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Congratulations, you have discovered socialism. Most people find extreme injustice in seeing the value of their labor being stolen by the capitalist class. Soci

Congratulations, you have discovered socialism. Most people find extreme injustice in seeing the value of their labor being stolen by the capitalist class. Socialism is an economic system that does away with the employer-employee distinction and allows all workers to take ownership of their own labor. In practice, this means the democratization of the workplace, and the end to the autocratic workplace. Edit: To actually answer your question, perhaps you should think about politics, and fight for a future where no one should suffer like this.

weirdstuff 9y ago
"Democracy at Work" http://www.democracyatwork.info/ http://www.democracyatwork.info/
TomMarius 9y ago
I seriously hope you're joking. Can't be sure nowadays.
outside1234 9y ago
Anyone who thinks this is a great idea should take a trip to Cuba. Seriously. I had the same affliction and about 8 days into Cuba I was totally cured.
- hateduser2 9y ago
  For those of us who can't go to Cuba (I'm sure there are a lot of us), could you say more about what was wrong with it? Also there are lots of other factors I'm sure that could contribute besides just that its socialist.
- weirdstuff 9y ago
  Cuba is a cherry-picked example and is misleading. Other socialist countries that are doing better: China; Denmark; Finland; Netherlands; Canada; Sweden; Norway; Ireland. Don't forget Cuba has been forced into economic isolation by the US. And places like Venezuela and Detroit were overly dependent on too few industries and are plagued by massive wealth inequality. You can also find persistent systemic poverty in capitalism: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0185084916300330 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0185084916...
  - cc81 9y ago
    How do you define a socialist country?
    - dazc 9y ago
      By including China, I'd say, very broadly?
      - arcticbull 9y ago
        I agree, China doesn’t meet the criteria imo. It’s totalitarian, nationalist and it does not provide socialized medicine - it has more in common with the US than with the other examples, I believe. Over the years they’ve been moving to privatize many industries - not all though. Interestingly the Western leaning Taiwan usually portrayed as the capitalist counterpart does provide socialized medicine, having quite recently de-privatized the system with great results.
    - weirdstuff 9y ago
      Too complex for an HN post and ultimately my definition will far too short, so I'll just cop out by saying "I know it when I see it". Usually defined by a relatively more weighted public sector ownership and operation of the factors of production. It's about worker control. And my overall feelings of it is relative to places like the U.S. which practices a form of democratic-ish corporatist oligarchy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it
    - ryanwaggoner 9y ago
      In the context of this conversation, where your efforts won't go to improve the wealth or power or status of your boss, I'd say you'd have to get pretty socialist to solve that problem.
  - outside1234 9y ago
    There is social democracy and there is socialism. I am totally with social democracy like your European examples where health care, education, and other things are basic rights and investments that everyone in the country should enjoy. That said, nobody in Norway or Sweden are guaranteed jobs and the working culture is actually pretty similar to the most of the west, including having to work for demanding bosses. True socialism is a nightmare that guarantees nothing more than everyone has the same, which is usually very little.
- lovich 9y ago
  There are arguments against socialism, but pointing to a small country who's been embargoed by a local juggernaut for decades is not a strong one.
- andrepd 9y ago
  Can you elaborate? Specifically: * Out of the dozens of countries that have/had socialist governments (let's ignore those where US intervention prevented that from happening, against the will of the people) why did you choose Cuba? * What failings of Cuba do you attribute to socialism, and do not see happening in capitalist countries?
- makotech222 9y ago
  Take a trip to any non-first-world capitalist country. Funny how only a handful of countries benefit from capitalism, while the rest have their resources and labor pillaged. Sounds a lot like a capitalist business.
staunch 9y ago
Socialism is only a valid answer if you don't understand technology. If you think there's a fixed pie and we have to forcibly break it into rations so that everyone gets at least something. But technology offers a much better solution, which is grow the pie large enough that everyone has as much as they want. There are no physical limitations to this concept. The universe is rich with everything we need for billions of years. Karl Marx didn't understand asteroid mining. And it turns out that unchecked capitalism is shit but it's just the right kind of manure for the garden of technology to bear its fruit of panacea.
- weirdstuff 9y ago
  This is a sentiment that I think is termed "technological utopianism" and it has limits: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_utopianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_utopianism
  - staunch 9y ago
    Or more generally, this is just a description of Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology There may be "limits" in terms of scope and trade offs to society, but there are no practical "physical limitations" with respect to available atoms.
    - chickenfries 9y ago
      I'm not so sure that there are no physical limitations to technological growth, which is ultimately a function of investment in to technology. https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist...
