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In the US, it's less active protest and more things like slacking off heavily at work because it's a treadmill we can't win. We have absolutely no incentive to

• xienze 7y ago
  > We have absolutely no incentive to work hard when doing so doesn't materially affect income. And you think that would improve under socialism or communism?
  • toomuchtodo 7y ago
    It would likely improve under democratic socialism (which is not the same model as communism or socialism). Especially if we disconnect healthcare from employment allowing workers more freedom to pick employers or entrepreneurship. People want purpose, but they also need their basic needs met. They have to have hope they won't spend their lives on an economic treadmill where one slip will cause their demise. This is not an unreasonable ask in the wealthiest country in the world. It is clear the current economic system is dysfunctional and requires refactoring (50% of bankruptices are from medical debt, and this occurs in no other developed country, for example), I'm unsure how that would even be up for debate. So if we can come to the conclusion (from objective data based on income levels, household wealth, debt, well being) that the current system isn't working, why would anyone advocate for it to continue as is?
    • goldstone26 7y ago
      As a free-market proponent who isn't 100% sold on all of the democratic socialism stuff, I don't understand how anyone can deny that having your literal physical well-being tied to your employment is not an enormous problem for anyone who values the efficient allocation of labor/capital (which should hopefully be everyone?) It's literally just a cash-equivalent (in that nearly every employer is going to provide a plan, and you'll need to pay for health coverage somehow, whether it be in taxes or in premiums) part of your compensation that is also coincidentally an enormous arbitrary sticking point that makes moving jobs that much more of a pain and danger. But only for the employee, of course.
      • deleted 7y ago
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      • klodolph 7y ago
        Could you rephrase that first paragraph without the triple negative? It sounds like you are saying that having your physical well-being tied to employment is good for efficient allocation of labor/capital, but I have some problems with this claim and I’d like to check that this is what you’re actually saying. The economic problem is that having well-being tied to employment pushes people towards employment short-term rather than value long-term. Then there’s the moral problems, which can’t be ignored.
        • pnongrata 7y ago
          I think he is saying the opposite. Also, having your health care, retirement and general well-being tied to a particular job reduces employee "freedom", which in his point of view is not efficient.
      • wayoutthere 7y ago
        Because it benefits employers to have desperate employees. If your short-term survival is tied to your job, you'll be willing to take a lot more abuse (and less pay) in order to maintain your core needs. You literally cannot have comfortable life for the majority of society under a free-market system because it relies on the threat of being outcast from safety. The most socialist era of this country (1930-1980) is widely regarded as the American "Golden Era". I don't think that's a coincidence.
      • alistproducer2 7y ago
        What is your definition of a free market? I see this so often but few people seem to understand the inherent contradiction. If a market is truly free it will naturally tend toward monopoly thereby extinguishing itself. If it is regulated to prevent it's own destruction, it ceases to be truly free. In either case it is a transient condition. A brief glorious moment in time that cannot, by its own definition, be anything more than ephemeral.
    • Mountain_Skies 7y ago
      If I remember correctly, it was labor unions that demanded that employers provide these benefits for their employees. Doubt the unions had any ill intent but the law of unintended consequences really has come into play. The whole system is so entrenched that any solution is going to be painful to implement though maybe or maybe not as painful as continuing the current state of things.
      • toomuchtodo 7y ago
        It was because of wage freezes during WW2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_insurance_in_the_United_States#The_rise_of_employer-sponsored_coverage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_insurance_in_the_United...
    • jimmywanger 7y ago
      > People want purpose, but they also need their basic needs met. That means our garbage would never get collected or our toilets cleaned, because I don't think anybody's intended purpose is doing sanitation. If you're just assigning jobs to give a purpose, you're forcing labor. If not you have dirty living quarters and a glut of artists.
      • tangent128 7y ago
        Make the pay high enough to match the value generated, and you'll find enough janitors and garbage collectors.
        • jimmywanger 7y ago
          How do you make the pay high enough? Compel labor, print money, or some sort of complicated metric? "Based on family background, education, and IQ tests, we estimate that your best job is electrical technician."
          • deleted 7y ago
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          • AnimalMuppet 7y ago
            You keep raising pay until people are willing, uncoerced, to take jobs that they don't find "fulfilling". You do that just by offering money for the job. You don't try to guess who "should" take the job, you just offer it. You don't compel labor, you don't print money. You just raise the pay, and raise the rates you charge for garbage collection to pay the salaries. (And, yeah, at that point you have a bit of coercion, because people have to have garbage service. If a home doesn't, they're probably going to be in violation of some kind of law.)
            • jimmywanger 7y ago
              > You don't compel labor, you don't print money. vs two sentences later. > And, yeah, at that point you have a bit of coercion Which is it? Can you compel a poor peasant farmer to stay on the farmer and grow food because that's what society needs as a right? > If a home doesn't, they're probably going to be in violation of some kind of law. Law itself is coercion. Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. The only reason we pay taxes for stuff we might not use, like the public education system and libraries, is forced by the threat of violence and imprisonment. Would you be going to jail if you didn't pay the portion of them that went to the military? What do you think happens when you refuse to go to prison?
