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Comment by henrikschroder | Hacker News Reader

Yes, social responsibility is a bitch for the individual businessman. Boo hoo hoo.

But for society as a whole, these things are good. Long maternity (and paternity!) leave is good for the children that will one day grow up and become productive members of society. Having laws around parental leave preventing discrimination means that society doesn't have to deal with paying unemployment welfare for women around 30, and having a hard time re-integrating them into the workforce at 40. Instead this cost is spread out among all the companies in the form of employment laws.

I understand that all businesses wish to have a workforce consisting only of young well-educated males that are never sick, never take vacations and work lots of overtime, but there's a cost to getting that, and almost all businesses forget, or refuse to understand the value society provides to them. You want a workforce? Sure, it's gonna cost you, both in corporate taxes, and in social responsibility by employing less desireable individuals. Tough shit, pay up.

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I think a demand that businesses undertake some social responsibility is sensible, given the privileges corporations receive (like limited liability). I think many people overlook that corporations are granted real privileges beyond those granted to individual citizens.

But I'd point out that, if one makes social responsibility particularly onerous on individual businesses, "You want a workforce? ... pay up" may reach equilibrium not by people paying up but by fewer and fewer wanting a workforce. Then everyone is poorer.

At the end of the day, businesses are started and run by people. Pro-little-guy positions like "tough shit, pay up" are aggressive stances not just against abstract legal entities but also against often-well-meaning individuals who aspire to offer products and services. Even people strongly aligned with European social democratic values agree that the government can't do everything, so if you want locally produced products and services you have to ensure that the conditions are suitable for people to do that.

Yet, somehow I don't think we'd feel the same sort of emotional satisfaction from "You want jobs? Tough shit, stop voting for policies that make it hard to offer them."

>given the privileges corporations receive (like limited liability)

Corporations don't receive limited liability. The owners of a corporation have limited liability.

Yes, sorry that's indeed an important distinction but I don't think it changes the substance of my comment; the people who form corporations to do business receive privileges.

Also, it's not just the owners; employees acting as agents are typically protected by the corporate veil, so it's not just a fat-cat capitalist protection. This is important for, say, employees managing hazardous waste that may be spilled (through employee negligence) into public land. Or imagine who would be willing to be employed as an aircraft designer if their individual errors could lead to personal legal liability for crashes.

Also, it's not just the owners; employees acting as agents are typically protected by the corporate veil,

That's not true at all. The corporate veil exists solely to protect investors' investment in a corporate entity. It does not extend to any other persons. Employees can and have been held civilly and criminally liable for their negligence.

I'd be grateful for clarification here, as I am indeed not a lawyer.

My understanding of vicarious liability (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicarious_liability) is that the corporation is liable for actions of the employee in the course of duties (as an "agent"). I thought that the individual was liable only in the case of negligence outside the scope of employee duties (so if you're a garbage truck driver and also happen to be a burglar, you are personally liable for on-the-side burglaries during your rounds but not necessarily for accidentally crashing into someone's car).

However, I am not an expert and would appreciate clarification.

Edit: I did a bit more research and it turns out I misused the term "corporate veil" which appears to be a term of art (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piercing_the_corporate_veil) specifically pertaining to shareholder liability and which does not pertain to vicarious employee liability.

Thanks rprasad for pointing out the error. Terminology aside, is the rest of my commentary on vicarious liability accurate?

"Pro-little-guy positions like "tough shit, pay up" are aggressive stances not just against abstract legal entities but also against often-well-meaning individuals who aspire to offer products and services." So nicely put. This was an important concern, why I decided to write this post from this perspective. "Business" is a person. I am a person. And if they treat me inhumanly, I die.

Bo-hoo-hoo. Cry me a river.

Funny thing, you don't even realise what a river ya'll crying. I just don't give a job. I'm totally fine. I'm rich, doing nothing, blogging away.

Instead this cost is spread out among all the companies in the form of employment laws.

No, it's spread out among all the companies that are willing to hire women. The companies that discriminate against women have a competitive advantage over those that don't.

(Note that under normal circumstances, discrimination is a competitive disadvantage. If I hated Indians, for example, I'd never have found my current team.)

This assumes that there are a sufficient supply of men who can perform better than women.