- jacques_chester 9y ago
  Marx wasn't really advocating that there is a fixed pie which needs to be forcibly carved up. Mostly he built his ideas around the distinction between different kinds of "value", particularly the labour value and exchange value of goods. His clever insight, the basis of his theory of exploitation, was that labour value and labour power are different. The labourer sells labour power. The difference between the labour value of the good and the labour power sold accrues to the capitalist. One of the several ways he was wrong was that prices aren't really set by labour value at all. All economic value is subjective, influenced by many factors. The average amount of labour is neither here nor there.
ryanwaggoner 9y ago
Most people find extreme injustice in seeing the value of their labor being stolen by the capitalist class. Nonsense. Most people don’t think their labor is stolen or find extreme injustice in getting paid for their labor. You need to get outside your bubble.
- dmichulke 9y ago
  To elaborate: it's not stolen if you previously signed a contract that the employer can have it. Otherwise every trade would be theft right?
  - ryanwaggoner 9y ago
    Hardcore socialists apparently think that’s true. After all, if the other person wants it, they must be taking advantage of me! They all operate from a fixed pie / scarcity mentality, and must have missed the basic economics class where you learn that parties can trade where ALL end up better off than if you didn’t.
    - lfischer 9y ago
      Of course, but it’s hard to argue that because a trade is advantageous to you, you cannot attempt to create the conditions where it’s even more advantageous. And in negotiations, you should strengthen your BATNA (best alternative to no agreement) and that of the other party’s. So you could see class struggle as a strategy to improve the starting positions in a negotiation, if that makes you happier :-)
  - andrepd 9y ago
    A mugger doesn't steal from me, if I hand my wallet to him, right? Analogously to how this is theft because of the threat of violence, so it can be argued that it is also theft/extortion due to the threat of leaving you and your family homeless and starving if you don't take my offer right now.
    - ryanwaggoner 9y ago
M1ntos123 9y ago
This is not socialism. Imagine being not able to work. Imagine getting a percentage of your pay while staying home after that needed surgury (which was free, paid by all of us who can still work). This is socialism.
andrepd 9y ago
Absolutely. >I resent spending 48 weeks a year in an office and stressing over issues that will only make the company's owners richer but won't change much for me. I say don't change much because a 2-3% raise once in a while is nice, but it's nothing in comparison to the thousands/millions extra it will make the company, while the only result for me is that I get to keep my job and do more of that. Who wouldn't resent it? Who wouldn't resent the fruits of their labour being reaped by someone else? Who actually thinks it is fair that you work hard to make your boss millions? We need to radically rethink our current system of wealth distribution. Propaganda and US intervention have succeeded in preventing socialism from taking off anywhere in the first world or succeeding anywhere at all. How else can the majority of people tolerate feudalism in the 21st century?
- ryanwaggoner 9y ago
  Or maybe most people just don’t have such a simplistic view of the world? People who advocate for socialism just want the rewards of capitalism without any of the risks.
  - TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
    Well seeing how most Americans haven't been getting the rewards of capitalism(wages have been stagnant since the 70's, regional inequality + healthcare + housing has made the actual COL much higher), it makes perfect sense that people would start pushing for something different.
    - ryanwaggoner 9y ago
      Our system isn't perfect, and capitalism overall is shit, but actual socialism somehow manages to be worse. Americans aren't clamoring for socialism.
      - brokenmachine 9y ago
        > Americans aren't clamoring for socialism. In fact Americans are inexplicably voting for the absolute worst proponents of capitalist corruption.
dmichulke 9y ago
You can build your socialist enterprise in any capitalist system, it's not like it's forbidden as long as you pay your bills.
- makotech222 9y ago
  Yes, because a socialist enterprise can exist in a system where the ultra-wealthy capitalist can 1. Buy out the company and outsource everything 2. Buy out the politicians and make laws against them 3. Use their extreme wealth to sabotage their business. 4. In the case of other nations, embargo them and assassinate their leaders, stoke pro-capitalist revolutions. Examples: See Cuba, USSR, entirety of South America, Vietnam, etc.
  - ryanwaggoner 9y ago
    Ah...I see now. Socialism has failed miserably everywhere it’s been tried, but that’s not socialism’s fault! It’s capitalism’s fault! The big bad capitalists ruined it by meddling! If only socialists could be left alone, they’d finally be able to create paradise. I’m straw-manning here, but only a bit. Not only is this cliche defense of socialism not logical or accurate, it’s impractical. So you need a world without adversaries or people with entrenched power before you can create your utopia? Good luck with that.
    - makotech222 9y ago
      Liberalism went through the same period. Ever hear of the french revolution? Then the Napoleonic wars? The same is and will happen with socialism. The status quo benefits a select few people (Monarchy, at the time), who will do their damndest to keep it that way. Eventually, enough people will rise up and make change happen.
