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Marc Benioff: We Need a New Capitalism

71 points by focal 7y ago

formatkaka 7y ago
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- sexydefinesher 7y ago
  You are misunderstanding the Animal Farm. It was a criticism to the Soviet system and not socialism, Orwell literally fought for the anarchists in the Spanish Civil War.
  - kolbe 7y ago
    How many do overs does socialism get? You can only say "that's not how REAL socialism is supposed to happen" so many times.
    - BigJ1211 7y ago
      Most socialistic societies fell due to outside interference in an already weaker society. (Weaker because of their starting position, not because of socialism). This was for example the case with Venezuela, to name a recent one. See: https://www.ozy.com/flashback/venezuelas-downfall-isnt-about-socialism-its-about-oil/92669/ https://www.ozy.com/flashback/venezuelas-downfall-isnt-about... You'd need a country with an already strong economy to try socialism to see where it goes. We have western civilisations with some socialist aspects (European countries) but they're all still majorly capitalistic. A lot of countries labelled as socialist/communist were/are really just state-capitalist countries (China, to name a good example. Communist only in name, same way the nazi party was socialist)
      - collyw 7y ago
        That have a shitload of oil which I would have thought put them in a rather strong staring position.
      - nradov 7y ago
        Venezuela's failures were primarily due to the usual incompetence and corruption. Outside interference was a relatively minor factor. In fact they actually received significant assistance from some other countries.
    - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
      What are you actually defending here? A version of capitalism that is imploding under the weight of usurious debt, that considers widespread homelessness around the bases of empty "investment" apartment towers a feature and not a bug, that bankrupts half a million families a year because of health insurance sharking, that is regularly implicated in unquestionably immoral scandals and corruption (Boeing, opioid sales, Enron, S&L...), that is linked to violent wars and oppressive regimes around the world, and has also been the single biggest driver of climate change, and climate change denial, in the last century? Do you really think these are somehow justifiable with a glib "But socialism!" Anyway - the Scandi countries do a nice line is social democracy, which includes policies that seem to be considered outright socialist extremism by US standards. You should find out how they're doing. By all accounts they're not particularly unpleasant places to live.
      - kolbe 7y ago
        Marx was so popular because he's really great at identifying problems. He could pinpoint exactly what was wrong with far more insight and acuteness than you did. What he never ever could do was propose a better one. We have tried his plan of having the government temporarily seize the means of production several times, and it never ever ceases and becomes Socialism. He's like a philosopher version of the hipster who will mock your taste in music, but never tell you what makes music good. I don't love our problems. But I hate every single other large country's problems more. I am open to change, but if your change wants to be some minor variation on the old, perpetually failing socialism-like ones that we've seen kill tens if not hundreds of millions of people, I'll pass.
  - BurningFrog 7y ago
    He also became very disillusioned with the left there. Also took a bullet through the throat, which he rather miraculously survived.
    - Miner49er 7y ago
      He still wrote the book as a critique from a socialist standpoint. The whole point of the book was that the USSR was not real socialism and was damaging the Socialist movement. He explains it in this preface: http://www.orwell.ru/library/novels/Animal_Farm/english/epfc_go http://www.orwell.ru/library/novels/Animal_Farm/english/epfc...
      - BurningFrog 7y ago
        A wonderful and informative read, thankyou! I'm reminded that I need to read his Catalonian book.
  - formatkaka 7y ago
    Oh! I read the book with conflicting views on communism/socialism/fascism in mind. Need to read in more detail. Thanks for the clarification.
- blamestross 7y ago
  We have a lot of evidence it works on small scales (something like half of marriages work out). That might seem silly, but I would call it "minimum viable Communism". I'd like to see a concerted effort for many small-scale communes (sub Dunbar's number) to be more legally viable in the US. The problem with Communism at scale is that the logistics and planning beurocracies end up authoritarian, but it seems optimal at smaller scales. Our implementation of capitalism has experienced a lot of regulatory capture and that needs some work. Democracy and capitalism are also totally compatible with a bit more public infastructure and an a more accessible healthcare system.
- BigJ1211 7y ago
  There has never been a truly communist society, they were marketed as being socialist (nazi party) or as communist (lenin and mao). None of those were what they claimed to be at all, or at best a corrupted version of what they were supposed to be. See: https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-7/cpml-ussr.htm https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-7/cpml-ussr.htm So there hasn't been any communism that turned into fascism, as there hasn't been any communist society. Most of the misconceptions about communism stem from post-WW2 propaganda, which boils down to "Capitalism = good, Communism = bad". (at least on western side of the iron curtain)
  - _jarroda 7y ago
    Ah yes. No true Scotsman. From where I'm standing, it seems obvious that as you slide down the scale into more collectivism, you wind up with a totalitarian nightmare. It's been tried. It ends disastrously every time.
    - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
      This isn't even close to being historically true, and repeating it over and over doesn't make it so.
      - _jarroda 7y ago
        Please enlighten me with examples of successful communist societies. The thing that gets repeated over and over is the classic "Example x wasn't true communism. True communism has never been tried, but if it were, it would surely be great". Tiring
croon 7y ago
