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> “There have been numerous objections to this bill, and serious legal concerns have been raised,” Brown said. “I don’t minimize the potential flaws that indeed

by cowpig 8y ago

> “There have been numerous objections to this bill, and serious legal concerns have been raised,” Brown said. “I don’t minimize the potential flaws that indeed may prove fatal to its ultimate implementation. Nevertheless, recent events in Washington, D.C. — and beyond — make it crystal clear that many are not getting the message.” I feel like passing a flawed or badly-implemented law that forces companies to restructure their boards in order to send a political message will have the opposite of the effect you want. Surely it'll just galvanize peoples' negative opinions of "liberal policies," and do little to actually change anything substantial?

blattimwind 8y ago
It's funny how state regulation is considered liberal policy in the US.
- nostromo 8y ago
  This policy is deeply anti-liberal. But “liberal” has lost all meaning in the US and now is synonymous with “Democratic” or “progressive.” This sucks because us actual liberals are feeling more and more homeless in US politics.
  - shredprez 8y ago
    Would you elaborate on the ideal liberal platform? I see and hear comments like this quite frequently (from folks of all political alignments, interestingly) and I'm always interested to hear what beliefs and policies people around me want to see in their government but don't.
    - briandear 8y ago
      Liberal is supposed to mean “freedom.” When a government tells you what to do, that isn’t liberal. Of course there is a government and even classical liberals acknowledge the need for some government, but liberal really should mean a support of a government that provides for a common defense and has a court system that would provide for the enforcement of civil contracts. A “liberal” government doesn’t mandate actions of private entities unless those mandates are to protect the life, liberty or property of other individuals. Mandating gender on corporate boards doesn’t protect any of that. Nobody has a right to serve on a board and not serving on a board isn’t threatening anyone’s right to pursue happiness or live their life as they see fit. In fact, it does the opposite: it imposes a requirement that limits the freedom of people to run their business how they see fit. Unless the running of that business infringes on the rights of others, the government really has no business with that sort of mandate. And the key to understanding this is that no person has a “right” to success or a right to a specific job — they have a right to pursue happiness, but not a right to actually be happy. Progressivism is well-intentioned totalitarianism. There is nothing wrong with supporting progressivism, but let’s not pretend is has anything to do with liberalism.
      - shredprez 8y ago
        I'm not making a case for progressivism here and I'm clear on the traditional (and international?) definition of "liberal." I'm mainly interested in what specifically constitutes a liberal platform or policy model in the US. I genuinely don't know what it looks like. The descriptions I hear are typically hand-wavey in a way that reminds me of communist rhetoric; lots of ideals, few details, and typically reactionary (defined by what it isn't). I'm assuming this is a gap in my knowledge/experience and I'd love to fill it in.
        clarkmoody 8y ago
        The libertarians are most in line with a classical liberal ideology. It is a platform that acknowledges individual rights that exist independent of government, which finds its only legitimate role in ensuring those rights. Those rights are life, liberty, and property. Any policy that prefers individual liberty and private property over government power and government-granted privileges would be more libertarian. Libertarians support: - Decriminalization of all "moral crimes" such as drug possession and use, prostitution, etc - Freedom of trade and exchange, zero tariffs or import/export restrictions, elimination of price-gouging laws - Elimination of taxation, government welfare programs, corporate welfare - Immediate cessation of all foreign wars and assuming a defensive posture in foreign policy - Elimination of most, if not all, regulations on consumer goods - Sound money and the elimination of fractional reserve banking For the most pure, detailed explanation of libertarianism, check out The Ethics of Liberty[1] [1] https://www.amazon.com/Ethics-Liberty-Murray-N-Rothbard/dp/0814775594/ https://www.amazon.com/Ethics-Liberty-Murray-N-Rothbard/dp/0...
        shredprez 8y ago
        Great response, thank you!
        nostromo 8y ago
        If you want details, you'll have to look beyond internet comments. :) Read The Road to Serfdom and The Constitution of Liberty by Hayek for a deep discussion of liberalism. The Wealth of Nations and Free to Choose are also great books to consider.
    - debacle 8y ago
      Not the OP, but the best way to contrast liberalism is from the perspective of Puritanism. Puritans were certainly not liberal socially, but they were also not liberal governmentally - many of the laws in Puritanical societies were highly restrictive, and pre-modern liberalism had its roots in creating a more free society - Puritanism is a non-negligible part of American history. Modern leftism tends to be more authoritarian - it encourages restrictive legislation as a mechanism for progress. This is the dystopian future alluded to in a lot of e.g. Heinlein's work - things like forced sexual liberalism, erosion of parental rights or even parentage itself, elimination of the individual for the cause, and discrimination against the individual based on factors outside of their control. Americans tend to view political affiliation as a binary - left or right, progressive or conservative, liberal or authoritarian. That's because, due to our history, we have always tended to have a leftist, progressive, liberal party contrasted with a right-leaning, conservative, authoritarian party. That language is in and of itself somewhat complex - prohibitionists were considered progressives in their time, though today we would view them as otherwise.
      - shredprez 8y ago
        Great response, the historical Puritan context is something I hadn't considered before. I mention in another response that I'm looking for a description or model that isn't reactionary, but your reply makes me wonder if that's even possible. Is Liberalism more of an emergent, regulating social phenomena than a proper political alignment?
        debacle 8y ago
