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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.
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.
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.
Who cares?
Slashdot's owners, apparently, as they are quickly throwing that "socalism" label onto unionization. Trying to pounce on this grenade early and make sure the serfs remain libertarian, are you Slashdot?
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!
I'd be really interested in hearing your explanation for this that focuses on the fact that libertarianism is a very broad term that encompasses (among other things) a lot of leftist ideologies.
Are you sure you're not just being a reactionary and associating "Libertarian" with a very specific form of American conservatism?
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!
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.
What you're referring to is generally a straw man picture that replaces libertarian with anarchist.
"Don't teach a man to fish, feed yourself. He's a grown man. Fishing's not that hard." - Ron Swanson
...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.
libertarian with anarchist.
You're being redundant. The problem is the purists who refuse to face reality discredit the entire concept.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Funny! I agree.
The result of "defining" those words is more confusion. Nothing as useful as a quilt.
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.
Exactly. The purity quest is what paints them into the corner of reality. Libertarianism as a side-bent is not a bad thing at all. When it supplants all reason and logic external to itself, that's a problem for any ideology.
Capitalism and socialism both require a balance (and eachother, realistically, at least in practice) and the "pure" Libertarians are instead unilateralists who put the individual's "right" above the collective rights of all. It's inherently self-defeating, like pure Capitalism or pure Socialism die in their different ways.
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].
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.
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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"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
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.
As the poor class grows, and as opportunities for upward social mobility sink, popular interest in socialism grows.
This is an entirely predictable result of the above-mentioned conditions.
As popular interest in socialism grows, political candidates will seek to cash in on that interest in order to further their own careers. Again, predictable from the above conditions.
So long as there is a correct balance between socialist policies within a functioning capitalism (example: property taxes paying for public school to teach people how to compete in an open market), things will be fine. But once socialism replaces capitalism as the dominant economic model, disaster will ensue.
> 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
Actually, I like to think that words have meaning. I say just the opposite, as a libertarian, I see many that call themselves libertarian who are actually confused anarchists.
As such, I have to acknowledge their presence. But I am a very unusual libertarian, I've gone so deep into the philosophy that I've come out the other end in some ways.
That said, if workers want to organize, as a libertarian I view that as their right. Though I do indeed say that the company can subsequently chose to fire the union if they want. If the workers are strong enough, that will kill the company, but it is all about balance. If the workers form the union right, they can keep it such that firing them, the union, is more hassle than its worth, while still winning more benefits.
I don't read AC A human right
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
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?
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.
Ultimately all systems die in the face of human failings. Capitalism dies for the obvious reason that there are capitalists far-and-above all capital...the multi-billionaires that can distort the economy and politics alike. Socialism dies when society stops believing in its own good, or because of external governance that's not really considerate to society as a whole. Communism dies because it splits society into the haves and the have-nots, with the haves being government. It's just like capitalism but with a veneer of "it's good for everyone".
Every system will fail. Invent a new system and it will fail. They fail because of human failure, and that's intrinsic.
Amazing turnout. Thousands of people holding hands and chanting “Better things aren’t possible”.
Shamelessly stolen from here
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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.
Socialist publication (Salon), says people like socialism, because a few people are "attempting". Yawn.
Wake us up when you want to discuss something other than obviously biased propaganda trying to further an agenda and create a narrative for the media to adopt where one doesn't already naturally exist.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
>"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...
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!
Communism would work just fine if it were run by a benevolent A.I.
Libertarianism would never work. It was founded on the ideals of total individual freedom including the freedom from all government interference and taxation. I've never talked to a libertarian in person who believed we need taxes or any form of publicly funded government. They all believe that people will contribute out of the goodness of their hearts to pay for all the things that taxes currently pay for. When pressed if they will guarantee they will contribute the same amount as their current tax burden they will beat around the bush and give excuses as to why they can't guarantee they would contribute the same amount they currently pay in taxes. There is the problem. The majority of libertarians want to do away with taxes and are expecting the rest of society to pick up the tab. They aren't going to give 25% of their income to pay for all the things a society needs to function like public schools and roads. They believe that others will pay for all of that and that they can keep every penny they make.
