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Comment by faefox | Hacker News Reader

Because capital has realized that as long as there are bread and circuses to distract people along with convenient targets for the less well-off to blame for their misfortune (immigrants, trans folks) they can continue to vacuum up all of the wealth and power for themselves without lifting a finger to improve the lives of those whose labor makes it all possible.

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Asked and answered right here. Also worth providing context:

* When we asked the same question in the 2010s with productivity gains from technology, it was the gays and the immigrants that were the reason we couldn’t

* When we asked the same question in the 2000s with productivity gains from technology, it was the gays and the immigrants and the Iraq War that were the reason we couldn’t (until the housing crisis)

* When asked in the 90s, it was the gays, the immigrants, and budget shortfalls that were the reasons we couldn’t (nevermind continued tax cuts)

* When asked in the 80s, it was the gays, the immigrants, and the Soviets as cause for not shortening workweeks

I can go back for several more decades this way. It’s seemingly always the fault of minority groups that we can’t roll back workweeks and reclaim leisure time, rather than the fault of the monied elite demanding ever more for themselves. Until enough people acknowledge and accept this, I get to spend my time fighting to exist rather than all of us enjoying more community and leisure time together.

Why workweek had been shortened to 40h then? No gays, no imigrants back then?

Imagine how productive economy will become if 996 workweek will become mandatory!

…seriously? Cannot tell if you’re being serious or just shitposting.

Here, an old-fashioned LMGTFY: https://www.weforum.org/stories/2015/10/how-did-the-40-hour-...

Wikipedia has a far more gruesome and comprehensive history of the US Labor movement, like the history of the NLRB, anti-union efforts in the 1860-1930s, the Coal Wars, Battle of Blair Mountain, etc. Everyone should know this history, at the very least so they can understand the harm that comes from delaying action further: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_union_busting_in_th...

Unironically what half of HN thikn peak futurism in America should be, hyper optimized:

https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/comments/1lo783l/hows_...

>convenient targets for the less well-off to blame for their misfortune (immigrants, trans folks)

Immigrants maybe, but nobody in the rust belt thinks their town is being hollowed out and flooded with fentanyl because of trans people. That's not to say they have no grievances against trans people, but to think that the right think trans people are "to blame for this misfortune" shows a huge ignorance of the right's politics.

Evangelicals have expectations of very strict gender roles in the traditional family. The “collapse” of the traditional family is why we have social and economic problems in the United States. Trans-women are the biggest threat to their ideas gender roles, so an important part of the right absolutely blames trans people for their misfortune.

>The “collapse” of the traditional family is why we have social and economic problems in the United States.

You're making the same mistake as the parent comment, by conflating social issues with economic ones. Evangelicals have a lot to hate about trans people on the social front, but I'm not aware of any that thinks the decline of American manufacturing is due to trans people. At best it's something like "low birth rates is shrinking the labor force", but even that's more social than economic.

> to think that the right think trans people are "to blame for this misfortune" shows a huge ignorance of the right's politics

They're pointing out the use of Goldsteins to distract from the root cause of the issue (increasing wealth inequality) and get a significant fraction of the general population to believe the problem is more directly caused by immigrants than changes in legislation that allow for more corporate abuse. It's moot that trans people aren't a reasonable cause of economic problems because they are a distraction from economic problem.s

> but to think that the right think trans people are "to blame for this misfortune" shows a huge ignorance of the right's politics.

Then perhaps the right should stop spending a large portion of their political messaging on trans people?

I mean, for fuck's sake, nobody is making up the right's weird culture-war obsession with children's genitals. It's real, it's happening, and it's disturbing. Last election cycle Cruz was running ads depicting trans kids as big burly men who beat up little girls - literally. I'm not exaggerating. This is not hyperbole. This is actually their platform.

If your platform seems fucking stupid and completely devoid of any substance, then maybe you should not be aligning yourself with those people. Nobody should be expected to hand-hold and coddle you in the face of what can only be described as complete and utter idiocy. We're all very tired of this - you have played stupid for far too long.

> Then perhaps the right should stop spending a large portion of their political messaging on trans people?

Honestly, currently in a country led by the (far) right, I hear about the argument maybe once a year / 18 months at best.

Not even the immigrants get much discussion nowadays.

This does not reflect in the actual party platforms and political messaging the right produces.

Again, that ad Cruz ran is real. He chose to use his very precious ad space on that. A cheap, low-intelligence blow to trans people. We have to acknowledge the reality of the situation we are in: the right is mostly focused on rage-baiting hard-working Americans with stupid culture war bullshit. And it works really, really well.

I am not an American

Not that conservatives were ever trans-friendly, but their current agitated fascination with the subject in US is mostly because Dems invited it by publicly supporting some related policies (sports etc) that don't poll well, to put it mildly. It's easy pickings, so of course they go there.

It doesn't neatly map to left/right politics globally, though. E.g. Sweden massively scaled back access to puberty blockers under social democrats.

I can assure you “capital” is really happy with the dirt cheap labour that immigration brings. The destruction of the lower class is not their concern.

They're even happier with AI labor because it doesn't require nearly the costs of human labor.