No, this assumes that there are not many women (or men for that matter) whose hyper-productivity can make up for a 2-3 year leave of absence.

Not quite, because not every woman will vanish from work for 2-3 years.

Such laws make an employer indifferent between a man of quality Q and a woman of quality Q + P(taking leave) x (cost of leave). Whether or not hyper-productivity is required depends strongly on P(taking leave) and the cost of leave.

One other thing to note is that a lot of businesses are now granting paternity leave equal or near so to maternity leave.

Only in countries where there aren't any laws to even this out.

Where I live, there's plenty of laws that stop companies from discriminating against women, thereby removing the competitive advantage, which in turn forces the companies to do the right thing.

Except that the process of proving discrimination is neither cheap nor an easy feat. How do they do it where you live?

You file a complaint with the discrimination ombudsman, they investigate and if they find that you are right they try to reach a settlement between you and your employer. If that fails, either party can take it to the courts.

Yes, there's a cost to these laws and these processes, but I think (and the politicians of my country obviously agrees) that it's cheaper and easier to do it this way, than to add a corporate tax and redistribute that money to groups that suffer from workplace discrimination.

It seems to work here, but that doesn't mean it would work as well elsewhere. There are so many factors that make up a society.

I would have taught it's the opposite. If women are discriminated against because of having children, I guess the companies that doesn't discriminate against women (or even actively helps them) would get all the good ones?

This is true only for irrational discrimination. If you simply hate women, but women are equally productive to men, then you will lose out on getting good women. I.e., you might choose a man of quality Q-d over a woman of quality Q simply because you dislike women.

But in this case, the discrimination is rational. Due to maternity leave, a woman of equal skill creates significant cash flow risks - if she takes leave, you either go for 3 years with her job not getting done, or else you hire a replacement and risk being stuck with unnecessary employees in 3 years.

"you hire a replacement and risk being stuck with unnecessary employees in 3 years"

That is not how it works in Sweden (nor anywhere else that I know of). The replacement is hired as a temporary position until the original employee returns.

Even if that's the case, you would most likely get an employee of lower quality or with a lower commitment if they know they will be laid off in 3 years.

3 years is longer than I've worked at most of my "permanent" positions

It is only a competitive advantage for those unwilling to hire women if the cost of hiring women is greater than the benefit of the perspective those women who were not hired could bring to the team. However I do not believe that this is the case.

Two issues:

1) You overstate the likelihood of the market driving out discrimination. Racist and sexist discrimination has existed for centuries without the market ever reaching the equilibrium state of no discrimination that would result if people were rational market participants (1).

2) Inevitably people bring up Scandinavia in these discussions, and for good reason. Scandinavian countries have both very generous family benefits (including paternal leave!) and high representation of women throughout the workforce. This isn't dispositive, but it does suggest the situation is much more complicated than the original post would suggest.

All in all, I prefer to live in a world where everyone pays their fair share instead of trying to eke out a couple extra cents of profit by not providing parental benefits to mothers and families.

(1)This is actually an even subtler issue, because it's possible for markets to exist where racism and sexism offer a competitive advantage, due to consumer preferences.

Scandinavians have sane laws about parental leaves : both parents get the same amount. Therefore if you hire someone in the 25-30 age range, there is a high risk of having to do without this employee, regardless of his/her gender. IIRC, the rule is 12 months to be split between the two parents, no part being smaller than 2 months.

The 'down' side is that now us guys also get discriminated against. I've been more or less asked straight out about my family situation at a job interview, and I could tell from the expressions on their faces that they didn't like my answer, and I didn't get the job. Of course it's impossible to say why, as there where a couple of other good reasons why they might have rejected me.

"No, it's spread out among all the companies that are willing to hire women."

I don't think it's a black-and-white issue of giving or not giving a job. These types of government restrictions cause a change in the supply and demand for the protected individuals. This results in a change in their average salaries (i.e. more restrictions reduce salaries). Women are still worth hiring, just at a lower salary, to account for the added risk.

So in the end, the cost ends up being fronted by the women anyway.

A whites only restaurant in a racist town doesn't seem very disadvantageous, in fact that would probably be the selling point.

