8 ms·

Reading these comments I feel like the root of the issue is the collapse of American democracy. It's a bit grandiloquent but that's definitely how it looks like

by simias 6y ago

Reading these comments I feel like the root of the issue is the collapse of American democracy. It's a bit grandiloquent but that's definitely how it looks like. If workers trust that "We, the people" are still in charge on the big picture then it doesn't make sense to bring politics at work. Just vote. Now if you feel like your power as a citizen has dwindled and you can't meaningfully enact change through democratic means, it makes sense to try and "weaponize" your job, especially if you work for a powerful company and you're a valuable highly skilled worker. But in the end if you're dissatisfied with your company and you know that there's a fundamental ideological incompatibility it probably makes more sense to just quit, especially when you're a software dev and you can probably find some other job fairly easily. I guess an other possibility would be to have proper unions but for some reason I don't see that happening in the USA any time soon...

claudeganon 6y ago
> If workers trust that "We, the people" are still in charge on the big picture then it doesn't make sense to bring politics at work. Just vote. This is a bizarre, ahistorical sentiment. Go read about the history of labor struggle in the US. Even when everyone could vote, the organizing of workplaces and response by their employers was far more contentious and violent than anything that’s going on today.
- simias 6y ago
  Can you give an example of what you have in mind? I must admit that, being European, I don't really have a good grasp of the history of American worker struggles. Here in France I can't quite think of something really similar to Silicon Valley activists. When I think about worker-led revolts I think of Germinal or Mai 68, when the proletariat (and, in the case of Mai 68, the students and then the proletariat) fought for better working conditions and more rights. I don't think that's very similar to the time of activism we're talking about here. For one thing IT workers are not exactly the lowest dregs of the proletariat, it's a very privileged position with much better working conditions that most. Beyond that the fight is not usually for the direct benefit of said workers ("higher salaries!" or "fewer hours!" or "better food at the corporate restaurant!") but more ideologically motivated. An obvious instance of this is the very polarizing firing of Brendan Eich from Mozilla (that's still making waves all these years later). Doing that didn't directly change anything material for Mozilla's employee, it was motivated by ideology. The only thing that comes close I think is videogame devs complaining about their bad working conditions, but I don't think that's what we're talking about here. Conversely the 1984's UK miner strike wasn't triggered because the National Coal Board had said something homophobic. It's just not comparable, IMO. The lack of violence is also easy to explain: violence is the weapon of those that have no other way to be heard. Developers in the silicon valley can make themselves heard without having to burn their company-provided MacBooks and taking their managers hostage at the next SCRUM Sprint planning.
  - lukeschlather 6y ago
    > I don't think that's very similar to the time of activism we're talking about here. I think that was exactly the OP's point. The kind of activism we're talking about here is low-key activism by privileged people. I can't think of any examples either - that didn't mean they didn't happen, it just means they weren't important enough to make the history books because they were settled without any violence.
  - claudeganon 6y ago
    There was all kinds of trade union opposition to the Vietnam War, which is really no different from tech workers protesting against collaboration with the military and other violent state forces. Many of the leading figures in the Civil Rights Movement also came from labor organizing backgrounds, and while unions like the AFL-CIO have mixed records, support from organized labor was crucial to it success. The cleavage you’re describing between ideological and material concerns is one that was introduced as part of the neoliberal ideology of the 1970s, in which Capital intentionally carved out a narrow space for identitarian claims to better defend itself from the multi-constituency groups that were attacking it in the 1960s. But it doesn’t reflect the real history of how solidarity functioned in the period. There is certainly a shift in white-collar workers beginning to understand themselves in terms more akin to their working class predecessors, especially as it relates to hierarchy and power dynamics in companies. But this is not too terribly surprising given that massive wealth inequality has produced an even greater degree of proletarianization, even among the highly educated workforce. Google has more contract employees than regular employees now, for example.
    - bernie_simon 6y ago
      I'm old enough to remember the Vietnam War and the AFL-CIO of the day was staunchly anti-communist and pro-war. Most of the opposition to the war before Nixon became president came from the pacifist left and student led organizations like the SDS.
      - claudeganon 6y ago
        I already cited the AFL-CIO’s conservatism. Under McCarthyism, most real leftists had been purged from the leadership of large unions. What you say about the students is true, but an incomplete picture. If you want a better one, check out Philip Foner‘s US Labor and the Vietnam War.
