8 ms·

While it is the norm (certainly taught as the norm) to profit by coming together in a transaction where both parties leave with more value it is also possible t

While it is the norm (certainly taught as the norm) to profit by coming together in a transaction where both parties leave with more value it is also possible to profit by taking value. This can be done through outright robbery but it can also be done in more subtle (and legal) ways by making a transaction look more voluntary than it is. When one party is negotiating from a position of strength (employers) and the other party is negotiating with their life and physical well being on the line (employees, especially those on the lower end of the pay scale) then the first party can take more value and profit from the transaction than if they were both negotiating for a net gain in value. So, somewhere along the way, largely by historical accident and inertia, we've decided as a society that it is ok to keep a huge portion of the population on the edge of desperation and that if they fall it is their own concern. Any moves to change this is seen as an attack on business owners and their profits. This is short-sighted since if people are motivated rather than forced to produce value there will be more people contributing to the improvement of the castle and fewer looking at the walls with jealousy and chip away at it whenever they get the opportunity.

fnordsensei 9y ago
This analysis made me think about a comment someone made about basic income (paraphrasing): "If we renamed it to 'guillotine insurance', maybe the rich and powerful would get the point of it"
- cuspycode 9y ago
  That's a strange comment considering that most people who get hurt in a blood-thirsty revolution are generally not the rich and powerful.
  - cmurf 9y ago
    Depends on your perspective. There are worse things than death. And equalizing misery is almost romantic. And compared to other revolutions, the French Revolution was not that bloody. It was just the localized executions that made for all the blood running in the streets for weeks. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/02/scheidel-great-leveler-inequality-violence/517164/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/02/scheide...
    - vondur 9y ago
      Well, the revolts in the Vendée killed up to 130,000 people. But I doubt most of them were the rich. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_the_Vendée https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_the_Vendée
      - Nomentatus 9y ago
        But this was a counter-revolution, not a revolution.
        dragonwriter 9y ago
        No, while it was a revolts against the revolutionaey regime, it was not one to restore the pre-revolutionary regime or the classes who lost power in the revolution, it was a popular peasant uprising sgainst conscription by the revolutionary regime. OTOH, even if it were a counter-revolution, why would it be excluded: would you really make the argument that a revolution isn't particularly bloody, if you have ignore the cost in lives of putting down attempts to restore the old order? That's part of the cost of achieved a revolution.
        Nomentatus 9y ago
        The counter-revolution was more to restore church power than the monarchy (that's how the peasants were enlisted, anyway), but that's not a relevant detail. Re why exclude: You were trying to prove that initial revolutions, contra the present upper classes kill mostly poor people. Might be true but can't be shown by citing counter-revolutions. Sure, similarly, White Russian soldiers killed a lot of poor peasants - but then, why wouldn't they?
        dragonwriter 9y ago
        > You were trying to prove that initial revolutions, contra the present upper classes kill mostly poor people. Well, it wasn't me, and the claim didn't mention “initial”, it was: “most people who get hurt in a blood-thirsty revolution are generally not the rich and powerful.” I think it's fair to characterize people killed in resistance by the old order before the institutionalization of the revolution to be hurt in the revolution.
  - Nomentatus 9y ago
    "Most." Which implies a spectacular increase in the risk to the rich, who were previously exceptionally secure.
  - Terr_ 9y ago
    In absolute terms, sure, but that doesn't mean much since the rich and powerful are already a tiny (but powerful) minority. Are you saying that in proportional terms the non-wealthy were hurt more as well?
- CryptoPunk 9y ago
  If there are people that would behead other people out of resentment for their success, the last thing I want to do is appease them with basic income paid out of my taxes. The kind of attitude that rationalizes violence with generalizations based on a single variable like wealth should be penalized, not rewarded with money. Besides the principle of the matter, which is very important to me, I think acquiescing to predatory and bigoted attitudes, like those held by advocates of class warfare, will result in a more dangerous society in the future. It is actually less risky in the long run to confront and push back against those types of attitudes wherever they arise, than to give into its demands, in my opinion.
  - fnordsensei 9y ago
    Well, I disagree, and I don't think it is about demands, but basic needs. In particular, I find the notion that the core problem is "resentment of success" to be very naive, especially when projected at such a large segment of society. It's perfectly predictable what courses of action a desperate person will start to contemplate. It's equally predictable what is bound to happen when desperation becomes systemic. I find the philosophical discussion about what is owed, deserved, right, wrong, moral and immoral disinteresting in this context. "What works", is more interesting. History suggests that violence and suppression ("pushing back"), works temporarily, with the predictable result that the targets now have even less to lose, and become even more desperate. Which of course, if you're naive, suggests that even more suppression is needed. And so on. At some point, it explodes in the end, one way or another. Personally, I suspect that guillotine insurance is cheaper for everyone. When given resources, people who have nothing go and spend those on necessities–basic consumption, precisely the stuff that stimulates the economy. They're not going to send the resources to an off-shore account. This benefits society at large. Markets live and die by their ability to sustain healthy, large scale exchange of goods and services. I.e., don't you worry that you might be doing someone a service, that money will make it back to your pocket, and—most likely—then some. So maybe there's a way to make more money for everyone, alleviate suffering, and decrease the need for suppressive force all at once. The downside being, maybe, that we have to give up some ideology to pursue what's effective. Which is not to say that basic income is guaranteed to work. We don't know yet, because it hasn't been tried at scale.