I would imagine that those who don't discriminate would continue to not discriminate while those who do discriminate would continue to do so. Removing the law doesn't make women less likely to get pregnant. I am not sure your concept that we should remove the laws so that everyone can discriminate against women equally is really advantageous or very upstanding. Nor do I think the idea that people are going to discriminate despite the laws & it's too hard to prove that they're discriminating is a valid reason to remove the laws either.

A whites only restaurant in a racist town doesn't seem very disadvantageous, in fact that would probably be the selling point.

True, but we are not postulating an employer who's customers prefer not to be served by a pregnant woman. We are merely postulating an employer who wants his employees to show up for work.

I would imagine that those who don't discriminate would continue to not discriminate while those who do discriminate would continue to do so.

In that case, why bother with any laws on the topic at all? After all, those who do discriminate would continue to do so.

Removing the law doesn't make women less likely to get pregnant.

No, but it does mitigate the harm that her pregnancy causes for her employer. If she chooses to vanish from the workforce as a result of becoming pregnant, her employer can permanently replace her and is not obligated to take her back 3 years later after her skills have stagnated.

This in turn gives the employer a greater incentive to hire her, since she poses less of a risk to the business.

True, but we are not postulating an employer who's customers prefer not to be served by a pregnant woman.

I believe you stated under "normal circumstances" discrimination is disadvantageous. I am not sure exactly what you would consider "normal circumstances", but I was merely giving an example where discrimination would be an advantage.

We are merely postulating an employer who wants his employees to show up for work.

Which can lead to discrimination because a woman may be turned down for a job because of something she has no control over, her ability to become pregnant, regardless of if she actually has plans to become pregnant or not, or is even fertile.

In that case, why bother with any laws on the topic at all? After all, those who do discriminate would continue to do so.

People still murder others even though it's illegal. Why have laws against murder? They obviously don't work.

No, but it does mitigate the harm that her pregnancy causes for her employer.

Isn't the biggest harm losing an employee & having to hire someone new? That happens regardless of leave laws. True it might be less hassle now that they can fire a now expectant mother, but they probably would save themselves even that hassle by not hiring a woman in the first place.

People still murder others even though it's illegal.

Do you actually believe this claim?

"I would imagine that those who don't murder would continue to not murder while those who do murder would continue to do so. Removing the law doesn't make murderers any less likel to kill."

If not, your analogy is faulty.

Isn't the biggest harm losing an employee & having to hire someone new?

Did you even read the article? ...not only I couldn't fire her while she's away, I couldn't fire her when she comes back either. So I would have to fire the one who's been working instead of her for the whole time. When a woman would come back from the maternity leave I would be legally forced to increase her salary to the present level in her position, and also, give out her normal vacation days...

Do you actually believe this claim?

I would imagine that murderers would still murder & those who don't like to murder wouldn't murder. Laws don't enforce themselves, people still break them & sometimes get away with it. That is no reason to repeal them.

I couldn't fire her when she comes back either...

What would be the point of saving her job for her if you're allowed to fire her immediately upon her return?

So I would have to fire the one who's been working instead of her for the whole time.

So long as it's clear that the job was a temporary fill-in position, I don't see a problem with this.

When a woman would come back from the maternity leave I would be legally forced to increase her salary to the present level in her position...

Like you would have to offer any other employee at that position.

Way to miss the point of the post. This person won't hire anyone because it is too expensive to run a company with employees. The point is, Hungary has created an environment that greatly threatens the profitability, and therefore, sustainability of private companies. If the company doesn't exist, no oneis hired.

If laws would really require him to pay employees more than himself, he could offer partnerships instead of trying to exploit employees.

Hiring people is now the equivalent of exploiting them?

"Exploit employees" suggests that by profiting from other's time that you paid for is wrong. You are forgetting that the business owner also takes on risk with his investment in employees while employees has a steady income with no risk.

To the partnership answer, a lot of people don't want to take risks in general. This is true even in the US where people are way more entrepreneurial than other countries.

"But for society as a whole, these things are good."

Then why not triple the existing benefits? Why not multiply them by 10 even? If it's an unalloyed good, then why are we being so stingy with the good stuff?