      - ryanwaggoner 9y ago
        You may be right about things eventually changing, but I think it'll be due to post-scarcity due to technological progress, not because people will rise up. What you're definitely wrong about is that the current status quo benefits a select few. It's not equally distributed (although neither would socialism be), but almost everyone on earth today is much better off today than they would have been without capitalism, liberalism, etc. But I'm tired of providing examples of why, especially when the alternative being offered is a theoretical utopia that's basically a more extreme version of some of the most cruel and deadly regimes earth has ever known.
cookiecaper 9y ago
The 20th century has thoroughly proven out the naivety of this position. Political and economic systems conform themselves to reality, not the other way 'round, for better or worse. The reality is that we live in a world of scarcity, and have unchangeable biological impulses toward hoarding resources and other exclusionary survival behaviors. Capitalism provides the _most fair_ solution under the unchangeable physical realities that govern human life. You can't wave a political magic wand and do away with all unfairness in the world. A lot of people tried that over the last 100 years. One quick honest look at the wreckage should be more than enough to disabuse anyone of these ideas.
- andrepd 9y ago
  >The reality is that we live in a world of scarcity, Since the 1980s we have been producing enough food to feed everyone on earth. So to take that example, of that basic necessity, there is no scarcity. From that moment on making sure nobody starved ceased to be a problem of scarcity and became a problem of distribution. >and have unchangeable biological impulses toward hoarding resources and other exclusionary survival behaviors. I have a biological impulse to kill people who cross me, to shit on the street, to steal things I want, if given the chance. The proof of that is that for the vast majority of the existence of our species this was how we behaved. Nevertheless I tamed those impulses. No reason why the impulses of hoarding for myself to the ruin of others can't be tamed as well.
  - cookiecaper 9y ago
    >Since the 1980s we have been producing enough food to feed everyone on earth. So to take that example, of that basic necessity, there is no scarcity. From that moment on making sure nobody starved ceased to be a problem of scarcity and became a problem of distribution. Scarcity is a feature that exists due to physical limitations and processes that have a) shaped human evolution for millennia, socially and biologically; and b) have not ceased since the 1980s. We may produce enough food to feed everyone on earth by some metrics, but that doesn't mean that the principle of scarcity is irrelevant in either the theoretical or practical sense. >I have a biological impulse to kill people who cross me, to shit on the street, to steal things I want, if given the chance. The proof of that is that for the vast majority of the existence of our species this was how we behaved. Nevertheless I tamed those impulses. No reason why the impulses of hoarding for myself to the ruin of others can't be tamed as well. Negative default behaviors are mitigated through systems that recognize, acknowledge, and cooperate with the human impulse instead of trying to deny its existence or inevitable operation. If bathrooms are too far apart or the wait is too long, then people don't use them and yes, will alternately relieve themselves on the side of the street. We need to carry some of that realism into our economic and political discussion.
rjett 9y ago
Owner of a business here... I'm 6 years into owning my own business and things have grown year over year for the company and we are doing quite well. In theory, the democratization of the workplace is a nice idea, and I initially tried to build my business around this idea. But over my time running things, I've realized that hierarchy is necessary, especially when things start to scale up. One of the biggest things I've come to realize is that most people take comfort in structure: what time to arrive and what time they can leave, specific directions on how to do their job and what exactly their job is (or isn't), when they will be paid, etc. As things begin to scale up in a business, it's necessary to create specific roles and specialized work for things to operate efficiently, and while a healthily functioning company relies on everyone doing their job well and working together, every role in the company does not carry equal weight, either because of the skillset or knowledge base required to perform a given task or because of the network and social abilities of a given person might open more doors for the business. People also go through different stages in their personal lives where they might be more or less invested in the work they're doing, and when you're an employee you have the luxury of checking out every once in awhile. For better or worse, good owners are married to their businesses and don't have that luxury. I'm still learning and I consciously try to value the input of each employee and make myself openly available for criticism when it's called for. I also realize that the temptation is there to siphon off marginal profits into my own check, but I think that's short sighted if you have good employees who do "own" their job and are growth minded. Investing in those types will only pay dividends. There's a balance to be had, and it sounds like the OP needs to find a company where he feels better respected and supported. Maybe pay is a component of that, but communication and a healthy culture are also pieces of the puzzle.
- makotech222 9y ago