        What do you mean a model that isn't reactionary? Liberalism I think has two camps: 1. We are forcing people to do the wrong things and should do that less. 2. We shouldn't force people to do anything (libertarianism). The problem with the latter is obviously that libertarians tend to be ignorant of the social contract, but the problem with the former is that lots of those type of liberals stop being liberals when they're the ones in power.
    - scythe 8y ago
      In many other countries, the right-wing party is called "Liberal". The reason is that the history of liberalism is closely intertwined with the history of economics, but they started to diverge when economists started to argue that wage floors and welfare could result in slower economic progress. The most extreme example of the latter argument is John von Neumann's turnpike theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnpike_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnpike_theory There was a sort of "split" between people who wanted to maximize economic growth and people who wanted to optimize for some other measures of social well-being, but, crucially, they were both operating within the "social metric optimization" context of 19th century liberalism, aka classical liberalism, which included e.g. Bentham, Mill, and Schopenhauer. The major 19th century competitors to this philosophy were the various flavors of socialism, largely comprising the followers of Marx and Ricardo, which prefer to build social structures that naturally encourage human freedom (at least in theory), and also the various flavors of conservatism, which aim to preserve historical social structures believed to be beneficial for reasons that are often not clearly expressed. In countries subject to colonial conquest -- that is, everywhere except Western Europe, Russia, Turkey, Iran, Oman, Thailand, China and Japan -- these historical social structures were destroyed, and along with them the population's appetite for conservatism. In Japan, Italy and Germany, conservatism was heavily curtailed after World War II. When liberalism's main competitor was conservatism, the growth-maximizers tended to align themselves with the conservatives and liberals were on the "left". But when it was socialism, the well-being-maximizers aligned themselves with the socialists and liberals were on the "right". What connects the two kinds of liberals is a reliance on numerical measurements of individual status (wealth, happiness, lifespan) and dynamical theories (economics, sociology) to define, promote and produce social progress.
      - shredprez 8y ago
        This is extremely illuminating; thank you for taking the time to respond.
  - moate 8y ago
    "Democratic" isn't quite the right word there. "Democratic" is just "something done through the process of Democracy" not "something belonging to the Democrats".
    - PeanutNore 8y ago
      Small "d" democratic is something done through the process of democracy. Capital "D" Democratic is something belonging to the Democrats. It's that capitalization which indicates that it's a proper noun and referring to the party with that name. Without the capitalization it's not a proper noun and does not refer to the party.
    - nostromo 8y ago
      I capitalized Democratic for a reason. I'm talking about the Democratic Party specifically.
- djschnei 8y ago
  Are you suggesting that a state law (as opposed to a federal) is never aligned with modern liberal ideology because it's happening at the state level?
nyxxie 8y ago
Call me cynical, but I'm not sure this was about achieving anything other than political points. I doubt anyone cared about who they galvanize into disliking this genre of legislation. Out of all classes who experience unequal representation on corporate boards, why were women chosen as the exclusive beneficiaries of this legislation? My guess is because a lot of the hot button social issues being discussed right now focus on women, thus there's a lot of political capital to be gained if one takes a radical position in favor of women.
- aisengard 8y ago
  Or maybe because women are the most extreme example? Women are not a minority - they are ~51% of the population. When most of your population is treated like a second-class minority, well, that's kind of a big crisis. And yes, it helps that women's issues are du jour. A lot of credit goes to a lot of women for their diligence in this matter.
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    You hurt your cause by using active discrimination to attempt to remediate systemic issues.
    - TomVDB 8y ago
      There have been plenty of European countries where similar (or much stricter) rules were introduced and arguments similar to yours were used. And in the end, there are hardly any negative consequences.
      - toomuchtodo 8y ago
        This hand waves away the complexity involved. Witness the immigrant backlash and rise of populism in Europe, Britain, and the United States. Progress is needed, of course. But these are pipeline issues that take decades to nudge in the right direction. Push the lever too far, too fast, and it is going to snap back in your face (See: Brexit, Trump, Poland, etc). There are consequences for disregarding the climate you operate in. Voters and companies can respond faster than you can; recognize the leverage points in your feedback loop and the appropriate amount of pressure to apply to each (and what each point can tolerate).
mortenjorck 8y ago
Legislation seems like an absolutely terrible venue for a symbolic gesture like this. Unfortunately, you’re probably right that the measure will backfire, ultimately setting the cause back further. I don’t know what the right answer is to fix the gender imbalance in boardrooms, but lawsuit-bait like SB 826 only serves to further muddy the waters while sacrificing public faith in the legislative process.
buboard 8y ago
> many are not getting the message Passing a law to send a message to political opponents in a faraway state, that's admission to pure abuse of power. Can US governors say that with a straight face and without repercussions?
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  The governor in any of the handful of one-party states can probably get away with it.
zekevermillion 8y ago
It's problematic to say the least. It beats me why they didn't just make this a more targeted amendment e.g. to a California b-corp statute. Let founders decide if they want to have this restriction in place. I think such a narrow opt-in kind of statute would pass constitutional muster. Obviously no Article IV problem, since it is only that state's chartered corporations. And I don't see it as a freedom of association or equal protection issue, since it would be opt-in.

