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The problem is that history shows there is no such thing as humans banding together and taking things back. As a group. The group has new “benevolent leaders” e

The problem is that history shows there is no such thing as humans banding together and taking things back. As a group. The group has new “benevolent leaders” emerge, then they take everything and stop being benevolent very quickly, if not instantly. Animal Farm anyone? Animal Farm. Still relevant.

ForHackernews 3y ago
That sounds to me like you're repeating dogma, but even if it's true, that's fine by me. I'd rather my union steward was getting rich (for some low value of 'rich') than my CEO. Only one of them is on my side.
- 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
  It’s interesting, because this is how your response sounded to me. Is there no dogma about how everyone should group together and take back the means of production? There is a very large, prominent movement about this response to capitalism. My point is, that theory and practice differ, and when they differ it’s not the practice that is wrong, but the theory. Every time people banded together to take the means of production, it resulted simply in destruction, instant corruption and a new autocratic regime built around the toughest thugs. The utopia does not occur. So clearly this is not the solution for solving our problems. There are problems. And there are solutions. But you need to search elsewhere. Your union leader is not necessarily on your side. Even if they are, not for long. The system decides how they act, and power corrupts. Watch the strike in Hollywood. Watch how the previous strike in 2007 caused the present situation in 2023, and watch how the union will end up dissolving itself as more and more people will start leaving it. I’m not happy about this. I think workers need to be able to band together in groups and negotiate in groups (called companies, for example). I’m not convinced it should be one all encompassing mob-like group with no alternatives, but that’s just me.
  - ForHackernews 3y ago
    Ok, well, as long as we're on the subject of the distinction between theory and practice I'm not worried that unionizing Amazon warehouses will bring about a new USSR. I've worked union jobs and I've worked non-union jobs: the union jobs paid better and came with better benefits than their non-union equivalents. QED.
    - 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
      Unionized Amazon warehouses are the strongest kick in the butt that Amazon needs to automate this entire union out of existence. Once again. See Hollywood. Strike. “No AI” said the signs. Result? Studios amping up AI hiring like crazy. Humans are into humans. But capitalism isn’t, that much. It doesn’t care about what substrate it’s made of. Its soul is made of money. Unions make things better for workers in the short term because a business can’t adapt that quick. It’s like a racket. Same like when a lone worker faces few gigantic corporations and they all offer bad jobs. It’s like a racket. But rackets don’t last. Adaptation kicks and the layers shift. And AI is the biggest adaptation ever. It adapts us out of being necessary. Human leverage drops to near zero and with it the union leverage, also.
      - EGreg 3y ago
        “Humans are into humans. But capitalism isn’t, that much.” I wish more people on HN would understand this. Capitalism isn’t your friend. It give you short term wins but in the end, the negative externalities can add up hurt everyone including the vast majority of those who were winning initially. At first, in all transactions, A and B win at the expense of C. Ancaps only look at A and B being better off. But in the end, almost everyone is a C, and the externalized costs add up for them all. We need to switch to a more sustainable system before it’s too late. Capitalism’s negative externalities are also destroying the environment and running up an ecological credit card that future generations will have to pay. “The bill always comes due!” - Mordo (great philosopher)
