Hacker News Reader

Comment by indigochill | Hacker News Reader

Reading this headline I was reminded of the cyberpunk dystopia where corporations own their employees. By colleges costing more than an individual can afford and corporations paying for an individual's education, you get a system whereby individuals become effectively indentured servants paying off education debt to their employer (there are already government jobs where this is basically the way it goes). Student loans are predatory but at least let you change employers in theory, but if you're indebted to a specific corporation then things are potentially even more dire (unless you have other means to buy your way out).

But on the other hand, I can't blame Walmart or any other non-education company for high tuition and I think it's good they give employees the opportunities to get a practical college education.

View on HN

I don't think your dystopic vision is what's happening here. From the article:

> The Walmart employees will not be obligated to continue working for the company after they get their degrees, and must put up only $1 a day toward the cost of classes.

Perhaps. But it certainly is yet another incremental step, among many others, back towards that dystopic vision.

No it's not. It was much worse before. This is in fact a step forward away from that dystopic vision.

Is it? Wouldn’t it be better if the loans were not needed because the education would be paid by state? Doesn’t this actually cement the current situation?

No - this is a raise in the form of subsidized education, and it's hard to see how that's worse. I'm very dependent on my employer because I live off of my salary, but that doesn't make it a dystopia. If they wanted me to learn X, and paid for my training in X, I may not enjoy that as much as the cash value of the training but it's still a benefit to me. For Wal-Mart, the employee can leave whenever, they will either forfeit their incomplete program or graduate and now have a degree.

This is literally the classic CFO/CEO exchange:

CFO asks CEO: What happens if we spend money training our people and then they leave?

CEO: What happens if we don't and they stay?

But what education? Are even half of those graduating in a program that is in relative demand? I think that higher education funding, if publicly funded, should be entirely based on demand and merit.

I mean, I sometimes feel that we’re already close, but instead of college costing more than people can afford it’s healthcare. Less indebted, just screwed if you get hurt or have a pre-existing condition while out of a job.

I don’t think this program is anywhere near as bad as that healthcare structure, but this is just another case of corporations taking up what could have been a responsibility of the state.

It’s better than both corporations and government leaving people in the wind though.

Exactly. Wal-Mart isn't going to pay for your Computer Science degree. They have a narrow window of programs and it's to get people back who will help grow their business.

The people above you will never give you the education needed to overthrow them.

Would that be Jennifer Government by Max Berry?

At least the companies would be risking the investment in college tuition rather than the taxpayers.

> At least the companies would be risking the investment in college tuition rather than the taxpayers.

I think that contributes to the dystopia. Then companies get more power, controlling who gets educated, the content of their education, the method, etc. If it became widespread, how much influence would companies have over universities? Would research detrimental to corporations be possible?

Democracy is a great thing; it gives power to the citizens. If we cut back government, we redistribute that power to the already powerful people and institutions. (To be clear, there is a balance to be had; government is good for somethings (e.g, defense, justice, education and health care), private business is good for others (e.g., making cars and software).

Nah. Companies don't have coercive power. Governments do, even if directing that power according to the whims of democracy.

> If we cut back government, we redistribute that power to the already powerful people and institutions.

I reject the implicit assumption that there is a "conservation of power" law at work. Just look at authoritarian states vs freer countries: there is no entity in the freer countries exercising totalitarian control over the citizens. This means that the total power exerted on the individual is not conserved.

Some of these things have existed in the past. See company towns, where employees were forced to spend private currencies at shops owned by the same people they worked for.

A workers dystopia has already happened, unions and legal changes to work hours & pay got rid of it. As unions lose power (rightfully, due to colluding with the bosses) and laws are torn down to remove regulation, these conditions will return. Zuckerberg and Google both want to build "cities". For who? Their employees.

"A workers dystopia has already happened, unions and legal changes to work hours & pay got rid of it. "

They did, but over the last 50 years or so, we've seen the erosions of union power and the erosion of legal protections for workers. Don't imagine that the fight is over; it's still ongoing.

Yeah, that's kinda the point I was making. People have stopped caring and the ones opposing these reforms have leapt at the chance to get rid of them.

union lose power much more frequently from collusion between conservative lawmakers and businesses writing laws against unions, like ELEC does.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com