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Comment by antisoeu | Hacker News Reader

"authoritarians" - is that what they call entrepreneurs these days?

Personally I think the category "employee" should be forbidden. It is a pure social construct. Why is anybody entitled to be an "employee" and bitch about "authoritarians"?

Everybody is an entrepreneur. If you have nothing, you sell your body and work hours. But that's just a contract like every other contract.

In any case, if those workers don't like the authoritarians, they are free to start their own companies. Then they get to call the shots.

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> "authoritarians" - is that what they call entrepreneurs these days?

Yup, and I don't think it's a bad thing, necessarily.

Of course they're authoritarians, you do what your boss says or you get out. That's authoritarianism. That doesn't mean it's wrong or bad or ill suited to the task, necessarily.

Singapore is authoritarian, and I'd say things are working pretty well there.

> Personally I think the category "employee" should be forbidden. It is a pure social construct.

Don't know where you are, but in the US, the category of employee has different tax implications for both the individual and the employer. In addition, depending on the industry and role, employee status is often correlated with significantly better benefits.

It's still a social construct - all the laws, even nations, are social constructs. I'm saying there should be no special benefits for employees.

And I'm saying there should be no special benefits to management :)

There aren't any.

Can managers not fire people?

A manager can terminate a work contract. In most parts of the world, the worker on the other side of this contract also has that same ability to terminate the work contract, so I'm not sure if I would consider that a "special benefit."

Can you fire your plumber, dentist, lawyer,...?

> It's still a social construct - all the laws, even nations, are social constructs.

So? Social constructs have a lot of teeth in the real world, and always have. Wishing them away won't have any effect.

> I'm saying there should be no special benefits for employees

So are you arguing that those benefits (i.e. health insurance) should be universal? Or are you making the argument that only those in a position to pay should have access to those things?

"Wishing them away won't have any effect."

Laws and social constructs can be changed.

As for health insurance (as an example), how do you justify giving health insurance to employees, but not to other people, like self-employed people?

I don't which is why I support socialized single-payer medicine.

However, to address your question more directly, contractors are employees as well. It's not the job site's responsibility to provide health insurance, it's their employers. Contractors still have employers, you know.

> Contractors still have employers, you know.

This is true for vendors, but direct 1099 contractors are self employed.

I would argue that they still have an employer, themselves, who is responsible for providing that health insurance.

That's nonsense.

In your terms then, just let everybody be self-employed and contract them, rather than employ them. That's the same result I want, that people are responsible for themselves and making a contract with somebody to do some work for you doesn't come with any additional baggage. Just plain money for work.

That would be doable if the U.S. had a robust social safety net for all these contract workers, namely health insurance for those in between jobs. Right now relying on employers for insurance has been a terrible hassle.

I'd actually be okay with that if there was a robust social safety net, yeah.

Actually, your point reminded me that a great many employees don't receive health insurance through their employer. Those people are disproportionately low wage workers. Before Obamacare, they had no option but the very expensive individual health insurance market.

> Everybody is an entrepreneur. If you have nothing, you sell your body and work hours. But that's just a contract like every other contract.

This is a fake world. In the real world there is history, capital and labor, and politics which is an expression of the unavoidable, built-in antagonism between the two. We don't all own an equal share of the means of production and just sit around issuing contracts to each other all day.

Do you understand that the econ 101 libertarian world of homo economicus rational agents is fake and we live instead in the real world with its institutions and conflicts?

Capital and labor is a fake distinction. Your body/capability to work is capital.

Your body/capability to work is labor.

Property that you can use to produce value beyond itself through workers' labor is capital.

Again, it is a fake distinction.

Suppose you had a robot. Would that robot be labor or capital? Assume the robot has the same capability for work as you.

At the end of the day it is a machine, so "capital". Likewise you own your body, it is your capital.

Great news! I can't wait to hire workers to start using my body to produce valuable commodities which I can then sell for a profit!

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