4 ms·

Yeah, how dare we insist that people be paid a living wage! And health insurance is only for employees, not employees-in-everything-but-name!

neokantian 8y ago
I am free to make the deals that I want, regardless of what they include or don't include. Why would I need you to protect me from myself? Why do you want to micromanage other people's lives? Is your own life not interesting enough already?
- yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
  Because your life impacts mine. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19335217 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19335217
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - antidesitter 8y ago
    Virtually everything you do impacts people around you. So can you be more specific?
- zanny 8y ago
  Because the price you offer for your time influences the perception of the value of time for everyone around you. Its why minimum wage exists at all. Without it, the most desperate depress wages to the absolute edge of starvation and destitution. It is not, and has never been, and never will be an answer to poverty, but it is a promise by the government that your time can never be valued at less than an absolute floor they set. Because nature and reality are cruel. For many people, in many circumstances, their time is practically worthless. Minimum wage has a carrying effect on the economic baseline - by having minimum wage workers, there exists industry to meet their extraordinarily limited means. Its the old Ford adage that he need pay his workers enough to afford his cars lest he have no market to sell to. This matters to state level actors the same way opiates in the US matter. If isolated, rare, instances of irrationality reign and someone ends up dead from a drug overdose that is a manageable risk for the freedom granted in return. But when millions are addicted, tens of thousands are dead, and whole communities are collapsing from it the individual choices that led people to drug addiction are a consequence to the whole of society. It doesn't even need be in that large a scale. If your brother is a drunk he will by nature he less productive and stable in his life, more prone to disease and illness, and often fall upon his family for support because he cannot support himself due to his own choices. You can then of course choose to not help him, but for those that do their now deflated resources from supporting their drunk brother depress their participation in markets they would have had more voice in. It takes only one bad apple to ruin a family, a bushel to destroy a community, and an orchard can ravage whole counties. Its why anyone contemplating suicide is told its a selfish way out. Because you make the choice, but everyone else gets to deal with the consequences. Almost nothing you do is wholly restricted to yourself alone - everything has consequences, and society at all is built on a foundation of trading personal liberty for freedom from others liberties.
  - wallace_f 8y ago
    Why cant we just give everyone a social dividend and then be done with it? We already create enough in taxation and economic deadloss in market inefficiencies to finance nearly 10k/year to every citizen.
    - zanny 8y ago
      The why right now, at least in the US, is that federal politicians are beholden the monied interests that lobby and fund their reelection campaigns, not to the constituents. So policy is written in their interests, which doesn't require a social dividend because all involved parties are already wealthy. Even if you solved the money in politics problem (which is hard) you still have the issue of a substantial portion of the US congress being elected in uncontested lifelong seats where the citizens have been thoroughly indoctrinated enough into either major parties ideology that they never consider voting for anyone but their incumbent. As long as politicians can feel their seat is guaranteed representing their own interests rather than those of their electors becomes the norm. So to even begin having a conversation about social dividends you need to radically revamp American elections to incentivize the legislature to represent their constituents. Which requires competitive, representative elections (which means you cannot be using first past the post everywhere) and substantially diluted power and influence so that buying influence over the legislature is less trivial (which almost always means substantially more seats in US congress to make buying a majority of seats more difficult). Which is by nature a constitutional amendment, which the congress itself would never ratify because it would end their gravy train of private influence and wealth so many currently enjoy. So you need it to come from the states, but the state governments are often just as corrupt and out of the control of the citizenry, if not moreso for their lack of publicity and presence in conversation, so you would need to figure out how to fix them first. Its a crazy massive expansive problem Larry Lessig was campaigning on in 2016, and Andrew Yang could learn a thing or two from before having pie in the sky conceptions of being able to institute UBI given the structure of the present US federal government.
- username223 8y ago
  The thirteenth amendment exists for a reason, and as a "neo-Kantian," you should be into treating rational/human beings as ends in themselves. A country where you're allowed to sell yourself into slavery or indenture is one I can't support. So there are limits on what "deals" you can make.
chillacy 8y ago
You can land a job as an employee with no fixed hours, no manager, where you bring your own equipment, etc? Seems closer to contractors. I think it would have been smart if Uber let drivers set their own prices, then they'd be more akin to Amazon sellers, who feel more independent (but get screwed in other ways).
- MereInterest 8y ago
  Where all the money goes to Uber, and is then distributed to the drivers? Where drivers are forbidden from subcontracting? Where drivers are forbidden from establishing regular routes for repeat customers? Those sound more like employees than contractors.
  - geezerjay 8y ago
    Visa or paypal isn't suddenly everyone's employer just because they process payments, and at least in some jurisdictions drivers can and do subcontract. In fact, there are licensed car rental companies that also provide services through Uber.
joejerryronnie 8y ago
See, I have a problem with this line of thought. You are not an employee of these companies if you can sign up through an app, choose how much or little you want to work, and have no boss. If you want the living wage, health insurance, and employee perks then apply for an actual job and go through the full interview process like the rest of us. This mentality of “I want everything you have but I don’t want to actually put the time and effort in to get it” is very frustrating.
- nnnnnande 8y ago
  > This mentality of “I want everything you have but I don’t want to actually put the time and effort in to get it” is very frustrating. How do you know that these people haven't already put time and effort into trying to get an "actual job"? It would seem to me that the free market does not serve everyone with equal economic opportunity and that the world economy is more nuanced than what your average libertarian would like you to believe.
  - joejerryronnie 8y ago
    We’re at historically low levels of unemployment. There’s work out there if you want it. Sure, based on your skills and experience, you may not find a job which supports the lifestyle you want or the rent where you want to live, but then you reset your expectations and move to a place with a lower COL.
    - nnnnnande 8y ago
      You're right, but even that is more nuanced; for instance, the US unemployment rate is based on a survey that counts any paid work during the survey week as employment. I'm not in the US myself, but I think for the HN crowd in general moving to someplace else isn't a problem as we have the financial means as well as the independence. Other social groups might be more dependent on the social support around them (family, friends and maybe government). For them, moving to another place would be akin to resetting everything and starting a new life, with all the associated risk.
geezerjay 8y ago
> Yeah, how dare we insist that people be paid a living wage! And health insurance is only for employees, not employees-in-everything-but-name! You're doing no such thing. You're actually preaching that people with less opportunities than you should be left with even less options because your paternalist view of them makes you feel you're entitled to tell others how they can and cannot do to earn a living.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

