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Comment by makotech222 | Hacker News Reader

Congratulations, you have discovered socialism. Most people find extreme injustice in seeing the value of their labor being stolen by the capitalist class. Socialism is an economic system that does away with the employer-employee distinction and allows all workers to take ownership of their own labor. In practice, this means the democratization of the workplace, and the end to the autocratic workplace.

Edit: To actually answer your question, perhaps you should think about politics, and fight for a future where no one should suffer like this.

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Owner of a business here... I'm 6 years into owning my own business and things have grown year over year for the company and we are doing quite well. In theory, the democratization of the workplace is a nice idea, and I initially tried to build my business around this idea. But over my time running things, I've realized that hierarchy is necessary, especially when things start to scale up. One of the biggest things I've come to realize is that most people take comfort in structure: what time to arrive and what time they can leave, specific directions on how to do their job and what exactly their job is (or isn't), when they will be paid, etc. As things begin to scale up in a business, it's necessary to create specific roles and specialized work for things to operate efficiently, and while a healthily functioning company relies on everyone doing their job well and working together, every role in the company does not carry equal weight, either because of the skillset or knowledge base required to perform a given task or because of the network and social abilities of a given person might open more doors for the business. People also go through different stages in their personal lives where they might be more or less invested in the work they're doing, and when you're an employee you have the luxury of checking out every once in awhile. For better or worse, good owners are married to their businesses and don't have that luxury.

I'm still learning and I consciously try to value the input of each employee and make myself openly available for criticism when it's called for. I also realize that the temptation is there to siphon off marginal profits into my own check, but I think that's short sighted if you have good employees who do "own" their job and are growth minded. Investing in those types will only pay dividends. There's a balance to be had, and it sounds like the OP needs to find a company where he feels better respected and supported. Maybe pay is a component of that, but communication and a healthy culture are also pieces of the puzzle.

Democratization of work doesn't mean zero hierarchy. It means the workers get to choose how their labor value is used. It is perfectly acceptable for a majority of a company to decide to elect a CEO and form a capitalist-style company, but it is important that it is their choice to do so! And of course, they would still retain their right to revoke such a hierarchy.

So what's stopping this from happening now? The existence of other firms where employees own 0% shouldn't negatively impact worker-owned cooperatives, right? If anything, coops should be at an advantage because no one is sucking out all their value!

So why don't we see more of that?

My theory: corporate tyranny is commonplace and accepted, and a democratic (or more likely, a republican) workplace is new and different, and a lot of people are rightly suspicious of building their lives on a new and possibly unstable foundation.

Also the law is set up assuming the firm will ultimately be run through a single point of authority, and if you want to run the place as a coop you'll face investor uncertainty and legal difficulties.

Most of all, the US culture doesn't have much in the way of cultural norms for a firm like this. We have centuries of experience working in a hierarchical style workplace, but people don't really have manners for working in an democratic firm, and there would have to be a lot of time and energy spent on cultural factors that a conventional workplace doesn't have to.

Does this make any sense at all?

It's hard to raise money for such a business, because venture capitalists typically aren't willing to loan a new business money- they want ownership equity for their money. And at that point it's no longer employee owned. In fact small business loans specifically exclude any new business from consideration- established businesses with documented profits only, thank you very much. So usually employee owned businesses start out privately owned and then the employees buy out the original owners at market prices. I think there is hope though- there are financing options for cooperatives starting to appear here and there, still on a very small scale though.

I see that happening only under an employee owned company. Most companies start small though, with 1 to n founders and/or equity owners. I think it takes a special owner and a very special set of employees for an owner to later abdicate control back to their employees.

Socialists have a particular hate for voluntary leftist organizations that allow choice, and then have the workers choose individualization, mostly because that's exactly what open communes keep doing, and it destroys them.

For a good example, see the evolution of the Kibbutzim system in Israel and what sort of image Israel has today in leftist circles (and the image and reputation Kibbutzim have in Israel's own considerable leftist parties). You will see that leftists cannot deal with individual choices and, also, that allowing individualized choices will destroy any leftist society. Therefore, they cannot be voluntary.

