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Comment by mattkevan | Hacker News Reader

It’s not so much hiring people more interested in activism than their jobs, it’s that Google positioned themselves as something better than all the others. A company determined to do the right thing.

This naturally attracts people who are interested in making a difference and want to work somewhere that aligns with their values. You don’t go and work for somewhere like Phillip Morris or Oracle if you care about making the world a better place - and neither company would claim they’re trying to do so.

But Google said they were different, and it’s disillusioning to discover that somewhere you love and have worked hard for is just as evil as everywhere else - moreso as it wasn’t up-front about it.

And then you’re going to want to do something about it.

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Except, most companies make the world a better place. On the whole, private enterprise is almost entirely responsible for humanity's rise out of impoverished suffering over the past 200 years. The global interconnected nature of private enterprise is the reason we don't have as much warfare anymore, and why the world is safer than it's ever been in all of history.

I don't think Google's internal troubles are due to attracting people who want to "make a difference." I don't see employee activism getting out of hand at medical device companies where the products they make literally save lives. Nor do I see these same issues at non-profits.

> The global interconnected nature of private enterprise is the reason we don't have as much warfare anymore, and why the world is safer than it's ever been in all of history.

That’s a reach. Global interconnected private enterprise was widespread before both ww1 and ww2. We haven’t had a war between major global powers after ww2 because of MAD and Pax Americana.

That depends on your relative definition of "widespread." Was globalization widespread in 1919 compared to 1819? Absolutely.

But the globalization of our collective economies in 2019 is dramatically higher than it was in 1919.

Also, how was the US able to fund the massive buildup of arms and the Manhattan Project...which ultimately led to Pax Americana and MAD? By taxing the massive wealth generated by private enterprise.

Warfare is down even between nations who wouldn't fall under the definition of MAD (no nuclear weapons programs). How do you explain that if not for the aligned incentives created by a global economy?

This is a completely backwards and incorrect perspective on history. Funds from taxing private enterprises were not what funded the war and the postwar boom; on the contrary massive Government deficit spending sustained both the war and the postwar economic boom.

On the contrary, the idea the US government created this money from nothing is the backwards perspective. How does government deficit spending happen? Via the sale of debt (ie. Treasury bonds).

The reason people are willing to buy US government debt is because they are confident the US government will be able to pay them back, with interest. Why are people confident in the US government's ability to pay...and where does this money come from? The strength of the growing US economy and the money the government will derive from taxes on this growth.

Or conversely, let's look at what the US government spent that money on: supplying the war machine via US industrial capacity. That industrial capacity wasn't created out of thin air. Take a look at Detroit for example. Absent the existing industrial capacity enabled by the automotive industry, the allies would likely have not won the war.

Both the ability of the US government to deficit spend, and the things they spent that money on, were a direct result of the strength of the US's private enterprise.

There is absolutely nothing about private enterprise that enabled deficit spending or confidence in US’s future. The War Department collaborated very closely to retool existing industries and also help create entirely new ones by sharing technology and designs with the private contractors; it could have simply nationalized them and there would literally be 0 change in confidence in US treasury bonds. Fundamentally, the distinction on how you choose to organize your means of production doesn’t really matter all that much, and certainly doesn’t matter as much as you seem to believe.

The fact that USSR was able to ramp up its industrial output, maybe not as high as USA but much higher than most other countries, refutes your point that private enterprise was not really needed for war effort. Because USSR, due to communism, had no private industry.

The USSR was a one trick pony: narrowly specializing in warfare. When this specialization became less relevant due to MAD, it fell apart.

It had slave labour though.

Have you ever read about the history of the USSR?

If you include the millions who died in various famines as well as those that were executed directly by Stalin, the number of victims of the USSR has been estimated to be anywhere between 6 and 15 million people.

The Soviet Union has to be the worst counterpoint to anybody arguing against private enterprise.

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