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Are Silicon Valley Workers Abandoning Libertarianism For Socialism? (salon.com)
Salon writes that Silicon Valley tech workers are "defying their overlords," arguing that recent unionization attempts by Kickstarter employees may be only the beginning:
The workers' Kickstarter campaign is not the first attempt, though, or even the first time rumblings of unionization, have circulated among programmers. In 2018, software engineers at the startup Lanetix announced their intent to unionize -- and were promptly fired by management (It is illegal to fire employees for trying to unionize). The National Labor Relations Board intervened, and ultimately forced Lanetix to pay the 15 fired engineers a total of $775,000. The show of worker power at Lanetix may have paved the way for Kickstarter's workers. Similarly, workers across the video game industry -- generally among the most overworked, underpaid workers within the tech industry -- have been making steps towards unionization. Game Workers Unite, profiled by Salon last year, is building a grassroots movement to organize the ranks of video game makers.
Together, this suggests that a small but visible movement for white-collar software engineers unionizing has been gaining steam in the Valley over the past few years -- suggesting that the people who make up the tech industry, once a bastion of libertarianism, are starting to understand the often subtle ways that their employers exploit them... For decades, libertarianism was part and parcel to the tech industry. Despite a grueling work culture and a high-profile collusion scandal among major tech corporations to suppress software engineers' wages, tech workers were more likely to see themselves as future founders than an exploited underclass -- a point of view encouraged by employers through high wages and generous, often absurd office perks. Recent developments suggest such endearing tactics are no longer working.
Together, this suggests that a small but visible movement for white-collar software engineers unionizing has been gaining steam in the Valley over the past few years -- suggesting that the people who make up the tech industry, once a bastion of libertarianism, are starting to understand the often subtle ways that their employers exploit them... For decades, libertarianism was part and parcel to the tech industry. Despite a grueling work culture and a high-profile collusion scandal among major tech corporations to suppress software engineers' wages, tech workers were more likely to see themselves as future founders than an exploited underclass -- a point of view encouraged by employers through high wages and generous, often absurd office perks. Recent developments suggest such endearing tactics are no longer working.
Who cares?
So much that Silicon Valley (and tech companies in general) rely on is because of things produced by the government. If you really take the time to look at it, Libertarianism is a joke and built on contradiction and lies.
Suggestion : Before we yell at each other in the comments about this possible ideological shift, perhaps we should have a meeting of the minds as to what libertarianism, liberalism, socialism, conservatism, fascism, et all mean (or have multiple meanings) before moving on to the topic at hand.
Marx would kick Trump's FAT ASS. Trump is a pussy. A baby. A wuss.
I worked for a decades-old Fortune 50 US-based multinational in the mid-90s.
In the years before I arrived they'd been working a particular team long and hard for many years.
From what I heard some high-ranking engineers started whispering the word "union" into management's ears.
Some of the company's overseas operations already had unionized programmers.
Management listened and things got a lot better.
By the time I arrived a year or two later, it was a good place to work.
They will just outsource everything to contractors that hire H1B workers that speak English & Hindi to work with offshore Indian developers. This is nothing like an auto factory that will face tariffs if they try to send the factories to Mexico & China.
Is it a surprise that people want to be able to live somewhere, maybe have a family they can provide for, and otherwise not need visit food banks to live off the snacks available at work? The valley is so horrifically expensive, the salaries are not great compared to the cost of living elsewhere, and yet they make these companies billions of dollars. The idea of take this shit work and after 5 years you will get some stock that will only matter if the company still exists, actually has a liquidity event, is not reverse acquired, or that you are not fired for not being as productive as you used to be is a tall order.
Thirty four characters live here.
Isn't Silicon Valley full of job opportunities? Shouldn't be too difficult to find a company that doesn't expect an 80 hour week from you.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
white collar needs unions!
Private highways are always better maintained. Bottled source water is better than the recycled toilet water that comes out of the tap.
Salon is a far left opinion source. I don't know why anyone but the far left takes them seriously. They can't even define socialism correctly. It doesn't mean labor unions. Socialism is government control of the means of production. No more, no less.You'd think the far left would read Marx, but I guess not.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
in favor of extended life cycles.. #deweaponize #momknowsbest
Nope, not @ scale, you're retarded.
So, as usual, the leftists are engaged in a straw man.
Dick
Silicon Valley used to be a bastion of the free market. Now it's field controlled by an oligopoly that can't stand one bit of competition and will use illegal wage-fixing schemes, no-poaching agreements, hiring of foreign labor they know they can work to death (THANKS, FLSA!), and tortious interference with competitors to ensure that their control is unchecked. Is it any wonder then that people are calling for regulation of Silicon Valley and attempting to unionize? These companies have achieved a position of privilege and successfully bribed their way out of most efforts to prosecute their crimes, and the market is responding accordingly. They deserve everything they get.
Even bottled water relies on the protection of the commons = socialism. Private highways wouldn't exist without social programs to enable a work force to build them, or you'd be driving on the corpses of child laborers - Republican paradise?
This is not exactly socialism. When fundamental forces like supply and demand can interact to properly price goods and services markets work most efficiently. This could easily be capitalism when you think about it.
to fill out the workforce in Silicon Valley and put in 60+ hour weeks every week.
Batan death march (look it up) projects were for the first 10 years after college. The following years were for 40 to 45 hour workweeks and kids.
Switching later to consulting paid by the hour fixed the unpaid overtime problem.
It'd be just when the minimum salary you could pay per fed regulation is $250,000 or above will the unpaid overtime and other problems fall away. The current fed regulated minimum salary is $50k.
A 80% federal excise tax on pay paid to h1b would also fix many labor issues in the technology and engineering fields. H1B is for someone the company "can't just find anyone qualified" to work at the job at the price the company is willing to under pay. If it's a labor shortage and a H1B is the only answer, then cost should not be a high consideration and the company should be fortunate to pay salary + 80% tax on top.
H1B, fake skills shortage, failure to train existing employees in the desired skill area should not all fall on and be detrimental to the workers.
First rampant Libertarianism and Tech Utopianism, then Socialism and ... Progressive Tech Utopianism.
I think everyone in the Bay Area would do well to spend time in the rest of the country -- like, several years of time -- where it's blindingly obvious in day-to-day life that neither approach will work.
We've spent so much time and energy in this industry catering to the residents of, and solving problems that basically only exist in, the Bay Area. Imagine if some of this had been crafted by those with more sense.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
Let's say you have a firm job offer in Middle America that pays $100K after taxes.
Let's say you have another firm offer in San Francisco that pays $120K after taxes.
Both jobs are with the same company doing pretty much the same work. The difference in the offer is to cover what the company thinks is a fair cost-of-living adjustment.
Let's say you are a cheapskate and you can actually live cheap in Middle America on 40K but it will cost you 60K in San Francisco.
Financially, it's a wash. You'll pocket $60K/year and have those student loans paid off in almost no time.
On the other hand, if your particular cost of living gap is less than 20K, San Francisco is looking nice. If it's more, Middle America is financially better.
Obviously, to keep things simple, I'm ignoring things like "which place will give you better career opportunities" and "which place do you actually want to live and play in more."
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
A more fundamental objection:
The words "Libertarianism" and "Socialism" don't have clear definitions.
Contrary to what this article implies, private unions are absolutely within the framework of libertarianism. Libertarianism is about voluntarism and voluntarily forming unions to protect one's own interests as part of a collective whole is absolutely an acceptable doctrine amongst libertarians. Just as free association allows for the creation of corporations, so does it also allow for the formation of unions.
Quit conflating private unions with socialism and please quit framing unionization as an antithesis of libertarianism when it is anything but.
It's time the information jobs come to poorer areas. Unionize and the rest of us will thrive even more.
They are known as 'Coops' or 'Worker Owned Corporations'. The only different between them and normal businesses is that the employees are also the major stake shareholders, with voting stakes sufficient to influence the direction of the company
Communism as implemented was a fascist govrenment overseeing multiple state controlled corporate entities, which in theory the workers were supposed to have stake in, but which effectively became a feudal system where the crown delegated food to the starving masses while the barons worked them to the bone, taking all the produced wealth for themselves.
While there is a difference in one's ability to move between jobs in the Capitalist versus Communist systems at the theoretical level, when you start focusing on the practical aspects of society the majority of the labor CANNOT move between jobs anymore under Capitalism than they can under Communism (which, as seen in China and to a lesser degree Russia, has many non-financial ways of stopping you from moving to another region to look for better work.)
The point being, if less people saw it as an epithet and banded together to start a cooperative corporation in their field of work, the same benefits as a union or corporate socialism could be achieved inside of the current American Capitalist system. It wouldn't be for every citizen, at least at first, but it would pave the way if successful for further worker owned corporations eventually leading to the majority of the corporate world being coops and weaking the elites grasp on the country. But that would require the peasants to spend less time stabbing each other in the back and more time in collusion not unlike the elites they are fighting against. And we can't have that, can we?
As someone who for several years has had to deal with the parasite staffing companies and the Contingent Worker treadmill, I'd say it's about time someone did something about all this. When companies have more people 'employed' as glorified temps than they do direct employees, something's gone wrong with the world.
Now some of the best paid and often treated employees in the world are victims of their employer's "wage suppression" techniques, and strange perks...
