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> I can understand why people think that, but the history of capitalism is much misrepresented in that way. Oh for sure feudalism was worse than capitalism. My

> I can understand why people think that, but the history of capitalism is much misrepresented in that way. Oh for sure feudalism was worse than capitalism. My concern is that we can do better than neoliberalism, in terms of looking out for individual welfare, reducing oppressive/exploitative living or working conditions, and solving collective problems that are not well-addressed by market dynamics (e.g. global warming, climate destruction and other civilisation-tier concerns). > As the factories ramp up and make more money, they also have more resources ("capital") for improving the working conditions. They don't tend to though, as working conditions are not their motivation; profiteering is. Tesla Motors' factories have a pretty high injury rate, despite being one of the most over-capitalised companies in existence. > Also why should things degenerate to that, if people simply quit if an employer misbehaves. This works in theory, but many people do not have the option to just quit. Many are living paycheck to paycheck, others are in various countries on work visas attached to their employer (e.g. H1B in the US), or just don't have many options. Given that market pressure on unskilled, and thus highly competitive jobs, pushes wages towards subsistence levels, this will always be the case for the lowest rungs of the career ladder. You only need to look at reality compared to the theory of "you can just quit" to see that it clearly doesn't solve the problem. If you've worked an entry-level job in retail, an office or wherever, you will likely have experienced some pretty miserable conditions. > If "workers" are in demand, employers can't afford to treat them badly. Look at the Google offices with their slides, free food and childish gadgets. They provide that because they compete for "workers". That's true of Google because of the market dynamics of California's software engineer job market. It doesn't scale to everybody; also, many of these perks are designed to blur the lines between work and social life so that their employees spend more time in the office. It's soft exploitation, but it's still exploitation. > You enter a contract and exchange labor for money. That's it. There is no need for creating an arbitrary class of "workers". It's not arbitrary; it's the people who earn money working. I'm not sure what your opposition is to the drawing of economic class lines? > If unions make demands, it is fair game (negotiation). If governments give unions special rights, it is not. For example in my country I think you can not fire people who form a union in your company. That's fucked up. Those people are free to say "if you don't give in to our demands, we quit". Yeah, go ahead, quit. This just comes back to "if you don't like it you can just quit" though, because under this model strikebreaking, bussing in non-union workers and such are legitimised. You might as well ban unions if you give workers no leverage in any negotiations, and by default the employer holds all the leverage because they're not the ones who need a wage to put food on the table. > I think that is happening, there is just a huge amount of leftist journalists who try to frame everything as "exploitation of workers". Like the endless stories about Amazon warehouses. It seems likely to me that the things that sound bad from the outside may be necessary to make things work. Like you and me probably wouldn't take a 5 hour long toilet break to spite our employers, but some warehouse workers may do so. So they have limits on toilets breaks to make it possible for people to work there who couldn't work anywhere else. (Just a guess, I have never been inside of an Amazon warehouse - in any case, as always, if you don't like it, quit). My dad worked in an Amazon warehouse. He's an extremely hard worker and a tough guy all round, he said it was pretty tiring work because they were constantly sprinting round the warehouse to meet deadlines and had 5-10 minute bathroom breaks. There's been quite a lot of reports of workers having to urinate in bottles because they don't have time to go to the bathroom - do you really think that's acceptable working conditions in a first-world country? > Also there may be government regulations preventing free flow of workers, for example the health care issue in the US seems weird (not sure what is going on). What is going on is that that's what happens then your healthcare is run for profit by large corporations. Regulation seems to exacerbate the problem, but in that case the problem is that the incentives are not correctly aligned between healthcare and profiteering, hence healthcare should be a government service first and foremost. > I am not for corporations, I am for freedom. Freedom is not one thing, it's a series of tradeoffs. Your tradeoffs seem to prioritise freedom of trade, which primarily benefits businesses, over freedom from oppression, which would benefit workers. > And that law wouldn't even benefit corporations, as it is impossible to adhere to it. It's impossible to adhere perfectly, but companies are rolling out copy protection laws all over the place to try to protect their interests as best they can. > In my opinion the only fair way would have been for the government to provide an API that everybody could query to check for copyright. Instead they just created an unsolvable challenge and require businesses (and individuals) to solve it. So you actually want even more power held for the enforcement of copyrights compared to now. Because you want it to be not just a corporate responsibility, but a government one. How is that any different to the upload filter you expressed disdain for?

kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
"Oh for sure feudalism was worse than capitalism." It's difficult to find much information about it, as most texts focus on the conditions of living under "Manchester capitalism", but what I remember reading is that the issue was that feudalism took care of the people (while they were "owned" by their lords, the lords also took care of his property), and when that fell apart, people poured into the cities. I don't remember why there was a population explosion at the same time, but iirc that was the case. "solving collective problems that are not well-addressed by market dynamics (e.g. global warming, climate destruction and other civilisation-tier concerns)." Why would they not be well-addressed by market dynamics? Market dynamics surely are the best way to find the most energy efficient ways to do things, for example. Free markets does not mean externalities should have no price. "They don't tend to though, as working conditions are not their motivation; profiteering is. Tesla Motors' factories have a pretty high injury rate, despite being one of the most over-capitalised companies in existence." Bad example - it is a very young company that grew at a rapid rate (As did the capitalisation - most rise of the stock price happened within the last year). And if you google now, you find "injury rates have improved". Nevertheless, as I said before, the solution is more choice for workers. If Tesla were unable to find workers because of the high injury rates, they would be forced to improve working conditions. Also buyers of cars are free to take working conditions into account. I don't think the typical Tesla buyer would feel good about exploitation of workers. "This works in theory, but many people do not have the option to just quit" As I said, the correct solution is to work towards providing more options. If you want to help the poor, work laws also only help a fraction of people, and neglects the people who have no work to begin with. Also people can do things to improve their lives. And nobody owes anybody else a job. "It's soft exploitation, but it's still exploitation." Working at Google is exploitation - yeah right... Poor victims. Sorry but you have to give people some responsibility for their own lives. For sure Google may be trying to get as much work as possible from their workers. That doesn't make them victims. They can still quit at any time. "I'm not sure what your opposition is to the drawing of economic class lines?" What exactly is the use of drawing economic class lines? The workers have their bodies and skill as capital. And actual machines are laughably cheap these days. You can get a computer for next to nothing, and you can get stuff produced at a factory in China. Also you can raise capital on financial markets if you absolutely need it. "There's been quite a lot of reports of workers having to urinate in bottles because they don't have time to go to the bathroom - do you really think that's acceptable working conditions in a first-world country?" The people working there apparently think they are acceptable working conditions. I'm sure it is hard work. Unfortunately, even in first-world countries, somebody has to do hard work. In general it seems normal that work is tiring. If people have to pee into bottles there, maybe they are not fit enough for the job. I don't think you can demand every job should be suitable for everybody. And if those people decide they can keep up by peeing into bottles, it is their choice. You will claim they don't have a choice, but it is not Amazon's fault that they need a job. Amazon just provides more options for workers. Often the warehouses are in the middle of nowhere, there would be no jobs if not for Amazon. How is that a bad thing? Also the job may keep your dad fit. Are you sure it is worse/harder than sitting in an office chair all day? "that's what happens then your healthcare is run for profit by large corporations" I rather doubt it. What is preventing other people from making a better offer of health care? There are many people who just want to do good and not profiteer, why can't they provide health care insurance? "Your tradeoffs seem to prioritise freedom of trade, which primarily benefits businesses, over freedom from oppression, which would benefit workers." There are not workers, that is the thing. Everybody is a free agent, or "business". Therefore freedom of trade and benefits to businesses are also benefits to "workers". The more extra benefits for workers you create, the more you lock them into their wage slave condition. The thing with all the pro-worker regulation is that it makes it more and more difficult to become independent from the system. What is your perspective to escape from the wage slavery? You don't have the perspective to run your own business anymore and do things your way. You can only join the grey masses and hope for government regulations to make tiny improvements to your standardized life. " companies are rolling out copy protection laws all over the place to try to protect their interests as best they can" Companies can not roll out laws, only governments can do that. Governments can lobby for laws to keep the competition down. "So you actually want even more power held for the enforcement of copyrights compared to now. Because you want it to be not just a corporate responsibility, but a government one. How is that any different to the upload filter you expressed disdain for?" All I am saying is that if society (represented by the government) wants copyright laws, they should be implemented in a fair way. It was just an example for an evil law that destroys the possibilities for "small" people to run web sites and gives a monopoly for creative expression to big corporations.

kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago

"Oh for sure feudalism was worse than capitalism." It's difficult to find much information about it, as most texts focus on the conditions of living under "Manchester capitalism", but what I remember reading is that the issue was that feudalism took care of the people (while they were "owned" by their lords, the lords also took care of his property), and when that fell apart, people poured into the cities. I don't remember why there was a population explosion at the same time, but iirc that was the case. "solving collective problems that are not well-addressed by market dynamics (e.g. global warming, climate destruction and other civilisation-tier concerns)." Why would they not be well-addressed by market dynamics? Market dynamics surely are the best way to find the most energy efficient ways to do things, for example. Free markets does not mean externalities should have no price. "They don't tend to though, as working conditions are not their motivation; profiteering is. Tesla Motors' factories have a pretty high injury rate, despite being one of the most over-capitalised companies in existence." Bad example - it is a very young company that grew at a rapid rate (As did the capitalisation - most rise of the stock price happened within the last year). And if you google now, you find "injury rates have improved". Nevertheless, as I said before, the solution is more choice for workers. If Tesla were unable to find workers because of the high injury rates, they would be forced to improve working conditions. Also buyers of cars are free to take working conditions into account. I don't think the typical Tesla buyer would feel good about exploitation of workers. "This works in theory, but many people do not have the option to just quit" As I said, the correct solution is to work towards providing more options. If you want to help the poor, work laws also only help a fraction of people, and neglects the people who have no work to begin with. Also people can do things to improve their lives. And nobody owes anybody else a job. "It's soft exploitation, but it's still exploitation." Working at Google is exploitation - yeah right... Poor victims. Sorry but you have to give people some responsibility for their own lives. For sure Google may be trying to get as much work as possible from their workers. That doesn't make them victims. They can still quit at any time. "I'm not sure what your opposition is to the drawing of economic class lines?" What exactly is the use of drawing economic class lines? The workers have their bodies and skill as capital. And actual machines are laughably cheap these days. You can get a computer for next to nothing, and you can get stuff produced at a factory in China. Also you can raise capital on financial markets if you absolutely need it. "There's been quite a lot of reports of workers having to urinate in bottles because they don't have time to go to the bathroom - do you really think that's acceptable working conditions in a first-world country?" The people working there apparently think they are acceptable working conditions. I'm sure it is hard work. Unfortunately, even in first-world countries, somebody has to do hard work. In general it seems normal that work is tiring. If people have to pee into bottles there, maybe they are not fit enough for the job. I don't think you can demand every job should be suitable for everybody. And if those people decide they can keep up by peeing into bottles, it is their choice. You will claim they don't have a choice, but it is not Amazon's fault that they need a job. Amazon just provides more options for workers. Often the warehouses are in the middle of nowhere, there would be no jobs if not for Amazon. How is that a bad thing? Also the job may keep your dad fit. Are you sure it is worse/harder than sitting in an office chair all day? "that's what happens then your healthcare is run for profit by large corporations" I rather doubt it. What is preventing other people from making a better offer of health care? There are many people who just want to do good and not profiteer, why can't they provide health care insurance? "Your tradeoffs seem to prioritise freedom of trade, which primarily benefits businesses, over freedom from oppression, which would benefit workers." There are not workers, that is the thing. Everybody is a free agent, or "business". Therefore freedom of trade and benefits to businesses are also benefits to "workers". The more extra benefits for workers you create, the more you lock them into their wage slave condition. The thing with all the pro-worker regulation is that it makes it more and more difficult to become independent from the system. What is your perspective to escape from the wage slavery? You don't have the perspective to run your own business anymore and do things your way. You can only join the grey masses and hope for government regulations to make tiny improvements to your standardized life. " companies are rolling out copy protection laws all over the place to try to protect their interests as best they can" Companies can not roll out laws, only governments can do that. Governments can lobby for laws to keep the competition down. "So you actually want even more power held for the enforcement of copyrights compared to now. Because you want it to be not just a corporate responsibility, but a government one. How is that any different to the upload filter you expressed disdain for?" All I am saying is that if society (represented by the government) wants copyright laws, they should be implemented in a fair way. It was just an example for an evil law that destroys the possibilities for "small" people to run web sites and gives a monopoly for creative expression to big corporations.