If you account for only one side of the ledger, you can make anything look good. (Or bad.) Unfortunately, reality checks both sides. Wrapping it in a social justice narrative may make it easier to obscure the ledger to other humans but it doesn't fool reality for one Plank instant.

It is, as with almost everything in life, a balance.

It might be the case that the balance in Hungary is off as the author of the article claims, but that claim was buried in a one-sided rant against the cost of accessing the labour pool.

The point of my post was to even the scales, to remind everyone that it costs a lot of money to employ people, because creating employable people costs a lot of money. The CS college graduates we want to interview as potential employees of our dot-com startups don't materialize out of thin air. As cheesy as it sounds, previous generations invested in their future; we have to do the same.

He did talk about a balance, a very important one. He compared the cost of an employee to the value it can bring him as an employer.

A business simply can not hire when the cost of an employee exceeds the benefits, and if it can't make do without employees, it will simply go out of business. It doesn't matter at that point how much it cost to "create employable people" (itself a terribly loaded formulation, but moving on), because society has priced itself right out of the market, apparently.

Something a lot of people seem to forget is that if you want to use businesses as a piggy bank to fund social ambitions, you have to let some money actually flow into the piggy bank. It is not simply a given that money will be there.

> "Then why not triple the existing benefits? Why not multiply them by 10 even? If it's an unalloyed good, then why are we being so stingy with the good stuff?"

What an absurd, and incredibly disingenuous thing to say. Water's good for you - in fact if you don't have it you die. So let's throw you in a huge pool and see how you like it!

Stop putting words in OP's mouth, and argue against his argument instead of twisting it into an easy straw man.

Tu quoque.

As long as the takeup of parental leave among men is as low as it is in most places (outside of Scandinavia), current laws are simply sexist. Women are not protected as much as they are stigmatised.

The cost is not spread around much at all. The entire burden is on women who are discriminated against because they cost more to employ and on small businesses that cannot shift jobs around as easily as big corporations can.

My preferred solution would be to exempt small business (those with less than 20 employees) and don't grant any parental leave or benefits unless both parents take equal leave (Obviously single parents have to be exempt).

Why can't social responsibility be handled at a different layer, though? Why is it the individual businessman who has to pay special taxes for things like that? Why not just take it from general taxes across the board?

Here in Sweden, employing people can be a crippling move for small businesses.

>Why not just take it from general taxes across the board?

Politics. Most people don't see or hear about payroll taxes, but they would notice if you added 5% to their income taxes.

Plus, in a lot of cases it's administratively easier to say "the funding for this social program comes directly from this source of taxation".

You're right that taxes should be designed better; in a lot of cases they provide disincentives for a lot of beneficial behaviour. Taxes are just really hard to design correctly. It's a huge problem no one has control over.

This leads to an interesting digression...

My hacker's mind sees society the same way it sees ie software layers, kernels, APIs, libraries, etc. And from that POV, current society practices seem very inefficient and disorganized, and could be improved readily with a dollop of hacker values (eg lazy but smart) and cold hard logic.

One example: I am becoming more and more in favor of a minimum guaranteed income provided by society. Here are some good arguments in favor of that: http://www.xamuel.com/ten-reasons-for-guaranteed-minimum-inc...

Of course a MGI is heresy in today's society because we are still in a mindset where it's crucial that everyone pull their own weight lest other people suffer - a lingering meme from the days when 90% of the population was occupied with food production.

This of course ignores the notions that 1) society is insanely productive thanks to automation and it requires very little labor to pay for the true necessities of life (see for instance http://www.earlyretirementextreme.com - he lives on $7k a year) 2) many jobs today are marginally useful at best - think paper-shuffling mid-management 3) most of our income goes toward consumerist escapism which fails at making us truly fulfilled 4) much of the economy just exists to satisfy society's need for a status stratification mechanism (eg one is considered middle-class because one has such-and-such job title and education - if this classification went away then there would be general status confusion).

Then again, trying to fix society the same way one re-factors code may be hubris on my part...

In order to afford such a plan, governments would have to impose really high taxes. That would be a much bigger disincentive to production than the safety net itself.

The government (at least in Sweden) already imposes really high taxes. And people here are still generally wealthy as fuck (relative to most of the world) and able to use a large chunk of their income for beer, trendy clothes, smartphones, restaurants, travel, etc (ie nice-to-have luxury goods).