> When government is unable or unwilling to act, business should not wait. I hope this is all based in good intentions, and have no real reason not to believe so, other than past experience. I just had this idea though: Seeing the current state of US regulatory capture; I wonder what would happen if companies that felt the way Marc Benioff claims he does (as well as the other companies in that roundtable) would just start paying the same lobby money as business has done previously, but instead ask for sane regulation, aiming for what they claim to be working towards. If I was a politician beholden to corporate money, but also still had a sliver of a soul left in me, and was given the option of the same money, but to work for the people that elected me, I could actually get some real legislative work done. At least if the same was true for other representatives and senators. Or campaign finance reform and outlawing outside payment to politicians, but that's a catch 22 given the above.
- Aeolun 7y ago
  At that point you just get paid more to make the wrong decisions again. Buying the soul of politicians seem to be surprisingly cheap.
- BurningFrog 7y ago
  If you don't lobby for your selfish interests, you'll get out-regulated by companies who do. Lobbying is not an optional luxury. You have to do it. At least in politically sensitive industries. As a partially made up example, I'm guessing the plastic straw industry didn't think they had to lay a groundwork lobbying for their existence over the decades. And now they're dead.
  - jiveturkey 7y ago
    I see your point, but bad example. There isn't a plastic straw industry. There is a plastic industry and a restaurant supply industry. There is no single focus on straws ... And no they are not dead. Get our of your bubble. The places where plastic straws are not allowed is tiny, tiny tiny.
    - 7y ago
Miner49er 7y ago
Well, he gave a nice list of problems caused by capitalism, and said we need a new capitalism, but gave no reason why. Why a new capitalism? Why not something different, like market socialism, where the shareholders are the employees?
- WilliamEdward 7y ago
  I think they either have no concept of another system or are in denial about how problematic capitalism really can be and are blaming the wrong things.
- anonuser123456 7y ago
  What prevents employees from buying shares today?
  - Miner49er 7y ago
    I don't think it's possible. If a company's market cap is low enough that its employees can afford to buy all the shares with their salaries I think that would be a significantly failing business.
  - akvadrako 7y ago
    Employees can join worker-owned coops if they want to own the companies they work for. There are a few successful companies like this. Most employees just don't seem to want that. Maybe because it's more risk.
  - morvita 7y ago
    Money? Opportunity? How many employees (even high earning employees like engineers) are actually in a position to purchase enough shares to make a difference? Even for most "publicly owned" companies the vast majority of shares are held by a small number of investors who aren't giving up their control and power.
WilliamEdward 7y ago
It's unrealistic to hope businesses do the right thing, especially when profit inherently wins out over all else, and it means you cannot do the right thing in your business without losing to the competition who doesn't care. That's kind of a big issue with capitalism, and any revisionist/reformist take on capitalism has to try really hard to convince me this won't be an issue. This article misses that point badly. If you're going to criticise capitalism at least try to understand what actually makes it bad.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y ago
> Legislation to close loopholes in the Equal Pay Act have stalled in Congress for years, and today women still only make about 80 cents, on average, for every dollar earned by men. But congressional inaction does not absolve companies from their responsibility. Since learning that we were paying women less than men for equal work at Salesforce, we have spent $10.3 million to ensure equal pay; today we conduct annual audits to ensure that pay remains equal. If Benioff is going to quote the .80/$1 statistic, then the equal pay audits of SalesForce need to use the same comparison which is to take the average pay of all women in the company regardless of position or job and compare it to the average of all the men in the company regardless of position or job. If you actually do the comparison taking into account job and position, you get something like .93/$1 https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/apr/13/tina-smith/do-women-get-only-80-percent-pay-men-do-same-job/ https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/apr...
- weberc2 7y ago
  And if you account for other factors, like flexibility and other benefits, you get within the margin of error--women may even out-earn men.
  - grenoire 7y ago
    As a rule of thumb, if you would like to not get downvoted for controversial statements, please source your assumptions.
    - jimbokun 7y ago
      Transcript of a Freakonomics podcast discussing this issue: http://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-true-story-of-the-gender-pay-gap-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/ http://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-true-story-of-the-gender...
    - weberc2 7y ago
      Downvotes are fine with me; I don't put much stock in Internet points. I'm not trying to be persuasive in my single-sentence internet quip; if people care to learn more, they can do their own research.
kneel 7y ago
The extremely wealthy keep talking about how to tackle inequality, many of them pledge to do something about it but nothing ever happens. We all know how this plays out, we'll get lip service until we start to kill the rich. Then they'll apologize, reform, and do it a little more subtly next time.
- dev_dull 7y ago
  Killing the rich and seizing their property always turns out well for the everyday joe and never creates a generation of ultra wealthy and corrupt ruling class /s Wait you didn’t think YOU were going to get that stuff did you?
  - jadell 7y ago
    People who cry loudest for revolution are usually the ones who don't ever study the history of successful revolutions. Especially: who the actual revolutionaries were, what positions they held in society before and after the revolution (hint: most successful revolutions aren't peasant uprisings), and what happens to people who weren't either the revolutionary leaders or the ruling class before, during, and after the revolution. The average French peasant did not fare well during or after the French Revolution.
    - easytiger 7y ago
      And you can pick 2 dozen African "revolutions" that left everyone way worse off than a small elite. Sell people the idea you will strip the rich of everything and give it to them (requires a fundamental removal of freedom)... Take power... Profit.
gnu8 7y ago
This is easy for Benioff to say because he's already wealthy. Let's table this until such a time as I become wealthy too. After that we can talk about dismantling capitalism.