Now unions are hardly socialism, they are probably the opposite, if you look at what unions were in socialist countries you would see that they were mostly run by the government (I.E. the only possible employer).
Anyway, as I see it, the only time I had to pay for a union they never did anything for me, or anyone who actually got the work done, quite the contrary. When an employee who is basically bringing everybody down "needs" them they'll be all over the case, sometimes going as far as telling others not to be overly productive (vet that line told to you on your first day at a new job, you'll know you're working at a place that does a little too well).
Anyway, I hope they enjoy it.
100% pure virtue signaling on their part. They want to be accepted by their social circle, which is currently promoting socialism while ignoring its ramifications.
As Trump has shown on Friday, nobody is abandoning anything for anything. Watch the Left completely implode when it was suggested that sanctuary cities, which nominally welcome and protect illegals, are turning against illegals. This is grade A application of Saul Alinsky's rule: "Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules." This would totally work on the Silicon Valley types who hope to retire as millionaires when they're 40.
If you aren't aware there is an entire migration movement that has been going on for 10 years now and actual libertarians (as opposed to those you socialists call libertarian and aren't at all principled libertarians, but rather are conservatives or republicans in sheep's clothing) are fleeing CA for NH. I saw long ago (2005) that the west coast (and really everywhere) was a bad deal for freedom loving folks and turned down my first job offer at my dream job over it and in spite of the amazing pay for an out-of-college graduate (though you'd have needed it to justify living there and even then it didn't really make sense considering much better you could do elsewhere). So I started my own business in a just as bad location where I lived in NJ. Then three years ago I fled NJ just shortly before the Free State Project hit 20,000 signers. Best decision ever. We have fuck tons of people moving from all over the country- and world for that matter. Some are fleeing persecution. We have a little Russian libertarian community in NH even for instance. There were twice as many movers last year as the year before. So it's a movement that's really ramping up. There are many more people today who own property in NH too. Some who are moving and some who have moved prior to the initiation of the move (ie once we hit 20,000 people were supposed to start planning a move, but many thousands moved before that happened).
...introduced govt. support for unionisation as a way to save capitalism from itself. Without some form of constraint from the govt. or the workers or both, corporations were set to start a Bolshevik revolution. In other words, unions are what keep the Bolsheviks at bay.
It seems that every new generation of capitalists have to learn this the hard way: In the longer term, unions are the least bad option they have.
Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
Funny! I agree.
The result of "defining" those words is more confusion. Nothing as useful as a quilt.
No, socialist means someone who doesn't believe in "winner take all" or "law of the jungle" economics. Playing fair is not unreasonable when the ones at the top control all the levers.
It's a right in this Country (the US) to unionize... the US is getting close to critical mass, closer toward a social revolt.. Capitalism has failed. The middle class has had no increase in buying power since the 1980's. In-fact every single technological advancement and efficiency gained through automation, technology, the internet, etc, have only benefited the owner class, the Oligarchy, aka "the donnor class". It's how a minority continue to win elections. The GOP has NOT won a 1st term POTUS since Bush 1 - 30 years ago. Both GOP Presidents since (Bush 2 & Lord Trumpkin) LOST popular vote via gerrymandering and legal maneuvering. Meanwhile the GOP is busy shoving Federal Judges into place to change laws in their favor, despite being against the will of the people
This 30 year or entire generation where the elite suck all the resources out of society result in ever decreasing workers benefits, (healthcare costs skyrocket, pensions are but a distant memory), schools and first responders go underfunded, infrastructure crumbles.
The former youth as they reach middle age, worry about being cast aside because they don't want to drive 4 hours to work or want to spend time with their kids. These workers have awoken, realized they won't be the next Zuckerberg, or Arod.. no, realty is cruel, and if your name isn't over the door you're nothing more than an expendable commodity - yet your servitude pays to change laws that take away your rights in favor of your overlords...
The truth is awakening.
And the poor ones. The rest of us who are competent will be stick to libertarianism forever.
I'm a socialist so I'll have a go at defining it.
Socialism is "democratic ownership of the means of production". What that would look like in reality is a pretty radical departure to corporate governance.
Corporations wouldn't be allowed to be dictatorships like they are today. Workers would be like temporary shareholders, gaining voting rights while joining a company, and losing those votes once they leave.Democracy would fill not only the political sphere but be fully infused into the economic sphere. Nothing would be shielded from democratic forces. Capital does not give anyone the right to dominate and enslave anyone else.
While worker co-ops exist on a small scale, they can't compete with massive tax-dodging transnationals that shit their externalities all over people in poorer countries damaging their health and environment. That makes socialism by definition an international project.
Socialism is not "social democratic policies", which are tax funded state-projects used to soften capitalism. To a socialist, welfare spending is not a solution, but the indication that a fundamental problem exists in society.
Socialism is a dog whistle taught to Fox News viewers, when a presenter labels something as "socialism" they are supposed to be so trained as to immediately think it is bad. Healthcare? Socialism, even if it's for you? Even if you paid already for it and the health insurer is refusing to pay out to help its profits? Socialism! tax cuts for poor people? Socialism. Tax cuts for rich people, anti-Socialism! Doing something about climate change? Socialism! Doing something about pollution? Socialism! Doing something about pollution next to my golf course? Anti-socialism!
It replaces "liberal" as the trigger word.
Libertarianism would like to use "liberal", i.e. the French root of "liberty" meaning freedom, but didn't want to trigger their previously trained Fox News dogs.
Each has a very specific high pitched whining tone.... they're not meanings, but nebulous trigger tones.
[Ever noticed how bloated and soft focus Fox News presenters are? I just mention it as an aside, because its like every Fox New Presenter has a Gaussian Blur filter on them, all fake hair, teeth plates, and lots and lots of botox. I only noticed it when comparing an old and new, they're getting older and fatter and whinier and the blur filter is getting turned up to compensate].
tl;dr; voting Trump in 2020 and hope that triggers you
It's not a shift. SV has always been driven by strong ties to academia and, as with any well-educated and successful area, understands that strong public sector institutions are critical. Look at the original Jargon File/Hacker's Dictionary: the wide-spread left-leaning politics is obvious. It wasn't until the hostile takeover by gibbering reactionary nutcase ESR that he imposed his personal ideology for a bit of historical revisionism that the dictionary started representing a ton of libertarian nonsense. And yeah, you have a few shitheel billionaires running a constant advertising campaign inflating their supposed importance, but no astroturf campaign will ever disguise the fact that the Thiels and Elisons and so on are assholes and universally reviled. SV has never been about them, SV is about the innovation and brilliance of the technology working class: the researchers and engineers in academia and at companies driving public/private partnerships.
Libertarianism can't work long as the government provides special exemptions that place corporations above individuals. Stripping corporations of their power isn't the same as Socialism, nor is a move away from Libertarianism.
If everyone has the same legal power to create contracts and conduct business, then we can have a strongly individualist society with strong property rights. Right now we have a snowball effect where the more assets you have the more power you get. We live in system where tax payer money goes to billion dollar grants, while at the same time the regular schmucks can't apply for the same sort of grants for education or social programs. (not that libertarians want social programs, but if we put money into the system we should get it back in the most direct way possible!)
Unionization is not socialism is actually part of Capitalism where all the production forces fight for their own interests, saying that Capitalism is just a wealth production machinery owner and wealth producer workers taking only what is given to them even almost nothing is a travesty of the whole Capitalism concept, also I didn't mention government because most people are allergic to it except when it benefits them, but the government is supposed to act as a balance between both parties, unionization is a logical thing when even the government can't represent their interests because there are more workers than owners and while owners have the power of money and wealth (and government), workers only have their numbers... It's all in the books.
Socialism would be if anything if a company becomes owned by its own employees or cooperatives (not like current cooperatives which are basically pay-day loaners but true cooperatives.
We're now in the 4th era of industrialization, soon the old paradigm of jobs producers, jobs availability and job consumers will be extremely difficult to maintain... people with consolidated wealth do not like to spend money creating useless jobs.
You're voting him as fattest MILF on the cell block, he's going to get primaried out either way and there's no escaping his 25+ concurrent investigations into slam-dunk tax frauds and other frauds. He'll die an old cuck in a can.
The traitor beta Jr. probably won't make it out of Federal to even begin his state terms. Jail bait personified. You've never seen prisoners take to cavity searches as quickly as Uday Drumpftard. Fucked to smoking pieces.
they had a good laugh and the mayors have said sure, send 'em on over
There was a bit of apprehension because, well, immigrants are statistically less likely to commit crimes, so the only way this wouldn't backfire on Trump is if he took immigrants accused of violent crimes and released them intentionally. Yes, it does happen, albeit rarely, and yes, it's absolute madness to even suggest the President of the United States would do such a thing to score cheap political points, but in the era of Trump it seems like anything goes.
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Government is not representing people, is not representing people's best interests.. or any interests at all, governnment is only representing a wealthy class, they only care about their bests interests and that is something nobody can't hide anymore, so unions are a way to get some people at least really pretend to represent workers interests.
The same fat uneducated angry morons as yourself said that about the 20's, and the 1860's. You're just too dumb to know anything about it, being uneducated and angry about it, lol. Your mental poverty is a vicious cycle.
(be sure to blame the immigrant, that's the only solution Republicanism has left, sad!)
Weren't most of the libertarian oriented Silicon Valley members mostly the elites to begin with? I certainly may be wrong in my assessment, but the only vocal ones I heard about were people like Peter Thiel and company who had clawed their way to the top by hook or crook.