  Democratization of work doesn't mean zero hierarchy. It means the workers get to choose how their labor value is used. It is perfectly acceptable for a majority of a company to decide to elect a CEO and form a capitalist-style company, but it is important that it is their choice to do so! And of course, they would still retain their right to revoke such a hierarchy.
  - 9y ago
zackmorris 9y ago
I was going to say the same thing but you beat me to it. Without some form of profit sharing or stake holding by employees, there is simply no way to make the workplace fair. That fairness was traditionally sought by unions but they have lost much of their influence for political reasons because of their relationship with socialism. Richard Wolff has talked at length about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynbgMKclWWc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynbgMKclWWc http://www.democracyatwork.info/ http://www.democracyatwork.info/ Thom Hartmann's programs are another good source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWUI-94b3iI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWUI-94b3iI https://www.thomhartmann.com/ https://www.thomhartmann.com/ Socialism gets a bad rap in the US because it has been abused in the past to give rise to things like fascism and communism. But many social democracies (much of Europe) today enjoy high standards of living and I would argue are focused more on culture and the pursuit of non-material goals than the US. We're at a crossroads where the middle class is on the brink of failure due to decades of trickle down economics (Reaganomics). Things like the upcoming tax cut will likely lead to stagflation (high inflation and flat wages, last felt in the 1970s) because there is no mathematical or economic basis for lowering taxes in boom times under a high national debt. So this will be the third bust I've seen (the dot bomb and housing bomb being the others) since the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed in 1999 by the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act. Keep in mind that we had almost 70 years of relative stability since it was implemented: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_legislation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_legisla... The current trends are towards maximizing concentration of wealth, not just in the US but under multinational corporations. Think of boom-bust cycles as being similar to stock market volatility. The most money is made when prices fluctuate the most, so elected officials are under tremendous lobbying pressure to maximize these peaks and troughs. Meanwhile the working class feels the brunt of the effect, worst for people who have no savings or investments and find themselves overworked/underpaid during boom times and unemployed during down times. They have no investments so miss out on the share of profits made by the wealthy (in effect, a poverty tax). I’ve tried not to politicize this too much but there are very basic left-right divides at work here and I was born in 1977 so have only witnessed conservative economic policies (Clinton and Obama mostly maintained them, there have been no top marginal rate hikes to pre-Reagan levels of perhaps 50-75%). Incomes flatlined sometime around 1980 and in very real terms, workers today are earning roughly half what the baby boomers earned, adjusted for inflation: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Productivity_and_Real_Median_Family_Income_Growth_1947-2009.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Productivity_and_Rea... This is probably due to several reasons, a main one being that more women work outside the home today so there was a doubling of the labor pool which put downward pressure on wages. But that’s not enough to explain it entirely. I put the blame squarely on regressive tax policies, for example the separation of income and capital gains tax (so-called earned and unearned income). Net income should probably all be taxed the same way, under a fair tax bracket scheme, preferably a mathematical curve of some kind: http://occupywallst.org/forum/simplest-suitably-progressive-tax-rlogincomepovert/ http://occupywallst.org/forum/simplest-suitably-progressive-... A flat tax is far too regressive, but something approaching linear on a logarithmic scale could work. What this all means is that it's going to be up to us to work towards some form of progressive taxation or dreaming into the future far enough, a universal basic income like Star Trek. That may require taxing robot labor or coming up with new forms of taxation like putting sales tax on stock trades. If we educate ourselves in things like civics which are no longer taught in school, we can get a picture of what it was like when the US was more democratic and able to change its course. So to answer the original poster’s question: too many hours, too little pay, and to add insult to injury: no self-determination (freedom) in the workplace. But I think if everyone knew the history of how we got here, it would no longer be ethical to exclude workers from reaping the fruits of their labors via the distinction of employer and employee. And I think that with full access to information, we arrive at the conclusion that progressive taxation is the quickest and most proven way to create a middle class. I don’t think of these things as socialism but that label is used to discredit otherwise logical conclusions in socioeconomics.
ryanwaggoner 9y ago
Socialism as you’re portraying it here doesn’t exist, does it? Or can you provide some examples? The model where social democracy works best seems to be the Nordic model, but this is expressly NOT socialism as you’re defining it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model So please, where’s this utopia that you’re telling OP is the answer to their problems?
- jrs235 9y ago
  And where it works best also tends to me culturally homogenous with very little diversity.