Absolutely.

>I resent spending 48 weeks a year in an office and stressing over issues that will only make the company's owners richer but won't change much for me. I say don't change much because a 2-3% raise once in a while is nice, but it's nothing in comparison to the thousands/millions extra it will make the company, while the only result for me is that I get to keep my job and do more of that.

Who wouldn't resent it? Who wouldn't resent the fruits of their labour being reaped by someone else? Who actually thinks it is fair that you work hard to make your boss millions?

We need to radically rethink our current system of wealth distribution. Propaganda and US intervention have succeeded in preventing socialism from taking off anywhere in the first world or succeeding anywhere at all. How else can the majority of people tolerate feudalism in the 21st century?

Or maybe most people just don’t have such a simplistic view of the world?

People who advocate for socialism just want the rewards of capitalism without any of the risks.

Well seeing how most Americans haven't been getting the rewards of capitalism(wages have been stagnant since the 70's, regional inequality + healthcare + housing has made the actual COL much higher), it makes perfect sense that people would start pushing for something different.

Our system isn't perfect, and capitalism overall is shit, but actual socialism somehow manages to be worse. Americans aren't clamoring for socialism.

> Americans aren't clamoring for socialism.

In fact Americans are inexplicably voting for the absolute worst proponents of capitalist corruption.

Shh, no one is supposed to know. --The 1%ers

https://local.theonion.com/ceo-worked-way-up-from-son-of-ceo...

Yeah, we wouldn't want people being wealthy beyond belief without deserving it. I can tell that you don't know the first thing about socialism.

I'm perfectly fine with some people ending up with undeserved wealth if it comes along with higher prosperity for everyone. Capitalist-leaning systems have an unbelievable track record in this regard, while socialist utopias all seem to wither and die, usually while impoverishing, starving, and murdering millions in the process.

To be clear, I'm not talking about social democracy, and I'm not talking about more mixed economies, which all developed countries have to some degree. Capitalism isn't perfect. It's horrible in many respects. Call me when you have something better, because socialism isn't it.

Higher prosperity for everyone? Who are you talking about? I'm pretty sure the bottom 95% of capitalist countries are in complete poverty.

In 1820, the vast majority of people lived in extreme poverty and only a tiny elite enjoyed higher standards of living. Economic growth over the last 200 years completely transformed our world, with poverty falling continuously over the last two centuries. This is even more remarkable when we consider that the population increased 7-fold over the same time. In a world without economic growth, an increase in the population would result in less and less income for everyone. A 7-fold increase in the world population would be potentially enough to drive everyone into extreme poverty. Yet, the exact opposite happened. In a time of unprecedented population growth, we managed to lift more and more people out of poverty.

...

In 1990, there were 2 billion people living in extreme poverty. With a reduction to 705 million in 2015, this means that on average, every day in the 25 years between 1990 and 2015, 137,000 fewer people were living in extreme poverty.

Socialism didn't do that. Capitalism and liberalism did.

Source: https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty/

The 20th century has thoroughly proven out the naivety of this position. Political and economic systems conform themselves to reality, not the other way 'round, for better or worse.

The reality is that we live in a world of scarcity, and have unchangeable biological impulses toward hoarding resources and other exclusionary survival behaviors. Capitalism provides the _most fair_ solution under the unchangeable physical realities that govern human life.

You can't wave a political magic wand and do away with all unfairness in the world. A lot of people tried that over the last 100 years. One quick honest look at the wreckage should be more than enough to disabuse anyone of these ideas.

>The reality is that we live in a world of scarcity,

Since the 1980s we have been producing enough food to feed everyone on earth. So to take that example, of that basic necessity, there is no scarcity. From that moment on making sure nobody starved ceased to be a problem of scarcity and became a problem of distribution.

>and have unchangeable biological impulses toward hoarding resources and other exclusionary survival behaviors.