Libertarians are just greedy folks who don't want to pay taxes and think that they should be able to do whatever they want without any consequences. They think they should be able to build a four story house on their property and do it all themselves without building plans or a licensed plumber and electrician because of "muh personal freedoms" but they don't give a fuck about the safety of their neighbor if their shitty ramshackle construction should fall down and crush their home. It is a system built on the ideals of greed and "FUCK EVERYONE BUT ME" and that can't work unless you live out in the middle of nowhere and have no interactions with everyone else. In a country with 330 million people that will never work and it can never work. It is a fantasy that overlaps way too damn much with doomsday preppers who think they can survive the apocalypse with room full of guns and 2 years worth of shitty dehyrdrated food. It's people living in a fantasy world where they get to do whatever they want with no thoughts about everyone else living around them.
Libertarians want complete personal freedoms and that just is not possible in a civilized society. Part of living with other people means you can't just do whatever you want whenever you want because your action effect all of the people around you. Like it or not we all have to live together and that means we can't do what we want. I hope the folks who just can't deal with that reality can get wealthy enough to buy their own private island and enjoy it for a few years before sea levels rise and their island paradise is under water. But back in the real world we will have to live next to each other and that means society needs rules and a system to enforce those rules to keep everyone civilized.
You're being redundant. The problem is the purists who refuse to face reality discredit the entire concept.
True. That also applies to just about any ideology or system of thought humanity's ever pursued.
I don't trust atoms -- they make up stuff.
> Communism would work just fine if it were run by a benevolent A.I.
Might as well say libertarianism could work if humans were perfect and altruistic.
Communism will never work because the perfect AI will never exist.
The only reason I can freely change jobs is because unions have made that possible. Otherwise, company stores and forced purchases would still have enslaved many workers, making a change of jobs impossible. Collusion between employers to not hire uppity folk would not be something they would try to avoid because of fines, but standard practice.
A good union (and not the guild-type of union the US is riddled with) defends the legitimate interest of all workers in a branch or sector. Even the "smart" ones that think they can handle lawyers and corporations on their own - while not realizing that that only works because there is an overheating economy and a labour shortage.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
. 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?
If you have useful skills, companies will compete to hire you.
There is no potential for collusion if people actively want to hire you. Those things only make sense for people who are replaceable.
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?
How fucking detached from reality are you?
You're competing for work with people earning $8k/year. Even in the US over half of households have less than $60k/year income. That's households, not individual salaries.
$100-200k/year is a great salary. If you can't afford to live on that the issue is not the fucking salary.
Leftism is inherently a simplistic political perspective that presumes all political views fit on a linear scale.
It's such a childish notion that it lacks any credibility in adult discourse and is thus pointless to compare to also simplistic but at least defined philosophies such as socialism.
I don't need to be a rich American to realise you aren't even attempting a sensible conversation here.
Those things only make sense for people who are replaceable.
So for the majority of people it makes sense to unionize :)
Also, collusion in Silicon Valley makes a lot of sense: the opportunity loss of not gaining a new employee you really wanted is much lower than the cost of paying all those other people a lot more than you otherwise have to under no-poaching agreements. Remember: people find it extremely hard to judge competence when someone is more competent than they are themselves. Are they 2x as competent or 10x, or just 1%? They have no basis to judge this. So collusion keeps costs down, and they'll take the risk of losing a desirable software engineer because it works both ways (they also get to keep someone that would otherwise pack up and move).
In other words, the potential for collusion is a huge and certain cost saving, while not doing it is risky and uncertain. Guess what managers like and don't like?
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
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.
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
You might as well say democracy will work with perfect knowledge and 100% voter turnout, or a Republic will work with saints to represent us.
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?!
I think the concentration of wealth is where libertarians diverge with one another. Some see, as I do, the concentration of wealth in the extreme as being the equivalent of concentration of government power. And therefore something that society has a legitimate concern to regulate against.
Unions are just corporations. People associating and pooling resources towards greater benefit to themselves.
Not really.
On principle, the goal of libertarianism is simply to preserve individual choice wherever possible. Smaller government that provides less direct interference or control over people's lives is the result, but it's certainly not a call for no government and there's no point at which it ceases to work...because it's simply a goal to preserve where possible. Any hint of "purism" would remove the "where possible" with "everywhere"...which is closer to anarchy.
Simple examples:
Schools. Preservation of choice would allow parents to decide that a particular school is a better fit for their child than another and have the choice to send them there. The schools can still be public schools, accessible to everyone...but the individual or the family has a choice rather than the location being forced on them.