- WilliamEdward 7y ago
  I unironically agree. Either nobody is rich, or we all have the opportunity to get rich. I will not settle for inequality which is what is proposed under the hood by this author.
- nicoburns 7y ago
  He's not wrong. Most ideas for fixing capitalism will lead to fewer grossly wealthy people. Many rich people support this despite the fact that it will make them less wealthy.
- limeman 7y ago
  This article is absurd
mindfulplay 7y ago
He identified the problem being "companies shouldn't wait for government to take action". Then, he proposed solutions that still seem to involve increasing taxes. If government is inefficient in allocation of resources and has disincentivizes to actually solve problems in reasonable timelines with reasonable red tape, then perhaps letting private companies take on improving infrastructure or providing care easier might be a good solution. Look city governments have huge cash chests: neither homelessness nor poverty had ever been addressed by throwing government/money at these problems. You need the right inventives to tackle these challenges. And frankly governments need to reduce the friction in terms of money allocation and regulations to get things done.
- mkettn 7y ago
  >You need the right inventives to tackle these challenges. And frankly governments need to reduce the friction in terms of money allocation and regulations to get things done. Churches did this in the past (with all the bad side effects). But I guess in more secular regions government needs jump in (with all the bad side effects).
jasonlfunk 7y ago
Sure it would be great for business leaders to change their ways, but the beauty of capitalism is that consumers can force businesses to change by their actions. Mark Zuckerberg could change Facebook overnight, but what incentive does he have? It’s still one of the most populous websites in the world. It’s easy to blame to rich and wealthy for the problems but they cannot force us to give them money. Every time I buy Facebook ads, I’m telling Mark that it’s okay for him to continue what he’s doing. It’s very fun these days to blame the 1% for societies problems. But the 99% enable them.
- bschne 7y ago
  If you take a very simplistic model of how the economy works, this is true. The problem is when you get into a situation/equilibrium where enabling business practices that you consider to be bad for society as a whole is the rational choice because anything else will just leave you out-competed by someone else who doesn't care. I am not saying that this makes it OK to do whatever because "everyone does" or "if I don't, someone else will", I'm just saying that appealing to individuals to just "do the right thing" has almost never worked to efficiently/swiftly bring about changes like this.
  - jasonlfunk 7y ago
    > I'm just saying that appealing to individuals to just "do the right thing" has almost never worked Which is exactly what Mr. Benioff is trying to do with this article. Companies change when it's in their financial interest to do so; and rarely before then.
- clairity 7y ago
  common folk don’t hate rich people (or the products they offered to get rich), they hate that rich people put a thumb, a palm, an elbow, and a foot on the scales in their favor. no one wants a handout, we want fairness.
- virgil_disgr4ce 7y ago
  > the beauty of capitalism is that consumers can force businesses to change by their actions Wow. That's adorable. Did you just turn 14?
executive 7y ago
In conclusion: buy my overpriced Salesforce products because I'm a good billionaire with a private jet.
- limeman 7y ago
  Exactly man. Salesforce is money making machine and overpriced crm.
- nrp 7y ago
  Not to be excessively cynical, but the purpose of this opinion piece probably has more to do with: “Marc Benioff is the chairman and co-chief executive of Salesforce and the author, with Monica Langley, of the forthcoming book, “Trailblazer: The Power of Business as the Greatest Platform for Change.”
  - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
    Not to be even more cynical, but I can't help wondering how the advance and royalties on that book are split between the co-authors vs time spent writing/editing.
limeman 7y ago
Is that marc all talking about. I couldn't believe it and won't trust him.
limeman 7y ago
TBH, i never personally trust Salesforce and this article is absurd.
jaoued 7y ago
Each time I read a billionaire criticizing the current capitalistic system, that reminds me of Jacques Attali's argument on how Karl Marx was misunderstood with Socialism. https://www.newstatesman.com/node/195490 https://www.newstatesman.com/node/195490 Extract: "Attali: What he tried with the international socialist movement was an amazing attempt to think about the world in global terms. Marx is an amazingly modern thinker, because when you look at what he has written, it is not a theory of what an organised socialist country should be like, but how capitalism will be in the future. Contrary to the caricature of Marxism, he is first an admirer of capitalism. For him, it is a much better system than any other before it, because he considers the earlier systems to be obscurantist. Once or twice he had the idea that it was going to be the end, but he very rapidly decided that this was not the case, and that capitalism had a huge future. What is very modern also in his view is that he considered that capitalism would end only when it was a global force, when the whole of the working class was part of it, when nations disappeared, when technology was able to transform the life of a country. He mentioned China and India as potential partners of capitalism, and said, for instance, that protectionism is a mistake, that free trade is a condition for progress. For Marx, capitalism has to be worldwide before we think about socialism. Socialism for him is beyond capitalism and not instead of capitalism. He has much say on globalisation, what is happening to movement of companies, delocalisation and everything that is linked to the way we live today. In a sense, the Soviet Union was destroying or interrupting the validity of Marx's thinking and the fall of the Berlin Wall is giving back a raison d’être to his work, because Marx was thinking of the world globally and the Soviet system was a nightmare that he did not forecast."
miles_matthias 7y ago
It’s very interesting to me that he didn’t mention the B Corp organization, who attempts to do exactly that. Is there a reason for this? Maybe he thinks the requirements/audits are too burdensome?
_edo 7y ago