      - ForHackernews 3y ago
        I wouldn't count your AI chickens yet. Path dependence is real and SAG/WGA are smart to pick this fight today not in 5 years' time. If they play their cards right now, while they have leverage, then they will gain additional legal/contractual leverage for the future. Slavery and child labor were once common and economically lucrative, today they're very rare in the developed world. It's simply not true that humans can never choose to collectively reject an economically compelling option.
  - mannykannot 3y ago
    > My point is, that theory and practice differ, and when they differ it’s not the practice that is wrong, but the theory. Your socio-economic theory is at odds with what happened in the so-called western world over the last three centuries, but to understand why, one would need to step away from over-generalizing just the most dramatic parts of history, and study the boring bits as well.
    - 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
      Would’ve been nice if your comment had any specific argument except a verbose take on “you’re wrong, because reasons”.
      - mannykannot 3y ago
        It's more like "you're wrong, because your theory does not even correspond to evidence we have around us." The reasons why your doom-laden prognostications did not inevitably come to pass are not, however, reducible to a paragraph or two. As for being verbose, compare it to the post I was replying to.
        3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
        Once again you forgot to even hint what evidence you’re talking about. It’s like you’re eager to win an argument, you want that reward, so you’re posting, but you’re too lazy to actually make an argument. So you kind of keep posting half way and declaring yourself a winner because “everything around” proves you right about… something. It’s kind of funny.
        mannykannot 3y ago
        For example, your claim that “Every time people banded together to take the means of production, it resulted simply in destruction, instant corruption and a new autocratic regime built around the toughest thugs” is falsified by the history of Western Europe. If it actually were the case, Western Europe would now resemble North Korea, but instead, the means of production is well-regulated by democratic governments.
  - xorcist 3y ago
    Your theory, which you may find so evident to you that you won't bother saying it out loud, is that unions are bad for capitalism. The real world during the 1900s, if anything proved the opposite. It's not that all unions by definition always are great, that could be said for anything and should be obvious. It's that treating workers as an integral part of the business, with the obligations that come with rights, wins in the marketplace every time. All rich countries, at least in the western hemisphere, became rich because of worker's movements, not in spite of them. Other countries have been pushed into the businesses with the slimmest margins where there is no innovation. The truth is that innovation and worker's rights won. When arguing that an ideological map is right despite real world data, at least make those arguments against the same reality as we live in, so everyone involved will have a chance to understand how the ideal system measures up against their experience.
tchaffee 3y ago
This is easy to demonstrate as false. The US Revolution and many others that followed put far more power into the hands of the average person. And unionized workers earn more almost everywhere you go. Union leaders probably do take more than they deserve, but not as much as the company owners would if you were negotiating as an individual against their organized management and legal team. So yeah, you do have to pay someone to lead your organization. But going without an organization is kind of nuts when the other side pays for one.