weirdstuff 9y ago

"Democracy at Work" http://www.democracyatwork.info/ http://www.democracyatwork.info/

TomMarius 9y ago

I seriously hope you're joking. Can't be sure nowadays.

outside1234 9y ago

Anyone who thinks this is a great idea should take a trip to Cuba. Seriously. I had the same affliction and about 8 days into Cuba I was totally cured.

hateduser2 9y ago
For those of us who can't go to Cuba (I'm sure there are a lot of us), could you say more about what was wrong with it? Also there are lots of other factors I'm sure that could contribute besides just that its socialist.
weirdstuff 9y ago
Cuba is a cherry-picked example and is misleading. Other socialist countries that are doing better: China; Denmark; Finland; Netherlands; Canada; Sweden; Norway; Ireland. Don't forget Cuba has been forced into economic isolation by the US. And places like Venezuela and Detroit were overly dependent on too few industries and are plagued by massive wealth inequality. You can also find persistent systemic poverty in capitalism: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0185084916300330 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0185084916...
- cc81 9y ago
  How do you define a socialist country?
  - dazc 9y ago
    By including China, I'd say, very broadly?
    - arcticbull 9y ago
      I agree, China doesn’t meet the criteria imo. It’s totalitarian, nationalist and it does not provide socialized medicine - it has more in common with the US than with the other examples, I believe. Over the years they’ve been moving to privatize many industries - not all though. Interestingly the Western leaning Taiwan usually portrayed as the capitalist counterpart does provide socialized medicine, having quite recently de-privatized the system with great results.
  - weirdstuff 9y ago
    Too complex for an HN post and ultimately my definition will far too short, so I'll just cop out by saying "I know it when I see it". Usually defined by a relatively more weighted public sector ownership and operation of the factors of production. It's about worker control. And my overall feelings of it is relative to places like the U.S. which practices a form of democratic-ish corporatist oligarchy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it
  - ryanwaggoner 9y ago
    In the context of this conversation, where your efforts won't go to improve the wealth or power or status of your boss, I'd say you'd have to get pretty socialist to solve that problem.
- outside1234 9y ago
  There is social democracy and there is socialism. I am totally with social democracy like your European examples where health care, education, and other things are basic rights and investments that everyone in the country should enjoy. That said, nobody in Norway or Sweden are guaranteed jobs and the working culture is actually pretty similar to the most of the west, including having to work for demanding bosses. True socialism is a nightmare that guarantees nothing more than everyone has the same, which is usually very little.
lovich 9y ago
There are arguments against socialism, but pointing to a small country who's been embargoed by a local juggernaut for decades is not a strong one.
andrepd 9y ago
Can you elaborate? Specifically: * Out of the dozens of countries that have/had socialist governments (let's ignore those where US intervention prevented that from happening, against the will of the people) why did you choose Cuba? * What failings of Cuba do you attribute to socialism, and do not see happening in capitalist countries?
makotech222 9y ago
Take a trip to any non-first-world capitalist country. Funny how only a handful of countries benefit from capitalism, while the rest have their resources and labor pillaged. Sounds a lot like a capitalist business.

staunch 9y ago

Socialism is only a valid answer if you don't understand technology. If you think there's a fixed pie and we have to forcibly break it into rations so that everyone gets at least something. But technology offers a much better solution, which is grow the pie large enough that everyone has as much as they want. There are no physical limitations to this concept. The universe is rich with everything we need for billions of years. Karl Marx didn't understand asteroid mining. And it turns out that unchecked capitalism is shit but it's just the right kind of manure for the garden of technology to bear its fruit of panacea.

weirdstuff 9y ago
This is a sentiment that I think is termed "technological utopianism" and it has limits: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_utopianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_utopianism
- staunch 9y ago
  Or more generally, this is just a description of Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology There may be "limits" in terms of scope and trade offs to society, but there are no practical "physical limitations" with respect to available atoms.
  - chickenfries 9y ago
    I'm not so sure that there are no physical limitations to technological growth, which is ultimately a function of investment in to technology. https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist...
jacques_chester 9y ago
Marx wasn't really advocating that there is a fixed pie which needs to be forcibly carved up. Mostly he built his ideas around the distinction between different kinds of "value", particularly the labour value and exchange value of goods. His clever insight, the basis of his theory of exploitation, was that labour value and labour power are different. The labourer sells labour power. The difference between the labour value of the good and the labour power sold accrues to the capitalist. One of the several ways he was wrong was that prices aren't really set by labour value at all. All economic value is subjective, influenced by many factors. The average amount of labour is neither here nor there.