> ...we need businesses and executives to value purpose alongside profit. Profit is purpose. Profit means the value of the outputs of your business exceeds the value of its inputs. It means you've added something to society, it means you've provided a service to the public. It means when people actually have to choose what's important to them they value what your business has done for them.[0] > ...where businesses...don’t just take from society but truly give back and have a positive impact. See above. I don't know why people think this thought process is new. Read The Road To Serfdom by Hayek. It was written in the 1940's about why these ideas don't work. The free market is the best invention we know of for a society to express what it actually wants and to achieve those goals. Without it you have a small group of enlightened elites deciding what it is that people want. > Americans overwhelmingly say C.E.O.s should take the lead on economic and social challenges, and employees, investors and customers increasingly seek out companies that share their values....When government is unable or unwilling to act, business should not wait. No. We don't want businesses to become political entities. If the problem is businesses aren't using their power for good, the solution isn't to give them even more power. That's too close to Fascism. This whole essay is an argument that businesses need more social power and governments need more financial power. The trade-off is an increase in power inequality (because we're giving the powerful even more power) to decrease financial inequality. At the same time we'd probably take on massive dead-weight losses from abandoning the profit motive which is essential for our economy to function. That looks like a bad deal to me. There is historical precedent for societies accepting power inequality to the extent of dictatorship in the name of ending the ills of capitalism. It hasn't worked well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatorship_of_the_proletariat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatorship_of_the_proletaria... [0] - Yes, you can also steal. That's why capitalism exists within a legal framework.
- jiveturkey 7y ago
  > Profit is purpose. Only in a capitalistic system, which he is arguing needs revision. Your argument is therefore tautological.
  - _edo 7y ago
    My argument only requires that people own their own property/labor and have the freedom to trade those things with others. Without those freedoms we're in some dystopian/totalitarian state.
geebee 7y ago
I agree with Marc that many of the things he'd like to do will take money. Solving homelessness in San Francisco, for instance, will cost a lot. But that doesn't mean all we need to do is spend some money. We've tried that - we're already up to a conservatively estimated $300 million a year. But plenty of people, hardly all on the right - including Gavin Newsom, who admits he was behind some of these failed attempts, for instance - opposed Benioff's initiative on the grounds that if we keep spending money they way we've been spending it, another 300 million will just make things worse off. And while San Francisco may be a wealthy city, there's only so many times we can go to the well. As an example, every year there's a story in the Chron about how low and middle income San Franciscans sit at their computers with a list of affordable city run summer programs for kids, looking at the international clock, desperate to hit "submit" as if it's tickets to a Stones reunion tour - and the aftermath and scramble for where to put their kid this summer if they don't get them, which is about half the time. 300 mil would go a long way to helping with the middle and low income families that San Francisco is, frankly, bleeding away. If I thought 300 mil more would solve homelessness, I'd happily spend it - hell, I'd triple it. I grew up here and I still love this city, but things are bad. The main difference between me and the people who bash SF here on HN is that to me, it's extremely painful, I don't get the gleeful thrill of pointing out how shitty SF's policies have made things, it hurts. I'd be willing to dig pretty deep into my limited financial assets if I could see it get better. But unfortunately, I really do think that 300 million more of the same will produce, well more of the same, which is things getting worse and worse.
- easytiger 7y ago
  It's literally impossible to "solve homelessness". You can't stop someone walking I to your town and sitting down on the street. Thats not even getting into what you allude to, in that "solving it" creates more homelessness
  - geebee 7y ago
    I agree. There's also a huge ambiguity in the term "homeless". This ambiguity was not an accident, I believe it is deliberate and is designed to serve a political purpose. What I mean is, currently there is a large population of mentally ill and drug addicted people on San Francisco's streets, and many of San Francisco's residents and visitors are frequently berated, threatened, harassed, stalked, and even assaulted as they go about their business or vacations. By "solve" I mean a humane and effective plan to greatly reduce this phenomenon. In spite of the intense and angry disagreements about what a humane and effective plan will be (must be?), I do think we (almost) all can agree on this as our objective. And in spite of my frustrations with Benioff, I do believe he sincerely wants the same thing I do.
jiveturkey 7y ago
sigh. Benioff again with his convenient philanthropy. Berating the system he was happy to and remains happy to take advantage of. Whilst shaming others, that are in in less to much less good positions to demonstrate largesse, to act. Honest question, why do people listen to this guy? OK, he does try to start off strong: "Capitalism, I acknowledge, has been good to me." But it's not quite true, is it. It's not as if he was a disinterested 3rd party, strong in his belief of equality (socialism if we take it to extreme), that had capitalism foisted upon him. Sorry, but for me the messenger has tainted the message. It's a clear do-as-I-say, not-as-I do. https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-ceo-marc-benioff-salary-versus-median-employee-2018-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-ceo-marc-benioff-... It's behind a paywall, sorry. The headline is: Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff made $4,653,362 for fiscal year 2018 — a total made up of $1,550,000 in base salary, and $3,100,000 in non-equity insentive compensation. This means that the median employee got paid at a rate of 1-to-30, raking in about 3% of what Benioff made.
jshaqaw 7y ago
I often wonder why people who write these things don’t start with donating the mass of their fortunes first. Benioff could donate 5b to address poverty causes and still have more than a billion left over for himself.
- WilliamEdward 7y ago
  It could be greed, but i'd say its more likely they don't even understand that they could be doing good things with their money.