It's all a matter of perspective IMHO.

Of course, I'm generally leary of "solutions" that come out of the gov't but that's another story...

Sweden's wealth is made possible by the relative abundance of natural resources for its size and population: it's population (~9 million) is just a bit larger than that of the San Francisco Bay Area, but it has a GDP of $443.718 billion (i.e., higher per capita than most American states, including California).

Yes, I've long supported the so-called "negative income tax" -- the name is confusing; what it means is that below a certain income level, the IRS gives you money instead of you having to pay it, with the amount you receive being a monotonically increasing function of your income that is zero at the same income at which your tax reaches zero.

Personally I've long been inclined to the view that we should replace our existing welfare, unemployment, and Social Security systems with the NIT. Although SS has been sold as a retirement savings system, it is really a transfer payment system, a reality that is starting to become inescapable. It's just not right, I believe, for a transfer payment system not to involve means-testing -- there's no way to justify taking money from young middle-class workers, many with families, to support retirees who are well off anyway.

For some very interesting arguments against the NIT, backed by some experimental data, see: http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc1/NegativeIncomeTax.html

I actually think the problems could probably be solved, but I have to grant that they are nontrivial.

People tend to ignore the fact that both Milton Friedman, and Friedrich Hayek both supported a negative income tax/basic income guarantee.

Did they support it relative to all alternatives (i.e., relative to pure capitalism)?

I've certainly read statements by Friedman supporting basic income/negative income tax as a more efficient alternative to the existing welfare state. But do you have a citation for Friedman/Hayek supporting it in general?

No he doesn't, because there isn't one, and your interpretation is correct.

Yes, you're correct. I should have worded that as supported over our current system.

Income tax and payroll tax seem to me to effectively be the same layer. Yes, there will be a psychological difference when people see how much is taken out of their paychecks, but that's about it.

What do you think is more effective and cheaper? Legislate against discriminating against females of a certain age and punish companies that violate it, or increase the corporate tax with x%, have Skatteverket collect it, and politicians to re-distribute it in such a way as to provide jobs for females around 30?

It would be very easy to promote the employment of the elderly, the handicapped, whoever every normal person in the world wishes to help. The state should make it cheaper for me to employ them. It's that easy. Instead, they create regulations that harm those, who they aim to protect.

Totally disagree. Whats worse for society is a lack of jobs and miserable people that would bring up miserable kids.

If you've ever been an employer you would be able to relate, grow up.

I don't have much sympathy for companies who doesn't invest in their employees. If you value your employees and are in it for the long run, then your biggest problem are employees leaving you not the opposite.

Otherwise you are free to hire consultants and pay a premium to the agency and (hopefully) the consultant, but don't be surprised when they leave you in six months for something better (paid).

Also fresh graduates or self educated people are loyal and relatively cheap (especially in Sweden). But then you would of course have to invest in them.

"Social responsibility" is a scam to part productive people from their hard-earned money and give it to the leeches of society who sit on their asses waiting for the next reality tv episode.

If a woman wants to have kids, that's fine. Don't ask me to pay for her decision; that's her husband's responsibility. Oh wait. She's an unwed mother, and the father can't be found? Then she made a piss-poor decision in not keeping the proverbial "gate closed", and should be the one dealing with the repercussions of it. Not me, my business, my employees, or my customers.

As for long maternity/paternity leaves being good for children...in what way? Does it teach children a solid work ethic? Or does it teach them they are entitled to copious amounts of time off at other people's expense?

"Social responsibility" is just another term for theft, pure and simple.

The point is that the "social responsibility" produces a better overall society in the cases of the poor unwed mother you describe. The idea is that we all benefit. Those kids don't grow up in isolation and if they turn out to be bad/uneducated/criminal people, everyone else in society is affected.

You say it's a scam, but if so, who manufactured the scam? Are you telling me that those in power got together and decided to build a system which punishes the hardworking and rewards the lazy? Since when do people join a conspiracy to help others and hurt themselves?

You also make gross generalizations in describing the people that benefit from social programs. It's repulsive.