- Aunche 6y ago
  Part of Coinbase's purpose is to provide its workers with a safe environment and fair compensation, even if it's not explicitly written in their mission statement. As such, protesting dangerous work conditions and collectively asking more pay is directly related to a company's mission. What happened at Coinbase was that workers walked out because their CEO didn't want to Tweet about the latest social issue du jour. It's very difficult to imagine what anyone seeks to accomplish with this.
cbHXBY1D 6y ago
>I guess an other possibility would be to have proper unions but for some reason I don't see that happening in the USA any time soon... I think this will happen sooner rather than later. As the market gets flooded with more and more engineers, tech workers will continue to get more and more proletarianized. Unionization will be the natural avenue for workers to get a slice of the pie.
- infamouscow 6y ago
  I wonder if that eventually leads the software industry into having professional licensing.
- smsm42 6y ago
  I don't think people earning 5x-6x median wage, not counting stock incentives, are what Marx mean when he wrote about proletariat. Outside of Hollywood stars and top sportsmen, one would struggle to find a less oppressed category of workers.
bradlys 6y ago
> But in the end if you're dissatisfied with your company and you know that there's a fundamental ideological incompatibility it probably makes more sense to just quit, especially when you're a software dev and you can probably find some other job fairly easily. While true that you could find "some other job" - it likely won't be a job that pays as well or has some other detestable attribute. If you have a pathological disagreement with companies collecting lots of data - you're going to have a hard time finding a company paying you $400k+/yr as an IC software dev. If you're not wealthy (bought real estate before the big boom) or come from a family of wealth (they bought you a house) - you're going to have hard time in many cities only going with companies that you can find almost no ideological incompatibility with. And, turns out, a lot of these major cities that are very expensive also happen to have most of the job listings. God forbid you move to BFE and the few places that hire ICs stop hiring. You'll have to upheave your entire life and move - or pray you can find a suitable remote job. Like most of us - you sacrifice your ideology because it isn't compatible with living in a capitalistic world and you've decided you're also not ready to be a martyr. You stand to lose a lot in the developed world (as you start with a lot more than those in less developed places) - martyrdom isn't worth it then. Only when you're independently wealthy can you truly make decisions based on your ideology. Making the presumption here that everyone wants a middle class to upper middle class American lifestyle (SFH, 2 cars, live in a somewhat desirable area, kids, retirement savings, etc.).
smsm42 6y ago
Well, democracy is not just voting. Most of it actually happens before voting. I mean Russia has voting, Belarus has voting, USSR had voting, Iran has voting, I'm not sure whether North Korea has voting but they certainly could have. To have properly functioning democracy you need the support system that leads to responsible, informed voting and that provided feedback mechanisms between the government and the population. Which includes a vivid and robust public discussion of the topics important for people. This is what is breaking down I feel. And what we're seeing is just a symptom - employers want to ban workplace politics not because politics and participation is bad per se, but because it has become so dirty and vicious that allowing it can literally destroy the company. You can't efficiently work together with people you hate, and I definitely feel like hate has become the primary weapon and the primary drive of US politics. It is basically required from anybody who plays in it to hate your opponent, and to hate everybody who doesn't march in lockstep with you. If you don't, you're probably secretly in league with "them" and must be targeted for hate yourself. There's no respectful disagreement, there's no difference of opinion allowed, there's no assumption of good will and willing to work through disagreements. The slogan of the day is "burn it all down". Of course there's only two ways for the company to survive in such environment - either everybody thinks the same and wrongthinkers are expelled - thus ensuring all hate is directed outside the company - or ban the politics and keep the hate outside the place of employment. Third way would be to actually remove the hate from the equation, but it doesn't look like there are enough grownups around for this to happen. > I guess an other possibility would be to have proper unions I don't see how the unions - especially US unions which are completely partisan - would help anything, except making the union shop inaccessible to those who isn't willing to join union's party.
- hnmullany 6y ago
  You know ... there's a reason that US Unions are partisan, which is that the Republican party has been on a mission to destroy them since Reagan and has largely succeeded.
  - smsm42 6y ago