Basic Income. Rather than welfare, food stamps and many different programs that have specific restrictions on what you can and can't do with the money a basic income actually fits libertarian philosophy because it puts the money in the hands of the individual and allows them to choose how to use it themselves.
Government. Federal laws essentially remove individuals from having any say in how they are governed. Having the law exist primarily at more localized levels (state, county and city) rather than federally allows for the maximum degree of freedom of governance for individuals. They have the ability to choose to move when legal objections are strong and the ability to contact politicians, run for local seats, etc to influence things directly. The state of California has a higher population than Canada...there's very little reason that California should primarily be legislating itself. There's also very little reason that California policy should be pushed in Nebraska.
These are clear, simple and straightforward principles that work in literally all scenarios because they are goals and not hard lines. Sometimes those things will not be possible, but as long as the respect for individual choices is a core tenant the results become better for everyone. The only place where these ideals don't work is for people who quite literally want to determine how other people should be forced to live their lives.
"Don't teach a man to fish, feed yourself. He's a grown man. Fishing's not that hard." - Ron Swanson
Let's just say they were a mixed blessing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The fact there is a whole folklore surrounding them, complete with protest songs, does indicate a few issues at the very least.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
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.
> 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?
It already exists. Look in the mirror. Obviously, perfect AI eventually forgets how to think.
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.
Or, you can beat the shit out of the contingent workers and burn down the plant. That was how labor progress was won. Oh, and mobs showing up at the owner's house.
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.
Unions are an effective way for the select few at the top of the union to become incredibly wealthy, and for employees to have a portion of their paycheck forcefully taken with little to no actual benefit. It's also a fantastic way to destroy a small business operating on a thin or negative margin, such as most game studios.
Citation: The 3 unions I've been forced to pay throughout my life, while still earning minimum wage with no health care.
Sounds like somebody hasn't actually studied history. The company stores - the only place you could spend your company scrip, often charged several times as much as the public stores down the street. Nobody in their right mind would rather get paid pennies on the dollar, even if it means avoiding taxes.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
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.
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.
So it was rigged and that is the basis of your defense of company stores as a benevolent policy?
"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.
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)
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.
GP is kind of the norm these days. It's how we get dumb politicians without an education, like AOC, in office. They, along with their voters, have no fucking idea what socialism actually is, or what its consequences are. They think Nordic countries are socialist (not even close) and also stupidly think that what works in one country will work everywhere. History is full of examples and lessons learned, but again, having that education would have helped.
The new slashdot handlers need to come up with better headlines.
The answer is No.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
No.
"in the vast majority of cases, that the story is tendentious or over-sold. It is often a scare story, or an attempt to elevate some run-of-the-mill piece of reporting into a national controversy and, preferably, a national panic. To a busy journalist hunting for real information a question mark means 'don't bother reading this bit'"
** Marr, Andrew (2004). My Trade: a short history of British journalism. London: Macmillan. p. 253. ISBN 978-1-4050-0536-4.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
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.
A good union (and not the guild-type of union the US is riddled with) defends the legitimate interest of all workers in a branch or sector.
No, that is wrong. A union protects its members. Full stop. Those members are coerced to be part of the union as otherwise they won't have a job. All other workers in the field, that are not part of the union, are harmed by the union as they are not allowed to compete as individuals.
A union is just another layer of management that uses labour to hold a company hostage while seeking to control the workers itself. If you can believe in the existence of good unions then you should have no problem in believing in the existence of good management under which unions are not neccessary. It's not the 1930s anymore.
In any case, I have never met anyone that was happy working in the union. At best they had the attitude that they were protected from one bully by another bully.
There is no potential for collusion if people actively want to hire you.
There's this thing called history. You might want to spend a little time learning it. Because what you claim is impossible actually happened.
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.
Except for the not very bright ones
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
No.
No liberal anywhere thinks that the value of a man/woman is set by his/her market value (the 1% dictate).
And that is the root of Libertarianism
Slashdot's owners, apparently, as they are quickly throwing that "socalism" label onto unionization.
That label is also mis-applied. Socialism has nothing to do with the idea of unionization. Which is simply workers forming an organization of their own free will in order to win concessions (better pay, less overtime) from the management of the company they work for. The socialist label would only apply if the workers in question were forced by law into joining a union.
