5 ms·

> Basically, it boils down to, "do as I say, not as I do." I think it's more accurate to say it boils down to "our sole underlying principle is our own advanta

> Basically, it boils down to, "do as I say, not as I do." I think it's more accurate to say it boils down to "our sole underlying principle is our own advantage, and the privilege of not even having our advantages challenged or negotiated." But otherwise, I quite agree.

nostromo 4y ago
I think it boils down to, “different people have different opinions, much to the chagrin of internet commentators.”
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  This faux-openminded acceptance of opinion diversity is so silly and useless as a lens for understanding anything at all. As if mere opinions about capital, labor, and power are what we're discussing. As if opinions on these things are just something someone has, completely divorced from their actual relationship to these concepts in the world. These aren't sports teams, you don't just get together with your buds and see how it plays out over a couple drinks. "Aw dang I really thought we had it but you brought back child labor right at the buzzer there, rough one today." No, wealthy people are for price collusion because it gives them more power, and they are against unions because they take away some of that power. Some things actually are that simple.
  - nostromo 4y ago
    You’ve missed my point. Internet commenters love to group opinions into a camp and then call them hypocritical. (Ex: capitalists love rent market manipulation but hate unions, those hypocrites!) Of course, that’s not true, most capitalists would not want price fixing - something generally done under centralized planned economies.
    - giraffe_lady 4y ago
      I still don't get your point then but that's ok.
    - MarkSweep 4y ago
      I think I see what your saying. It’s common to see statements like “group A believes X but group A also believes Y, that’s hypocritical”, where not everyone said to be in group A universally believes X and Y. It is especially bad with large “us vs then” groups, like left versus right politics or capital versus labor.
      - blowski 4y ago
        I do see this a lot. e.g. “Hacker News readers hate Elon Musk yet own Tesla cars”
    - topaz0 4y ago
      Capitalists in the world have consistently shown that they love market manipulation as long as it is good for them.
      - wankle 4y ago
        Most people don't want people to take advantage of or bully people, regardless whether it's capitalists or unionists.
        wwweston 4y ago
        I used to think this too, since I tend to value interactions that range between autonomy and cooperation. Even where I like competition, it tends to exist within cooperative meta-boundaries. I assumed most people probably weren't too different from me, which is a very cooperative thing to assume. Over time I've come to realize that while of course there's some common nature to human beings, there's also a varying distribution of personality and outlook, including how agreeable / disagreeable people are as well as how assertive. And it turns out on parts of that distribution there are people who enjoy not finding situations that benefit them but winning benefit and status from others. I don't know whether that's "most" people. I'd guess not and that the distribution gets thinner the farther from the average disagreeableness and assertiveness you go. But it's enough people that I no longer discard adversarial values as a potential motive.
        topaz0 4y ago
        Most people -- even capitalists -- like to think they aren't taking advantage of people, but most capitalists are willing to overlook the ways that they are taking advantage of people, so the impulse doesn't do much good.
        jdiff 4y ago
        Most people will find another way to frame it. The training screenshots in the article are full of examples.
        munificent 4y ago
        Perhaps a better way to say the parent point is: It is an emergent property of capitalist systems that people who love market manipulation will outcompete those who don't and thus end up in positions of such power that they effectively determine the characteristics and behavior of the system. There are lots of people playing the capitalism game who don't want to cheat. But the system rewards cheaters who then use their power to produce the world we are all forced to live in.
    - try_the_bass 4y ago
      > most capitalists would not want price fixing I would strongly challenge this. Capitalism is generally oriented around maximizing profit. Any time you can sell a good for more than its cost of production, you make a profit. Competitors, when not prevented by things like IP laws, can undercut prices within that gap and take your market share, provided they have a similar cost of production. The "profit gap" can be exploited. Price fixing "fixes" that bug, and is a net positive over the alternative of racing to the bottom. Better yet, you can use price fixing to arbitrarily increase that gap, which is exactly what TFA is about.
    - BoiledCabbage 4y ago
      > Of course, that’s not true, most capitalists would not want price fixing - something generally done under centralized planned economies. This is an incredibly weak and misguided argument. You're saying "Capitalists don't like X when it harms them, therefore they never like X". Yeah, but they like X when it benefits them... You can't extrapolate from a single data point to make a generalization about a whole. Especially when there are enormous differences.
mattgreenrocks 4y ago
This is really insightful, and applies to a lot of things. Basically we create markets that enable (sometimes force) transactions in which one side has high amounts of leverage, and allow that leverage to increase over time. We don't view this high leverage as a problem. And, instead of fixing the issue of ever-increasing leverage, we instead exhort people to get to a position where they can be exerting it. It's no wonder many feel like the game is rigged against them.
- e12e 4y ago
  > It's no wonder many feel like the game is rigged against them. Unfortunate phrasing? If the system is really rigged, then you don't just feel it is rigged. You discover, understand, realize - know it is rigged against you?