ForHackernews 3y ago

That sounds to me like you're repeating dogma, but even if it's true, that's fine by me. I'd rather my union steward was getting rich (for some low value of 'rich') than my CEO. Only one of them is on my side.

3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
It’s interesting, because this is how your response sounded to me. Is there no dogma about how everyone should group together and take back the means of production? There is a very large, prominent movement about this response to capitalism. My point is, that theory and practice differ, and when they differ it’s not the practice that is wrong, but the theory. Every time people banded together to take the means of production, it resulted simply in destruction, instant corruption and a new autocratic regime built around the toughest thugs. The utopia does not occur. So clearly this is not the solution for solving our problems. There are problems. And there are solutions. But you need to search elsewhere. Your union leader is not necessarily on your side. Even if they are, not for long. The system decides how they act, and power corrupts. Watch the strike in Hollywood. Watch how the previous strike in 2007 caused the present situation in 2023, and watch how the union will end up dissolving itself as more and more people will start leaving it. I’m not happy about this. I think workers need to be able to band together in groups and negotiate in groups (called companies, for example). I’m not convinced it should be one all encompassing mob-like group with no alternatives, but that’s just me.
- ForHackernews 3y ago
  Ok, well, as long as we're on the subject of the distinction between theory and practice I'm not worried that unionizing Amazon warehouses will bring about a new USSR. I've worked union jobs and I've worked non-union jobs: the union jobs paid better and came with better benefits than their non-union equivalents. QED.
  - 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
    Unionized Amazon warehouses are the strongest kick in the butt that Amazon needs to automate this entire union out of existence. Once again. See Hollywood. Strike. “No AI” said the signs. Result? Studios amping up AI hiring like crazy. Humans are into humans. But capitalism isn’t, that much. It doesn’t care about what substrate it’s made of. Its soul is made of money. Unions make things better for workers in the short term because a business can’t adapt that quick. It’s like a racket. Same like when a lone worker faces few gigantic corporations and they all offer bad jobs. It’s like a racket. But rackets don’t last. Adaptation kicks and the layers shift. And AI is the biggest adaptation ever. It adapts us out of being necessary. Human leverage drops to near zero and with it the union leverage, also.
    - EGreg 3y ago
      “Humans are into humans. But capitalism isn’t, that much.” I wish more people on HN would understand this. Capitalism isn’t your friend. It give you short term wins but in the end, the negative externalities can add up hurt everyone including the vast majority of those who were winning initially. At first, in all transactions, A and B win at the expense of C. Ancaps only look at A and B being better off. But in the end, almost everyone is a C, and the externalized costs add up for them all. We need to switch to a more sustainable system before it’s too late. Capitalism’s negative externalities are also destroying the environment and running up an ecological credit card that future generations will have to pay. “The bill always comes due!” - Mordo (great philosopher)
    - ForHackernews 3y ago
      I wouldn't count your AI chickens yet. Path dependence is real and SAG/WGA are smart to pick this fight today not in 5 years' time. If they play their cards right now, while they have leverage, then they will gain additional legal/contractual leverage for the future. Slavery and child labor were once common and economically lucrative, today they're very rare in the developed world. It's simply not true that humans can never choose to collectively reject an economically compelling option.
- mannykannot 3y ago
  > My point is, that theory and practice differ, and when they differ it’s not the practice that is wrong, but the theory. Your socio-economic theory is at odds with what happened in the so-called western world over the last three centuries, but to understand why, one would need to step away from over-generalizing just the most dramatic parts of history, and study the boring bits as well.
  - 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
    Would’ve been nice if your comment had any specific argument except a verbose take on “you’re wrong, because reasons”.
    - mannykannot 3y ago
      It's more like "you're wrong, because your theory does not even correspond to evidence we have around us." The reasons why your doom-laden prognostications did not inevitably come to pass are not, however, reducible to a paragraph or two. As for being verbose, compare it to the post I was replying to.
      - 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
        Once again you forgot to even hint what evidence you’re talking about. It’s like you’re eager to win an argument, you want that reward, so you’re posting, but you’re too lazy to actually make an argument. So you kind of keep posting half way and declaring yourself a winner because “everything around” proves you right about… something. It’s kind of funny.
        mannykannot 3y ago
        For example, your claim that “Every time people banded together to take the means of production, it resulted simply in destruction, instant corruption and a new autocratic regime built around the toughest thugs” is falsified by the history of Western Europe. If it actually were the case, Western Europe would now resemble North Korea, but instead, the means of production is well-regulated by democratic governments.
- xorcist 3y ago
  Your theory, which you may find so evident to you that you won't bother saying it out loud, is that unions are bad for capitalism. The real world during the 1900s, if anything proved the opposite. It's not that all unions by definition always are great, that could be said for anything and should be obvious. It's that treating workers as an integral part of the business, with the obligations that come with rights, wins in the marketplace every time. All rich countries, at least in the western hemisphere, became rich because of worker's movements, not in spite of them. Other countries have been pushed into the businesses with the slimmest margins where there is no innovation. The truth is that innovation and worker's rights won. When arguing that an ideological map is right despite real world data, at least make those arguments against the same reality as we live in, so everyone involved will have a chance to understand how the ideal system measures up against their experience.

tchaffee 3y ago

This is easy to demonstrate as false. The US Revolution and many others that followed put far more power into the hands of the average person. And unionized workers earn more almost everywhere you go. Union leaders probably do take more than they deserve, but not as much as the company owners would if you were negotiating as an individual against their organized management and legal team. So yeah, you do have to pay someone to lead your organization. But going without an organization is kind of nuts when the other side pays for one.