malvosenior 9y ago
> So, somewhere along the way, largely by historical accident and inertia, we've decided as a society that it is ok to keep a huge portion of the population on the edge of desperation and that if they fall it is their own concern. This has how the vast majority of humanity has always lived.
- JoeAltmaier 9y ago
  ...and we're not ok with that, not any more. Not when we can do something about it.
  - malvosenior 9y ago
    Who's "we" and what can "we" do about it? If you're suggesting taking more money from people who earned it to give it to people that didn't, I think you'll find that "we" doesn't include a lot of people.
    - dang 9y ago
      Please don't post generic ideological talking points to HN. This leads to generic ideological flamewar, which is well off topic here.
patricius 9y ago
Nah, no single decision was made about keeping a huge portion of the population on the edge of desperation. And companies are not generally to blame for people's desperation, unless they somehow cheat or commit fraud (usually in collusion with the state). Furthermore, always assuming that the employer is always in the position of strength is wrong. Even though Chinese factory workers are paid very little by Western standards, they are seeing their wages rise, which is exactly because they are increasingly able to negotiate from a position of strength. Lastly, a transaction is either voluntary or it is not. There are no degrees of 'voluntary' if you use the word in the conventional sense.
- lisper 9y ago
  > Lastly, a transaction is either voluntary or it is not. There are no degrees of 'voluntary' if you use the word in the conventional sense. So if I point a gun at your head and threaten to shoot you if you don't hand over your wallet, you would say that you voluntarily handed over your wallet because that was a fair price for keeping your head intact? Most people mean something different when they use the word "voluntary".
  - patricius 9y ago
    But that is exactly an example of an involuntary transaction including threat of violence or murder.
    - lisper 9y ago
      OK, so here's a second example: suppose I somehow arrange to have control over all of the available food and tell you that in order to access it you have to hand over your wallet. Is your choice to hand over your wallet so you can eat now voluntary or not?
      - patricius 9y ago
        It is voluntary whether he chooses to hand over his wallet. Edit: Irrelevant comment.
CryptoPunk 9y ago
>>When one party is negotiating from a position of strength (employers) and the other party is negotiating with their life and physical well being on the line (employees, especially those on the lower end of the pay scale) then the first party can take more value and profit from the transaction than if they were both negotiating for a net gain in value. I don't see how that could possibly be true. An employee has plenty of time to peruse offers in the marketplace before accepting one of them, and even more time after accepting one of them. Job market analysis is an extremely efficient task with modern job listing sites. A person can quickly assess the lay of the land as far as prevailing wages and required qualifications, and applying for the jobs is as easy as sending off an email with minor customization of the cover letter. The idea that a person would take a job that pays less than what they can fetch on the marketplace because they are poor by developed world standards seems like the kind of overly cynical and unsubstantiated conspiracy theory thinking that motivates so many ill-conceived mandates like minimum wage.
- clavalle 9y ago
  >An employee has plenty of time to peruse offers in the marketplace before accepting one of them, and even more time after accepting one of them. You seem to be extrapolating middle-class experience and choices to the working poor and below. The idea that the marketplace is immune to distortions caused by a well-founded fear of pain or existential threat seems like an pollyanna view and the type of thinking that leads to ill-conceived policy like removing worker protections because the market can do no wrong. People can and do get stuck in a treading-water situation where they simply try to feed themselves and their family and keep them housed and clothed at a minimum standard while working so much that finding another job or spending time improving their value to the marketplace is an unreachable dream. That's not to say I completely disagree with you. There are plenty of open questions. If basic survival and physical security was guaranteed for a population how many would take that minimum guarantee and just spend all of their free time on activities that benefit only themselves (making them the worst possible drain on society)? How many would find a suitable job or other activity that creates significant value for others but that doesn't make up for the resources spent on their minimum guarantees (making them a smaller drain on society)? How many would take the opportunity to improve their lot through more aggressive negotiations in the sale of their time and labor or through improving their value generation capacity through education or by taking bigger market risks to the point of contributing more than the societal investment? And, finally, how would each of these groups contribute to the whole in aggregate? Would it be a net gain? I think that is an open question and one that a lot of current ideology makes it very difficult to get real answers.