nostromo 4y ago

I think it boils down to, “different people have different opinions, much to the chagrin of internet commentators.”

giraffe_lady 4y ago
This faux-openminded acceptance of opinion diversity is so silly and useless as a lens for understanding anything at all. As if mere opinions about capital, labor, and power are what we're discussing. As if opinions on these things are just something someone has, completely divorced from their actual relationship to these concepts in the world. These aren't sports teams, you don't just get together with your buds and see how it plays out over a couple drinks. "Aw dang I really thought we had it but you brought back child labor right at the buzzer there, rough one today." No, wealthy people are for price collusion because it gives them more power, and they are against unions because they take away some of that power. Some things actually are that simple.
- nostromo 4y ago
  You’ve missed my point. Internet commenters love to group opinions into a camp and then call them hypocritical. (Ex: capitalists love rent market manipulation but hate unions, those hypocrites!) Of course, that’s not true, most capitalists would not want price fixing - something generally done under centralized planned economies.
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    I still don't get your point then but that's ok.
  - MarkSweep 4y ago
    I think I see what your saying. It’s common to see statements like “group A believes X but group A also believes Y, that’s hypocritical”, where not everyone said to be in group A universally believes X and Y. It is especially bad with large “us vs then” groups, like left versus right politics or capital versus labor.
    - blowski 4y ago
      I do see this a lot. e.g. “Hacker News readers hate Elon Musk yet own Tesla cars”
  - topaz0 4y ago
    Capitalists in the world have consistently shown that they love market manipulation as long as it is good for them.
    - wankle 4y ago
      Most people don't want people to take advantage of or bully people, regardless whether it's capitalists or unionists.
      - wwweston 4y ago
        I used to think this too, since I tend to value interactions that range between autonomy and cooperation. Even where I like competition, it tends to exist within cooperative meta-boundaries. I assumed most people probably weren't too different from me, which is a very cooperative thing to assume. Over time I've come to realize that while of course there's some common nature to human beings, there's also a varying distribution of personality and outlook, including how agreeable / disagreeable people are as well as how assertive. And it turns out on parts of that distribution there are people who enjoy not finding situations that benefit them but winning benefit and status from others. I don't know whether that's "most" people. I'd guess not and that the distribution gets thinner the farther from the average disagreeableness and assertiveness you go. But it's enough people that I no longer discard adversarial values as a potential motive.
      - topaz0 4y ago
        Most people -- even capitalists -- like to think they aren't taking advantage of people, but most capitalists are willing to overlook the ways that they are taking advantage of people, so the impulse doesn't do much good.
      - jdiff 4y ago
        Most people will find another way to frame it. The training screenshots in the article are full of examples.
      - munificent 4y ago
        Perhaps a better way to say the parent point is: It is an emergent property of capitalist systems that people who love market manipulation will outcompete those who don't and thus end up in positions of such power that they effectively determine the characteristics and behavior of the system. There are lots of people playing the capitalism game who don't want to cheat. But the system rewards cheaters who then use their power to produce the world we are all forced to live in.
  - try_the_bass 4y ago
    > most capitalists would not want price fixing I would strongly challenge this. Capitalism is generally oriented around maximizing profit. Any time you can sell a good for more than its cost of production, you make a profit. Competitors, when not prevented by things like IP laws, can undercut prices within that gap and take your market share, provided they have a similar cost of production. The "profit gap" can be exploited. Price fixing "fixes" that bug, and is a net positive over the alternative of racing to the bottom. Better yet, you can use price fixing to arbitrarily increase that gap, which is exactly what TFA is about.
  - BoiledCabbage 4y ago
    > Of course, that’s not true, most capitalists would not want price fixing - something generally done under centralized planned economies. This is an incredibly weak and misguided argument. You're saying "Capitalists don't like X when it harms them, therefore they never like X". Yeah, but they like X when it benefits them... You can't extrapolate from a single data point to make a generalization about a whole. Especially when there are enormous differences.

mattgreenrocks 4y ago

This is really insightful, and applies to a lot of things. Basically we create markets that enable (sometimes force) transactions in which one side has high amounts of leverage, and allow that leverage to increase over time. We don't view this high leverage as a problem. And, instead of fixing the issue of ever-increasing leverage, we instead exhort people to get to a position where they can be exerting it. It's no wonder many feel like the game is rigged against them.

e12e 4y ago
> It's no wonder many feel like the game is rigged against them. Unfortunate phrasing? If the system is really rigged, then you don't just feel it is rigged. You discover, understand, realize - know it is rigged against you?