As far as the common man was concerned I was pretty sure they were all Democrats or Republicans or the smattering of swing voters sometimes called moderates, with the majority falling into the liberal-moderate/democrat camp, simply because the bay area leaned liberal to begin with and the culture brought in more people with a liberal outlook most of whom were trying to get away from their conservative family/hometown?
We had private toll roads long before government stepped in. The idea that government needs to do everything is a lie. The fact government did step in ignores the fact that popularity of cars would have naturally led to a market demand for private investors to build roads more and better roads for profit.
"You don't understand. Ferengi workers don't want to stop the exploitation. We want to find a way to become the exploiters."
- Rom, responding to Bashir's suggestion that he form a union
#DeleteFacebook
I don't particularly like unions, and their application to technology seems silly, or at best meant to benefit the less talented posers and phonies. But whatever socialism is, it isn't unions and unionization. The S-word gets used a lot for various ideas and programs that are basically about forms of shared responsibility and social insurance. These things can be positive overall, but sometimes unrealistically costly, and are often what people mean by "socialism". The kind of "Socialism" that should be more worrying is generally more like having organized crime for a government, running a big Ponzi scheme to basically legitimize stealing from those that have and trampling over personal and property rights, distributing some pittance of the stolen loot to the greedy mob to buy them off at the polls in order to make the racket look democratic and giving the lion's share to the typically evil and blatantly undeserving puppet masters at the top. As it starts to fall apart the "niceties" of democracy like free and fair elections and the plain language of constitutions and laws are conveniently and insidiously ignored and abandoned. Dissent is routinely demonized in the strongest terms possible, and actively suppressed. The socialist leaders become (or reveal themselves as) typically arrogant self-absorbed "flawless" demigods who shit roses and are unable to accept any responsibility or criticism, playing the victim while ramping up persecution to defend their grip on power. Sound familiar? What that has to do with labor relations in private industry, where a few dumb slobs want to do hardball negotiation about pay and working conditions in a fairly counterproductive fashion, is beyond me.
Good because it might convince companies to move elsewhere. Too much tech is concentrated in a small area. It makes it difficult for non-tech workers to get decent housing and everything is equally expensive.
As a tech worker, I would like to move out of the area, but my options are limited.
-- Will program for bandwidth
I understand the historical connection of unions to leftist politics, but I've always wondered why no one tried to re-engineer and rebrand them as something that really embodies the free market stuff that the right-wingers are always going on about.
There's no particular reason to think of a union as fundamentally any different from the corporation that employs its members. In other words, just make it one corporation employing another corporation to do a job. More than a contractor, with the framework laid out so that it's effectively as if the union members (which is also the union's employees--the union's name would be on all of the paychecks) are working for the original employer. I've actually worked at a company that did this trick for liability reasons (not unionization), so I'm pretty sure it's legally possible.
So why don't union organizers use this technique as a loophole in "right to work" states that forbid membership dues? This bypasses those laws entirely. Your old employer pays the union and the union cuts the check to you with pass-through taxation (LLC or nonprofit or something.) You show up for work at the same place, the employees are all owners the union-corporation and the union-corporation negotiates with the employer for all of the things unions traditionally negotiate for, with all of the bargaining power that unions typically have, even if it's a right to work state.
That's interesting on its own to think about. But then I wonder about taking it a step further... first, you imagine for a moment if telecommuting can be more widely accepted, so that you could have a union of white collar workers who all telecommuted. Just for the sake of this thought experiment, imagine that. Then, imagine there are guildlike union-corporations built on meritocracy and whatever other shared values and positive vibes that you think makes workers effective and pleasant to be around. If one employer starts giving you too much shit, well, the union starts shopping its collective resume around at other employers. Obviously it isn't feasible without telecommuting (you can't expect the whole union to pick up and physically move around), but just imagine for a moment if that was a given. Imagine if you had an identity as a union-corporation, as a collection of self-selected workers. You provide a certain set of skills, you have a certain kind of people working there with a certain kind of workflow and workplace vibe, and as a union-corporation you have a certain reputation in the marketplace. And if you have a good reputation and your employer starts screwing you over, you have the option of moving to greener pastures, taking all of your coworkers with you without having to slog through the interview process yourself. Or the union can simply threaten to do this as part of the bargaining process. This all could be as cutthroat or as reasonable as you want it to be--different unions could have different philosophies. A union might have a reputation for stability and loyalty to its employer even in tough times (some of that loyalty might be written into the contracts as well), and some prospective employers might find that loyal stability attractive. Larger unions might have multiple partners they provide workers for.
It probably sounds like I'm describing a consulting firm or something, but this would be for real long term employment purposes, with "pass through" benefits paid for by the employer (and also hopefully pass through taxation via nonprofit or LLC status) and you'd interact with the employer's supervisors as you normally would. Employers would still have the ability to fire specific individuals, subject to whatever dispute resolution stuff the union has agreed to with them.
I know there are major hurdles preventing this from ever happening but as far as pipe dreams go, it feels like a pretty nice one. And I like it as a thought experiment because it really puts the question to anti-union conservatives: how is this hybrid corporate-union-firm setup in any way u
Been hearing that shit for 2 years now. It is old.
First he cant get the nomination. Then he cant get elected. Then he wont last 6 months. He only ran as a joke or to boost his tv show ratings. Then he was going to prison for whatever made up shit. Now you moved on to tax fraud. Oh and there was a hooker in there because we all care about sex unless it is Bill or some other prominent Democrat doing it.
Move on. Get over it. You dont even seem to believe it yourself anymore. That was a half hearted effort.
I don't believe libertarians would say they are anti-union. They are against governments mandating unions. They are against governments banning unions. I believe this results in them being against public sector unions.
Capitalism: you own what you can make.
Socialism: everyone gets the same, by taking from those who make more.
Communism: nobody owns anything, everything is shared.
Nobody is paid enough. $100k-$200k/year was a great salary in the 1990s, nowadays you'd be unable to buy a home with that little of an income, at least in the valley. It should be the norm for base tech worker salaries to be north of $500k. Minimum wage should be north of $35/hour.
There are some affordable cities in the midwest with more than 500,000 people, which have some social activity in the downtown area.
A government is an organization that steals capital from people, against their will, at the point of a gun, in order to fund ideas that are imposed coercively.
How can such an anti-Capitalist organization, employing such explicitly anti-capitalist policies, be used to save Capitalism?
Given the strong reaction to a travel ban on some muslim countries, and bitching about not being able to get Iranian programmers, Silicon Valley seems to care the most about open borders, country be damned.
> While worker co-ops exist on a small scale, they can't compete
True. They exist, and generally don't do well compared to companies where the techs are profesional techs and the CEOs are professional CEOs. Generally, someone educated and trained to do a CEO job isn't very good at configuring routers, and someone trained in configuring routers isn't very good at selecting which companies their company should buy, or which divisions should be spun off as separate companies.
Actually specialization, each us being good at our own jobs rather than everyone doing everything, is what separates us from animals and hunter-gatherer tribes. When the auto mechanics are trying to run the auto company, they have no idea what they are doing and can't compete.
Credit unions and mutual insurance companies are successful models where the CUSTOMERS own the company. It works because the assets of these companies are simple dollars.
> Socialism is "democratic ownership of the means of production".
Almost. American capitalism is:
Employees can decide to be part owner of the company the company they work for, or any other company. Management often encourages yyu to br part owner (employee stock ownership program), but they can't force you to. You can choose to take cash instead of ownership.
Your proposed form of socialism is the same except your are FORCED to have ownership rather than cash.
Generally, if you lose your job, you hope your investments (company ownership) did well, because you'll need the money. If your investments do poorly, hopefully your job is doing well. So having your ownership (stock) in the same company you work for is kinda stupid - you're putting all of your eggs in one basket. If the company doesn't do well, you're fucked. It's generally smarter to have ownership (stock) in companies totally unrelated to the one you work for. That way if your job doesn't do well because your company or I has a slump, you can fall back on your investments.
That's where your idea of socialism is different than most people's. Most people who want socialism don't want that particular type of stupid added in, where one company having problems means you lose everything. Instead, they force you to be part owner of EVERY company. Instead of choosing which companies you own (as a stockholder), or having the choice to stay out of ownership for a while and take the cash, you, via politicians, theoretically have stock in every company. I suspect most of them don't realize that would make them an owner of Ruger, Smith & Wesson, Chick-fil-A, and even "Neo Nazi Quarterly" or whatever it's called.
Trump lives in your head for free. He owns you. Literally.
And sucks midwestern
There's this little town called Chicago, maybe you should look it up sometime.
Or a bunch of towns in Texas, that are actually multi-cultural compared to pretty much anywhere in California.
And you don't have to keep your eyes on the sidewalk continuously walking anywhere in the midwest.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Spot the rich American equating leftism with socialism: They have a lot in common but one is defining government/corporate responsibility towards people while another is government interference in free-market activities.
So much that Silicon Valley (and tech companies in general) rely on is because of things produced by the government. If you really take the time to look at it, Libertarianism is a joke and built on contradiction and lies.
Or at least guilds like a professional organization (Society of Actuaries) or a lightweight union (Screen Actors Guild) than a traditional labor union, could also improve the situation greatly.
