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Marketers take a lot of credit for achievements that don't belong to them. Take, for example, Hayek's rather more honest commentary on vacations and human righ

Marketers take a lot of credit for achievements that don't belong to them. Take, for example, Hayek's rather more honest commentary on vacations and human rights generally: >[The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights] is admittedly an attempt to fuse the rights of the Western liberal tradition with the altogether different concept deriving from the Marxist Russian Revolution. It adds to the list of the classical civil rights enumerated in its first twenty-one articles seven further guarantees intended to express the new ‘social and economic rights’. (…) The conception of a ‘universal right’ which assures to the peasant, to the Eskimo, and presumably to the Abominable Snowman, ‘periodic holidays with pay’ shows the absurdity of the whole thing. (…) What are the consequences of the requirement that every one should have the right ‘freely to participate in the cultural life of the community and to share in the scientific advances and its benefits’. (…) It is evident that all these ‘rights’ are based on the interpretation of society as a deliberately made organization by which everybody is employed. They could not be made universal within a system of rules of just conduct based on the conception of individual responsibility, and so require that the whole of society be converted into a single organization, that is, made totalitarian in the fullest sense of the word. https://redsails.org/concessions/ https://redsails.org/concessions/ The decay we witness today is simply the rollback of concessions copied from socialist states and artificially bolted onto capitalism to reduce socialist ferment. The consequences are predictable.

alchemist1e9 3y ago
I see. So this is about “the right” to take a vacation? What are you talking about and what am I? we seem to live in different realities. I can’t even imagine somehow I would have a government “right” to take a vacation. Who is paying for it? I don’t get it.
- RedCondor 3y ago
  All so-called "capital returns" are in reality produced by working people, and therefore people get to democratically decide what they do with them, through whatever decision-making forms they politically choose and consent to organize themselves under. Insofar as there are disagreements, because capitalist "geniuses" don't think their riches should be subject to democracy, we have a struggle between socialism and capitalism.
  - alchemist1e9 3y ago
    Except history shows us that in 100% of the cases that working people seize the production and allocate the gains they do a unbelievable bad job. Socialism is the single most failed idea in human history, yet we refuse to properly teach that in our education system. I suspect in the future it will be view a bit like refusing to teach other scientific subjects, like evolution. In reality a mob of people end up producing nothing without capitalists and markets. There is a joke that the IQ of a mob is roughly the highest IQ in the mob divided by the size of the mob.
    - RedCondor 3y ago
      Cool joke. I encourage anyone on the fence between this libertarian and I to read the "Concessions" essay I linked up above.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      > Socialism is the single most failed idea in human history, yet we refuse to properly teach that in our education system. Well... let's see until we have the capitalist end game before we draw that conclusion, there is a fair chance that it will make the failures of socialism look like a picnic. > I suspect in the future it will be view a bit like refusing to teach other scientific subjects, like evolution. Economic systems aren't science, they are just means of organizing large numbers of people in ways that are hopefully sensible. A system that maximizes for growth can work, for a while, but isn't long term sustainable. So depending on your horizon you may think it is a great idea or a terrible one. Markets aren't bad per-se, but they have the potential to lead to catastrophe and if you don't acknowledge that potential and deal with the risk then the chances of it happening increase.
      - alchemist1e9 3y ago
        Refusing to view economic systems scientifically and quantifying objectively is a seriously big problem. Gotta stop the fairy tales.
        3y ago
- brookst 3y ago
  Do you think you have a right to take breaks at work? To go to the bathroom? To a safe work environment? People aren’t machines. We have a complicated social contract that says companies may employ labor so long as they meet certain requirements for safety, health, and treatment. It’s not unreasonable to see time off as part of the deal. Who’s paying for your bathroom breaks? Same answer.
- bazzargh 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annual_leave#Leave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annual_leave#Leave "Most countries have labour laws that mandate employers give a certain number of paid time-off days per year to workers." (it goes on to point out that the USA - with the exception of Maine and Nevada - is the outlier in western industrial nations in not having this) The "right" is also in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_rest_and_leisure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_rest_and_leisure Ironically, a lot of this dates back to the Haymarket Riot in Chicago in May 1886 (over the eight-hour-day movement), which led to May Day being a worker's holiday in much of the world...but US politics meant they got an alternative holiday in September. As RedCondor points out, "who pays for it" has it backwards, companies gain value from the work of their employees, so effectively it is just giving back some of what they "pay" the company in labour.

alchemist1e9 3y ago

I see. So this is about “the right” to take a vacation? What are you talking about and what am I? we seem to live in different realities. I can’t even imagine somehow I would have a government “right” to take a vacation. Who is paying for it? I don’t get it.

RedCondor 3y ago
All so-called "capital returns" are in reality produced by working people, and therefore people get to democratically decide what they do with them, through whatever decision-making forms they politically choose and consent to organize themselves under. Insofar as there are disagreements, because capitalist "geniuses" don't think their riches should be subject to democracy, we have a struggle between socialism and capitalism.
- alchemist1e9 3y ago
  Except history shows us that in 100% of the cases that working people seize the production and allocate the gains they do a unbelievable bad job. Socialism is the single most failed idea in human history, yet we refuse to properly teach that in our education system. I suspect in the future it will be view a bit like refusing to teach other scientific subjects, like evolution. In reality a mob of people end up producing nothing without capitalists and markets. There is a joke that the IQ of a mob is roughly the highest IQ in the mob divided by the size of the mob.
  - RedCondor 3y ago
    Cool joke. I encourage anyone on the fence between this libertarian and I to read the "Concessions" essay I linked up above.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    > Socialism is the single most failed idea in human history, yet we refuse to properly teach that in our education system. Well... let's see until we have the capitalist end game before we draw that conclusion, there is a fair chance that it will make the failures of socialism look like a picnic. > I suspect in the future it will be view a bit like refusing to teach other scientific subjects, like evolution. Economic systems aren't science, they are just means of organizing large numbers of people in ways that are hopefully sensible. A system that maximizes for growth can work, for a while, but isn't long term sustainable. So depending on your horizon you may think it is a great idea or a terrible one. Markets aren't bad per-se, but they have the potential to lead to catastrophe and if you don't acknowledge that potential and deal with the risk then the chances of it happening increase.
    - alchemist1e9 3y ago
      Refusing to view economic systems scientifically and quantifying objectively is a seriously big problem. Gotta stop the fairy tales.
      - 3y ago
brookst 3y ago
Do you think you have a right to take breaks at work? To go to the bathroom? To a safe work environment? People aren’t machines. We have a complicated social contract that says companies may employ labor so long as they meet certain requirements for safety, health, and treatment. It’s not unreasonable to see time off as part of the deal. Who’s paying for your bathroom breaks? Same answer.
bazzargh 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annual_leave#Leave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annual_leave#Leave "Most countries have labour laws that mandate employers give a certain number of paid time-off days per year to workers." (it goes on to point out that the USA - with the exception of Maine and Nevada - is the outlier in western industrial nations in not having this) The "right" is also in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_rest_and_leisure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_rest_and_leisure Ironically, a lot of this dates back to the Haymarket Riot in Chicago in May 1886 (over the eight-hour-day movement), which led to May Day being a worker's holiday in much of the world...but US politics meant they got an alternative holiday in September. As RedCondor points out, "who pays for it" has it backwards, companies gain value from the work of their employees, so effectively it is just giving back some of what they "pay" the company in labour.