    Union's popularity has been falling for years and years: https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/480481-unions-decline-again-and-public-sector-right-to-work-may-be-a-reason https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/480481-unions-decline-ag... and for a good reason - as soon as you don't force people to join, turns out not everybody wants to. And the polarization of unions is far from a forced move. I do not think Republicans made this happen: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/democratic-socialists-america-teams-teachers-unions-reform-schools https://www.zerohedge.com/political/democratic-socialists-am... It's more like that centralized top-down economy is much more comfortable for the union leadership than chaotic horizontal competitive economy. It's much easier to enforce certain policy by the power of the government than negotiate it privately with each employer. That makes unions a natural ally of socialists. And of course there's nothing like government subsidies and regulations - which can be exchanged for votes and donations - to hide the inefficiencies of inflexible unionized setups and deflect the competitive threats from more agile and enterprising newcomers. Again, here the unions are the natural allies of centralized regulatory state. And the effects of this are pretty obvious: https://nypost.com/2018/08/25/why-nyc-is-priciest-city-in-the-world-for-infrastructure-projects/ https://nypost.com/2018/08/25/why-nyc-is-priciest-city-in-th... https://www.nj.com/news/2018/06/money_for_nothing_working_the_docks_sometimes_mean.html https://www.nj.com/news/2018/06/money_for_nothing_working_th... That's not Republican party's fault.
seneca 6y ago
> Now if you feel like your power as a citizen has dwindled and you can't meaningfully enact change through democratic means, it makes sense to try and "weaponize" your job, especially if you work for a powerful company and you're a valuable highly skilled worker. I think you're close, but not quite right. I think what has happened is that ideas well outside the Overton Window have become popular with a couple small, but very vocal, groups. Their ideas aren't very popular with most people, so they can't achieve their desired outcomes democratically. They therefore try to "weaponize" their jobs in influential institutions, like Software companies, to gain influence over the rest of society.
frankish 6y ago
This is why I'm frustrated with the idea that we need to enact change and policies at the federal level. The federal government should just exist to protect our liberties and organize national defense. Everything else should be organized more locally at the community level where voters actually have some skin in the game. It's the same idea as how modern agile companies run, small teams that work in the same environment, have more empathy/trust of one another, and are able to make compromises in order to have stability and direction within the team. Additionally, we shouldn't be trying to put all of our eggs in one basket. Should we have single-payer healthcare nationally? No one knows if that's the most appropriate solution for all of the US, but why not let cities or communities try various localized healthcare strategies out for themselves. Each may try things differently. Some may work and some may fail. Other places can see how things worked elsewhere and either decide to improve, not implement, or take verbatim what another local government has done. You influence change by setting an example and letting others decide for themselves, not by trying to force the world to behave as a small subset of people want. Having multiple baskets is essential for enabling different ideas and perspectives, especially if the bad ideas were to win out. I firmly believe humans are not meant to have such large scale societal structures where communities are expected to encompass an entire nation. You care more about and think more similarly to your neighbor than you do someone three thousand miles away.
- beambot 6y ago
  “I am, at the Fed level, libertarian; at the state level, Republican; at the local level, Democrat; and at the family and friends level, a socialist. If that saying doesn’t convince you of the fatuousness of left vs. right labels, nothing will.” - Nassim Taleb, Skin in the game
  - frankish 6y ago
    You nailed it. Admittedly only listened to him on JRE, but I strongly agree with this concept.
- prions 6y ago
  > This is why I'm frustrated with the idea that we need to enact change and policies at the federal level. The federal government should just exist to protect our liberties and organize national defense. Everything else should be organized more locally at the community level where voters actually have some skin in the game. You'd think that after months of "locally led" covid responses in the US that this naive take would somehow become less popular. Whether small-government enthusiasts like it or not, the US is highly interconnected on almost every level. There are certain things that absolutely require federal responses. Things like pollution and viruses absolutely need to be handled from a nation wide perspective. How would healthcare work as a piecemeal implementation across local lines? Its almost as if "letting localities decide" is a nice way of ensuring something will fail without forcing it outright. Your argument is implying that the federal government is somehow ineffective, but given the federally led improvements across the last century - from roads to environmental regulations, public health and even the internet just shows that you're either ignorant of intentionally dishonest.

