery is not sustainable and I fear for the future if things go on like this for much longer. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
- WalterSear 10y ago
  >it's not nearly as complicated or intractable as everyone makes it out to be. the basic problem in the system is concentration of wealth at the top and wage stagnation at the middle and bottom. Complicated? No. Intractable? Definitely.
saiya-jin 10y ago
Unfortunately no easy fix around. Adapt to demand or suffer in current setup, with a pipe dream of some UBI one day with god knows what consequences. World economy is fluid and in constant move - what will 300 million Chinese migrant workers do once their salaries are too high to be interesting for employment?
Balgair 10y ago
I've been wondering about this for a few years now and am glad to hear at least one other person is too. What do we do with our citizenry now that the "union" type jobs are gone? A (poor) idea I have is to train people to do start-ups as a 'day job' with a vast social safety net to pick people up that fail at them. Just like HS is today meant for factory workers, you could change HS to make it meant for start-ups and the like. Its not a good idea, I know. The only other idea I have is to pay people to read books all day, or learn in some other way. Basically endless schooling. Anyone got anything else? Because these aren't gonna work well, but I think they will work in some little way.
- calvano915 10y ago
  -A (poor) idea I have is to train people to do start-ups as a 'day job' with a vast social safety net to pick people up that fail at them. Just like HS is today meant for factory workers, you could change HS to make it meant for start-ups and the like. Its not a good idea, I know.- Sounds like UBI with unnecessary complexity. If we provide a basic level of support, many may/would attempt a start-up or take other risks. As it stands now, many/most of us are just fighting to keep the remaining scraps that are left and have no room for big risks.
notacoward 10y ago
Largely agree, but I think there is a common narrative. It's just one that many people believe (perhaps correctly) they can't live out. The narrative is: "develop new-economy skills, move to where the jobs are, change employers every couple of years until you hit the jackpot." Many believe that they don't have, and will never have, those skills. That's a change from the "go west" (or "go across the Atlantic") narrative. Many believe that the risk and disruption is too much. That's a change from the "work thirty years for a big company" narrative. With both of these negatives in play, people feel that the narrative doesn't apply to them. It's a great story about how other people get rich, leaving them behind, and that becomes a negative in their minds.
- emodendroket 10y ago
  I don't think Silicon Valley startups or whatever can actually absorb the entire displaced workforce. Maybe that'll work for some individuals (although it's a lot easier to pick up and leave when you don't have a family) but it's not a societal solution.

by csense 10y ago

metaphorm 10y ago

> America's a broken system. How can we fix it? it's not nearly as complicated or intractable as everyone makes it out to be. the basic problem in the system is concentration of wealth at the top and wage stagnation at the middle and bottom. the solution is progressively distributed pay raises in private sector employment, concentrating on raising the wages of those on the bottom and in the middle of the economy. this will massively stimulate demand in the economy and produce an economic growth spurt. the reason this doesn't happen is because the ideology of shareholder capitalism is completely sociopathic and has caused business managers to behave like sociopaths in the pursuit of short term gains. so the situation is not that we have no idea what needs to be done to fix the problem, it's that we have no idea what needs to be done to remove the deeply entrenched causes of the problem. but honestly, a lot of these people with their broken pathological ideology, well, they gotta go. they are unfit to lead.

jdmichal 10y ago
I think the answer is employee-owned companies. This necessitates falling away from capital-driven growth machines, because introduction of capital dilutes ownership and destroys the whole concept. And then you have to figure out how to be competitive with those capital-driven growth machines, which is a real problem when sales are driven by whatever is cheapest at Walmart / Amazon.
- metaphorm 10y ago
  I agree with that solution. The best real world example of it is the Mondragon Corporation[0], but it's an interesting and versatile idea and I'm sure many different versions of it could be successful. I really favor this type of solution because it solves the alienation problem without throwing out the baby with the bathwater. This is a business structure that appropriately distributes the profits of labor, and I think that is the only thing that will get us out of our current predicament. The current American system of funneling profits to the 0.0001% while locking the working population into lifelong wage slavery is not sustainable and I fear for the future if things go on like this for much longer. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
WalterSear 10y ago
>it's not nearly as complicated or intractable as everyone makes it out to be. the basic problem in the system is concentration of wealth at the top and wage stagnation at the middle and bottom. Complicated? No. Intractable? Definitely.

saiya-jin 10y ago

Unfortunately no easy fix around. Adapt to demand or suffer in current setup, with a pipe dream of some UBI one day with god knows what consequences. World economy is fluid and in constant move - what will 300 million Chinese migrant workers do once their salaries are too high to be interesting for employment?

Balgair 10y ago

I've been wondering about this for a few years now and am glad to hear at least one other person is too. What do we do with our citizenry now that the "union" type jobs are gone? A (poor) idea I have is to train people to do start-ups as a 'day job' with a vast social safety net to pick people up that fail at them. Just like HS is today meant for factory workers, you could change HS to make it meant for start-ups and the like. Its not a good idea, I know. The only other idea I have is to pay people to read books all day, or learn in some other way. Basically endless schooling. Anyone got anything else? Because these aren't gonna work well, but I think they will work in some little way.

calvano915 10y ago
-A (poor) idea I have is to train people to do start-ups as a 'day job' with a vast social safety net to pick people up that fail at them. Just like HS is today meant for factory workers, you could change HS to make it meant for start-ups and the like. Its not a good idea, I know.- Sounds like UBI with unnecessary complexity. If we provide a basic level of support, many may/would attempt a start-up or take other risks. As it stands now, many/most of us are just fighting to keep the remaining scraps that are left and have no room for big risks.

notacoward 10y ago

Largely agree, but I think there is a common narrative. It's just one that many people believe (perhaps correctly) they can't live out. The narrative is: "develop new-economy skills, move to where the jobs are, change employers every couple of years until you hit the jackpot." Many believe that they don't have, and will never have, those skills. That's a change from the "go west" (or "go across the Atlantic") narrative. Many believe that the risk and disruption is too much. That's a change from the "work thirty years for a big company" narrative. With both of these negatives in play, people feel that the narrative doesn't apply to them. It's a great story about how other people get rich, leaving them behind, and that becomes a negative in their minds.

emodendroket 10y ago
I don't think Silicon Valley startups or whatever can actually absorb the entire displaced workforce. Maybe that'll work for some individuals (although it's a lot easier to pick up and leave when you don't have a family) but it's not a societal solution.