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It’s time to balance the power between workers and employers
- simonebrunozzi 9y agoIronic that the Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos.
- TheAdamAndChe 9y agoPerhaps the election of Trump and the near-election of Sanders showed him and people like him that current economic practices were creating an unstable sociopolitical environment. It's in the best interest of the rich to keep people from revolting. Edit: To those who are downvoting me, could you please explain why? If there's a flaw in my statement, I would love to learn it.
- icelancer 9y agoOr maybe Larry Summers just wrote this for the newspaper and having influential people like Summers on the bylines is good, regardless of what he writes? Why does it have to be a political thing for every op-ed writing? Bezos isn't hand-approving every single post.
- TheAdamAndChe 9y ago> Why does it have to be a political thing for every op-ed writing? You're right, but most media companies in the US pretty much act as spokespeople for one political wing or another. They are all generally very biased towards the direction of their donors or owners. I also find it interesting that no(or few) major media outlets were so against big business until this recent election cycle. Why else would the recent election cycle trigger discussion on the declining quality of life for the lower and middle classes? Or perhaps I am just too pessimistic nowadays. That is why I appreciate the feedback on my comments.
- icelancer 9y ago>>They are all generally very biased towards the direction of their donors or owners. Yes, I agree with that. But Larry Summers' article would have been welcome anywhere, probably even Fox News. He is accomplished like few others, and having him write for you is good no matter what. It is important to separate the cases indivdually. >>I also find it interesting that no(or few) major media outlets were so against big business until this recent election cycle. Cases like Uber help for sure, and the income gap is ever-widening. I think it's just a natural state of being. It couldn't last forever. An opinion of a significant number of Americans was that HRC/Trump offered us no real alternative in regards to labor/business reform, and the media is playing that up after the fact. I don't think there is anything nefarious going on or anyone trying to get on the right side of history. I think in large part the media is reflecting what most Americans are feeling right now: Malaise. (For the record I am upvoting you, I have no idea who is downvoting your posts.)
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- MicroBerto 9y agoThere was no near election of Sanders, in case you hadn't been following the DNC lawsuit and suspicious deaths surrounding it.
- kerkeslager 9y agoWhy is this ironic? Jeff Bezos doesn't have time to micromanage all of his enterprises. It's also likely that some individual writers and editors at the Washington Post disagree with Jeff Bezos on nearly everything. These are managed by people who do have time to micromanage if they choose, but these managers are optimizing for more local goals such as making the Washington Post profitable, not large-scale goals like shaping society to Jeff Bezos' overall profit. Given current trends, it might indeed be profitable for the Washington Post to take this side on this issue. And Jeff Bezos might see that profit as worth it, or might not even notice in the midst of his other investments.
- maxerickson 9y agoLarry Summers is also a huge voice in establishment economics. The WaPo would implode if (many) people thought Bezos was coloring the editorial decisions of the paper to such an extent that such an opinion piece was discarded.
- randyrand 9y agoI don't like or want egalitarianism. No thank you.
- rublev 9y agoI hope you die an extremely slow and painful death when your time comes.
- meric 9y agoDon't tie a person's current ideas to the person. What if he changes his mind in 5 years? Do you want to condemn him from now to all time?
- kerkeslager 9y agoI'm pro-egalitarianism but definitely not pro-murder-and-torture. This exchange was depressing to read.
- sctb 9y agoThis kind of comment doesn't belong on Hacker News, no matter what you're replying to. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- sctb 9y agoThis amounts to trolling whether or not that was your intention: ample provocation and a dearth of substance. Please don't post like this here.
- danblick 9y agoSoftware developers are already highly paid with lots of perks. Do they need unions?
- sillysaurus3 9y agoI think the argument goes: We make table scraps compared to the amount that a corporation rakes in. Yet we're the sole reason they're able to rake in that amount of money. Not that I agree with it, but that's an argument.
- ianai 9y agoI think we're fully in the "see what little you can pay someone to get them to do a job" optimization mode. The marginal cost=marginal benefit argument doesn't seem to apply anywhere. On the contrary, if you're actively making something (burgers, computers) then you're usually not paid enough to actually consume those things on a regular schedule. I think that's a symptom of an emergent caste system.
- BurningFrog 9y agoSo each Boeing worker should be able to buy their own 787 Dreamliner in any fair society?
- WaxProlix 9y agoDo you believe that to be a reasonable, charitable interpretation of what OP said?