ryanwaggoner 9y ago

Most people find extreme injustice in seeing the value of their labor being stolen by the capitalist class. Nonsense. Most people don’t think their labor is stolen or find extreme injustice in getting paid for their labor. You need to get outside your bubble.

dmichulke 9y ago
To elaborate: it's not stolen if you previously signed a contract that the employer can have it. Otherwise every trade would be theft right?
- ryanwaggoner 9y ago
  Hardcore socialists apparently think that’s true. After all, if the other person wants it, they must be taking advantage of me! They all operate from a fixed pie / scarcity mentality, and must have missed the basic economics class where you learn that parties can trade where ALL end up better off than if you didn’t.
  - lfischer 9y ago
    Of course, but it’s hard to argue that because a trade is advantageous to you, you cannot attempt to create the conditions where it’s even more advantageous. And in negotiations, you should strengthen your BATNA (best alternative to no agreement) and that of the other party’s. So you could see class struggle as a strategy to improve the starting positions in a negotiation, if that makes you happier :-)
- andrepd 9y ago
  A mugger doesn't steal from me, if I hand my wallet to him, right? Analogously to how this is theft because of the threat of violence, so it can be argued that it is also theft/extortion due to the threat of leaving you and your family homeless and starving if you don't take my offer right now.
  - ryanwaggoner 9y ago

M1ntos123 9y ago

This is not socialism. Imagine being not able to work. Imagine getting a percentage of your pay while staying home after that needed surgury (which was free, paid by all of us who can still work). This is socialism.

andrepd 9y ago

Absolutely. >I resent spending 48 weeks a year in an office and stressing over issues that will only make the company's owners richer but won't change much for me. I say don't change much because a 2-3% raise once in a while is nice, but it's nothing in comparison to the thousands/millions extra it will make the company, while the only result for me is that I get to keep my job and do more of that. Who wouldn't resent it? Who wouldn't resent the fruits of their labour being reaped by someone else? Who actually thinks it is fair that you work hard to make your boss millions? We need to radically rethink our current system of wealth distribution. Propaganda and US intervention have succeeded in preventing socialism from taking off anywhere in the first world or succeeding anywhere at all. How else can the majority of people tolerate feudalism in the 21st century?

ryanwaggoner 9y ago
Or maybe most people just don’t have such a simplistic view of the world? People who advocate for socialism just want the rewards of capitalism without any of the risks.
- TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
  Well seeing how most Americans haven't been getting the rewards of capitalism(wages have been stagnant since the 70's, regional inequality + healthcare + housing has made the actual COL much higher), it makes perfect sense that people would start pushing for something different.
  - ryanwaggoner 9y ago
    Our system isn't perfect, and capitalism overall is shit, but actual socialism somehow manages to be worse. Americans aren't clamoring for socialism.
    - brokenmachine 9y ago
      > Americans aren't clamoring for socialism. In fact Americans are inexplicably voting for the absolute worst proponents of capitalist corruption.

dmichulke 9y ago

You can build your socialist enterprise in any capitalist system, it's not like it's forbidden as long as you pay your bills.

makotech222 9y ago
Yes, because a socialist enterprise can exist in a system where the ultra-wealthy capitalist can 1. Buy out the company and outsource everything 2. Buy out the politicians and make laws against them 3. Use their extreme wealth to sabotage their business. 4. In the case of other nations, embargo them and assassinate their leaders, stoke pro-capitalist revolutions. Examples: See Cuba, USSR, entirety of South America, Vietnam, etc.
- ryanwaggoner 9y ago
  Ah...I see now. Socialism has failed miserably everywhere it’s been tried, but that’s not socialism’s fault! It’s capitalism’s fault! The big bad capitalists ruined it by meddling! If only socialists could be left alone, they’d finally be able to create paradise. I’m straw-manning here, but only a bit. Not only is this cliche defense of socialism not logical or accurate, it’s impractical. So you need a world without adversaries or people with entrenched power before you can create your utopia? Good luck with that.
  - makotech222 9y ago
    Liberalism went through the same period. Ever hear of the french revolution? Then the Napoleonic wars? The same is and will happen with socialism. The status quo benefits a select few people (Monarchy, at the time), who will do their damndest to keep it that way. Eventually, enough people will rise up and make change happen.
    - ryanwaggoner 9y ago
      You may be right about things eventually changing, but I think it'll be due to post-scarcity due to technological progress, not because people will rise up. What you're definitely wrong about is that the current status quo benefits a select few. It's not equally distributed (although neither would socialism be), but almost everyone on earth today is much better off today than they would have been without capitalism, liberalism, etc. But I'm tired of providing examples of why, especially when the alternative being offered is a theoretical utopia that's basically a more extreme version of some of the most cruel and deadly regimes earth has ever known.