I'll admit that as a libertarian-minded worker in the animation/game industries in my 20's, I didn't grok this distinction properly. There was talk even then of doing something to address the crazy working conditions, and raise the pay – which I rejected. But my 45 year-old conservative-libertarian minded self can now see just how stupid it was to work 12+ hour days for such crap wages. If I hadn't left Silicon Valley just prior to turning 30, I never could have gotten married and started a family on what little I was making. I saw friends with high-profile jobs at places like Lucasfilm, Dreamworks, and Pixar that were barely getting by. Lucky to be able to buy a money-pit fixer-upper in the Sunset district, and have one kid that they might get to see on weekends, if at all.
You mean things like:
"...workers across the video game industry -- generally among the most overworked, underpaid workers within the tech industry..."
or
"... grueling work culture and a high-profile collusion scandal among major tech corporations to suppress software engineers' wages..."
You mean that stuff. Moron.
And how would a "benevolent" socialist A.I. avoid the need to use force against the humans who don't wish to follow its dictates? Is Libertarianism only unworkable because you've chosen not wave the magic tech wand at it?
There is a reason why human-organized systems break down, and the Catholics even have a word for it: Subsidiarity. Humans function best, regardless of the type of government they're under, when decision making is left to the lowest possible level of the hierarchy that still serves the common good. But as a system's decision-making is inevitably raised to higher and higher levels (the autocratic King/President/CEO, the Supreme Soviet, Billionaire Corporate & Bank Cartels... etc.) then corruption sets in and rots away the ability of the people at the lowest level of the system to make their decisions locally and rationally according to their specific situational needs. Eventually, all decision-making becomes top-down and irrational, and the system collapses. Due to the inability of those wielding the power (and making all the decisions) to understand, much less care about, what's happening to the people at the bottom of the power pyramid. Sound familiar?
Some governmental forms are more resistant to this rot than others, or rot in different ways. But the solution is the same: De-Centralize the decision-making of the system to the lowest hierarchical level that serves the common good.
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
"Socialism" is a loaded word. The problem is a lot of Communist Countries used the Term Socialism as part of their excuse for heavy handed violations in peoples liberties. While Socialism, isn't communism, or even opposed to capitalism, Socialism, is more of rule of thumb to apply regulation on areas showing a trend to be be more harmful then good, and making sure there is a social safety net available, to allow people the ability to take risks in life.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
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.
"But these kids grow up into adults that have families and they just want their money."
I think that's definitely true. The late 90s were like this too...companies would just exploit the latest generation of college grads used to dorm-like living and all-nighters. Free food, wacky furniture and a playful workplace don't cut it when you have a family to support and have to spend millions for a house in SV.
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/
Yes, the is a well founded security concern about their revolutionary guard infiltrating our infrastructure. But so do the Israelis and that doesn't stop them from being hired
Probably because most people in the US want the nation of Israel to succeed, and are not interested in the same for the government of Iran. IE, if some secrets get leaked to the Israeli Government, they don't particularly care.
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.
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.
You and GP identified the problem. Humans acting like humans.
Indeed if all humans are well-informed and rational Saints (also a sort of oxy-moron) any system would work reasonably well to varying degrees - Monarchy, Democracy, Socialism, Communism, Libertarianism and whatnot.
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.
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)?
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.
That should be:
I was the envy of the other homeless people
Not;
I was the envelope of the other homeless people
Ha ha.
"They disagree with my political sacred cows, therefore they MUST be wrong, d'oh!"
When your opponent attacks the messenger and not the facts, you know they know they're losing.
-Styopa
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.
No. The goal of libertarianism is to remove any roadblocks to exploitation or inherited wealth, while not wanting to pay any taxes on the ill-gotten gains of said inheritance or exploitation.
It's those same "rules and regulations" (yes, pushed by the left) that attempts to guarantee clean water, clean air, and safe place to live. Without those "job killing regulations" we see time and time again "capitalism" completely destroy the environment, lives, our way of life, and rights, just so those in charge with power can get more power and money,. Don't blame "rules" on the left when the right would happily kill everyone for a dollar. What happened to the GOP being stewards of the budget - as soon as they get a President, the budget deficit skyrockets fed by gimmies to the rich. Look at Wisconsin, Scott Walkers failed deal with Foxconn. Look at Kansas, the GOP slashed taxes and regulations and ultimately devastated the budget. Even the Patriarch of Trickle Down Economics, Ronald Reagan, had to raise taxes 11 times in his 2 terms because his VooDoo economics was such a failure.