- BurningFrog 9y agoI believe OP repeated a good sounding slogan ("workers should be able to buy the things they produce!") they had heard, without having spent any thought to what it would mean in reality. My example is meant to show that principle is absurd, not that OP actually believes in that consequence. I admit the point could have been delivered friendlier. As for charitability, we are all prone to agree to what fits with what we already believe without critical thought. This time OP slipped up, many times it's been me.
- ianai 9y agoCountries are best off that empower their people: the individual citizens.
- ThrustVectoring 9y agoI really don't like the framing of that. Good countries get the hell out of the way while people use their inherent power of self-determination. If someone powerful spends their time "empowering" you, it means you had none in the first place.
- ianai 9y agoI was attempting to paraphrase Adam Smith. "No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable." Adam Smith That's the context I meant for the word "empower".
- alkonaut 9y agoWould you agree that among the best things an individual blue collar worker can do with that empowerment is to team up with others in a union?
- Caveman_Coder 9y agoI'd agree that it is one of the smartest things they could do since they are selling their labor.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago>If someone powerful spends their time "empowering" you, it means you had none in the first place. Is that not reasonable? The 'inherent power of self-determination' is pretty weak all things considered. Governments exist to help 'empower' in the myriad of ways that can undermine self-determination.
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- blacksqr 9y agoIf only we could figure out and implement some kind of system where every person had one equal say in choosing leaders, regardless of wealth or social position. Then those who were disadvantaged could outvote the privileged few and elect leaders who would set policies to make things more fair.
- WaxProlix 9y agoHaha yes, things are good now.
- Joof 9y agoThis is pretty unrealistic. We can make those rules, but wealth and social position can influence so many people moreso than many other sensible factors.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y agoThe problem is that there's no one to choose. First past the post prevents voting for your favorite and party control prevents populist candidates. Trump broke past but Bernie didn't despite his popularity. Gerrymandering and voter restrictions disenfranchise and secret $ flows from corporations to astroturf campaigns. We exist in a mirage of democratic control, vote reform is necessary.
- a_imho 9y agoEqual say is not the right criterion to pick officials imo, equal chance of being elected is more suited to represent the views of the people [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition
- burntrelish1273 9y agoRichard Wolff has also been evangelizing co-ops and worker-owned businesses for some time. http://www.rdwolff.com/faq_worker_coops_wdes http://www.rdwolff.com/faq_worker_coops_wdes https://youtu.be/urCy3UOGgx8 https://youtu.be/urCy3UOGgx8
- 0xcde4c3db 9y agoNoam Chomsky has also written and spoken quite a bit in support of anarcho-syndicalism, a closely related idea.
- tray5 9y agoShould link the whole Democracy at Work channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/democracyatwrk https://www.youtube.com/user/democracyatwrk I think it offers a refreshing viewpoint that many people on HN should consider
- xiler 9y agoIn the current economy I feel co-ops are bit too radical to remedy the imbalances of power within large businesses (where it really matters). We might need something less aggressive like the widespread promotion of Employee Stock Ownership Programs (ESOPs) as a start [1]. Also co-ops might come across to business people as something along the lines of "loony-leftist Marxist idealism". Instead one can speak their language by saying things like "decentralizing planning" and "capitalism where everyone is a capitalist" and show how there is indeed common ground. An excellent example of this is The Capitalist Manifesto by Luis Kelso [2] (the creator of ESOPs). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_stock_ownership_plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_stock_ownership_plan [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Capitalist_Manifesto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Capitalist_Manifesto
- atupis 9y agoHere Finland we have couple very large Co-ops eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S_Group and there is not really any difference between large corporation and large Co-ops at daily life.
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- mjevans 9y agoThings that could actually be done to make for a more level playing field: * 'Single Payer' healthcare (tax everyone for basic healthcare) * Allow all kinds of debt to be discharged via bankrupcy * Have the government complete as (several) providers in all 'basics'. The last one includes (some of these are already utilities): * Water * Sewer * Power * Transport (of all kinds, including last mile data) * Housing / organizational locations * Education * Medicine Maybe private businesses can be more efficient than a not-for-profit government owned (and run) organization; if so let them actually compete.
- pfisch 9y ago> Allow all kinds of debt to be discharged via bankrupcy Credit would dry up overnight and interest rates would go through the roof on many loans. Also why would anyone ever offer a student loan under these conditions? >'Single Payer' healthcare (tax everyone for basic healthcare) We are about to have net neutrality repealed over the objection of everyone except ISPs basically. Medicare isn't even allowed to negotiate drug prices, but our govt run single payer system will definitely be immune from regulatory capture. Right? Instead of this single payer fake solution I would much rather hear real solutions from the left. Such as, no medical service or prescription can cost more than the average price from a basket of oecd countries. If we could cut through all the bullshit and just implement that one idea it would solve most of our healthcare issues.