71 points by focal 7y ago

formatkaka 7y ago

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deleted 7y ago
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sexydefinesher 7y ago
You are misunderstanding the Animal Farm. It was a criticism to the Soviet system and not socialism, Orwell literally fought for the anarchists in the Spanish Civil War.
- kolbe 7y ago
  How many do overs does socialism get? You can only say "that's not how REAL socialism is supposed to happen" so many times.
  - BigJ1211 7y ago
    Most socialistic societies fell due to outside interference in an already weaker society. (Weaker because of their starting position, not because of socialism). This was for example the case with Venezuela, to name a recent one. See: https://www.ozy.com/flashback/venezuelas-downfall-isnt-about-socialism-its-about-oil/92669/ https://www.ozy.com/flashback/venezuelas-downfall-isnt-about... You'd need a country with an already strong economy to try socialism to see where it goes. We have western civilisations with some socialist aspects (European countries) but they're all still majorly capitalistic. A lot of countries labelled as socialist/communist were/are really just state-capitalist countries (China, to name a good example. Communist only in name, same way the nazi party was socialist)
    - collyw 7y ago
      That have a shitload of oil which I would have thought put them in a rather strong staring position.
    - nradov 7y ago
      Venezuela's failures were primarily due to the usual incompetence and corruption. Outside interference was a relatively minor factor. In fact they actually received significant assistance from some other countries.
  - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
    What are you actually defending here? A version of capitalism that is imploding under the weight of usurious debt, that considers widespread homelessness around the bases of empty "investment" apartment towers a feature and not a bug, that bankrupts half a million families a year because of health insurance sharking, that is regularly implicated in unquestionably immoral scandals and corruption (Boeing, opioid sales, Enron, S&L...), that is linked to violent wars and oppressive regimes around the world, and has also been the single biggest driver of climate change, and climate change denial, in the last century? Do you really think these are somehow justifiable with a glib "But socialism!" Anyway - the Scandi countries do a nice line is social democracy, which includes policies that seem to be considered outright socialist extremism by US standards. You should find out how they're doing. By all accounts they're not particularly unpleasant places to live.
    - kolbe 7y ago
      Marx was so popular because he's really great at identifying problems. He could pinpoint exactly what was wrong with far more insight and acuteness than you did. What he never ever could do was propose a better one. We have tried his plan of having the government temporarily seize the means of production several times, and it never ever ceases and becomes Socialism. He's like a philosopher version of the hipster who will mock your taste in music, but never tell you what makes music good. I don't love our problems. But I hate every single other large country's problems more. I am open to change, but if your change wants to be some minor variation on the old, perpetually failing socialism-like ones that we've seen kill tens if not hundreds of millions of people, I'll pass.
- BurningFrog 7y ago
  He also became very disillusioned with the left there. Also took a bullet through the throat, which he rather miraculously survived.
  - Miner49er 7y ago
    He still wrote the book as a critique from a socialist standpoint. The whole point of the book was that the USSR was not real socialism and was damaging the Socialist movement. He explains it in this preface: http://www.orwell.ru/library/novels/Animal_Farm/english/epfc_go http://www.orwell.ru/library/novels/Animal_Farm/english/epfc...
    - BurningFrog 7y ago
      A wonderful and informative read, thankyou! I'm reminded that I need to read his Catalonian book.
- formatkaka 7y ago
  Oh! I read the book with conflicting views on communism/socialism/fascism in mind. Need to read in more detail. Thanks for the clarification.
blamestross 7y ago
We have a lot of evidence it works on small scales (something like half of marriages work out). That might seem silly, but I would call it "minimum viable Communism". I'd like to see a concerted effort for many small-scale communes (sub Dunbar's number) to be more legally viable in the US. The problem with Communism at scale is that the logistics and planning beurocracies end up authoritarian, but it seems optimal at smaller scales. Our implementation of capitalism has experienced a lot of regulatory capture and that needs some work. Democracy and capitalism are also totally compatible with a bit more public infastructure and an a more accessible healthcare system.
BigJ1211 7y ago
There has never been a truly communist society, they were marketed as being socialist (nazi party) or as communist (lenin and mao). None of those were what they claimed to be at all, or at best a corrupted version of what they were supposed to be. See: https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-7/cpml-ussr.htm https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-7/cpml-ussr.htm So there hasn't been any communism that turned into fascism, as there hasn't been any communist society. Most of the misconceptions about communism stem from post-WW2 propaganda, which boils down to "Capitalism = good, Communism = bad". (at least on western side of the iron curtain)
- _jarroda 7y ago
  Ah yes. No true Scotsman. From where I'm standing, it seems obvious that as you slide down the scale into more collectivism, you wind up with a totalitarian nightmare. It's been tried. It ends disastrously every time.
  - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
    This isn't even close to being historically true, and repeating it over and over doesn't make it so.
    - _jarroda 7y ago
      Please enlighten me with examples of successful communist societies. The thing that gets repeated over and over is the classic "Example x wasn't true communism. True communism has never been tried, but if it were, it would surely be great". Tiring

croon 7y ago

> When government is unable or unwilling to act, business should not wait. I hope this is all based in good intentions, and have no real reason not to believe so, other than past experience. I just had this idea though: Seeing the current state of US regulatory capture; I wonder what would happen if companies that felt the way Marc Benioff claims he does (as well as the other companies in that roundtable) would just start paying the same lobby money as business has done previously, but instead ask for sane regulation, aiming for what they claim to be working towards. If I was a politician beholden to corporate money, but also still had a sliver of a soul left in me, and was given the option of the same money, but to work for the people that elected me, I could actually get some real legislative work done. At least if the same was true for other representatives and senators. Or campaign finance reform and outlawing outside payment to politicians, but that's a catch 22 given the above.