Enforce certain baseline contracts and have legal representation on-call for legal disputes for modest dues, but still leave compensation alone or have minimum levels. Every actor has health and safety, basic wage guarantees, and even a health/pension, but it doesn't prevent from superstars from getting big pay cheques.
They're virtue signaling.
Fake.
Make em put their money on the line and they'll fold.
Just like the sanctuary city thing.
Libertarian wants to shoot his gun at passing vehicles, "'cuz muh Libertarianism."
Shortcut the whole thing. Me, one of the people in said cars, a libertarian myself, plugs the damn fool for being a deliberate danger to myself and others.
I don't read AC A human right
Fuck you and your unions. I do VERY well without them. Thanks.
Rarely have I seen such a short post make three points and get all three so very, very wrong.
Yes, that is socialism. But when young people say they want "socialism" that is not what they mean. They mean they want to be like Denmark: Capitalism with universal healthcare.
Well, perhaps if the GOP stopped demonizing a social safety net, perhaps the term wouldn't be so muddled.
That sounds great until the company has a bad quarter and your paycheck is $0. Ownership has a negative side as well.
The suits get a base pay plus options and bonuses, why not the workers? Ownership is not a novel idea, even in the US:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_employee-owned_companies
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_worker_cooperatives
* https://hbr.org/2018/08/why-the-u-s-needs-more-worker-owned-companies
Or at least having workers represented on boards:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany
If I have to move to a town with only one employer, or train for years for a specific job that has only one employer then a union makes sense. I've worked in Silicon Valley, I never felt I couldn't get another job with only putting in minimal effort. There was zero friction in changing jobs and I was there on a TN visa. So what is the power abuse the union is trying to fix?
Republicans still think their vote matters in a Republican primary. There will be no primary permitted, as Trump will burn the house down before he lets anyone else take his rightful golden throne. The billions of people at his rallies can't be wrong! The internet says so!
Ask six libertarians for their answer on something, get at least a dozen answers. Or even six socialists for that matter, much the same.
Hell, as me for something and I can generally come up with at least three myself. The philosophically ideal answer, the real world answer, the practical answer, the "corrective" answer, and the achievable answer. ;)
Ideal: The way it would be in my ideal libertarian society
Real World: Not everybody are libertarian gods. This adds controls for failings
Practical: No longer starting from a magical libertarian starting point. Even more failings, trends from the past
Corrective: Society has taken a very wrong turn. In order to reach a more libertarian ideal, corrective measures are needed for a time(fixing the welfare state. No, I'm not a madman who'd cut everybody off all at once)
Achievable: Libertarians are a minority. We'll take what we can get, like lowered amounts of regulation, legalized marijuana as opposed to all drugs, etc...
I don't read AC A human right
Do a better job when creating headlines. C'mon slashdotters, you should know better by now.
I live in Silicon Valley and attend lots of events on upcoming technologies and business models. Most recently I've been hearing from the liberal entrepreneurs (i.e. socialists not libertarians, and the reason I know this is because I've asked them afterward) on stage that one of the great benefits of cryptocurrency is that it will democratize just about everything. Granted, in crypto there are two camps, the "democratize" folks and the "no it won't democratize" folks, and clearly these liberal entrepreneurs are in the "democratize" camp. What strikes me as curious is that on the one hand they are for government control of our lives, while on the other hand they are for crypto because it doesn't permit government control. Have any of you come across this?
Amazing turnout. Thousands of people holding hands and chanting “Better things aren’t possible”.
Shamelessly stolen from here
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Conscience, empathy, responsibility, does that add up to socialism? If so, I'm all for it.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
It is not so much that every generation has to learn unions are a good thing, it is every few generations has to learn that unions are ALSO a bad thing.
Left unchecked, capitalism leads to worker oppression and mismanagement of natural resources and disruption of the stable governments that provide stability that allowed them to foster in the first place. This many on slashdot know and understand deep in their bones.
Left unchecked, unions cause wages to grow to unsustainable levels. They do not seek balance or fair compensation in negations. They are forces to always get more. This is also unsustainable. Furthermore, unions tend to protect incompetence, since they make no distinction between good employee and bad. Management never has a fair point in the eyes of a union. This is something many on slashdot do not seem to know
The answer, I think like many issues of our day, lies in acknowledging the valid parts of both arguments. We need to get back to listening to each other, and understanding the truths that lie within. This constant demonizing is helping no one.
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
Theyre all communist Hitlers! RAAAR where are the torches and pitch forks??? Everyone knows that if it wasnt for the CEOs then non of these jobs would exist.
define startup
a newly established business.
so now all the newly established businesses have to be union?
fuck off.
After a long decline, libertarianism died the day libertarians said it was right and proper for the government to force a baker to bake a cake for someone he didn't want to bake a cake for. Libertarianism wasn't replaced by socialism; it became socialism in all but name. If the government decides who you must do business with, you are not free.
He's got 25 open investigations into his ass, the fact that he's POTUS prevents prosecution, his term ends soon even if he were re-elected by some retarded inbred daughter-fucking christmas miracle, and he dies in prison either way.
I don't care what you think you've heard, lol, his sons are faggots who will die in prison. Never forget that we hang traitors in this country, Drumpftards
>"Are Silicon Valley Workers Abandoning Libertarianism For Socialism? Silicon Valley tech workers are "defying their overlords," arguing that recent unionization attempts by Kickstarter employees..."
Voluntary unionization is neither Socialism nor "abandoning Libertarianism." It would only be a move towards Socialism if they were calling for compulsory unionization and/or government control.
The Libertarian philosophy supports voluntary unions and right to work.
The Libertarians Party support unions even more strongly:
http://www.dehnbase.org/lpus/l...
Hillary is that you?
Socialist countries always end up destitute
please go see in norway, denmark, netherlands, belgium, france, germany ...
It shows how far the US has gone that attempting to dial back from insane working hours and illegal hourly rates might be seen as socialism! I guess those ingrates will be asking for 'weekends' next!
Please provide evidence that they are socialist nations
allow government workers to unionize. Even FDR saw what a corrupt and unrestrained mess would result if the people working in government counld form unions that in-turn supported the election of the very elected public officials that would later sit accross the negotiating table from them to negotiate salaries, working conditions, and benefits.
Silicon Valley could probably withstand unions in the tech sector, if it were not for the fact that both the state and local governments involved are completely unionized and already vacuuming billions out of the economic equations. SOMEBODY hase to be productive enough and yet cheap enough to generate enough total economic overhead to make up for prison dentists, firefighters and others retiring with pensions of half a million per year (in some cases MORE) and collecting that for DECADES.
All the arguments about unionization also overlook another big problem in the economic system of Silicon Valley: all the feel-good politics, divorced from normality, have hampered the construction of the sorts of housing people in the area want, which artificially constricts supply, which boost prices to insane levels (all part of that most-basic inviolable economic law: supply&demand). Similar politics have also boosted prices for energy and food and services - and all these things together make living there artificially very expensive and at the same time that other liberal political inclinations have encouraged the place to be overridden with bums, druggies, and sidewalk poopers - reducing the quality of life for the overworked and struggling workers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The left has, for decades, heaped great stinking piles of rules, regulations, laws, licenses, susidies, bailouts, incentives, penalties, and taxes onto the economy - more with every passing year (Last year California alone added over 1000 new laws!), and as all the negative side effects of all this corruption grow in proportion to the encrustation, and as the fatted calf of capitalism underperforms the dreams of the left to generate even more lootable goodies, the left then whines (or is it celebrates?) that "capitalism" has failed??????
No sir! Capitalism in the USA was abandoned long ago. It had a brief flare-up in the '80s that lead to an multi-decade expansion, but the government is firmly incontrol of much of the economy. Government initially thrust its rather large proboscis into healthcare indirectly in WWII with FDR's "wage and price controls" which drove the uniquely-American linkage between health insurance and employment, and then went super-size in the 1960s with Medicare and Medicaid, which quietly and invisibly shift the costs for senior and indigent healthcare over onto those with private insurance while the government claimes credit for providing "free stuff". With Obamacare, the healthcare segment of our economy went full-fascist - Obama's minions designed the health plans, set the prices, and then ordered the public to buy (TEXTBOOK FASCISM, not the comicbook form which focuses on the special effects of jackbooted goosesteppers and avoids the very definition of Mussolini's evil ideological child).
Did you mean to imply that the free market rules apply to education? For K-12 nearly all American kids are in government run schools, and thanks to Obama now all students who want to attend college must get their loans from the government and as part of that deal the government has extreme leverage over the universisties.
Are you thinking the free market is applicable in transportation of communication? Nope. Both are heavily regulated - no plane is certified for operation without government approval and government allowed all airline builders to consolidate into ONE, a monopoly called Boeing which is in a complete embrace with government (Government cannot allow Boeing to fail because it needs Boeing to build its military planes, and Boeing needs the government to buy its planes because it's only international competitors are all subsidised quasi-government operations). Railroads? Nope - quasi-governmental agency Amtrak is in charge.
You think Verizon and AT&T are playing in a market economy? Nope - they are fully dependent upon government rights-of-way "arrangements" for their surface infrastrusture and they must buy their electromagnetic spectrum for all their wireless and satellite services - with all the attached special clauses and rules congress attaches to every spectrum auction.