I have a biological impulse to kill people who cross me, to shit on the street, to steal things I want, if given the chance. The proof of that is that for the vast majority of the existence of our species this was how we behaved. Nevertheless I tamed those impulses. No reason why the impulses of hoarding for myself to the ruin of others can't be tamed as well.

>Since the 1980s we have been producing enough food to feed everyone on earth. So to take that example, of that basic necessity, there is no scarcity. From that moment on making sure nobody starved ceased to be a problem of scarcity and became a problem of distribution.

Scarcity is a feature that exists due to physical limitations and processes that have a) shaped human evolution for millennia, socially and biologically; and b) have not ceased since the 1980s. We may produce enough food to feed everyone on earth by some metrics, but that doesn't mean that the principle of scarcity is irrelevant in either the theoretical or practical sense.

>I have a biological impulse to kill people who cross me, to shit on the street, to steal things I want, if given the chance. The proof of that is that for the vast majority of the existence of our species this was how we behaved. Nevertheless I tamed those impulses. No reason why the impulses of hoarding for myself to the ruin of others can't be tamed as well.

Negative default behaviors are mitigated through systems that recognize, acknowledge, and cooperate with the human impulse instead of trying to deny its existence or inevitable operation. If bathrooms are too far apart or the wait is too long, then people don't use them and yes, will alternately relieve themselves on the side of the street.

We need to carry some of that realism into our economic and political discussion.

Most people find extreme injustice in seeing the value of their labor being stolen by the capitalist class.

Nonsense. Most people don’t think their labor is stolen or find extreme injustice in getting paid for their labor. You need to get outside your bubble.

To elaborate: it's not stolen if you previously signed a contract that the employer can have it.

Otherwise every trade would be theft right?

Hardcore socialists apparently think that’s true. After all, if the other person wants it, they must be taking advantage of me! They all operate from a fixed pie / scarcity mentality, and must have missed the basic economics class where you learn that parties can trade where ALL end up better off than if you didn’t.

Of course, but it’s hard to argue that because a trade is advantageous to you, you cannot attempt to create the conditions where it’s even more advantageous. And in negotiations, you should strengthen your BATNA (best alternative to no agreement) and that of the other party’s. So you could see class struggle as a strategy to improve the starting positions in a negotiation, if that makes you happier :-)

A mugger doesn't steal from me, if I hand my wallet to him, right?

Analogously to how this is theft because of the threat of violence, so it can be argued that it is also theft/extortion due to the threat of leaving you and your family homeless and starving if you don't take my offer right now.

There’s a market for labor too, so it’s not like most people have only the choice of one employer’s offer or starvation. And no one is arguing that we shouldn’t have a social safety net of any kind to improve the BATNA of employees.

I think you are in the bubble. How much of the world do you think gets paid fairly for their labor? The First-World conditions of America and Europe are buoyed by the dystopic conditions of labor in the Third-World. And these conditions are very visibly creeping into middle class America as well.

Compare global poverty (especially in developing economies) today to 50 years ago and tell me again about the dystopia the average human is living in because of capitalism.

If I was going to be reborn in a random country, I’d sure rather it be in 2017 than 1967, and I feel optimistic that 2067 will be much better still.

Sure here's the comparison data: http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-sta...

And my favorite part:

"For economic growth and almost all of the other indicators, the last 20 years [of the current form of globalization, from 1980 - 2000] have shown a very clear decline in progress as compared with the previous two decades [1960 - 1980]. For each indicator, countries were divided into five roughly equal groups, according to what level the countries had achieved by the start of the period (1960 or 1980). Among the findings:

    Growth: The fall in economic growth rates was most pronounced and across the board for all groups or countries.
    Life Expectancy: Progress in life expectancy was also reduced for 4 out of the 5 groups of countries, with the exception of the highest group (life expectancy 69-76 years).
    Infant and Child Mortality: Progress in reducing infant mortality was also considerably slower during the period of globalization (1980-1998) than over the previous two decades.
    Education and literacy: Progress in education also slowed during the period of globalization.Source 29"

TL;DR: Capitalism is unsustainable. We need a new system.