Aeolun 7y ago
At that point you just get paid more to make the wrong decisions again. Buying the soul of politicians seem to be surprisingly cheap.
BurningFrog 7y ago
If you don't lobby for your selfish interests, you'll get out-regulated by companies who do. Lobbying is not an optional luxury. You have to do it. At least in politically sensitive industries. As a partially made up example, I'm guessing the plastic straw industry didn't think they had to lay a groundwork lobbying for their existence over the decades. And now they're dead.
- jiveturkey 7y ago
  I see your point, but bad example. There isn't a plastic straw industry. There is a plastic industry and a restaurant supply industry. There is no single focus on straws ... And no they are not dead. Get our of your bubble. The places where plastic straws are not allowed is tiny, tiny tiny.
  - 7y ago

Miner49er 7y ago

Well, he gave a nice list of problems caused by capitalism, and said we need a new capitalism, but gave no reason why. Why a new capitalism? Why not something different, like market socialism, where the shareholders are the employees?

WilliamEdward 7y ago
I think they either have no concept of another system or are in denial about how problematic capitalism really can be and are blaming the wrong things.
anonuser123456 7y ago
What prevents employees from buying shares today?
- Miner49er 7y ago
  I don't think it's possible. If a company's market cap is low enough that its employees can afford to buy all the shares with their salaries I think that would be a significantly failing business.
- akvadrako 7y ago
  Employees can join worker-owned coops if they want to own the companies they work for. There are a few successful companies like this. Most employees just don't seem to want that. Maybe because it's more risk.
- morvita 7y ago
  Money? Opportunity? How many employees (even high earning employees like engineers) are actually in a position to purchase enough shares to make a difference? Even for most "publicly owned" companies the vast majority of shares are held by a small number of investors who aren't giving up their control and power.

WilliamEdward 7y ago

It's unrealistic to hope businesses do the right thing, especially when profit inherently wins out over all else, and it means you cannot do the right thing in your business without losing to the competition who doesn't care. That's kind of a big issue with capitalism, and any revisionist/reformist take on capitalism has to try really hard to convince me this won't be an issue. This article misses that point badly. If you're going to criticise capitalism at least try to understand what actually makes it bad.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y ago

> Legislation to close loopholes in the Equal Pay Act have stalled in Congress for years, and today women still only make about 80 cents, on average, for every dollar earned by men. But congressional inaction does not absolve companies from their responsibility. Since learning that we were paying women less than men for equal work at Salesforce, we have spent $10.3 million to ensure equal pay; today we conduct annual audits to ensure that pay remains equal. If Benioff is going to quote the .80/$1 statistic, then the equal pay audits of SalesForce need to use the same comparison which is to take the average pay of all women in the company regardless of position or job and compare it to the average of all the men in the company regardless of position or job. If you actually do the comparison taking into account job and position, you get something like .93/$1 https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/apr/13/tina-smith/do-women-get-only-80-percent-pay-men-do-same-job/ https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/apr...

weberc2 7y ago
And if you account for other factors, like flexibility and other benefits, you get within the margin of error--women may even out-earn men.
- grenoire 7y ago
  As a rule of thumb, if you would like to not get downvoted for controversial statements, please source your assumptions.
  - jimbokun 7y ago
    Transcript of a Freakonomics podcast discussing this issue: http://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-true-story-of-the-gender-pay-gap-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/ http://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-true-story-of-the-gender...
  - weberc2 7y ago
    Downvotes are fine with me; I don't put much stock in Internet points. I'm not trying to be persuasive in my single-sentence internet quip; if people care to learn more, they can do their own research.

kneel 7y ago

The extremely wealthy keep talking about how to tackle inequality, many of them pledge to do something about it but nothing ever happens. We all know how this plays out, we'll get lip service until we start to kill the rich. Then they'll apologize, reform, and do it a little more subtly next time.

dev_dull 7y ago
Killing the rich and seizing their property always turns out well for the everyday joe and never creates a generation of ultra wealthy and corrupt ruling class /s Wait you didn’t think YOU were going to get that stuff did you?
- jadell 7y ago
  People who cry loudest for revolution are usually the ones who don't ever study the history of successful revolutions. Especially: who the actual revolutionaries were, what positions they held in society before and after the revolution (hint: most successful revolutions aren't peasant uprisings), and what happens to people who weren't either the revolutionary leaders or the ruling class before, during, and after the revolution. The average French peasant did not fare well during or after the French Revolution.
  - easytiger 7y ago
    And you can pick 2 dozen African "revolutions" that left everyone way worse off than a small elite. Sell people the idea you will strip the rich of everything and give it to them (requires a fundamental removal of freedom)... Take power... Profit.

gnu8 7y ago

This is easy for Benioff to say because he's already wealthy. Let's table this until such a time as I become wealthy too. After that we can talk about dismantling capitalism.