Being an mother (or father?) is not traditionally a career choice. If the state wants to set up a formal program for people to get paid to have children, it should do that. A system that gives a financial incentive to having children can and will be abused.

What incentive is given in systems like Hungary's? Are you saying that such lengthy parental leave is an incentive to produce babies? This would seem to ignore all of the other impacts of having a child on your money and time.

Do you have any numbers that actually suggest poor parents are profiting off of such programs? Children are, strictly financially speaking, a huge expense.

Look into the marginal cost of raising a child. Children are a bigger expense for upper-middle class people who expect to send their children to a private school, pay for them to go to an expensive college, want each kid to have their own room, etc. For poorer families the main expense of a child is food. The younger ones can wear hand me downs, it is possible to shove two or three children in one room, etc. The poorer the family is, the less having another kid costs until it is actually a negative cost because each additional child actually brings in income by working.

"Social responsibility" produces a better overall society? How? By encouraging a lack of personal/moral responsibility? By legitimizing theft? By acclimating people to expect copious benefits without having to pay for or otherwise earn them?

As for who manufactured the scam, you hit the nail on the head. There are those who are in power and wish to remain so, and the best way to do it is through bribery by theft, aka welfare/"social responsibility". It's not a conspiracy to hurt themselves (laws are for others, not them), but to gain control over others. It's just like giving wild animals food; soon they lose the desire and incentive to hunt/forage for themselves, and you've gained control over them.

Before you accuse me of "gross generalizations", you should know I was born into a dirt poor family. But we had pride, morals and a strong work ethic, and my parents were proud to have never taken welfare. We knew the welfare people and wanted nothing to do with them. Many had kids just so they could collect more welfare per child and proceeded to spend it on alcohol, cigarettes, gambling. Essentially whatever the parent(s) wanted, the kids be damned with most of them turning out bad--prison, murdered, or a second generation on welfare. The theme has continued throughout my adult life, only it's now extending into the middle class as well.

Finally, if you think my "gross generalizations" from personal experience and observations are repulsive, I know people who have a much harder stance on this topic than I do. They're a friend of mine and her colleagues--who are social workers in a major US city. She (and perhaps the others) got into the field to help others get back on their feet--only to find not apathy but hostility towards any attempt to get them off "social responsibility" programs, sometimes to the point where she's felt her life in danger.

A better overall society indeed.

"Social responsibility" produces a better overall society? How? By (hopefully) raising the lowest members of society out of poverty and poor education. Society here meaning "the group", not touching on any sense of morals.

Assuming that your "social responsibility" taxes are only intended for poor unwed mothers is a gross generalization regardless of your personal background.

I can't tell whether or not you're serious.

What if the woman was not poor or not unwed at the time of conception? What if her husband lost his job? Do you think having children should be a privilege limited only to married couples with at least a quarter million dollars in savings? And if so, do you at least support the state giving out free contraceptives to the "leeches" who aren't in such a financial position?

If a person can't afford their child, what do you recommend? Leave the kid near the dumpster to fend for him/herself? That'll teach a strong work ethic, right? Because we all know maternity leave is just a euphemism for vacation.

You've just summarized the philosophy of Ayn Rand, yet you would not have hired her.

There is plenty of evidence that maternal leave is beneficial for children. Go to Google Scholar and search "maternal leave child outcomes".

A sampling from one paper:

>We find considerable associations between early returns to work and many of the outcome measures [regular medical checkups and breastfeeding in the first year of life, the receipt of all DPT (diptheria, pertussis, and tetanus)/Oral Polio immunisations (in approximately the first 18 months of life) and cognitive and behavioural assessment scores at age 3 or 4]

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0013-0133.2005....

@georgefox, I do think that you shouldn't have children if you can't support them, but that is their decision to make, and they should bear the responsibility for their decision.

@brown9-2 In theory it does, but if businesses don't hire said unwed mothers because government policies make it too expensive, it doesn't benefit anyone.

If someone cannot afford to feed his or her child and the child starves--literally or metaphorically--who's bearing the responsibility?

Edit: To be clear, I agree that you shouldn't have a child you can't afford, but mistakes happen, situations change, etc. It's a lot more complicated than the commonly portrayed notion of welfare mothers defrauding the government.

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