- ergothus 9y ago> why would anyone ever offer a student loan under these conditions? Are you saying that it's not possible to offer profitable rates on student loans that could be forgiven in bankruptcy like other debts are? If so, how is that not saying the same thing as "to fund the education of the successful requires perpetual funding from the unsuccessful"?
- pfisch 9y agoI'm saying why would you extend a massive loan to someone who is broke, has no credit, and can immediately discharge the debt. They could and many of them would immediately discharge the entire balance of the loan upon graduation by declaring bankruptcy. They don't offer 40k+ loans to people with no credit at any rate.
- KKKKkkkk1 9y agoIsn't the balance of power between workers and employers in Silicon Valley massively lopsided in favor of the former? We have companies that are losing money paying their engineers six-digit salaries. Restoring the balance is the last thing this place needs.
- jldugger 9y ago> We have companies that are losing money paying their engineers six-digit salaries. I assume that's a tactical decision on their part to bootstrap a new company. A brief analysis I did a few months ago suggests that six digit salaries aren't bankrupting established companies. The largest SV employers could arguably double or triple engineer salaries without dipping into negative salary territory: Facebook Employees: 18,000 Profit: 11.51B Profit per employee: ~$600,000 Google Employees: 57,000 Profit: 20B Profit per employee: ~$400,000 Apple Employees: 115,000 Profit: 45B Profit per employee: ~$390,000 Microsoft Employees: 114,000 Profit: 17B Profit per employee: ~$150,000 And for comparison: IBM Employees: 380,000 Profit: 11B Profit per employee: ~$29,000 Wal-Mart Employees: 2.3 million Profit: 13.64B Profit per employee: ~$5,000 And yet we have cartel-like behavior from SV's largest firms agreeing not to bid up the price of engineering talent not all that long ago.
- hueving 9y agoWhere are people getting the notion that engineers should be paid whatever the current profit per engineer is? Engineers are not shareholders. You can't have it both ways where employees get to take all of the upside of a business without all of the risks of being an investor. When IBM has a bad year, would you be okay with clawing back all of the salary paid out that year?
- maxxxxx 9y agoEmployees take on a lot of risk. They risk being laid off and they have to put all their eggs in one basket. They also risk damage to their career if their company assigns to them work that doesn't look good on resume. In my view investors have less risk.
- mirimir 9y ago> The central issue in American politics is the economic security of the middle class and their sense of opportunity for their children. Maybe for Mr. Summers, it is. And maybe as well, for liberals generally. But there are at least a couple problems. First, many Americans are apparently convinced that some other issue is central in American politics. Maybe it's threats from foreigners. Or from Satan, or some proxy of his. Or perhaps, it's losing their guns. Or whatever. Second, even among those who agree that the economic security of the middle class is the central issue in American politics, many have been convinced that rewarding wealthy capitalists is the best strategy. So it goes. Edit: Indeed, many middle-class Americans think that they're wealthy, and so don't care so much about the middle class.
- ryandrake 9y agoThe article is from a while ago, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were still true: 19% of Americans think they are in the top 1% and 20% more expect to be one day [1]. So a full 39% of Americans either suck at math or actually believe that by rewarding wealthy capitalists they are actually rewarding themselves! 1: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/12/opinion/the-triumph-of-hope-over-self-interest.html http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/12/opinion/the-triumph-of-hop...
- mirimir 9y agoThat is funny :) Maybe ~20% of Americans are well-enough off that they feel wealthy. But they have no clue what real wealth is. And indeed, in day-to-day life, it's pretty much invisible. Edit: Gotta quote this: > All of this adds up to a terrain incredibly inhospitable to class-based politics. Every few years a group of millionaire Democratic presidential aspirants pretends to be the people's warriors against the overclass. They look inauthentic, combative rather than unifying. Worst of all, their basic message is not optimistic. > They haven't learned what Franklin and Teddy Roosevelt and even Bill Clinton knew: that you can run against rich people, but only those who have betrayed the ideal of fair competition. You have to be more hopeful and growth-oriented than your opponent, and you cannot imply that we are a nation tragically and permanently divided by income. In the gospel of America, there are no permanent conflicts.
- jessaustin 9y agoI don't disagree with anything in TFA, but a cynical devil on my shoulder is whispering that one way of discrediting these ideas might be to put them in Larry Summers's mouth. It would be difficult to select anyone more "talented" at over-arguing a point until everyone is tired of hearing about it.