WilliamEdward 7y ago
I unironically agree. Either nobody is rich, or we all have the opportunity to get rich. I will not settle for inequality which is what is proposed under the hood by this author.
nicoburns 7y ago
He's not wrong. Most ideas for fixing capitalism will lead to fewer grossly wealthy people. Many rich people support this despite the fact that it will make them less wealthy.
limeman 7y ago
This article is absurd

mindfulplay 7y ago

He identified the problem being "companies shouldn't wait for government to take action". Then, he proposed solutions that still seem to involve increasing taxes. If government is inefficient in allocation of resources and has disincentivizes to actually solve problems in reasonable timelines with reasonable red tape, then perhaps letting private companies take on improving infrastructure or providing care easier might be a good solution. Look city governments have huge cash chests: neither homelessness nor poverty had ever been addressed by throwing government/money at these problems. You need the right inventives to tackle these challenges. And frankly governments need to reduce the friction in terms of money allocation and regulations to get things done.

mkettn 7y ago
>You need the right inventives to tackle these challenges. And frankly governments need to reduce the friction in terms of money allocation and regulations to get things done. Churches did this in the past (with all the bad side effects). But I guess in more secular regions government needs jump in (with all the bad side effects).

jasonlfunk 7y ago

Sure it would be great for business leaders to change their ways, but the beauty of capitalism is that consumers can force businesses to change by their actions. Mark Zuckerberg could change Facebook overnight, but what incentive does he have? It’s still one of the most populous websites in the world. It’s easy to blame to rich and wealthy for the problems but they cannot force us to give them money. Every time I buy Facebook ads, I’m telling Mark that it’s okay for him to continue what he’s doing. It’s very fun these days to blame the 1% for societies problems. But the 99% enable them.

bschne 7y ago
If you take a very simplistic model of how the economy works, this is true. The problem is when you get into a situation/equilibrium where enabling business practices that you consider to be bad for society as a whole is the rational choice because anything else will just leave you out-competed by someone else who doesn't care. I am not saying that this makes it OK to do whatever because "everyone does" or "if I don't, someone else will", I'm just saying that appealing to individuals to just "do the right thing" has almost never worked to efficiently/swiftly bring about changes like this.
- jasonlfunk 7y ago
  > I'm just saying that appealing to individuals to just "do the right thing" has almost never worked Which is exactly what Mr. Benioff is trying to do with this article. Companies change when it's in their financial interest to do so; and rarely before then.
clairity 7y ago
common folk don’t hate rich people (or the products they offered to get rich), they hate that rich people put a thumb, a palm, an elbow, and a foot on the scales in their favor. no one wants a handout, we want fairness.
virgil_disgr4ce 7y ago
> the beauty of capitalism is that consumers can force businesses to change by their actions Wow. That's adorable. Did you just turn 14?

executive 7y ago

In conclusion: buy my overpriced Salesforce products because I'm a good billionaire with a private jet.

limeman 7y ago
Exactly man. Salesforce is money making machine and overpriced crm.
nrp 7y ago
Not to be excessively cynical, but the purpose of this opinion piece probably has more to do with: “Marc Benioff is the chairman and co-chief executive of Salesforce and the author, with Monica Langley, of the forthcoming book, “Trailblazer: The Power of Business as the Greatest Platform for Change.”
- TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
  Not to be even more cynical, but I can't help wondering how the advance and royalties on that book are split between the co-authors vs time spent writing/editing.

limeman 7y ago

Is that marc all talking about. I couldn't believe it and won't trust him.

limeman 7y ago

TBH, i never personally trust Salesforce and this article is absurd.

jaoued 7y ago

Each time I read a billionaire criticizing the current capitalistic system, that reminds me of Jacques Attali's argument on how Karl Marx was misunderstood with Socialism. https://www.newstatesman.com/node/195490 https://www.newstatesman.com/node/195490 Extract: "Attali: What he tried with the international socialist movement was an amazing attempt to think about the world in global terms. Marx is an amazingly modern thinker, because when you look at what he has written, it is not a theory of what an organised socialist country should be like, but how capitalism will be in the future. Contrary to the caricature of Marxism, he is first an admirer of capitalism. For him, it is a much better system than any other before it, because he considers the earlier systems to be obscurantist. Once or twice he had the idea that it was going to be the end, but he very rapidly decided that this was not the case, and that capitalism had a huge future. What is very modern also in his view is that he considered that capitalism would end only when it was a global force, when the whole of the working class was part of it, when nations disappeared, when technology was able to transform the life of a country. He mentioned China and India as potential partners of capitalism, and said, for instance, that protectionism is a mistake, that free trade is a condition for progress. For Marx, capitalism has to be worldwide before we think about socialism. Socialism for him is beyond capitalism and not instead of capitalism. He has much say on globalisation, what is happening to movement of companies, delocalisation and everything that is linked to the way we live today. In a sense, the Soviet Union was destroying or interrupting the validity of Marx's thinking and the fall of the Berlin Wall is giving back a raison d’être to his work, because Marx was thinking of the world globally and the Soviet system was a nightmare that he did not forecast."

miles_matthias 7y ago

It’s very interesting to me that he didn’t mention the B Corp organization, who attempts to do exactly that. Is there a reason for this? Maybe he thinks the requirements/audits are too burdensome?