cookiecaper 9y ago

The 20th century has thoroughly proven out the naivety of this position. Political and economic systems conform themselves to reality, not the other way 'round, for better or worse. The reality is that we live in a world of scarcity, and have unchangeable biological impulses toward hoarding resources and other exclusionary survival behaviors. Capitalism provides the _most fair_ solution under the unchangeable physical realities that govern human life. You can't wave a political magic wand and do away with all unfairness in the world. A lot of people tried that over the last 100 years. One quick honest look at the wreckage should be more than enough to disabuse anyone of these ideas.

andrepd 9y ago
>The reality is that we live in a world of scarcity, Since the 1980s we have been producing enough food to feed everyone on earth. So to take that example, of that basic necessity, there is no scarcity. From that moment on making sure nobody starved ceased to be a problem of scarcity and became a problem of distribution. >and have unchangeable biological impulses toward hoarding resources and other exclusionary survival behaviors. I have a biological impulse to kill people who cross me, to shit on the street, to steal things I want, if given the chance. The proof of that is that for the vast majority of the existence of our species this was how we behaved. Nevertheless I tamed those impulses. No reason why the impulses of hoarding for myself to the ruin of others can't be tamed as well.
- cookiecaper 9y ago
  >Since the 1980s we have been producing enough food to feed everyone on earth. So to take that example, of that basic necessity, there is no scarcity. From that moment on making sure nobody starved ceased to be a problem of scarcity and became a problem of distribution. Scarcity is a feature that exists due to physical limitations and processes that have a) shaped human evolution for millennia, socially and biologically; and b) have not ceased since the 1980s. We may produce enough food to feed everyone on earth by some metrics, but that doesn't mean that the principle of scarcity is irrelevant in either the theoretical or practical sense. >I have a biological impulse to kill people who cross me, to shit on the street, to steal things I want, if given the chance. The proof of that is that for the vast majority of the existence of our species this was how we behaved. Nevertheless I tamed those impulses. No reason why the impulses of hoarding for myself to the ruin of others can't be tamed as well. Negative default behaviors are mitigated through systems that recognize, acknowledge, and cooperate with the human impulse instead of trying to deny its existence or inevitable operation. If bathrooms are too far apart or the wait is too long, then people don't use them and yes, will alternately relieve themselves on the side of the street. We need to carry some of that realism into our economic and political discussion.

rjett 9y ago

Owner of a business here... I'm 6 years into owning my own business and things have grown year over year for the company and we are doing quite well. In theory, the democratization of the workplace is a nice idea, and I initially tried to build my business around this idea. But over my time running things, I've realized that hierarchy is necessary, especially when things start to scale up. One of the biggest things I've come to realize is that most people take comfort in structure: what time to arrive and what time they can leave, specific directions on how to do their job and what exactly their job is (or isn't), when they will be paid, etc. As things begin to scale up in a business, it's necessary to create specific roles and specialized work for things to operate efficiently, and while a healthily functioning company relies on everyone doing their job well and working together, every role in the company does not carry equal weight, either because of the skillset or knowledge base required to perform a given task or because of the network and social abilities of a given person might open more doors for the business. People also go through different stages in their personal lives where they might be more or less invested in the work they're doing, and when you're an employee you have the luxury of checking out every once in awhile. For better or worse, good owners are married to their businesses and don't have that luxury. I'm still learning and I consciously try to value the input of each employee and make myself openly available for criticism when it's called for. I also realize that the temptation is there to siphon off marginal profits into my own check, but I think that's short sighted if you have good employees who do "own" their job and are growth minded. Investing in those types will only pay dividends. There's a balance to be had, and it sounds like the OP needs to find a company where he feels better respected and supported. Maybe pay is a component of that, but communication and a healthy culture are also pieces of the puzzle.