by simias 6y ago

claudeganon 6y ago

> If workers trust that "We, the people" are still in charge on the big picture then it doesn't make sense to bring politics at work. Just vote. This is a bizarre, ahistorical sentiment. Go read about the history of labor struggle in the US. Even when everyone could vote, the organizing of workplaces and response by their employers was far more contentious and violent than anything that’s going on today.

simias 6y ago
Can you give an example of what you have in mind? I must admit that, being European, I don't really have a good grasp of the history of American worker struggles. Here in France I can't quite think of something really similar to Silicon Valley activists. When I think about worker-led revolts I think of Germinal or Mai 68, when the proletariat (and, in the case of Mai 68, the students and then the proletariat) fought for better working conditions and more rights. I don't think that's very similar to the time of activism we're talking about here. For one thing IT workers are not exactly the lowest dregs of the proletariat, it's a very privileged position with much better working conditions that most. Beyond that the fight is not usually for the direct benefit of said workers ("higher salaries!" or "fewer hours!" or "better food at the corporate restaurant!") but more ideologically motivated. An obvious instance of this is the very polarizing firing of Brendan Eich from Mozilla (that's still making waves all these years later). Doing that didn't directly change anything material for Mozilla's employee, it was motivated by ideology. The only thing that comes close I think is videogame devs complaining about their bad working conditions, but I don't think that's what we're talking about here. Conversely the 1984's UK miner strike wasn't triggered because the National Coal Board had said something homophobic. It's just not comparable, IMO. The lack of violence is also easy to explain: violence is the weapon of those that have no other way to be heard. Developers in the silicon valley can make themselves heard without having to burn their company-provided MacBooks and taking their managers hostage at the next SCRUM Sprint planning.
- lukeschlather 6y ago
  > I don't think that's very similar to the time of activism we're talking about here. I think that was exactly the OP's point. The kind of activism we're talking about here is low-key activism by privileged people. I can't think of any examples either - that didn't mean they didn't happen, it just means they weren't important enough to make the history books because they were settled without any violence.
- claudeganon 6y ago
  There was all kinds of trade union opposition to the Vietnam War, which is really no different from tech workers protesting against collaboration with the military and other violent state forces. Many of the leading figures in the Civil Rights Movement also came from labor organizing backgrounds, and while unions like the AFL-CIO have mixed records, support from organized labor was crucial to it success. The cleavage you’re describing between ideological and material concerns is one that was introduced as part of the neoliberal ideology of the 1970s, in which Capital intentionally carved out a narrow space for identitarian claims to better defend itself from the multi-constituency groups that were attacking it in the 1960s. But it doesn’t reflect the real history of how solidarity functioned in the period. There is certainly a shift in white-collar workers beginning to understand themselves in terms more akin to their working class predecessors, especially as it relates to hierarchy and power dynamics in companies. But this is not too terribly surprising given that massive wealth inequality has produced an even greater degree of proletarianization, even among the highly educated workforce. Google has more contract employees than regular employees now, for example.
  - bernie_simon 6y ago
    I'm old enough to remember the Vietnam War and the AFL-CIO of the day was staunchly anti-communist and pro-war. Most of the opposition to the war before Nixon became president came from the pacifist left and student led organizations like the SDS.
    - claudeganon 6y ago
      I already cited the AFL-CIO’s conservatism. Under McCarthyism, most real leftists had been purged from the leadership of large unions. What you say about the students is true, but an incomplete picture. If you want a better one, check out Philip Foner‘s US Labor and the Vietnam War.
Aunche 6y ago
Part of Coinbase's purpose is to provide its workers with a safe environment and fair compensation, even if it's not explicitly written in their mission statement. As such, protesting dangerous work conditions and collectively asking more pay is directly related to a company's mission. What happened at Coinbase was that workers walked out because their CEO didn't want to Tweet about the latest social issue du jour. It's very difficult to imagine what anyone seeks to accomplish with this.