by cowpig 8y ago

blattimwind 8y ago

It's funny how state regulation is considered liberal policy in the US.

nostromo 8y ago
This policy is deeply anti-liberal. But “liberal” has lost all meaning in the US and now is synonymous with “Democratic” or “progressive.” This sucks because us actual liberals are feeling more and more homeless in US politics.
- shredprez 8y ago
  Would you elaborate on the ideal liberal platform? I see and hear comments like this quite frequently (from folks of all political alignments, interestingly) and I'm always interested to hear what beliefs and policies people around me want to see in their government but don't.
  - briandear 8y ago
    Liberal is supposed to mean “freedom.” When a government tells you what to do, that isn’t liberal. Of course there is a government and even classical liberals acknowledge the need for some government, but liberal really should mean a support of a government that provides for a common defense and has a court system that would provide for the enforcement of civil contracts. A “liberal” government doesn’t mandate actions of private entities unless those mandates are to protect the life, liberty or property of other individuals. Mandating gender on corporate boards doesn’t protect any of that. Nobody has a right to serve on a board and not serving on a board isn’t threatening anyone’s right to pursue happiness or live their life as they see fit. In fact, it does the opposite: it imposes a requirement that limits the freedom of people to run their business how they see fit. Unless the running of that business infringes on the rights of others, the government really has no business with that sort of mandate. And the key to understanding this is that no person has a “right” to success or a right to a specific job — they have a right to pursue happiness, but not a right to actually be happy. Progressivism is well-intentioned totalitarianism. There is nothing wrong with supporting progressivism, but let’s not pretend is has anything to do with liberalism.
    - shredprez 8y ago
      I'm not making a case for progressivism here and I'm clear on the traditional (and international?) definition of "liberal." I'm mainly interested in what specifically constitutes a liberal platform or policy model in the US. I genuinely don't know what it looks like. The descriptions I hear are typically hand-wavey in a way that reminds me of communist rhetoric; lots of ideals, few details, and typically reactionary (defined by what it isn't). I'm assuming this is a gap in my knowledge/experience and I'd love to fill it in.
      - clarkmoody 8y ago
        The libertarians are most in line with a classical liberal ideology. It is a platform that acknowledges individual rights that exist independent of government, which finds its only legitimate role in ensuring those rights. Those rights are life, liberty, and property. Any policy that prefers individual liberty and private property over government power and government-granted privileges would be more libertarian. Libertarians support: - Decriminalization of all "moral crimes" such as drug possession and use, prostitution, etc - Freedom of trade and exchange, zero tariffs or import/export restrictions, elimination of price-gouging laws - Elimination of taxation, government welfare programs, corporate welfare - Immediate cessation of all foreign wars and assuming a defensive posture in foreign policy - Elimination of most, if not all, regulations on consumer goods - Sound money and the elimination of fractional reserve banking For the most pure, detailed explanation of libertarianism, check out The Ethics of Liberty[1] [1] https://www.amazon.com/Ethics-Liberty-Murray-N-Rothbard/dp/0814775594/ https://www.amazon.com/Ethics-Liberty-Murray-N-Rothbard/dp/0...
        shredprez 8y ago
        Great response, thank you!
      - nostromo 8y ago
        If you want details, you'll have to look beyond internet comments. :) Read The Road to Serfdom and The Constitution of Liberty by Hayek for a deep discussion of liberalism. The Wealth of Nations and Free to Choose are also great books to consider.
  - debacle 8y ago
