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This entire culture described in this article is so fucking wrong on so many levels it’s disgusting. The cultural gap between American and European work ethics

• opportune 7y ago
  I don’t think it’s that simple. The type of people this article profiles / is for are upper-middle class strivers and class climbers who want to be rich rich rich. Not people just struggling to get by (as far as I can tell) Personally their lives aren’t affected by a better welfare system and they may even be the ones benefitting from an unfair system. I try to be active in a local political organization that has the goal of more equitably rearranging society but I too am one of the fools trying to make money on the side mostly because I know the only way to get real power in this country is through wealth. And even though I want to change that, it takes someone who has already acquired wealth to be effective in doing so
  • camillomiller 7y ago
    Fair reply, I understand and respect your point. On the other hand, the narrative set by this kind celebratory pieces is toxic. You shouldn’t have to be a hustler to have more. Also I don’t think that an Etsy social media manager really fits that description you gave...
    • opportune 7y ago
      Well, I agree and disagree. I think if you are already well off and you want more, the most just way to acquire that is through working more. But you're right that people struggling to get by, support their family, put themselves through school, etc. shouldn't be forced into taking on multiple part-time jobs or "side hustles" like delivering food or flipping clothes, and the two groups of people are not doing the same thing. One is self-actualization, the other is closer to survival.
      • SolaceQuantum 7y ago
        TBH and forgive me if I'm behaving condescendingly- but I can't understand the notion of self-actualization in the form of acquiring more wealth as the sole purpose of labor. What happens when your body breaks down, you are old, and you now withdraw from the money you've gained in order to pay your exhorbidant health fees (and they will be exhorbidant- that's the nature of getting old)? Will you lose your self-actualization after you've gone through the journey of life and reach the final chapter?
        • opportune 7y ago
          Well, it's more the fact that it allows you financial independence and there is a psychological benefit to running a business that you don't get working for a wage under someone else's leadership. Also since I am young it's not really like I am marrying myself to this business for life, I am sure once I have kids I would want to spend more time with them than selling shit on the internet. But selling shit on the internet is a great way to become financially stable once I do find other things I'd rather do. I assume other entrepreneurs have similar mindsets Like I said I also care about things like politics, I have academic interests, etc. it's just that given my life situation right now entrepreneurship is the most logical strategic path towards making my life better later on. Even if I never make a cent I'm still learning unique skills and having fun Also I'm not sure if you're american or not but if you have good insurance your health fees are unlikely to be exorbitant... It's a common misconception among non-americans on HN that all Americans are at risk of bankruptcy if they get sick. That does happen to a lot of people, way way more than it should, but in practice if you have good insurance you'll be fine
          • SolaceQuantum 7y ago
            I'm American and I'm also aware that once you're old enough you're expected to retire, but since american healthcare is tied to employment you also lose your good healthcare... Which leaves you medicare/medicaid, but there are limits to what they will cover also.
    • jp555 7y ago
      "You shouldn’t have to be a hustler to have more." Are you suggesting people NOT be compensated based on the value they create?? that a person should not be allowed to work harder than the person next to them? So much for a fairer system...
      • camillomiller 7y ago
        You should have more based on your hard work for the company that employs you and a fairer pay gap between the top of the ladder and the bottom ranks.
        • jp555 7y ago
          Based on how hard you worked? What if I’m low competence and have to work very hard to be average? Should I get paid more? If I become more competent and figure out how to do x with less effort, should I then be paid LESS? Utopian ideas never fit into the complex systems of reality. Europe is so proud of their “legal minimum wage”, while ignoring that in reality, the actual minimum wage is ZERO. That’s what the shocking numbers of unemployed European youth earn. I would suggest that market dynamism is much more important than equality. Currently Europe seems to prioritize the opposite, keeping everything exactly the way it always was, so no one has to change. But if there was more turnover in the market, it would matter much less who’s in the top 1%, because they won’t be there for long. But today the top families in Venice are the exact same families that were at the top 500 years ago.
    • sokoloff 7y ago
      > You shouldn’t have to be a hustler to have more. Let's assume someone (for whatever personal reason) has a desire for "more" than their average/typical peer. Help me understand a better system to allocate resources than someone trying to create more value in exchange for taking home more value?
    • ghaff 7y ago
      That article seems to conflate some things and its use of the trendy "side hustle" doesn't really help matters. I don't think there's anything wrong with having a side project or two to learn something new or just because you enjoy it--and maybe even make a few bucks. That's quite a bit different from trying to bootstrap a startup on the side that you throw every available spare hour into. (Nothing necessarily wrong with doing this but it's a very different proposition.)
    • jedberg 7y ago
      > Also I don’t think that an Etsy social media manager really fits that description you gave. You don't know her family background. Most likely she comes from a well-off family who helps her out. Maybe she didn't come from wealth, but she probably had a family who could co-sign her apartment lease, give her some furniture, maybe show up with food every once in a while, take her shopping for clothes or buy her a new computer for Christmas. Stuff like that. That's the kind of person who can manage a side hustle.