- Animats 9y agoUnion, Yes. The US has weak unions because labor law enforcement is so weak. No administration has done much about that in decades. 11% of US employees belong to a union. 32% in Canada. Read "Confessions of a Union Buster" for background. In theory, whether to organize a union in the US is entirely up to the workers. The employer has no say in the matter. Few people even know that. Employers try hard to maintain that ignorance and keep workers from organizing. In many European countries, McDonalds is unionized. The SEIU is trying to unionize it in the US.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ekianjo 9y agoLet's not forget that unions can also become detrimental to employees' working environment. In France unions are very powerful and unionists when going on strike, prevent non-unionists from working, and retaliate against folks who do not agree with their agenda - this goes against individual employee freedom and becomes another form of coercion. And unionists, no matter how piss poor a job they do, can never be fired (in theory they can, but in practice it never happens).
- yorwba 9y ago> And unionists, no matter how piss poor a job they do, can never be fired (in theory they can, but in practice it never happens). Do you mean union leaders or regular members? Because if it's the latter, then you have a counterexample in every 100% unionized company that ever fired anyone.
- pmiller2 9y agoWage slavery is a real thing in America today. I'm in almost the 95th percentile of income in the US today (although I wasn't always so lucky), and, if I were to somehow lose my job tomorrow, my first priority would be to find a new one ASAP, because I wouldn't be able to pay rent after less than 6 months of unemployment. Most people are not so fortunate. Even the most well-off Americans only have about $164K saved in their retirement accounts [0]. Real wages have been flat for decades [1]. Half of Americans don't have $500 in emergency savings [2]. My employer has nearly 100 employees; I have one employer. The job "market" is designed to create information asymmetry between me and my employer that ensures I'm not getting the best deal I can when negotiating for a job. I'm expected to give a reasonable amount of notice before leaving my job, but no such expectation generally exists on the other side of the table. I can be fired for almost any reason, or no reason. When I was hired, I had to sign an agreement signing away any right I had to ever sue my employer in court for any reason. Now, even granted that some of these things are not necessarily going to be relevant to my particular situation (e.g. I don't really foresee any need to sue my employer, and I don't think they're going to fire me for no reason at all), what side of the table does the huge majority of the power lie on? [0]: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/07/how-much-the-average-family-has-saved-for-retirement-at-every-age.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/07/how-much-the-average-family-... [1]: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-wor... [2]: https://www.creditdonkey.com/average-american-savings-statistics.html#emergency https://www.creditdonkey.com/average-american-savings-statis...
- theseus7 9y agoThe solution is pretty straightforward. Replace all taxes on labor and earned income with a land value tax. This will increase disposable income of workers by directly decreasing taxes on wages, by lowering the cost of housing by disincentivizng speculative land investment, and by increasing the supply and margin of production of rent-free land, the later of which increases the bargaining power of workers per Ricardo's Law of Rent. The lack of private savings can also be addressed by creating a Citizen's Savings account for all citizen residents over the age of 21, into which a dividend is regularly deposited raised from natural resource rents. The supply of land, and the degree to which land has been monopolized, is still the primary determining factor of wages even in a high-tech economy. The price of rent for access to land in proximity to capital and dense concentrations of skilled workers of complementary skillsets determines how much savings one has to have before they can start a competing business or work for themselves, and the ease at which people can create a new business and go into competition with their previous employer determines the fairness at which equity is distributed in the average firm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_rent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_rent
- hiisukun 9y ago100 years ago in Australia, there was a 'great strike'. It was about a lot of things, but the straw that broke the camels back was timecards. Workers felt like management were 'Americanising' labour, and the pressure of worsening or stagnant conditions wasn't helped by the country being in the middle of contributing to the war. Anyway the strike was overall 'a failure', but filling in the outline I've given above was some wonderful bits of colour and detail to the story that were on the national radio here in Australia recently. I hadn't heard before - and while I can't find the radio link just now, a summary is here [1]. I thought it was interesting to note that the issues from 1917 are remarkably similar and understandable to those in 2017, for employees and employers. [1] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-28/100-years-on-the-great-strike-of-1917/8748132 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-28/100-years-on-the-great...
- pattisapu 9y agoInteresting. I'm an American labor lawyer and often find myself thankful when an employer actually keeps accurate time cards. "Time shaving" and wage theft are so rampant today and are a significant part of the billions of dollars that workers lose each year in this country [1]. It's a lot easier to do that when you fudge the time records, or don't keep any at all. [1] http://www.epi.org/blog/wage-theft-by-employers-is-costing-u-s-workers-billions-of-dollars-a-year/ http://www.epi.org/blog/wage-theft-by-employers-is-costing-u...