fnordsensei 9y ago

This analysis made me think about a comment someone made about basic income (paraphrasing): "If we renamed it to 'guillotine insurance', maybe the rich and powerful would get the point of it"

cuspycode 9y ago
That's a strange comment considering that most people who get hurt in a blood-thirsty revolution are generally not the rich and powerful.
- cmurf 9y ago
  Depends on your perspective. There are worse things than death. And equalizing misery is almost romantic. And compared to other revolutions, the French Revolution was not that bloody. It was just the localized executions that made for all the blood running in the streets for weeks. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/02/scheidel-great-leveler-inequality-violence/517164/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/02/scheide...
  - vondur 9y ago
    Well, the revolts in the Vendée killed up to 130,000 people. But I doubt most of them were the rich. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_the_Vendée https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_the_Vendée
    - Nomentatus 9y ago
      But this was a counter-revolution, not a revolution.
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        No, while it was a revolts against the revolutionaey regime, it was not one to restore the pre-revolutionary regime or the classes who lost power in the revolution, it was a popular peasant uprising sgainst conscription by the revolutionary regime. OTOH, even if it were a counter-revolution, why would it be excluded: would you really make the argument that a revolution isn't particularly bloody, if you have ignore the cost in lives of putting down attempts to restore the old order? That's part of the cost of achieved a revolution.
        Nomentatus 9y ago
        The counter-revolution was more to restore church power than the monarchy (that's how the peasants were enlisted, anyway), but that's not a relevant detail. Re why exclude: You were trying to prove that initial revolutions, contra the present upper classes kill mostly poor people. Might be true but can't be shown by citing counter-revolutions. Sure, similarly, White Russian soldiers killed a lot of poor peasants - but then, why wouldn't they?
        dragonwriter 9y ago
        > You were trying to prove that initial revolutions, contra the present upper classes kill mostly poor people. Well, it wasn't me, and the claim didn't mention “initial”, it was: “most people who get hurt in a blood-thirsty revolution are generally not the rich and powerful.” I think it's fair to characterize people killed in resistance by the old order before the institutionalization of the revolution to be hurt in the revolution.
- Nomentatus 9y ago
  "Most." Which implies a spectacular increase in the risk to the rich, who were previously exceptionally secure.
- Terr_ 9y ago
  In absolute terms, sure, but that doesn't mean much since the rich and powerful are already a tiny (but powerful) minority. Are you saying that in proportional terms the non-wealthy were hurt more as well?
CryptoPunk 9y ago
If there are people that would behead other people out of resentment for their success, the last thing I want to do is appease them with basic income paid out of my taxes. The kind of attitude that rationalizes violence with generalizations based on a single variable like wealth should be penalized, not rewarded with money. Besides the principle of the matter, which is very important to me, I think acquiescing to predatory and bigoted attitudes, like those held by advocates of class warfare, will result in a more dangerous society in the future. It is actually less risky in the long run to confront and push back against those types of attitudes wherever they arise, than to give into its demands, in my opinion.
- fnordsensei 9y ago
  Well, I disagree, and I don't think it is about demands, but basic needs. In particular, I find the notion that the core problem is "resentment of success" to be very naive, especially when projected at such a large segment of society. It's perfectly predictable what courses of action a desperate person will start to contemplate. It's equally predictable what is bound to happen when desperation becomes systemic. I find the philosophical discussion about what is owed, deserved, right, wrong, moral and immoral disinteresting in this context. "What works", is more interesting. History suggests that violence and suppression ("pushing back"), works temporarily, with the predictable result that the targets now have even less to lose, and become even more desperate. Which of course, if you're naive, suggests that even more suppression is needed. And so on. At some point, it explodes in the end, one way or another. Personally, I suspect that guillotine insurance is cheaper for everyone. When given resources, people who have nothing go and spend those on necessities–basic consumption, precisely the stuff that stimulates the economy. They're not going to send the resources to an off-shore account. This benefits society at large. Markets live and die by their ability to sustain healthy, large scale exchange of goods and services. I.e., don't you worry that you might be doing someone a service, that money will make it back to your pocket, and—most likely—then some. So maybe there's a way to make more money for everyone, alleviate suffering, and decrease the need for suppressive force all at once. The downside being, maybe, that we have to give up some ideology to pursue what's effective. Which is not to say that basic income is guaranteed to work. We don't know yet, because it hasn't been tried at scale.

malvosenior 9y ago

> So, somewhere along the way, largely by historical accident and inertia, we've decided as a society that it is ok to keep a huge portion of the population on the edge of desperation and that if they fall it is their own concern. This has how the vast majority of humanity has always lived.