Doesn't seem like the highest-quality source and I'm pretty skeptical of their conclusions, but regardless:

Your TLDR doesn't make much sense. So we're making less progress for the last 20 years (but still making progress) therefore capitalism is unsustainable and we should replace it with the same tired system that's been tried over and over again for the last century without even a hint of success?

OK.

Large amounts of global inequality are because, to the very recent times, most of the people in the world lived under communism, which kept them in poverty (often extreme). The rest of the world was lucky to enjoy massive increase of standards of living thanks to capitalism, which created a chasm. Only now, as capitalism has spread to most countries, the global inequality is decreasing (see ex. increasing wages in China and stagnant wages in US).

Socialism as you’re portraying it here doesn’t exist, does it? Or can you provide some examples?

The model where social democracy works best seems to be the Nordic model, but this is expressly NOT socialism as you’re defining it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model

So please, where’s this utopia that you’re telling OP is the answer to their problems?

And where it works best also tends to me culturally homogenous with very little diversity.

Socialism is only a valid answer if you don't understand technology. If you think there's a fixed pie and we have to forcibly break it into rations so that everyone gets at least something.

But technology offers a much better solution, which is grow the pie large enough that everyone has as much as they want. There are no physical limitations to this concept. The universe is rich with everything we need for billions of years. Karl Marx didn't understand asteroid mining.

And it turns out that unchecked capitalism is shit but it's just the right kind of manure for the garden of technology to bear its fruit of panacea.

This is a sentiment that I think is termed "technological utopianism" and it has limits: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_utopianism

Or more generally, this is just a description of Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology

There may be "limits" in terms of scope and trade offs to society, but there are no practical "physical limitations" with respect to available atoms.

I'm not so sure that there are no physical limitations to technological growth, which is ultimately a function of investment in to technology.

https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist...

Marx wasn't really advocating that there is a fixed pie which needs to be forcibly carved up. Mostly he built his ideas around the distinction between different kinds of "value", particularly the labour value and exchange value of goods.

His clever insight, the basis of his theory of exploitation, was that labour value and labour power are different. The labourer sells labour power. The difference between the labour value of the good and the labour power sold accrues to the capitalist.

One of the several ways he was wrong was that prices aren't really set by labour value at all. All economic value is subjective, influenced by many factors. The average amount of labour is neither here nor there.

For the last 50 years, the pie has gotten larger and larger. And yet, the median slice is getting smaller. How big does this pie have to get before everyone is allowed to have a bite?

Why do you say the slices have gotten smaller? The absolute percentage of people in poverty in the world has had a very rapid decline over the last 50 years. So something we are doing is working.

I don't think you know what socialism is.

Could you provide an example of socialism done right (not social democracy) where you'd love to live?

You can build your socialist enterprise in any capitalist system, it's not like it's forbidden as long as you pay your bills.

Yes, because a socialist enterprise can exist in a system where the ultra-wealthy capitalist can

1. Buy out the company and outsource everything 2. Buy out the politicians and make laws against them 3. Use their extreme wealth to sabotage their business. 4. In the case of other nations, embargo them and assassinate their leaders, stoke pro-capitalist revolutions.

Examples: See Cuba, USSR, entirety of South America, Vietnam, etc.

Ah...I see now. Socialism has failed miserably everywhere it’s been tried, but that’s not socialism’s fault! It’s capitalism’s fault! The big bad capitalists ruined it by meddling! If only socialists could be left alone, they’d finally be able to create paradise.

I’m straw-manning here, but only a bit. Not only is this cliche defense of socialism not logical or accurate, it’s impractical.

So you need a world without adversaries or people with entrenched power before you can create your utopia?

Good luck with that.

Liberalism went through the same period. Ever hear of the french revolution? Then the Napoleonic wars?

The same is and will happen with socialism. The status quo benefits a select few people (Monarchy, at the time), who will do their damndest to keep it that way. Eventually, enough people will rise up and make change happen.

You may be right about things eventually changing, but I think it'll be due to post-scarcity due to technological progress, not because people will rise up.