  • diffeomorphism 7y ago
    That is literally the opposite of what the sentence said?
    • jcmoscon 7y ago
      But that's the option that they are giving.
      • diffeomorphism 7y ago
        No.
  • deleted 7y ago
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  • wayoutthere 7y ago
    I didn't mention either? But capitalism definitely isn't working for a lot of us, so yeah, people are interested in other systems.
    • AnimalMuppet 7y ago
      But Communism didn't work for a lot of people either. I'm not saying "therefore capitalism is the right answer" (though I still think it is). I'm not saying that people shouldn't be interested in other systems. But I am saying that it matters a great deal that the "other system" be better, not just different. As my co-worker Steve Hanka used to say, "There's lots of ways to do it that don't work". There's lots of ways to structure the economy that work out worse; let's not make things worse by trying to make them better.
  • root_axis 7y ago
    Lambasting abstract economic theories is meaningless. The U.S. economy already implements some socialized policies and moving further in that direction for some aspects of our economy isn't necessarily bad. For example, a single-payer healthcare system is obviously superior to our current one, even if it is "socialized", but having socialized healthcare doesn't mean the U.S. is "socialist" any more than the existence of public schools makes it "socialist". Nobody is suggesting we nationalize the means of production or bestow collective ownership of private capital to the proletariat, so stop invoking the socialism boogyman.
    • deleted 7y ago
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    • AnimalMuppet 7y ago
      Funny, just yesterday I was commenting on an HN story about Bernie Sanders proposing to give half ownership of companies to their workers. Yes, people are proposing "bestowing collective ownership of private capital to the proletariat", or something very close to it.
      • root_axis 7y ago
        > or something very close to it. Mandating that some large corporations award some stock to their employees may be socialism in your eyes, but that's not actually socialism, it's just a FUD talking point.
        • AnimalMuppet 7y ago
          I didn't say it was socialism. I said it was bestowing collective ownership of private capital to the proletariat - which it very clearly is. Or at least which it very clearly is quite close to. It's bestowing collective ownership of half of private capital to the part of the proletariat that works at that business.
          • root_axis 7y ago
  • rolltiide 7y ago
    Since they didn’t say that you are presenting a false dilemma. Suggesting two binary extremes and ignoring the possibility of a spectrum of outcomes in a multifaceted problem We aren’t toddlers so try not use juvenile logic
    • wayoutthere 7y ago
      But muh strawman!
    • tomp 7y ago
      Socialism is just a word that's used as "not capitalism". The point is, though, if the ownership of capitals (means of production) is so concentrated (1% own 90% of capital), then pretty much the only "solution" is effectively disowning them, consequences be damned. That's clearly in contrast to the spirit (and law) of capitalism, hence many (even capitalists) would simply call it "socialism" (or "communism"), even if it's completely different in the details (e.g. not everyone is paid the same).
      • rolltiide 7y ago
        I see, so is there a better word instead of this misappropriated colloquialism? Its impossible to talk nuances of resource appropriation with an evocative term used inaccurately
        • flmontpetit 7y ago
          I'm personally hoping "post-capitalism" takes off
      • AstralStorm 7y ago
        There are multiple ways to disown companies. One time tested way is nationalization, explicit by making the owner officials or by making the company leadership national government. (Slightly different effects.) Authoritarian governments prefer former, market based ones the later. (Second example is Korean Chaebols and their big influence.) The other is directly bestowing workers with ownership or equity, in the extreme converting companies into cooperatives. This is not socialism, but communism. (Not to be mistaken with stalinism or maoism.)
  • pizzazzaro 7y ago
    I mean... Have you forgotten everything you've read about Millenials? We're motivated by the chance to improve the world. Green Socialism delivers exactly that. Meanwhile: a liveable wage should simply be a given to anyone who is working full time. If your business cant afford this, quit asking us to subsidize your existence. So far, Capitalism is failing on both fronts. If Green Socialism can win on either or both? Maybe Mises' bones belong on display next to that of the T-Rex.
  • mumblemumble 7y ago
    One thing that you could read into the parent post is that, to the people it's giving the shaft to, modern crony capitalism doesn't seem particularly distinguishable from socialism in a lot of ways. You have the thing where the government is trying to control, or at least closely guide, the economy. You have the thing where those who are close to power subvert that to line their own pockets. You have the thing where people are being discincentivized to work hard because they see that hard work benefits others more than themselves. Interestingly, in the USA, you even have the mass incarceration, which otherwise only shows up in the versions of socialism that hail from the other side of the historical iron curtain and from (yes, I realize what I'm about to do here, but please remain calm, but I'm only wanting to draw a parallel to some very specific things here, and to call attention to the fact that not all forms of socialism are leftist) Germany starting in the 1930s. To poke at the USA a bit more, yes, there are still plenty of salient differences between the USA and nominally socialist societies. But it strikes me that the most salient one is that, in the USA, you have units in the grade school curriculum devoted to indoctrinating kids on the idea that they are most definitely NOT a socialist country. Moreso as an article of faith than as a matter of fact.