• claudiulodro 7y ago
  I do it because it's a more rewarding and more difficult "game" than video games, not because e.g. I need it to cover health insurance costs. It's like a game with unlimited possibilities that encompasses technology, research, the real world, society, creativity, etc. to me. I do acknowledge that it's definitely a different situation for the person Ubering in the evenings to help cover their bills, though.
  • aaronblohowiak 7y ago
    100%. I believe we should have universal healthcare and stronger safety net because it will let more people play the game.
  • opportune 7y ago
    Wow, this an accurate description for me as well. There's also so much to learn that the difficulty of mastery and the pride of proficiency, in terms of breadth and depth, is incomparable in relation to most other subject domains. American culture also has a tendency to emphasize self-improvement, upward mobility, the protestant work ethic, etc. which makes times spent on entrepreneurship feel justifiable in the same way that bodybuilding and education do
• himeexcelanta 7y ago
  I’d personally be fine to participate the US style work ethic if it results in a more competitive economy, more innovation, and greater total opportunity for the minority who are willing and able to undergo greater stress and risk to build a business or sell specialized skills. That being said, it’s not ethically or morally better in any type of absolute sense, and there are many who’d prefer to have the government take care of their well being. Relationships between employers and employees in any type of market driven economy (and I’d also argue in non market driven economies as well) is bound to be adversarial. Up to a point, I personally don’t trust the government (or a union for that matter) to ameliorate the deleterious effects of this employer-employee relationship. I’d rather have more personal freedom to navigate it myself, by developing skills or products which I can sell to a large, relatively unrestricted market. That means that many workers will probably be taken advantage of. But honestly, not everyone is capable of being a high powered professional or CEO in the first place. It’s up to each individual to decide what type of society they want to live in. There are pros and cons to each. I agree with your point that greater hardship for average workers will most likely occur in less restrictive market economies.
  • candiodari 7y ago
    The problem you're forgetting is that there is one HUGE difference between the "hustle" approach and the "social justice" approach. In both cases, the world is still the world, and the economy is still the economy. Which means, people need to work for things to happen. People are the ones that will have to do all that. That does not change. What changes is how this is achieved: "hustle" system: you go out and find something to do, for which you are rewarded according to supply and demand. If not, then your money situation (usually slowly) deteriorates over time until it becomes a problem to survive. At this point, you have to ask for help which in a hustle system is only available temporarily, lengthening the time you have before problems become critical, but it won't prevent them from becoming critical. There is relatively little judgement on how you achieve demand in hustle systems. Which of course means that there's abuse, on the part of employers. "social justice" system: there is usually a "hustle" system at the top. You go out and find some demand for your services, and try to fill it. That works ? No problem. No real difference. The difference is when you don't succeed. At this point you usually HAVE to go and report your status to the government. Some government service will then formulate 2 or 3 proposals and demand you take one of them. This usually starts with job offers they collect from local companies (only the worst of the worst job offers will be offered, of course). I guarantee those proposals are all going to suck, which brings us to: of course everyone quickly realizes the trivial way to "hack" this system. Simply make sure every opportunity, every company refuses you. This is easy enough to do, and keeps the benefits coming in the short to medium term. Then of course the government has to intervene when too many people do this, or when a different party gets elected and there is a political need, which means they have to use more and more force against you to make you take one of the "opportunities". This usually starts with sudden removal of benefits, usually a lot of them at the same time (because management money saving efforts usually don't happen continuously, but in waves) as well as cessation of other help, like housing or child care. They may go further, such as demanding "you be investigated" for psychic disorders or child abuse, or ... and institute forced "treatment". First ambulant ("outpatient"). You'll quickly find out that no useful treatment is provided. They don't have any solutions, because there is a reason you got into this situation in the first place. Only taking away that reason will help (say real education, which I guarantee is not available in government assistance programs, to child care, disability help, housing nearer reasonable job opportunities, ...). And eventually they may force residential treatment on you. Also keep in mind what the motivation of these government departments is, and what it is NOT: their motivation is to expand their own organisation. To spend more on more employees for themselves. So, for example, they hire people fired from kindergarten to educate 50 year unemployed people from a mass-layoff. The effectiveness of this is somewhat limited. And then, usually very suddenly from the perspective of the needy person, they abandon you alltogether. The way that works is with one of those benefit reductions. Obviously people in this system are critically dependent on it. Otherwise you do not get to this point. So when there is a change of rules, and management goes hunting for people whose benefits can be cut, they find you, and you lose it all: income, housing, maybe even your children in a very short amount of time. Since you lost your house, they suddenly see a need to check if your address is still valid, and what do you know: you no longer live on the territory of that (piece of the) government. And then emergency sleeping facilities with dorm rooms with 8 people to a room is the only help left. I've grown up in one of those "social justice" systems. Now I live in a "hustle" system. And I must say: I vastly prefer the hustle system. There is very little force used and there are real choices.
• dang 7y ago
  Please don't post nationalistic flamebait to HN. I'm sure you can make your substantive points thoughtfully, and this is not the way to do it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html