What you're definitely wrong about is that the current status quo benefits a select few. It's not equally distributed (although neither would socialism be), but almost everyone on earth today is much better off today than they would have been without capitalism, liberalism, etc.

But I'm tired of providing examples of why, especially when the alternative being offered is a theoretical utopia that's basically a more extreme version of some of the most cruel and deadly regimes earth has ever known.

I was going to say the same thing but you beat me to it. Without some form of profit sharing or stake holding by employees, there is simply no way to make the workplace fair. That fairness was traditionally sought by unions but they have lost much of their influence for political reasons because of their relationship with socialism. Richard Wolff has talked at length about this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynbgMKclWWc

http://www.democracyatwork.info/

Thom Hartmann's programs are another good source:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWUI-94b3iI

https://www.thomhartmann.com/

Socialism gets a bad rap in the US because it has been abused in the past to give rise to things like fascism and communism. But many social democracies (much of Europe) today enjoy high standards of living and I would argue are focused more on culture and the pursuit of non-material goals than the US.

We're at a crossroads where the middle class is on the brink of failure due to decades of trickle down economics (Reaganomics). Things like the upcoming tax cut will likely lead to stagflation (high inflation and flat wages, last felt in the 1970s) because there is no mathematical or economic basis for lowering taxes in boom times under a high national debt. So this will be the third bust I've seen (the dot bomb and housing bomb being the others) since the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed in 1999 by the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act. Keep in mind that we had almost 70 years of relative stability since it was implemented:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_legisla...

The current trends are towards maximizing concentration of wealth, not just in the US but under multinational corporations. Think of boom-bust cycles as being similar to stock market volatility. The most money is made when prices fluctuate the most, so elected officials are under tremendous lobbying pressure to maximize these peaks and troughs. Meanwhile the working class feels the brunt of the effect, worst for people who have no savings or investments and find themselves overworked/underpaid during boom times and unemployed during down times. They have no investments so miss out on the share of profits made by the wealthy (in effect, a poverty tax).

I’ve tried not to politicize this too much but there are very basic left-right divides at work here and I was born in 1977 so have only witnessed conservative economic policies (Clinton and Obama mostly maintained them, there have been no top marginal rate hikes to pre-Reagan levels of perhaps 50-75%). Incomes flatlined sometime around 1980 and in very real terms, workers today are earning roughly half what the baby boomers earned, adjusted for inflation:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Productivity_and_Rea...

This is probably due to several reasons, a main one being that more women work outside the home today so there was a doubling of the labor pool which put downward pressure on wages. But that’s not enough to explain it entirely. I put the blame squarely on regressive tax policies, for example the separation of income and capital gains tax (so-called earned and unearned income). Net income should probably all be taxed the same way, under a fair tax bracket scheme, preferably a mathematical curve of some kind:

http://occupywallst.org/forum/simplest-suitably-progressive-...

A flat tax is far too regressive, but something approaching linear on a logarithmic scale could work.

What this all means is that it's going to be up to us to work towards some form of progressive taxation or dreaming into the future far enough, a universal basic income like Star Trek. That may require taxing robot labor or coming up with new forms of taxation like putting sales tax on stock trades. If we educate ourselves in things like civics which are no longer taught in school, we can get a picture of what it was like when the US was more democratic and able to change its course. So to answer the original poster’s question: too many hours, too little pay, and to add insult to injury: no self-determination (freedom) in the workplace.

But I think if everyone knew the history of how we got here, it would no longer be ethical to exclude workers from reaping the fruits of their labors via the distinction of employer and employee. And I think that with full access to information, we arrive at the conclusion that progressive taxation is the quickest and most proven way to create a middle class. I don’t think of these things as socialism but that label is used to discredit otherwise logical conclusions in socioeconomics.

Just want to point out. Socialism doesn't give rise to fascism in any way. Fascism is basically late-stage capitalism, and a rejection of socialism. Communism is late-stage socialism, which is a utopian society.