neokantian 8y ago

I am free to make the deals that I want, regardless of what they include or don't include. Why would I need you to protect me from myself? Why do you want to micromanage other people's lives? Is your own life not interesting enough already?

yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
Because your life impacts mine. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19335217 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19335217
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- antidesitter 8y ago
  Virtually everything you do impacts people around you. So can you be more specific?
zanny 8y ago
Because the price you offer for your time influences the perception of the value of time for everyone around you. Its why minimum wage exists at all. Without it, the most desperate depress wages to the absolute edge of starvation and destitution. It is not, and has never been, and never will be an answer to poverty, but it is a promise by the government that your time can never be valued at less than an absolute floor they set. Because nature and reality are cruel. For many people, in many circumstances, their time is practically worthless. Minimum wage has a carrying effect on the economic baseline - by having minimum wage workers, there exists industry to meet their extraordinarily limited means. Its the old Ford adage that he need pay his workers enough to afford his cars lest he have no market to sell to. This matters to state level actors the same way opiates in the US matter. If isolated, rare, instances of irrationality reign and someone ends up dead from a drug overdose that is a manageable risk for the freedom granted in return. But when millions are addicted, tens of thousands are dead, and whole communities are collapsing from it the individual choices that led people to drug addiction are a consequence to the whole of society. It doesn't even need be in that large a scale. If your brother is a drunk he will by nature he less productive and stable in his life, more prone to disease and illness, and often fall upon his family for support because he cannot support himself due to his own choices. You can then of course choose to not help him, but for those that do their now deflated resources from supporting their drunk brother depress their participation in markets they would have had more voice in. It takes only one bad apple to ruin a family, a bushel to destroy a community, and an orchard can ravage whole counties. Its why anyone contemplating suicide is told its a selfish way out. Because you make the choice, but everyone else gets to deal with the consequences. Almost nothing you do is wholly restricted to yourself alone - everything has consequences, and society at all is built on a foundation of trading personal liberty for freedom from others liberties.
- wallace_f 8y ago
  Why cant we just give everyone a social dividend and then be done with it? We already create enough in taxation and economic deadloss in market inefficiencies to finance nearly 10k/year to every citizen.
  - zanny 8y ago
    The why right now, at least in the US, is that federal politicians are beholden the monied interests that lobby and fund their reelection campaigns, not to the constituents. So policy is written in their interests, which doesn't require a social dividend because all involved parties are already wealthy. Even if you solved the money in politics problem (which is hard) you still have the issue of a substantial portion of the US congress being elected in uncontested lifelong seats where the citizens have been thoroughly indoctrinated enough into either major parties ideology that they never consider voting for anyone but their incumbent. As long as politicians can feel their seat is guaranteed representing their own interests rather than those of their electors becomes the norm. So to even begin having a conversation about social dividends you need to radically revamp American elections to incentivize the legislature to represent their constituents. Which requires competitive, representative elections (which means you cannot be using first past the post everywhere) and substantially diluted power and influence so that buying influence over the legislature is less trivial (which almost always means substantially more seats in US congress to make buying a majority of seats more difficult). Which is by nature a constitutional amendment, which the congress itself would never ratify because it would end their gravy train of private influence and wealth so many currently enjoy. So you need it to come from the states, but the state governments are often just as corrupt and out of the control of the citizenry, if not moreso for their lack of publicity and presence in conversation, so you would need to figure out how to fix them first. Its a crazy massive expansive problem Larry Lessig was campaigning on in 2016, and Andrew Yang could learn a thing or two from before having pie in the sky conceptions of being able to institute UBI given the structure of the present US federal government.
username223 8y ago
The thirteenth amendment exists for a reason, and as a "neo-Kantian," you should be into treating rational/human beings as ends in themselves. A country where you're allowed to sell yourself into slavery or indenture is one I can't support. So there are limits on what "deals" you can make.