cbHXBY1D 6y ago

>I guess an other possibility would be to have proper unions but for some reason I don't see that happening in the USA any time soon... I think this will happen sooner rather than later. As the market gets flooded with more and more engineers, tech workers will continue to get more and more proletarianized. Unionization will be the natural avenue for workers to get a slice of the pie.

infamouscow 6y ago
I wonder if that eventually leads the software industry into having professional licensing.
smsm42 6y ago
I don't think people earning 5x-6x median wage, not counting stock incentives, are what Marx mean when he wrote about proletariat. Outside of Hollywood stars and top sportsmen, one would struggle to find a less oppressed category of workers.

bradlys 6y ago

> But in the end if you're dissatisfied with your company and you know that there's a fundamental ideological incompatibility it probably makes more sense to just quit, especially when you're a software dev and you can probably find some other job fairly easily. While true that you could find "some other job" - it likely won't be a job that pays as well or has some other detestable attribute. If you have a pathological disagreement with companies collecting lots of data - you're going to have a hard time finding a company paying you $400k+/yr as an IC software dev. If you're not wealthy (bought real estate before the big boom) or come from a family of wealth (they bought you a house) - you're going to have hard time in many cities only going with companies that you can find almost no ideological incompatibility with. And, turns out, a lot of these major cities that are very expensive also happen to have most of the job listings. God forbid you move to BFE and the few places that hire ICs stop hiring. You'll have to upheave your entire life and move - or pray you can find a suitable remote job. Like most of us - you sacrifice your ideology because it isn't compatible with living in a capitalistic world and you've decided you're also not ready to be a martyr. You stand to lose a lot in the developed world (as you start with a lot more than those in less developed places) - martyrdom isn't worth it then. Only when you're independently wealthy can you truly make decisions based on your ideology. Making the presumption here that everyone wants a middle class to upper middle class American lifestyle (SFH, 2 cars, live in a somewhat desirable area, kids, retirement savings, etc.).

smsm42 6y ago

Well, democracy is not just voting. Most of it actually happens before voting. I mean Russia has voting, Belarus has voting, USSR had voting, Iran has voting, I'm not sure whether North Korea has voting but they certainly could have. To have properly functioning democracy you need the support system that leads to responsible, informed voting and that provided feedback mechanisms between the government and the population. Which includes a vivid and robust public discussion of the topics important for people. This is what is breaking down I feel. And what we're seeing is just a symptom - employers want to ban workplace politics not because politics and participation is bad per se, but because it has become so dirty and vicious that allowing it can literally destroy the company. You can't efficiently work together with people you hate, and I definitely feel like hate has become the primary weapon and the primary drive of US politics. It is basically required from anybody who plays in it to hate your opponent, and to hate everybody who doesn't march in lockstep with you. If you don't, you're probably secretly in league with "them" and must be targeted for hate yourself. There's no respectful disagreement, there's no difference of opinion allowed, there's no assumption of good will and willing to work through disagreements. The slogan of the day is "burn it all down". Of course there's only two ways for the company to survive in such environment - either everybody thinks the same and wrongthinkers are expelled - thus ensuring all hate is directed outside the company - or ban the politics and keep the hate outside the place of employment. Third way would be to actually remove the hate from the equation, but it doesn't look like there are enough grownups around for this to happen. > I guess an other possibility would be to have proper unions I don't see how the unions - especially US unions which are completely partisan - would help anything, except making the union shop inaccessible to those who isn't willing to join union's party.