Remeber that 2008 home mortgage meltdown? Surely THAT was a failure of capitalism, right? Nope. All mortgages were being bundled and funneled through two entities who had taken over the middleman spot in those transactions: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. What are those two entites with bizarre names? They are government constructs staffed by friends of politicians and they used their government connections over the decades to undercut and thus eliminate all the private entities that used to perform their roles. Have you still not realized why nobody went to jail over the meltdown? It's because ground zero for the meltdown was NOT the banks, it was the government entities the banks were passing the transactions through and THOSE two (Fannie and Freddie) were the most politically-connected outfits in the USA.
Wake UP!
. In fact: while health insurance companies (as a timely example) typically consume about a 3% overhead of healthcare costs, the government entities that run medicare and the VA consume over 8% - government, lacking any competition and profit motive, is MORE THAN TWICE as inefficient in healthcare.
What if you take into consideration the role of medicare as a safety net for people the insurance companies deem too great a risk? You know, the expensive ones.
What if you take into consideration the health complications and issues caused by active service that give VA a more complex user community than normal insurance companies?
What if you pull your head out of your arse?
Well now, aren't you being a cunt today.
Here's a fucking clue for you: Satan doesn't exist. So anybody that you decry as a satanist is in fact worshipping.. nothing.
Is that really worth such rancid fury?
Japan names new era from April 1st , 2019, âoeRei-Waâ a combination of Rei kanji meaning ancient laws / decree plus Wa meaning harmony / peace. While there is historical linkage to these kanji , more curious Rey is same name of new Star Wars hero, rises to bring peace and harmony to the universe. Who knew Japan imperial scholars also big SWs fans? Coincidence, absolutely but a fun one. Enjoy lifes little amusements.
Silicon Valley Blokes don't even know even know what socialism means. None of the Yanks actually do as the call Bernie Sanders a socialist.
On the internet in the 2000-2010ish there was a type of geek I met online a lot. He thought he understood politics/economics/etc. very well. The key to everything was liberty. From privacy rights to taxation to affirmative action liberty was the answer. Government out! The fact that getting the government 100% out of privacy rights would inevitably lead to for-profit companies being 100% in? Woosh.
I haven't met that guy in a few years. The guy who is absolutely convinced we should adopt socialism and oppose neo-liberalism and corporatism just like Denmark/Canada/etc.? Meet that guy all the time.
For the record, if you go by the early-2000s definitions of all those terms Denmark/Canada/etc. are none of the things he thinks they are. And if you tell this guy that? Woosh.
Jack Ma is an ardent campaigner for the 996 work schedule...9am to 9pm, 6 days a week. The Chinese government certainly isn't objecting.
Let's see how partial our new generations are to socialism on those terms?
-Styopa
He is neveer going to jail. If he goes then every other politicians other Bernie,rand and Elizabeth will be going too. They are all filthy.
Trump keeps on winning.
Where you have the privileged "party members".
Then the rest of the poor schlubs are "The Proletariat".
They all think they're going to become (and remain) party members.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Really? You're using the spectacularly dysfunctional American healthcare system as an example of capitalism _working well_? Really?!
APK is just mad that his unending bullshit keeps being exposed and that his ass keeps getting beaten hard.
Yea! That is natural end to fucking stand-ups and scrums! You defaced software engineers and transformed them into bots, now get your fucking unions....
Ray Morris CHOOSES which companies he owns, putting 15% of his pay (plus 50% employer match) into the companies he chooses. Google had been one good choice.
I've owned the company I work for before, including owning 100% of it. When the company didn't do well, I lost both my job and my investment. I won't make that mistake again. I now put my job and my ownership in two different baskets.
For a couple years, I was 100% owner (had all the stock) of a company I didn't work for, which in some ways competed with my employer. So I was happy if either company won.
How is this shocking.
When I was 20 of course I'd love the perks and kinda ignore salary.
But these kids grow up into adults that have families and they just want their money.
Not sure why anyone thought this would last.
> I will refer you to this fragment which argues against the notion that stock ownership is equivalent to democratic ownership of the means of production
I don't think it makes that argument. I think it distinguishes between ownership and management. It points out that while you can simply check a box labeled "401k" to become an owner, that doesn't make you a manager, or specifically, the CEO.
The implication seems to enjoy that everyone should be the CEO. I've been the CEO of multiple companies. That was a bad idea. I shouldn't be the CEO. I'm much better at information security than I am at corporate mergers.
Anyway, there's theory, what could work in your imagination, and there's practice - what actually does work in the real world. In the real world, over 90% of millionaires got their via 401k and IRA. Over 90% never made more than 100k in a year. Rather, they checked the box to invest 10-15% of their *pre-tax* pay, and their employer typically added another 7%. Then the magic of compound interest kicked in. That's how the vast majority of millionaires became millionaires. I want to be a millionaire, so I'm doing exactly what the millionaires did. I check the box.
Kidding aside, most modern cities outside of the US are better than modern cities IN the US. The reason being that taxpayer money is spent on pork in the US and not in infrastructure. Every time I travel abroad I am dumbfounded by how nice foreign cities & towns are compared to our 'stuck in the 80s' towns.
So which specific policy instituted by the white house caused this downturn in permanent employment according to your view of the world?
After our 3rd essay on WWII, I realized I'd never escape the Jews if I continued to study German.
That's, like, literally all they ever think about; I imagined that whenever I'd come back from a trip to Germany, somebody would ask me "Did you go to a concentration camp?" I don't need that.
Aside from likely-covered healthcare, that's not actually true. The "poor" in the US are far more likely to have air conditioning, own their home, 1 or 2 cars, a computer, internet connection, and a number of other life pleasantries as well as a larger average living space than the European "middle class".
As an American who has also lived several years in Europe (both on the continent and in the UK) I call bullshit.
If you think the "poor" in the US have air conditioning, 1-2 cars, a laptop much less an internet connection, you have obviously never been poor. I have, and I know plenty who have had it worse than me. Chicago runs cooling centers in the summer because of the vast numbers of poor who do not have air conditioning, something that can be life threatening in the sweltering Midwest summer.
As for how the middle-class in France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy, and Austria (to name a few countries where I have first hand experience) live, one simple phrase sums it up:
Significantly better than in the United States.
5-6 weeks paid vacation, 35-40 hour work weeks, livable wages (and excellent economic opportunities for those of us with college degrees or a technical knack), pension, free healthcare, a social safety net to get you through rough downturns, like say a financial crash.
It it goes from "significantly better" to "vastly better" the moment your average European hits retirement age, vs. your average middle-class American who is, at that moment, demote far, far below middle-class for the remainder of their life.
And this is purely financial metrics, don't even get me started on how much healthier, enjoyable, and more rewarding the European lifestyle is over the mad ratrace we in America are forced to grind through, year after year. But hey, we're #1 in the world, right?
#1 at kidding ourselves. Any lustre we might have still had from our glory years got smeared away in 2016, when an ugly underbelly of our country took over, revealed its true colors, and painted all of us with that filthy brush in the eyes of the entire rest of the world, allies and enemies alike.
Yeah. They want to design a new jungle where they live in the trees and someone on the ground throws food up to them. Pie in the sky I think it's called.
Because the number of "expensive ones" is a massive, latent, hidden time bomb. We have known the impacts of refined grain and oil and sugar of the human body since the 1970s. The bomb is exploding right now. Children getting diabetes. Sixty year Olds on a ton of prescription drugs. Poor people living on soda and processed sweet cakes. Protien obsession and paleo diets that encourage cultish consumption of artery hardening animal products. The answer has nothing to do with money. Unless the answer is allowing this to continue and trying to deal with it in the emergency room.
That its moving in tech worker, when they should say tech worker in sillicon valley... they make it sound like its like that everywhere... when sillicon valley is in fact a minority of tech worker around the world.
In the valley there is a shift.... because "way to big tech company" are abusing their employe... personally where I live and it still a small tech center but still enough to have thousand and thousand of employe, no one will even get close to a union rep because here... unionizing is much more closer to giving out a good chunck of your pay for no reason. Because when you work for a company that is not a purely "sillicon valley style tech company" there is no point in unionizing except getting a pay cut to pay the union.
I first learned about libertarian ideals from some of the early Internet users/frequent message posters. IMO, the computer-savvy have always been a bastion of libertarian thought.
I think you have an awful lot of younger people entering the tech workforce, now, who really haven't even given politics that much consideration. For them, it's about "hating Orange man Trump" because that's an easy bandwagon to get on.... and after that? You hear a lot from our "Democratic Socialists" about promises they'll solve their anxiety over money and how they'll pay for things like big student loans or health insurance costs. So they latch on to that platform.
Really though? I think the libertarian aspects of the Internet stemmed more from the vision early users had of it being this empowering form of communication. All of a sudden, you could talk to someone on the other side of the planet, just as easily (and inexpensively!) as talking to your neighbor next door who got online. Once you're no longer tethered to a long distance phone provider who billed you by the minute for a voice call, based on which country you dialed -- you have a new type of freedom. And that ALSO enabled the ability for anyone to become their own online publisher -- producing content that was in reach of any Internet user, the world over.
The fact that some of the tech businesses out there exploit their workforce doesn't mean technology ITSELF helped prove libertarian ideas a failure!
I think at least in America, we need to remember that our government is not and has never been libertarian in nature. The closest it's ever come were a couple of Republican presidents (like Ronald Reagan) who made some very libertarian quotes -- but didn't really do a lot of very libertarian things, politically, to change the system in place.