chillacy 8y ago

You can land a job as an employee with no fixed hours, no manager, where you bring your own equipment, etc? Seems closer to contractors. I think it would have been smart if Uber let drivers set their own prices, then they'd be more akin to Amazon sellers, who feel more independent (but get screwed in other ways).

MereInterest 8y ago
Where all the money goes to Uber, and is then distributed to the drivers? Where drivers are forbidden from subcontracting? Where drivers are forbidden from establishing regular routes for repeat customers? Those sound more like employees than contractors.
- geezerjay 8y ago
  Visa or paypal isn't suddenly everyone's employer just because they process payments, and at least in some jurisdictions drivers can and do subcontract. In fact, there are licensed car rental companies that also provide services through Uber.

joejerryronnie 8y ago

See, I have a problem with this line of thought. You are not an employee of these companies if you can sign up through an app, choose how much or little you want to work, and have no boss. If you want the living wage, health insurance, and employee perks then apply for an actual job and go through the full interview process like the rest of us. This mentality of “I want everything you have but I don’t want to actually put the time and effort in to get it” is very frustrating.

nnnnnande 8y ago
> This mentality of “I want everything you have but I don’t want to actually put the time and effort in to get it” is very frustrating. How do you know that these people haven't already put time and effort into trying to get an "actual job"? It would seem to me that the free market does not serve everyone with equal economic opportunity and that the world economy is more nuanced than what your average libertarian would like you to believe.
- joejerryronnie 8y ago
  We’re at historically low levels of unemployment. There’s work out there if you want it. Sure, based on your skills and experience, you may not find a job which supports the lifestyle you want or the rent where you want to live, but then you reset your expectations and move to a place with a lower COL.
  - nnnnnande 8y ago
    You're right, but even that is more nuanced; for instance, the US unemployment rate is based on a survey that counts any paid work during the survey week as employment. I'm not in the US myself, but I think for the HN crowd in general moving to someplace else isn't a problem as we have the financial means as well as the independence. Other social groups might be more dependent on the social support around them (family, friends and maybe government). For them, moving to another place would be akin to resetting everything and starting a new life, with all the associated risk.

geezerjay 8y ago

> Yeah, how dare we insist that people be paid a living wage! And health insurance is only for employees, not employees-in-everything-but-name! You're doing no such thing. You're actually preaching that people with less opportunities than you should be left with even less options because your paternalist view of them makes you feel you're entitled to tell others how they can and cannot do to earn a living.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]