    • AnimalMuppet 7y ago
      The solution to crony capitalism isn't socialism, though. It's less "crony" - less ability to profit from government connections, which means less government control (or "guidance") of the economy. The government should prevent unfair competition, regulate externalities, and not much else.
      • AstralStorm 7y ago
        What if the implemented solution is skipping the capitalism part and just going straight to corporatism? (Rule by corporate oligarchy.) You have to make a really strong argument why it would be suboptimal - and without spherical cow level microeconomic lies. Crony capitalism only causes problems because it is not transparent who rules, while generating waste from those that don't and fail.
        • 7y ago
• ryandrake 7y ago
  Future generations are going to look back critically at this time. So much risk taken, so much sacrificed and burned up, so much opportunity, labor, economic freedom spent, all so that a tiny sliver of people born roughly between 1920 and 1950 can have retirement security, second homes, vacations, and on average a massively higher standard of living than anyone else that’s ever lived or will live in the future. When my grandchildren are serving their feudal lord to survive and their grandchildren are going to war with the next tribe over for access to fresh water, maybe someone will look back and shake their heads at what we all squandered.
  • scarecrowbob 7y ago
    Look, I personally am thinking my time as a nigh ancient wizard serving the grand duke of Taos in the protectorate of far southern Utah is going to feking rad, especially when my son's family finally buys themselves out of serfdom in the Terlinguan grasslands and travels up so I can establish a trans-generational cult that passes on my knowledge of psychoanalytics, electronics, and cultivating fungal ethnogens.
    • flmontpetit 7y ago
      Utah will be uninhabitable. You'll have to struggle for survival in the Manitoban jungle.
      • scarecrowbob 7y ago
        Oh, that's why we are up in Taos.
• golf3 7y ago
  Occupy Wallstreet did happen but it was torpedoed by identity politics, the establishment only permits fervent discussion about gender and skin color.
  • jrs95 7y ago
    And who benefits from and promotes that? The wealthy and powerful. They WANT us to be divided along those lines so we'll all get out and vote for corporate Democrats who say the right things about identity politics and pretend to be leftists.
  • danharaj 7y ago
    Occuy Wallstreet was violently uprooted by police action. Your statement is ignorant and in poor taste.
    • thinkingemote 7y ago
      occupy turned into a protest about the right to protest (classic strategy to stop any protest and derail message) and thus was able to be destroyed from outside but it also changed within due to Identity politics which lost many original supporters...however idpol didn't destroy it nor was the movement somehow more acceptable to the authorities when it changed.
  • Will_Parker 7y ago
    > the establishment only permits fervent discussion about gender and skin color. Do they? Try making a case that we don't need more than two sets of gendered pronouns in your tech job.
    • bigYahnz 7y ago
      Why would there need to be more than two when there are only two genders?
    • SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
      Are you saying tech isn’t establishment? IDK about percentages, but it’s definitely not the 90s anymore.
• bluedino 7y ago
  >> We have absolutely no incentive to work hard when doing so doesn't materially affect income. Pride? Character? Respect from colleagues?
  • cryoshon 7y ago
    pride, character, and respect from colleagues are things that don't pay the bills, even though they're nice to have. i know this is sounds like a snarky and low-effort response, but it is not intentional. it's just the way things are, and there isn't really a diplomatic way of saying it.
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    • ThrowawayR2 7y ago
      > "pride, character, and respect from colleagues are things that don't pay the bill" I can name several dozen colleagues I've worked for over the years who will vouch for me and help me get a job if I should ever need it and that does pay the bills. People who say things like the above quote, can't.
      • flmontpetit 7y ago
        To be honest you don't need to work very hard to achieve this.
      • cryoshon 7y ago
        what if you met those colleagues at a relatively low-wage job, and neither you nor anyone else who will vouch for you has advanced very far beyond that low wage level? sure, they can get you a job, but it will be a horizontal move for you if you are currently employed, and certainly no step up from your prior employment if you're suddenly unemployed. consider that for many young people outside of the software and finance worlds, this is precisely the situation. all the good reputation in the world doesn't much matter if it doesn't get you any further than where you are.
• Fjolsvith 7y ago
  40 years ago, my father was a union carpenter on the construction of a big coal-fired electric generation plant in western Colorado. He worked for a big contractor and was the foreman for the carpenter crew. When they waited for the next task to be ready for them to work on, my dad did things like paint company vehicles and equipment, and clean the warehouses. He stayed busy instead of playing cards in the break room. When that construction site started to wind down, he was the last carpenter to be laid off, and had many job offers at other places because of his conscientious work ethic. I'd take any employee with that ethic in a heartbeat at my manufacturing business.