JoeAltmaier 9y ago
...and we're not ok with that, not any more. Not when we can do something about it.
- malvosenior 9y ago
  Who's "we" and what can "we" do about it? If you're suggesting taking more money from people who earned it to give it to people that didn't, I think you'll find that "we" doesn't include a lot of people.
  - dang 9y ago
    Please don't post generic ideological talking points to HN. This leads to generic ideological flamewar, which is well off topic here.

patricius 9y ago

Nah, no single decision was made about keeping a huge portion of the population on the edge of desperation. And companies are not generally to blame for people's desperation, unless they somehow cheat or commit fraud (usually in collusion with the state). Furthermore, always assuming that the employer is always in the position of strength is wrong. Even though Chinese factory workers are paid very little by Western standards, they are seeing their wages rise, which is exactly because they are increasingly able to negotiate from a position of strength. Lastly, a transaction is either voluntary or it is not. There are no degrees of 'voluntary' if you use the word in the conventional sense.

lisper 9y ago
> Lastly, a transaction is either voluntary or it is not. There are no degrees of 'voluntary' if you use the word in the conventional sense. So if I point a gun at your head and threaten to shoot you if you don't hand over your wallet, you would say that you voluntarily handed over your wallet because that was a fair price for keeping your head intact? Most people mean something different when they use the word "voluntary".
- patricius 9y ago
  But that is exactly an example of an involuntary transaction including threat of violence or murder.
  - lisper 9y ago
    OK, so here's a second example: suppose I somehow arrange to have control over all of the available food and tell you that in order to access it you have to hand over your wallet. Is your choice to hand over your wallet so you can eat now voluntary or not?
    - patricius 9y ago
      It is voluntary whether he chooses to hand over his wallet. Edit: Irrelevant comment.

CryptoPunk 9y ago

>>When one party is negotiating from a position of strength (employers) and the other party is negotiating with their life and physical well being on the line (employees, especially those on the lower end of the pay scale) then the first party can take more value and profit from the transaction than if they were both negotiating for a net gain in value. I don't see how that could possibly be true. An employee has plenty of time to peruse offers in the marketplace before accepting one of them, and even more time after accepting one of them. Job market analysis is an extremely efficient task with modern job listing sites. A person can quickly assess the lay of the land as far as prevailing wages and required qualifications, and applying for the jobs is as easy as sending off an email with minor customization of the cover letter. The idea that a person would take a job that pays less than what they can fetch on the marketplace because they are poor by developed world standards seems like the kind of overly cynical and unsubstantiated conspiracy theory thinking that motivates so many ill-conceived mandates like minimum wage.

clavalle 9y ago
>An employee has plenty of time to peruse offers in the marketplace before accepting one of them, and even more time after accepting one of them. You seem to be extrapolating middle-class experience and choices to the working poor and below. The idea that the marketplace is immune to distortions caused by a well-founded fear of pain or existential threat seems like an pollyanna view and the type of thinking that leads to ill-conceived policy like removing worker protections because the market can do no wrong. People can and do get stuck in a treading-water situation where they simply try to feed themselves and their family and keep them housed and clothed at a minimum standard while working so much that finding another job or spending time improving their value to the marketplace is an unreachable dream. That's not to say I completely disagree with you. There are plenty of open questions. If basic survival and physical security was guaranteed for a population how many would take that minimum guarantee and just spend all of their free time on activities that benefit only themselves (making them the worst possible drain on society)? How many would find a suitable job or other activity that creates significant value for others but that doesn't make up for the resources spent on their minimum guarantees (making them a smaller drain on society)? How many would take the opportunity to improve their lot through more aggressive negotiations in the sale of their time and labor or through improving their value generation capacity through education or by taking bigger market risks to the point of contributing more than the societal investment? And, finally, how would each of these groups contribute to the whole in aggregate? Would it be a net gain? I think that is an open question and one that a lot of current ideology makes it very difficult to get real answers.