- 0898 9y agoWhy doesn't somebody make an app that makes it easy to start (and run) a union?
- amelius 9y agoCould you write down the requirements for this app?
- ZeroGravitas 9y agoOne thing I'd been wondering about was how minimum wages interacted with the obvious power imbalance between low-skill, low-wage workers and their employers. If I'm right then employers would basically be compelled by competition to take advantage of their most powerless employees, in the absence of such legislation. In the free market ideal, the wages would be getting forced higher than is ideal by government intervention, but apparently reality hasn't supported this theory, and one obvious reason to me is that the wages were being suppressed below their true level due to this asymmetry. Tangential aside: is this the same Larry Summers that suggested we should ship toxic waste to 3rd world countries because their lives were worth less? Things must be getting pretty grim if he's speaking out in favor of unions.
- jlebrech 9y agomaybe companies should have a maximum size, if after a certain amount of they are still market leader they need to split into two?
- oh_sigh 9y agoFinding a solution to the returns of labor vs capital would essentially solve the worker v employer phenomenon. (See: basically anything piketty has ever written). Right now, labor is double taxed. You are taxed in the form of your time and mental energy to perform it, as well as on your return by the government. Accounting for the time tax of labor and putting the combined tax on par with capital taxation would go a long way to correcting this imbalance.
- aaronchall 9y agoGeez, Larry, that's a simplistic view of workers. What should be the proper expectations for someone entering the workforce? Is everyone actually equal? Certainly not. Some earn qualifications to do various types of "Knowledge Work" and others don't. Some will take smart risks, work hard, create value, build capital, and be able to employ others. Others take dumb risks, create little value, and go from personal bankruptcy to personal bankruptcy. And still others will take their qualifications and work for large companies or organizations, and get used to not taking on any risks. They put in their time, create marginal value, and go home. If they're not earning what they think they deserve, they can take their complaint to the marketplace, line up interviews, put their best face forward, and see if they can convince an employer to see it their way. I'm disappointed in Larry's pandering to the "I'm a victim" mentality. We need more people with an "I can do anything" mentality.
- nunez 9y agoThis observation came to a head for me during a conversation with my fiance about tuition costs. I went to Stevens Institute of Technology, a private engineering school in New Jersey. When I started my schooling in 2005, the average tuition, not including room and board, was a little under $27,000. [1] It is now a little over $50,000, again, excluding room and board. [2] I studied Computer Engineering. The average salary for a computer programmer in 2009 (I didn't graduate until 2010 but had a job starting in 2009) was $64,036. [3] Today? $79,840. So despite the average wage for my work increasing by 20%, my school's tuition went up by over double that. After factoring in rapidly increasing housing costs, it became evident to me that (a) I'm in a race to increase my compensation before everything else goes up, and (b) unless our government does something to curb these rapidly increase college tuition prices, there is a significant chance that unless I make and save A LOT of money in the next 20 years, my future children, should we have any, will either not be able to attend the same college as me (or similar), or they will be in debt for MUCH longer than me. [1] https://books.google.com/books?id=HiS0BrWXz9QC&pg=PA562&lpg=PA562&dq=stevens+tuition+fees+2005&source=bl&ots=oW-QuhvUyZ&sig=Y5-Neiinm_MKlQQCcYVgjAHjR0o&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiAnf_FiYzWAhXDLSYKHfOPCuEQ6AEIUDAI#v=onepage&q=stevens%20tuition%20fees%202005&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=HiS0BrWXz9QC&pg=PA562&lpg=... [2] https://www.stevens.edu/admissions/tuition-financial-aid/tuition-fees-costs https://www.stevens.edu/admissions/tuition-financial-aid/tui... [3] http://www.worldsalaries.org/computerprogrammer.shtml http://www.worldsalaries.org/computerprogrammer.shtml [4] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/mobile/computer-programmers.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...
- tiggybear 9y agoWell you could always just tell your children they need to stop being so spoiled and work harder. Then when they do work harder for less than you, you can sell them your house that's skyrocketed in value to reap the rest of their hard work to fund your retirement. Ah capitalism, you so sexy.
- f137 9y agoIt's 100 years this November since a well-known fix to this balance was initiated. Anyone wants to repeat it?
- letsmakeit 9y agoEvery day I'm surprised by how marxist hacker news is.
- alaborplatform 9y agoi am working on a labor platform to help educate labor as well as provide, and develop, tools to assist labor in understanding and asserting their rights http://www.alaborplatform.com http://www.alaborplatform.com