makotech222 9y ago
Democratization of work doesn't mean zero hierarchy. It means the workers get to choose how their labor value is used. It is perfectly acceptable for a majority of a company to decide to elect a CEO and form a capitalist-style company, but it is important that it is their choice to do so! And of course, they would still retain their right to revoke such a hierarchy.
- 9y ago

zackmorris 9y ago

I was going to say the same thing but you beat me to it. Without some form of profit sharing or stake holding by employees, there is simply no way to make the workplace fair. That fairness was traditionally sought by unions but they have lost much of their influence for political reasons because of their relationship with socialism. Richard Wolff has talked at length about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynbgMKclWWc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynbgMKclWWc http://www.democracyatwork.info/ http://www.democracyatwork.info/ Thom Hartmann's programs are another good source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWUI-94b3iI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWUI-94b3iI https://www.thomhartmann.com/ https://www.thomhartmann.com/ Socialism gets a bad rap in the US because it has been abused in the past to give rise to things like fascism and communism. But many social democracies (much of Europe) today enjoy high standards of living and I would argue are focused more on culture and the pursuit of non-material goals than the US. We're at a crossroads where the middle class is on the brink of failure due to decades of trickle down economics (Reaganomics). Things like the upcoming tax cut will likely lead to stagflation (high inflation and flat wages, last felt in the 1970s) because there is no mathematical or economic basis for lowering taxes in boom times under a high national debt. So this will be the third bust I've seen (the dot bomb and housing bomb being the others) since the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed in 1999 by the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act. Keep in mind that we had almost 70 years of relative stability since it was implemented: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_legislation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_legisla... The current trends are towards maximizing concentration of wealth, not just in the US but under multinational corporations. Think of boom-bust cycles as being similar to stock market volatility. The most money is made when prices fluctuate the most, so elected officials are under tremendous lobbying pressure to maximize these peaks and troughs. Meanwhile the working class feels the brunt of the effect, worst for people who have no savings or investments and find themselves overworked/underpaid during boom times and unemployed during down times. They have no investments so miss out on the share of profits made by the wealthy (in effect, a poverty tax). I’ve tried not to politicize this too much but there are very basic left-right divides at work here and I was born in 1977 so have only witnessed conservative economic policies (Clinton and Obama mostly maintained them, there have been no top marginal rate hikes to pre-Reagan levels of perhaps 50-75%). Incomes flatlined sometime around 1980 and in very real terms, workers today are earning roughly half what the baby boomers earned, adjusted for inflation: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Productivity_and_Real_Median_Family_Income_Growth_1947-2009.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Productivity_and_Rea... This is probably due to several reasons, a main one being that more women work outside the home today so there was a doubling of the labor pool which put downward pressure on wages. But that’s not enough to explain it entirely. I put the blame squarely on regressive tax policies, for example the separation of income and capital gains tax (so-called earned and unearned income). Net income should probably all be taxed the same way, under a fair tax bracket scheme, preferably a mathematical curve of some kind: http://occupywallst.org/forum/simplest-suitably-progressive-tax-rlogincomepovert/ http://occupywallst.org/forum/simplest-suitably-progressive-... A flat tax is far too regressive, but something approaching linear on a logarithmic scale could work. What this all means is that it's going to be up to us to work towards some form of progressive taxation or dreaming into the future far enough, a universal basic income like Star Trek. That may require taxing robot labor or coming up with new forms of taxation like putting sales tax on stock trades. If we educate ourselves in things like civics which are no longer taught in school, we can get a picture of what it was like when the US was more democratic and able to change its course. So to answer the original poster’s question: too many hours, too little pay, and to add insult to injury: no self-determination (freedom) in the workplace. But I think if everyone knew the history of how we got here, it would no longer be ethical to exclude workers from reaping the fruits of their labors via the distinction of employer and employee. And I think that with full access to information, we arrive at the conclusion that progressive taxation is the quickest and most proven way to create a middle class. I don’t think of these things as socialism but that label is used to discredit otherwise logical conclusions in socioeconomics.

ryanwaggoner 9y ago

Socialism as you’re portraying it here doesn’t exist, does it? Or can you provide some examples? The model where social democracy works best seems to be the Nordic model, but this is expressly NOT socialism as you’re defining it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model So please, where’s this utopia that you’re telling OP is the answer to their problems?

jrs235 9y ago
And where it works best also tends to me culturally homogenous with very little diversity.