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> 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.
      • alasdair_ 7y ago
        It’s possible to have laws that increase freedom overall. For example: a law against murder restricts some people (the murderer) but frees many more people from (their victims). Markets can be regulated to make them more free as well - if we pass a law to enforce mutually agreed upon contracts, some people (those that would go against the contract) have their freedom restricted but the market as a whole now has a trust mechanism allowing them to actually hold others accountable and thus overall it improves society. “Free market” still implies certain restrictions, like “no stealing the other person’s stuff”.
  • 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
    [deleted]
  • 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