The tech companies they work for are socialists. They have to hide their libertarianism or conservatism or face the Wrath of being fired
"Whatever you want them to mean."
That's absurd, We have dictionaries for a reason and while definitions do change a bit between publisher they should all be similar enough for a conversation on the internet for such common terms,
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
>Really? You're using the spectacularly dysfunctional American healthcare system as an example of capitalism _working well_? Really?!
It should be an example of socialism working really poorly, considering that over 50 cents out of every healthcare dollar is provided by some level of government, either the Federal, state, or local.
Primaries don't matter.
If Republicans don't care about winning, then they will force a primary. Trump will run again if he wants to, and so will split the vote and let a Dem win. Republicans have to decide whether that is a better outcome for them.
As someone who plays video games I'm often told that micro-transactions and DLC are needed to help feed the developers who make the games, where in reality those people get fired as soon as a project is finished. If game designers actually got paid based on the success of their product then they can better decide what makes a fun game instead of what profits the few on top. I'm sick and tired of the disconnect there is between the consumer and the designer.
Yes and no.
First: Here's something that was written a few years ago when the shoe was on the other foot, but basically one of the things going on right now, is that libertarians are scared of being mistaken for Republicans. The two don't really have much in common, but the things they do have in common are extremely embarassing to appearances. Only bad people are Republicans right now (regardless of left/right views, the Republican party simply isn't for you, unless you're a criminal) so everyone who doesn't want to be thought of as evil is trying to inch away from anything that looks related. And while you're think 2016 would have been the election that Libertarians finally beat Republicans, that obviously didn't really happen. So Libertarians are going into hiding for right now, until the Republicans currently in government are removed from power and prosecuted.
Second, and this is more subtle, a lot of "socialist" things are really only socialist in an absolute sense, but proposed policies to amend them might look socialist but really not represent any significant change on the socialst-libertarian continuum.
Suppose you live in town and suddenly one day there's a new tax on bubble gum, and the tax goes to buy people coats. Outrageous! But what if the "town" is actually a wholly-government-created place (e.g. some place weird like McMurdo air base) and all the bubble gum and coats were brought in at taxpayer expense anyway. Looks socialist at first, but really: no change.
Even a move toward conservatism can look leftward. Let's say the government gives you millions of dollars in subsidies every year. This goes on for decades, and then one day the government stops. Instead of allowing you to pollute without paying for it, they say you have to start paying for it. "Socialism! Taxes!" everyone screams, but really all that's happening is the subsidy is going away.
Oh, we're going to have a "socialist" law that the ER is not allowed to turn people away, even if they can't pay? "No problem," says everyone. But then if you try to reduce the total amount that ERs subsidize people, by forcing them to pay their bills in advance (post a bond or buy insurance), suddenly it's "Obamacare is socialism!" despite it being a slight move to the right from how things had been before.
I think one thing that is happening, is that in situations where government is already neck-deep in highly regulating a thing, some libertarians are saying "well, if 95% of voters say we can't get out of this, then we can't get out of this, no matter how much we want to. So.. how can we make it better, given that we cannot possibly escape the socialist framework?" A libertarian can do that, and rationally. And with Republicans in power making changes purely based on corruption and optimizing the "wrong" things (i.e. changing the law to make it easier to steal from people) this invites optimizations from everyone. And without any representation in government, libertarians have nothing better to do than get involved some other way. So for anything we're not allowed to truly "fix," we "settle" for trying to make it better than it was. Libertarians are taking "good enough" because they can't get "perfect," especially right now.
When Democrats return to power, libertarians will rise again to fight them. For now, though, we're going to find ways to get along. The enemy of our enemy is our friend. And Republicans are everyone's enemy, whether you're authoritarian or libertarian, whether you're left or right. Republicans have unified everyone against them, making odd bedfellows.
Libertarianism is great if you have very low population density and no resource scarcity, but the higher the population density, the more liberal society needs to become in order to not collapse in on itself.
I see, again, hot discussion about the similarities, or not, between socialism/communism and the nazis.
Here is something to think about.
The first democratically elected president of my country after the fall of the wall was a philosopher and a dissident. Why was he a dissident?
Well, back in the 60-ies he wrote a book. Called “The Fascism”. The communists were very vocal about the fact that we were with the germans during the war and claimed that all those people they killed, tortured and send to camps (all the way until the 80-ies, mind you) were fascist, helping the fascist government. So, I guess at the beginning they liked the subject of the book.
However, when the author characterizes the fascist state, listing all those features (economic, social, religious, racial ect.) that we discuss in this tread it turned out that our society, the one we knew so well, the one we lived in every day checks all the boxes that the fascist checked!!! Without saying one direct word against the communist regime, the author exposed them fully, for anyone with more than 2 brain cells to see. It was poetic, truly poetic!
Well, the communists did not miss this. The book was banned and taken away from shops and libraries. Of course, they never stated a reason, just in case they don’t point the obvious to those with less than 2 brain cells. And they did not really prosecute the author; did not kill him or threw him in a Gulag. Just quietly kept him under wraps. After all, that book was elucidating what horrible criminals the fascists were; how inhuman their doctrine was. Oh, the delicious irony!
Look chaps, it does not matter that nominally both ideologies begin from supposedly the opposite ends of the political spectrum. They both end up in the SAME PLACE! And both have been tried all over the globe, so we can’t pin it on a particular person (Stalin was bad, but Brezhnev was good!) or particular culture (all continents participated).
I am still not sure why this is, although when it comes to the communism I think it is the equality of outcome doctrine that fucks up everything. After all, nothing in nature has equal outcome, not even the stupidly named “spectrum” of human sexuality. Every spectrum expresses different frequencies with different intensities. If they are all expressed equally that is called “noise” and it is not very helpful. The other state with equal outcome is the heat dead of the Universe (maximum entropy). In short, if there is no difference, there is no potential. No potential, no driving force. No driving force, no nothingoh, and just to make matters more perverse, the commies encourage us to perform. Yes, they did! I got numerous awards in front of the whole school for excellent marks. However, they used the doctrine to remove inconvenient people. If I became inconvenient, all of a sudden, all my successes would be due to my “privileges”, for instance my “bourgeois family”, which I did not have but that does not really matter, they’d find something to hang me for. Isn’t that funny! Doesn’t it remind you of what is happening every day in our society? Where people, like those techies, who got there by being better than others, working harder than others, competing with other, all of sudden find all kind of “privileges” in others who are successful, forgetting they are also in the 1%. I mean 90% of the conversations between my parents about their work had to do with yet another incompetent ass who rose to prominence due to loyalty to the party line and uses the system to remove the competent, the conscientious and the knowledgeable.
When it comes to the fascist it seems that racial superiority is the alarm word, after which we should stop listening to whoever is advocating italso, since that doctrine does not try mimicking itself behind “universal brotherhood” or any number of seemingly good ideas, it is easier to identify and dismiss.
Just my 20 cents (wrote a bit too much for 2)
... that Nietzsche is an idiot by the time they finish high school.
I guess the valley is just catching up?
I mentioned:
--
Wealth-building is no different. You can either complain that some people do smart things, or you can start doing smart things too.
--
In my experience, getting rich has been way more fun than mental masturbation and complaining. The classic text on how to do so is "The Millionaire Next Door". A more up-to-date book that's similar is "Everyday Millionaires". If you don't want to spend $15 for the book, Chris Hogan's podcast is free and makes good listening while driving.
So you say. Who are you? Nobody special or of authority. The greatest trick Satan ever pulls is convincing others he didn't exist.
Nothing wrong with that, government is a tool that should be used to create a more just society. I've exhausted all patients for libertarians who think they get to own something just because they have a peice of paper saying so. Time to break out Madame Guillotine and put all those billionaires and corrupt plutocrats in their place. Even if it fails and we end up worse than before, then damn it, we at least fucking tried instead of accepting our role as powerless peasants.
Atlas Shrugged is a 1957 dystopian novel by Ayn Rand. The theme of Atlas Shrugged is the decadence of the civilization as a result of a progressive change in the scale of values of the society, where most people doesn't believe anymore in free-will, meritocracy, entrepreneurship, and hard-work as a mean to obtain success. Instead everybody start to believe that the ones that are "lukyest" should work more to provide to the "unfortunate" ones. And the society decays because in little time every "lucky" start to behave like "unfortunate" and no "unfortunate" wants to became a "lucky" one.
Seems to me it's an example of what happens when you take the worst bits of socialism - unrestrained government funding - and combine them with the worst bits of capitalism - unrestrained free markets applied where consumers are not free. With that combination, no wonder it's a mess.
Unionization is not inherently socialist, nor is it inherently anti-libertarianism.
The heart of Libertarianism is property rights and with them the power of choice. The power to choose what you ingest, choose where you go, and choose who you associate with. That choice of association extends to unions and the employer/employee relationship. An employer should (but legally can't in today's environment) be able to have a policy that says "if you attempt unionization, you will be fired". Just as employees should have the ability to unionize at any employer that doesn't have such a policy (or form their own company if they wish for such a place of employment) and anyone that doesn't want to join said union should be free to say "no".
Saying "forming a union" is socialist shows one's ignorance of the matter. Socialism forbids choice, it forces things upon people via government decree (i.e. the violence of government). Socialism funds itself by stealing from others.