    Not the OP, but the best way to contrast liberalism is from the perspective of Puritanism. Puritans were certainly not liberal socially, but they were also not liberal governmentally - many of the laws in Puritanical societies were highly restrictive, and pre-modern liberalism had its roots in creating a more free society - Puritanism is a non-negligible part of American history. Modern leftism tends to be more authoritarian - it encourages restrictive legislation as a mechanism for progress. This is the dystopian future alluded to in a lot of e.g. Heinlein's work - things like forced sexual liberalism, erosion of parental rights or even parentage itself, elimination of the individual for the cause, and discrimination against the individual based on factors outside of their control. Americans tend to view political affiliation as a binary - left or right, progressive or conservative, liberal or authoritarian. That's because, due to our history, we have always tended to have a leftist, progressive, liberal party contrasted with a right-leaning, conservative, authoritarian party. That language is in and of itself somewhat complex - prohibitionists were considered progressives in their time, though today we would view them as otherwise.
    - shredprez 8y ago
      Great response, the historical Puritan context is something I hadn't considered before. I mention in another response that I'm looking for a description or model that isn't reactionary, but your reply makes me wonder if that's even possible. Is Liberalism more of an emergent, regulating social phenomena than a proper political alignment?
      - debacle 8y ago
        What do you mean a model that isn't reactionary? Liberalism I think has two camps: 1. We are forcing people to do the wrong things and should do that less. 2. We shouldn't force people to do anything (libertarianism). The problem with the latter is obviously that libertarians tend to be ignorant of the social contract, but the problem with the former is that lots of those type of liberals stop being liberals when they're the ones in power.
  - scythe 8y ago
    In many other countries, the right-wing party is called "Liberal". The reason is that the history of liberalism is closely intertwined with the history of economics, but they started to diverge when economists started to argue that wage floors and welfare could result in slower economic progress. The most extreme example of the latter argument is John von Neumann's turnpike theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnpike_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnpike_theory There was a sort of "split" between people who wanted to maximize economic growth and people who wanted to optimize for some other measures of social well-being, but, crucially, they were both operating within the "social metric optimization" context of 19th century liberalism, aka classical liberalism, which included e.g. Bentham, Mill, and Schopenhauer. The major 19th century competitors to this philosophy were the various flavors of socialism, largely comprising the followers of Marx and Ricardo, which prefer to build social structures that naturally encourage human freedom (at least in theory), and also the various flavors of conservatism, which aim to preserve historical social structures believed to be beneficial for reasons that are often not clearly expressed. In countries subject to colonial conquest -- that is, everywhere except Western Europe, Russia, Turkey, Iran, Oman, Thailand, China and Japan -- these historical social structures were destroyed, and along with them the population's appetite for conservatism. In Japan, Italy and Germany, conservatism was heavily curtailed after World War II. When liberalism's main competitor was conservatism, the growth-maximizers tended to align themselves with the conservatives and liberals were on the "left". But when it was socialism, the well-being-maximizers aligned themselves with the socialists and liberals were on the "right". What connects the two kinds of liberals is a reliance on numerical measurements of individual status (wealth, happiness, lifespan) and dynamical theories (economics, sociology) to define, promote and produce social progress.
    - shredprez 8y ago
      This is extremely illuminating; thank you for taking the time to respond.
- moate 8y ago
  "Democratic" isn't quite the right word there. "Democratic" is just "something done through the process of Democracy" not "something belonging to the Democrats".
  - PeanutNore 8y ago
    Small "d" democratic is something done through the process of democracy. Capital "D" Democratic is something belonging to the Democrats. It's that capitalization which indicates that it's a proper noun and referring to the party with that name. Without the capitalization it's not a proper noun and does not refer to the party.
  - nostromo 8y ago
    I capitalized Democratic for a reason. I'm talking about the Democratic Party specifically.
djschnei 8y ago
Are you suggesting that a state law (as opposed to a federal) is never aligned with modern liberal ideology because it's happening at the state level?