The words are a bit bundled up in usage. The communist revolution lead to a State-Capitalist USSR, which most scholars would say is not what socialism actually is (as per your Richard Wolff videos) I suggest watching his intro to socialism videos to get a clear understanding of the terms. The USSR revolution was supposed to bring about a socialist society, but Stalin basically decided that being in a State-capitalist society was good enough, and ended the transition there.

Ya I was thinking of WWII Germany but I’m not sure if the Nazi party was really socialist or just used the term in place of populist.

"Democracy at Work" http://www.democracyatwork.info/

I seriously hope you're joking. Can't be sure nowadays.

Anyone who thinks this is a great idea should take a trip to Cuba.

Seriously. I had the same affliction and about 8 days into Cuba I was totally cured.

For those of us who can't go to Cuba (I'm sure there are a lot of us), could you say more about what was wrong with it? Also there are lots of other factors I'm sure that could contribute besides just that its socialist.

Cuba is a cherry-picked example and is misleading.

Other socialist countries that are doing better: China; Denmark; Finland; Netherlands; Canada; Sweden; Norway; Ireland.

Don't forget Cuba has been forced into economic isolation by the US. And places like Venezuela and Detroit were overly dependent on too few industries and are plagued by massive wealth inequality.

You can also find persistent systemic poverty in capitalism: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0185084916...

How do you define a socialist country?

By including China, I'd say, very broadly?

I agree, China doesn’t meet the criteria imo. It’s totalitarian, nationalist and it does not provide socialized medicine - it has more in common with the US than with the other examples, I believe. Over the years they’ve been moving to privatize many industries - not all though.

Interestingly the Western leaning Taiwan usually portrayed as the capitalist counterpart does provide socialized medicine, having quite recently de-privatized the system with great results.

Too complex for an HN post and ultimately my definition will far too short, so I'll just cop out by saying "I know it when I see it".

Usually defined by a relatively more weighted public sector ownership and operation of the factors of production. It's about worker control. And my overall feelings of it is relative to places like the U.S. which practices a form of democratic-ish corporatist oligarchy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it

In the context of this conversation, where your efforts won't go to improve the wealth or power or status of your boss, I'd say you'd have to get pretty socialist to solve that problem.

There is social democracy and there is socialism.

I am totally with social democracy like your European examples where health care, education, and other things are basic rights and investments that everyone in the country should enjoy.

That said, nobody in Norway or Sweden are guaranteed jobs and the working culture is actually pretty similar to the most of the west, including having to work for demanding bosses.

True socialism is a nightmare that guarantees nothing more than everyone has the same, which is usually very little.

I don't think anything like "true socialism" could exist. Just like "true capitalism" or a "true scotsman".

> My boss getting a new Tesla or yet another house from the extra profits doesn't make me happy.

Hang on, last I checked everyone still gets employed in China; Denmark; Finland; Netherlands; Canada; Sweden; Norway; Ireland the same way they get employed in all the other countries. All the bosses in those countries you mentioned still drive the new Telsa and have bigger houses. So wouldn't this kind of socialism not actually be a solution for the OP's problem?

In these countries there is a larger tax rate and a much larger safety net for those who cannot or do not work. In addition, the government provides basic services like health care and, in some countries, child care that do a lot to close the gap. In most of these countries, they don't really have a conception of working "full time" vs. "part time," due to provided health insurance, meaning that people generally have meaningful work life balance. They also have better law around collective bargaining and the rights of employees. But yes, they're not like the USSR where everyone is provided with some kind of job.

There are arguments against socialism, but pointing to a small country who's been embargoed by a local juggernaut for decades is not a strong one.

Can you elaborate? Specifically:

* Out of the dozens of countries that have/had socialist governments (let's ignore those where US intervention prevented that from happening, against the will of the people) why did you choose Cuba?

* What failings of Cuba do you attribute to socialism, and do not see happening in capitalist countries?

Take a trip to any non-first-world capitalist country. Funny how only a handful of countries benefit from capitalism, while the rest have their resources and labor pillaged. Sounds a lot like a capitalist business.

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