Voluntary unionization is a perfect demonstration of Libertarianism and is the antithesis of Socialism.
All the libertarians and socialists I know are wonderful Scotsmen. You'd think they'd all get along great.
You can have your unionization bs as long as laws are passed that donâ(TM)t force me to contribute or be in one. No thanks.
Only if you don't compare the difference in spending, and ignore who they're insuring. 'Cause those government programs are paying less for the same procedures as private insurers.
When a private insurer negotiates with a hospital, the price is always "Medicare + X%". The value of X is what they negotiate, and X is always positive.
Also, old people are expensive, medically. And they're on Medicare.
Seems to me it's an example of what happens when you take the worst bits of socialism - unrestrained government funding - and combine them with the worst bits of capitalism - unrestrained free markets applied where consumers are not free.
Only when you don't know that private insurers pay more for the same procedures.
Private insurers always negotiate with providers a price that is "Medicare + X%", where X is always a positive number.
The reason government dollars spent is relatively high is the expensive people are insured by the government. 65+ people are expensive, and on Medicare. Disabled people have little-to-no income, so they qualify for Medicaid. Your average 20-something doesn't need treatment for getting a limb blown off, but if they do it's likely they're a veteran and thus covered by VA or TRICARE.
The greatest trick Satan ever pulls is convincing others he didn't exist.
Wait...doesn't GOD play that same trick?
... would unions and worker protections be considered "socialist".
In much of the rest of the developed world, worker rights are considered good things.
Bzzzt. No. Wrong.
I had a friend who who was murdered last week by a libertarian. Shot in the back four times because she didn't want fuck him.
Except for the not very bright ones
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
See subject: Not even a "nice try" MOVING GOALPOSTS & God isn't telling everyone "I don't exist" moron. Satan does. You just did it FOR him you weak minded dolt!
APK
P.S.=> MAN, you are STUPID & WEAK, no questions asked... apk
APK just pointed out you are trying to MOVE GOALPOSTS since you're losing badly against him https://politics.slashdot.org/...
I'm not shooting him because he's violated the law. Note that I said 'plug's, IE shoot, not kill him. If he survives, he can stand trial for his crimes.
I'm shooting him to stop him from being an immediate lethal threat to me and others. The same reason the cops would most likely shoot him - him being an active spree shooter.
I don't read AC A human right
For all the thought libertarians put I to self defense, it isn't actually a violent philosophy. The workers shouldn't attack factory owners, and factory owners shouldn't be hiring the Pinkertons to commit violence against the workers.
Destruction makes everybody poorer.
I don't read AC A human right
Libertarianism works great when you're an uber-genius (no pun intended) living in a region filled to capacity with other uber-geniuses and more money floating around than you'd ever be able to spend. It's a very intoxicating combination to be fawned over by VCs and startups for your brilliance, to be paid multiples more than most mere mortals make, and to see limitless opportunity. It's easy to just say everyone who isn't you is dumb, lazy and doesn't deserve help. It's also easy to say that you and your company are job creators and everyone else is just stealing from you...and be rewarded for that opinion if you're in the business owner club.
Where it doesn't work out so well is after all the work is gone, after all the VCs have moved on to a new shiny thing and you suddenly aren't on top anymore. I think smart people are slowly starting to see that automation is going to destroy jobs fast and replace them with fewer, lower-paying service jobs...faster than anyone could "learn to code" (which is the popular phrase we hear from the tech libertarian crowd.) Unregulated capitalism or libertarian capitalism isn't compatible with an economy where most people don't have work. It works well when companies have tons of money floating around and lots of slack in the system that allows them to employ more than the bare minimum of people. But when even smart people don't have jobs anymore because knowledge work is automated or offshored, the whole consumption cycle will break down because no one can afford to consume. There are millions of mid- to even high-skilled people who are doing work today that's going to be some of the first to go, and some of that work requires years of education and is high-paying.
If we don't want to go to state-owned everything, I think the only thing to do is to adopt some socialist policies. And yes, that includes make-work jobs. Everyone wrings their hands so much about a basic income guarantee, so I don't think we could do that. But if we want to keep the system in place where everyone goes to a job and works for money to buy things from companies that employ everyone, what's the alternative? The less socially adjusted among us (of which techies are a disproportionate amount) might start suggesting population control and that doesn't lead anywhere good.
Then ask if your american democratic republic is like North Korea....
See https://abettereconomy.org/
Barn raising and the "mom and pop" is pure socialism: the people help each other in the former case, with the knowledge of what goes around comes around, and literally the worker owned their means of production in the latter case. It was after the homesteading act that allowed the privatisation of land, removing the ability of ordinary americans to own their land that ended socialism in the USA, and it is why so many westerns show rich landbarons being the bad guy over the gritty lowly homesteader or freeroaming cowboy,
There is no way for someone to "own" more than they can physically protect without government lending their power, and a socialist government refuses, by definition, to do that. So if you demand to own that 1000-seat factory, good luck running it on your own, because that's all you can do in a socialist society.
Libertarian used to call themselves anarcho-capitalists, and anarchism is a socialist doctrine.
NAP
sov
https://www.heritage.org/pover...
Poor as defined by the US "poverty line".
Read it and weep.
The typical poor household, as defined by the government, has a car and air conditioning, two color televisions, cable or satellite TV, a DVD player, and a VCR.
By its own report, the typical poor family was not hungry, was able to obtain medical care when needed.
The typical average poor American has more living space in his home than the average (non-poor) European has.
And the final line of your post spits it out for real: You "hate Trump". Congrats. I'm sure that makes you special. Everyone? Everyone? Virtue being signaled! Everyone notice!
-Styopa
That's the entire point of Sanctuary Cities. They provide sanctuary to otherwise "illegal" immigrants.
For my money I'm far more concerned about legal immigrants. H1-B and H2-Bs take jobs Americans want. I could even live with that if we had a single payer medical system, a robust safety net and tuition free colleges. In other words, if I was getting benefits from the wealth generated by immigration.
I mean, realistically birthrates are down and like it or not will likely continue to drop. That appears to be what happens in modern, industrialized societies. So if you're planing on retiring you need immigrants to keep the economy going so your investments aren't rendered worthless.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Couldn't find any numbers for "permanently unemployed" bullshit but here is an article looking at long-term unemployed:
In March 2019, there were 1.3 million long-term unemployed individuals. That's 21% of the unemployed who have been looking for work for six months or more.
It's a significant increase over the record-low rate of 13.1% recorded in May 2018. But February's rate is still better than the record high of 46% in the second quarter of 2010. The number of long-term unemployed dropped below 2 million in May 2016.
The rate is also better than the darkest days of the 1981 recession. At that point, 26% of the unemployed were out of work for more than six months. Total unemployment then was also worse than it is today. The overall unemployment rate was 10.8%. Although the Great Recession initially created a higher percentage of long-term unemployment, it has subsided.
In any event, with the Baby Boomers starting to retire, an honest person would probably expect that bullshit number to go up.
When you're young, for some, it's easy to forget they're part of a wider context So Libertarianism is appealing. But as the years go by most people realize they aren't alone in this world. There are family. There are neighbours. There are friends. There are heroes and villains and they all touch our lives in many ways. We learn we are stronger together than standing alone. Game of Thrones even gets it: "When Winter comes, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives". Libertarianism is great when times are easy. But when times get harder, you want to be part of a community that looks after its members. You can call that family or community or a country with democratic sicialism. Same thing. Only the scale changes. People cooperating and supporting each other at home, around town, across the country...and even around the world. But open and transparent and democratic and good people working together in good faith. Weed the crooks and cheaters out.
Only boring people are ever bored.
25 investigations into his ass? that sounds like a Chuck Tingle book
Yet the American system is very inefficient when compared to public systems that *also* cover the elderly. The explanation needs to be a difference between America and other developed countries. The US does have a large number of veterans, that is true, even proportionally, that is a possibility. Yet another possibility is that the US has no part of its health infrastructure run by the state. And for inelastic services, like health, running a part (mind, not necessarily the whole of it) of the market by the State turns out to be a great thing. The current state of things is that the American public and the State are captive and subjected to the collusion of the whole healthcare system.
One American physician once told me that most physicians familiar with the systems used in other countries are aware of this. But they get a fat share of the money (more than other professions) so few are eager to launch a reform movement.
Coincidentally, the story broke today that the oil lobbyist who heads the Department of the Interior is now under investigation less than a week after starting the job. His name is David Bernhardt, and it turns out that the dude is up to his eyeballs in grift.
https://splinternews.com/trump...
You are welcome on my lawn.
Saul Alinsky is a FUCKING jew SATANIST https://duckduckgo.com/html/?q...
In fact - I'd like to make him live up to LIVING after my FIST blows right thru his maxilo facial structure into his SHITBAG brain & right back OUT the other skull of his WHIMP fucking SKULL!!!
* I hate devil worshippers... the 1 set of people I truly, Truly, TRULY hate - why?
THEY ARE FOOLS! Believe in the KING of LIARS, Lucifer? That makes you STUPID!
APK
P.S.=> Raise hell in life so you have POWER in hell? FUCK YOU... apk
WTF kind of a world do we live in where a simple attempt to improve working conditions gets someone labeled a socialist?
Boeing has an Engineer's Union. Might want to check into how that works before signing up.
BIG TIME!