nyxxie 8y ago

Call me cynical, but I'm not sure this was about achieving anything other than political points. I doubt anyone cared about who they galvanize into disliking this genre of legislation. Out of all classes who experience unequal representation on corporate boards, why were women chosen as the exclusive beneficiaries of this legislation? My guess is because a lot of the hot button social issues being discussed right now focus on women, thus there's a lot of political capital to be gained if one takes a radical position in favor of women.

aisengard 8y ago
Or maybe because women are the most extreme example? Women are not a minority - they are ~51% of the population. When most of your population is treated like a second-class minority, well, that's kind of a big crisis. And yes, it helps that women's issues are du jour. A lot of credit goes to a lot of women for their diligence in this matter.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  You hurt your cause by using active discrimination to attempt to remediate systemic issues.
  - TomVDB 8y ago
    There have been plenty of European countries where similar (or much stricter) rules were introduced and arguments similar to yours were used. And in the end, there are hardly any negative consequences.
    - toomuchtodo 8y ago
      This hand waves away the complexity involved. Witness the immigrant backlash and rise of populism in Europe, Britain, and the United States. Progress is needed, of course. But these are pipeline issues that take decades to nudge in the right direction. Push the lever too far, too fast, and it is going to snap back in your face (See: Brexit, Trump, Poland, etc). There are consequences for disregarding the climate you operate in. Voters and companies can respond faster than you can; recognize the leverage points in your feedback loop and the appropriate amount of pressure to apply to each (and what each point can tolerate).

mortenjorck 8y ago

Legislation seems like an absolutely terrible venue for a symbolic gesture like this. Unfortunately, you’re probably right that the measure will backfire, ultimately setting the cause back further. I don’t know what the right answer is to fix the gender imbalance in boardrooms, but lawsuit-bait like SB 826 only serves to further muddy the waters while sacrificing public faith in the legislative process.

buboard 8y ago

> many are not getting the message Passing a law to send a message to political opponents in a faraway state, that's admission to pure abuse of power. Can US governors say that with a straight face and without repercussions?

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
The governor in any of the handful of one-party states can probably get away with it.

zekevermillion 8y ago

It's problematic to say the least. It beats me why they didn't just make this a more targeted amendment e.g. to a California b-corp statute. Let founders decide if they want to have this restriction in place. I think such a narrow opt-in kind of statute would pass constitutional muster. Obviously no Article IV problem, since it is only that state's chartered corporations. And I don't see it as a freedom of association or equal protection issue, since it would be opt-in.