_edo 7y ago

> ...we need businesses and executives to value purpose alongside profit. Profit is purpose. Profit means the value of the outputs of your business exceeds the value of its inputs. It means you've added something to society, it means you've provided a service to the public. It means when people actually have to choose what's important to them they value what your business has done for them.[0] > ...where businesses...don’t just take from society but truly give back and have a positive impact. See above. I don't know why people think this thought process is new. Read The Road To Serfdom by Hayek. It was written in the 1940's about why these ideas don't work. The free market is the best invention we know of for a society to express what it actually wants and to achieve those goals. Without it you have a small group of enlightened elites deciding what it is that people want. > Americans overwhelmingly say C.E.O.s should take the lead on economic and social challenges, and employees, investors and customers increasingly seek out companies that share their values....When government is unable or unwilling to act, business should not wait. No. We don't want businesses to become political entities. If the problem is businesses aren't using their power for good, the solution isn't to give them even more power. That's too close to Fascism. This whole essay is an argument that businesses need more social power and governments need more financial power. The trade-off is an increase in power inequality (because we're giving the powerful even more power) to decrease financial inequality. At the same time we'd probably take on massive dead-weight losses from abandoning the profit motive which is essential for our economy to function. That looks like a bad deal to me. There is historical precedent for societies accepting power inequality to the extent of dictatorship in the name of ending the ills of capitalism. It hasn't worked well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatorship_of_the_proletariat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatorship_of_the_proletaria... [0] - Yes, you can also steal. That's why capitalism exists within a legal framework.

jiveturkey 7y ago
> Profit is purpose. Only in a capitalistic system, which he is arguing needs revision. Your argument is therefore tautological.
- _edo 7y ago
  My argument only requires that people own their own property/labor and have the freedom to trade those things with others. Without those freedoms we're in some dystopian/totalitarian state.

geebee 7y ago

I agree with Marc that many of the things he'd like to do will take money. Solving homelessness in San Francisco, for instance, will cost a lot. But that doesn't mean all we need to do is spend some money. We've tried that - we're already up to a conservatively estimated $300 million a year. But plenty of people, hardly all on the right - including Gavin Newsom, who admits he was behind some of these failed attempts, for instance - opposed Benioff's initiative on the grounds that if we keep spending money they way we've been spending it, another 300 million will just make things worse off. And while San Francisco may be a wealthy city, there's only so many times we can go to the well. As an example, every year there's a story in the Chron about how low and middle income San Franciscans sit at their computers with a list of affordable city run summer programs for kids, looking at the international clock, desperate to hit "submit" as if it's tickets to a Stones reunion tour - and the aftermath and scramble for where to put their kid this summer if they don't get them, which is about half the time. 300 mil would go a long way to helping with the middle and low income families that San Francisco is, frankly, bleeding away. If I thought 300 mil more would solve homelessness, I'd happily spend it - hell, I'd triple it. I grew up here and I still love this city, but things are bad. The main difference between me and the people who bash SF here on HN is that to me, it's extremely painful, I don't get the gleeful thrill of pointing out how shitty SF's policies have made things, it hurts. I'd be willing to dig pretty deep into my limited financial assets if I could see it get better. But unfortunately, I really do think that 300 million more of the same will produce, well more of the same, which is things getting worse and worse.

easytiger 7y ago
It's literally impossible to "solve homelessness". You can't stop someone walking I to your town and sitting down on the street. Thats not even getting into what you allude to, in that "solving it" creates more homelessness
- geebee 7y ago
  I agree. There's also a huge ambiguity in the term "homeless". This ambiguity was not an accident, I believe it is deliberate and is designed to serve a political purpose. What I mean is, currently there is a large population of mentally ill and drug addicted people on San Francisco's streets, and many of San Francisco's residents and visitors are frequently berated, threatened, harassed, stalked, and even assaulted as they go about their business or vacations. By "solve" I mean a humane and effective plan to greatly reduce this phenomenon. In spite of the intense and angry disagreements about what a humane and effective plan will be (must be?), I do think we (almost) all can agree on this as our objective. And in spite of my frustrations with Benioff, I do believe he sincerely wants the same thing I do.

jiveturkey 7y ago

sigh. Benioff again with his convenient philanthropy. Berating the system he was happy to and remains happy to take advantage of. Whilst shaming others, that are in in less to much less good positions to demonstrate largesse, to act. Honest question, why do people listen to this guy? OK, he does try to start off strong: "Capitalism, I acknowledge, has been good to me." But it's not quite true, is it. It's not as if he was a disinterested 3rd party, strong in his belief of equality (socialism if we take it to extreme), that had capitalism foisted upon him. Sorry, but for me the messenger has tainted the message. It's a clear do-as-I-say, not-as-I do. https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-ceo-marc-benioff-salary-versus-median-employee-2018-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/salesforce-ceo-marc-benioff-... It's behind a paywall, sorry. The headline is: Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff made $4,653,362 for fiscal year 2018 — a total made up of $1,550,000 in base salary, and $3,100,000 in non-equity insentive compensation. This means that the median employee got paid at a rate of 1-to-30, raking in about 3% of what Benioff made.

jshaqaw 7y ago

I often wonder why people who write these things don’t start with donating the mass of their fortunes first. Benioff could donate 5b to address poverty causes and still have more than a billion left over for himself.

WilliamEdward 7y ago
It could be greed, but i'd say its more likely they don't even understand that they could be doing good things with their money.