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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

When shipping firms moved to shipping containers mid 20th century, the productivity gains were split between corporations and the union to buy out longshoreman so there was a graceful transition out for these folks who were no longer needed. (Check out the book “The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger - Second Edition”, which goes into some detail about this)

It’s not having systems in place like this that give our society a bad name. The US is one of the richest country in the world, no lies needed to say we can’t afford it (we can afford it) or don’t have the legal framework in place to institute it.

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Our lack of a system to prioritize incumbents also gives us our good name, and the wealth you mention. We can absolutely take better care of people out of work, but "change requires the consent of everyone affected" is not the path.

That would be labeled socialism. Seemingly all it takes to defeat a proposal in US politics.

I assume more success will be had as suffering reaches a tipping point. Change happens slowly, and then all of a sudden. I’d just like people to be able to avoid the interim suffering, but empathy seems to be in short supply compared to capital.

Transitioning to electric mobility is necessary, but if you’re treating workers inhumanly (possibly contributing to deaths of despair in middle America), what is the point of progress? We can treat citizens humanely and deliver on the progress we desperately need, I have no doubt about this.

The word socialism has lost the sting. Considering one of the top presidential candidates has been running in the platform for decades. And the DSA has made large gains in liberal cities.

Simply calling something socialism isn’t the scarlet letter it used to be.

The more that capitalist greedheads label anything that involves being nice to people instead of seeing them as perfect libertarian spheres who act only in their own absolutely rational financial self interests as “socialism”, the more people who give even half a shit about their fellow humans start to think “socialism” must be pretty good.

You would think, but not quite. Blows my mind how many of those same people are living off of or approve of social security just in my own social circles.

I don't know why you've been downvoted. I've also watched this change unfold in big cities on the East and West Coast, most strongly among younger voters, since Bernie's candidacy in the 2016 election.

Yep it’s frustrating to be downvoted for simply pointing out the political elephant in the room.

Not sure why socialism has such a bad rap. The opposite is asocialism (a society based on "avoiding social interaction; inconsiderate of or hostile to others."), which can't be good for any society.

Socialism has a bad rap because it comes with a monetary cost. The powers that influence and control legislature today are foremost interested in personal profits - policies that improve society but cost money to do are uninteresting to such parties because, by the nature of them controlling most of the money, most of the funding for such programs would have to be taken from them.

Its financially beneficial to use corporate control of the media to influence and propagandize culture to be antagonistic towards policies that would help the majority but would cost the rulers. Having a protracted half century long war against a nation self-proclaimed to be socialistic was the perfect scapegoat to justify their actions to moderates and rally a base against the ideal for purely selfish motives.

It’s also a false dichotomy. Government has never considered its income when figuring its expenses. That’s just a rhetorical trick politicians use to say they don’t want to do something that’s otherwise popular.

The Cold War is definitely why the S word is so reviled.

One reason is that a lot of European countries have been moving away from socialism and freeing up markets due to their recognition of how stagnant their economies become in the 1970s.

Socialism sounds great if you make the mistake of assuming there are no downsides.

There are no purely capitalist or purely socialist societies, everything is a mix, even the US. The trick is finding the right balance between incentive and fairness.

I'd argue that the US needs some more fairness at this point in history given the income inequality increases since the 60s (gini coefficient), but without removing the incentives which drive the economy.

I see very few “drivers of economy”. This site is a testament to the concentration of wealth and high paying work in very few places. I say the US needs a governmental works program for literally every locality. Something to drive infrastructure through the last mile everywhere. Everyone having decent (doesn’t have to be “great”) pay would curb many societal ills.

One option is remote work for governmental programs. It may even need to include a counter propaganda system similar in numbers to what other governments are employing to prop up internet trolls.

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