hnmullany 6y ago
You know ... there's a reason that US Unions are partisan, which is that the Republican party has been on a mission to destroy them since Reagan and has largely succeeded.
- smsm42 6y ago
  Union's popularity has been falling for years and years: https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/480481-unions-decline-again-and-public-sector-right-to-work-may-be-a-reason https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/480481-unions-decline-ag... and for a good reason - as soon as you don't force people to join, turns out not everybody wants to. And the polarization of unions is far from a forced move. I do not think Republicans made this happen: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/democratic-socialists-america-teams-teachers-unions-reform-schools https://www.zerohedge.com/political/democratic-socialists-am... It's more like that centralized top-down economy is much more comfortable for the union leadership than chaotic horizontal competitive economy. It's much easier to enforce certain policy by the power of the government than negotiate it privately with each employer. That makes unions a natural ally of socialists. And of course there's nothing like government subsidies and regulations - which can be exchanged for votes and donations - to hide the inefficiencies of inflexible unionized setups and deflect the competitive threats from more agile and enterprising newcomers. Again, here the unions are the natural allies of centralized regulatory state. And the effects of this are pretty obvious: https://nypost.com/2018/08/25/why-nyc-is-priciest-city-in-the-world-for-infrastructure-projects/ https://nypost.com/2018/08/25/why-nyc-is-priciest-city-in-th... https://www.nj.com/news/2018/06/money_for_nothing_working_the_docks_sometimes_mean.html https://www.nj.com/news/2018/06/money_for_nothing_working_th... That's not Republican party's fault.

seneca 6y ago

> Now if you feel like your power as a citizen has dwindled and you can't meaningfully enact change through democratic means, it makes sense to try and "weaponize" your job, especially if you work for a powerful company and you're a valuable highly skilled worker. I think you're close, but not quite right. I think what has happened is that ideas well outside the Overton Window have become popular with a couple small, but very vocal, groups. Their ideas aren't very popular with most people, so they can't achieve their desired outcomes democratically. They therefore try to "weaponize" their jobs in influential institutions, like Software companies, to gain influence over the rest of society.

frankish 6y ago

This is why I'm frustrated with the idea that we need to enact change and policies at the federal level. The federal government should just exist to protect our liberties and organize national defense. Everything else should be organized more locally at the community level where voters actually have some skin in the game. It's the same idea as how modern agile companies run, small teams that work in the same environment, have more empathy/trust of one another, and are able to make compromises in order to have stability and direction within the team. Additionally, we shouldn't be trying to put all of our eggs in one basket. Should we have single-payer healthcare nationally? No one knows if that's the most appropriate solution for all of the US, but why not let cities or communities try various localized healthcare strategies out for themselves. Each may try things differently. Some may work and some may fail. Other places can see how things worked elsewhere and either decide to improve, not implement, or take verbatim what another local government has done. You influence change by setting an example and letting others decide for themselves, not by trying to force the world to behave as a small subset of people want. Having multiple baskets is essential for enabling different ideas and perspectives, especially if the bad ideas were to win out. I firmly believe humans are not meant to have such large scale societal structures where communities are expected to encompass an entire nation. You care more about and think more similarly to your neighbor than you do someone three thousand miles away.

beambot 6y ago
“I am, at the Fed level, libertarian; at the state level, Republican; at the local level, Democrat; and at the family and friends level, a socialist. If that saying doesn’t convince you of the fatuousness of left vs. right labels, nothing will.” - Nassim Taleb, Skin in the game
- frankish 6y ago
  You nailed it. Admittedly only listened to him on JRE, but I strongly agree with this concept.
prions 6y ago
> This is why I'm frustrated with the idea that we need to enact change and policies at the federal level. The federal government should just exist to protect our liberties and organize national defense. Everything else should be organized more locally at the community level where voters actually have some skin in the game. You'd think that after months of "locally led" covid responses in the US that this naive take would somehow become less popular. Whether small-government enthusiasts like it or not, the US is highly interconnected on almost every level. There are certain things that absolutely require federal responses. Things like pollution and viruses absolutely need to be handled from a nation wide perspective. How would healthcare work as a piecemeal implementation across local lines? Its almost as if "letting localities decide" is a nice way of ensuring something will fail without forcing it outright. Your argument is implying that the federal government is somehow ineffective, but given the federally led improvements across the last century - from roads to environmental regulations, public health and even the internet just shows that you're either ignorant of intentionally dishonest.