For my degree, working at Boeing was the Hold Grail, well, for most people. They only interviewed the very top schools and people with 4.0 GPAs, which pre-emptively helped me out. At graduation, a friend got hired, joined the union and began to lose money every year thanks to the union-negotiated 3% raise every 18 months. It didn't keep up with inflation at the time.
In my first few years at my job, I was getting 15% raises annually. Then I changed jobs after 7 yrs for a 20% raise and moved away. Over the next 3 yrs, I doubled my salary, then became a consultant and negotiated an hourly rate that was a 40% raise. Got a few token raises 1-5% over the next decade before retiring in my early 40s. Those were not annual, as the client company when through expansion and contraction. During contraction periods, they laid off employees and about 10% of the consultants. Most of the consultants were doing 2-3x the work of 1 employee. The last few years, I was leading the design for systems between $25M and $200M in total budget (SW, HW, FTEs) with between 10 and 20 active projects at any time.
My point is that if you are better than average, unions suck.
If you are below average or just lazy, then unions will probably be better for you.
Oh ... and I refused to work over 40 hrs per week without being paid. The guy who approved my weekly hours asked once, so I said that he was violation federal employment law and sent him a link to the .gov site with the law. He was just lucky that I didn't let all the other consultants in my role know that too. A few of them were working 60+ hrs a week, but only billing 40 hrs. Idiots.
When I work, I work hard and expect to be paid. Period.
I never said how much of the nation's healthcare was being provided by Medicare or Medicaid. Obviously, those programs arrange payments for healthcare for high-cost patients.
What I was pointing out is the OVERHEAD.
The Overhead is the cost of the paper-pushers who handle all the paperwork, NOT the costs of the meds, not the docs and nurses, not the hospital rooms, THE COST OF THE BUREAUCRACY.
Private insurers squeeze themselves in order to maximize the profit margins for their shareholders precisely because they are accountable to those shareholders. As a result, the private insurers have a high incentive to minimize the overhead and run as lean as possible and they avaerage about a 3% overhead cost on the healthcare they provide.
Government agencies have no such incentives and actually have counter-incentives in the form of geovernment workers' unions with ties to politicians - they not only never feel the need to be efficient, but they often get benefits from being inefficient (example: nearly every federal agency rushed to spend all remaining cash on hand at the end of each fiscal year so that in the buget talks for the next year they can complain they ran out and need more in the next budget). The entirely predictable result is that the government entities that manage healthcare (Medicaid, Medicare, the VA...) average about an 8% overhead cost. So-called "Medicare for All" would actually inflate the medical overhead costs of the nation by about 5% (just ballparking here) by moving the coverage for about 150 million people from the commercial sector to the government sector.
Again... this has NOTHING to do with risk pools and such matters; we're just talking about the overhead costs - the money that is allocated to "healthcare" but actually just goes to the paper-pushers processing forms and such things.
Old people get health problems and are expensive. Young people are both vulnerable to many diseases early in life and exposed to lots of potential injuries as they play and explore and generally act recklessly and impulsively. This is a constant of the human condition, and you can only [possibly] change it with a police state that forces people to eat certain things, not eat other things, not drink, not smoke, forces people to exercise, etc.
Nobody want to live in such a police state, and the evidence from places like the Soviet Union and North Korea teaches us that even those levels of jack-booted thuggery are not sufficient to get people to live healthy enough to fix any of this.
For purposes of political discussions of heathcare and/or payment schemes for healthcare, several rules should apply:
1. Denial of the basic laws of economics (like supply&demand) should be off limits; any scheme dependent on an alternate economic reality will fail in the real world.
2. Denial of human nature should be off limits; any scheme dependent on an alternate human nature or a re-trained humanity will fail in the real world.
3. Imaginary improvements due to automation should be off limits until proven; any scheme dependent on better or cheaper outcomes (for example from "going paperless" or adding robots) will fail if those improvements do not work as planned, so they should not be factored in until proven in the field.
It was a fascinating upset that handed him the win last time.
I don't suspect those people will be giving him another shot.
I don't think anyone will have a choice about "letting a Dem" win unless they try to run someone even worse than Hillary.
Yet the American system is very inefficient when compared to public systems that *also* cover the elderly.
Medicare and Medicaid are not actually that inefficient. There are some political landmines that make them less efficient (most notably, the ban on Medicare negotiating drug prices).
Also, when you compare the per-patient cost on these systems, single-payer is cheaper because of all the young, healthy people covered by those programs. They're really, really cheap from an actuarial standpoint.
Yet another possibility is that the US has no part of its health infrastructure run by the state
Uh...the VA has hospitals. Also, the most common model for single-payer systems is the government pays for services, not that the government owns the infrastructure. Off the top of my head, I can only think of the UK where the government actually owns the infrastructure.
Since when are they libertarian? They have been socialists for as long they have been relevant.
Less than 2% of the population has an IQ of 80. Would you like to talk about average anything, or would you like to talk about people who severe mental disablilities?
It kinda sounds like you may be suggesting that we should all be treated like we have major mental disorders, with the elites in Washington managing our lives.
So would you like to talk about mentally disabled people, or would you like to talk about the average burger flipper (seventeen years old, anxious to see which colleges accept them), or would you like to talk about the permanent burger flipper (skips school, shows up to work stoned, etc because they habitually chooses immediate gratification over long-term good, where long-term is anything more than a week)?
Well, if VA is Virginia, I don't know how much impact in the national system a single state can make.
France does own and run public hospitals. Germany does have a sort of insurance (even the public part is called insurance), but a majority of the hospitals are owned and ran by public universities. Apparently, wikipedia does call the German system multi-payer.
In Sweden most of the hospitals are ran by the state, so does Denmark (though the private sector seems to be a lot bigger in the latter). Those are the first 4 European countries that I looked up. Of course, I started with some of the biggest economies in Europe, but nonetheless, it seems to indicate that running at least part of the health infrastructure by the government is the norm. All of these countries are different from the US, and you won't find the case of there being great differences between states/provinces in the healthcare system (maybe in relative quality/coverage).
Maybe the European Union has Union-wide stats so we don't have to estimate from a limited sample
Only thing I noticed is you trying to run a line of bullshit by citing Heritage foundation. You'd have more cred citing the Enquierer. GTFO with your conservative shill bullshit!
I forgot to mention, I like your signature.
It reminds me of an eponymous law I read the other day, which I don't remember exactly. Something like "there are always people who think just as well, but differently, than you".
Of course this conversation may end up taking a trip through Hauser's law.
Anyway, it sounds like you'd like to discuss low-IQ people? It seems to me, based on personal experience, conversations with people from other countries, and the data I've seen, that far more people have trouble because contemporary American culture emphasizes instant gratification, de-emphasizing planning ahead and long-term thinking. That's the change that made a radical difference in my life, and it's what people from other countries comment on. Americans suck at thinking past next week, they say. Apparently we do a terrible job of instilling delayed gratification in our kids. So we eat horrible junk food that tastes good but makes us feel yucky even a few hours later, and that extends to all of our life decisions.
To me, addressing long-term vs short-term thinking seems like it may be more fruitful, but if you'd prefer we can try to figure out how society should deal with low-IQ people.
Fuck OFF. You came here to demonize the unions and then proceed to preach at us to stop "constant demonizing".
Seriously fuck off and die. We don't need anymore of you hypocrite conservatives around here.
That should be:
I was the envy of the other homeless people
Not;
I was the envelope of the other homeless people
A minor point: VA in this context means "Vetern's Affairs", which is the healthcare system run by the federal government for military vets.
Well, if VA is Virginia
"The VA" is the Veterans Administration, the insurance program for veterans. It's run similar to the UK's NHS, in that it owns the infrastructure, directly hires the doctors, etc, but is only available to veterans.
but a majority of the hospitals are owned and ran by public universities
"Owned by a public university" does not necessarily mean "Owned by the government" in a way most people would consider it.
For example, in the US there's a hell of a lot of hospitals that are named [public university name] Hospital. They're technically owned by the university, but they're a separate corporation. The government doesn't actually run it. The government may own the stock of the corporation. They're run the same as any private, non-profit hospital.
There's also a matter of the difference of owning the literal building and actually running the hospital in that building are two different things. And a significant portion of those [public university name] Hospitals are in situations where the university only owns the building and the land.
Basically, a hint is "are the doctors receiving their paycheck directly from the government treasury?". And AFAIK, that's pretty rare (Admittedly, I am going from memory on that, so it's quite possible it's not as rare as I think).
This is nothing more than the "don't you know Nazis were socialists? It says it right in their name - the National Socialists Party! derp derp" argument with more words. Communism and fascism are polar arguments, and no amount of capitalist propaganda is going to change that fact.
And the freedom to go right back to your six figures in student loan debt, and paying five figures in health insurance and deductibles before you get one cent in coverage. And the freedom to move into a cardboard box under a bridge if the capitalist gambles you've taken don't pay off.
And you wonder why millennials compare the shit sandwich that has been handed to them next to the social democracies in Europe, and take a hard pass at the prospect of more shit sandwiches.
Bullshit. The long term health of the union is utterly dependent on the long term health of the industry that employs it. Which means you don't have "unsustainable" wage increases for the workers. As opposed to corporate executives, who DGAF if they run the company into the ground, either because they plan to move onto the next company in short order or collect enough stock option and bonuses to where they can retire.