For now! Vendor lock in for your workforce might end up biting folks with this approach when the bills start coming due and they enshittify

Part of the reason capital likes anti-immigrant politics is that the end policy result isn't getting rid of unempowered labor, its reducing more people to unempowered labor for capital, rather it is via detention in public facilities that provide labor, directly or indirectly, for private efforts, detention in private facilities that can have work requirements, or "temporary passes" that give the employer control of status. [0]

[0] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/trump-administr...

A lot of what we call work today really is just performative. As long as people stay busy, no one questions where the value goes. AI just makes it harder to hide the fact that so much of the system runs on keeping people occupied instead of actually improving their lives.

> so much of the system runs on keeping people occupied instead of actually improving their lives

Could you give some examples outside of government? I would imagine the wealth owners would cut those jobs pretty quickly? I've always been told that private enterprise was so much more efficient and good at cutting waste.

Absolutely. Take Google or Meta — both have gone through rounds of layoffs while still keeping thousands in roles focused on alignment, planning, or internal coordination. McKinsey and other big consultancies often produce reports with minimal new insight, tailored mostly to justify executive decisions. Even in finance, layers of middle office and compliance roles exist not because they’re strictly needed, but because no one wants to take on institutional risk. These aren’t government jobs — they’re high-paid, private-sector roles that persist because the system values control and optics just as much as output.

> tailored mostly to justify executive decisions

> they’re high-paid, private-sector roles that persist because the system values control and optics just as much as output

Sounds like you've answered your own question - these jobs are needed for the system to work. They're not "extra".

Capital isn't a group of people. What does this mean? People who own capital? Like there is some proxy sent to Blackrock about "should we shorten the work week to 4 days" and they vote on it. As someone with a 401k, I must have missed that one.

What's with this low quality comment. If you have nothing productive to add, don't comment.

Or try to make a change yourself. Start a business and try a 4 day work week. Everyone should love it according to your world view and you could just be slightly less "greedy" and hire immigrants and trans folks and every other 'misfortunate' soul.

"We need more sheep to fleece" cried the Wolf.

Fleecing sheep doesn’t hurt them. Especially during the summer they really love it.

so do the MAGAts apparently. Make Amerikkka GILDED Again!

Capital is a group of people. It is a few shared dynasties, people who have hoovered up the majority of wealth, the folks running private equity, the shrinking number of real estate developers that own a larger and larger share of all apartments.

Your line about 'just start a business' is something people say but never actually execute on themselves. Try making a store to compete with Amazon, a or a grocer to compete with our consolidated giants. They can and will use the economy of massive scale they have to crush your business into oblivion, taking a short term loss to maintain a death grip on the market

That's capital.

>Capital is a group of people. It is a few shared dynasties, people who have hoovered up the majority of wealth, the folks running private equity, the shrinking number of real estate developers that own a larger and larger share of all apartments.

What about the average American with pensions and 401ks that are invested in stocks? Or the "FIRE" crowd on reddit with 6 figures invested in Vanguard ETFs? Is "Capital" just a slur to be used against owners of capital you don't like, or you think have too much?

> What about the average American with pensions and 401ks that are invested in stocks? Or the "FIRE" crowd on reddit with 6 figures invested in Vanguard ETFs?

Own capital or be owned by those who do. That's how it works.

We're trapped in a game that's taking the world to a bad place, but which we're doing really well at.

Pensions and 401ks are today's "people taking care of elders when they're too old to work" - an idea as old as humanity. It's just abstracted through markets.

>Own capital or be owned by those who do. That's how it works.

You didn't answer the question. Are those people "captial" or not? If it's just "own capital", then most Americans are "capital" because they at least have some sort of 401k or pension, but I suspect you wouldn't put them in the same group as "people who have hoovered up the majority of wealth" or whatever.

> I suspect you wouldn't put them in the same group as "people who have hoovered up the majority of wealth" or whatever.

59% of Americans have a 401k or other retirement account.[1] They accumulate capital so they don't need to work when they're old. A small fraction of them are the "Reddit FIRE" types.

The top 1% own more than 50% of all equity in private and public companies.[2] They and their kids and maybe grandkids don't need to work to live.

Would you put both in the same group? Other than "owns productive assets" they don't have that much in common.

1. https://news.gallup.com/poll/691202/percentage-americans-ret...

2. https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/1212/average-net...

From my original comment: >Is "Capital" just a slur to be used against owners of capital you don't like, or you think have too much?

I wasn't aware it was a "slur" as much as it was a statement of fact. A tiny minority has disproportionate control over our economy and everyone else's lives. Depending on your ideological leanings you may find that ok or not ok.

Others (retirement savers) using the same tools as that minority doesn't make them the same as that minority. Degree of control matters. That's what I was responding to.

"You know the difference between a millionaire and a billionaire? About a billion dollars"

> 59% of Americans have a 401k or other retirement account

self-reported ? also, substantial numbers of adult people fall into various classifications that definitely do not have such a thing. Are those not counted at all ? also, how is it so precise with no caveats, callouts or error bars ?!

Gallup is pretty good at polling. If you have a better source, by all means show it.

Gallup doesn't poll capital but retirement accounts- a lot of those are invested in cash and cash equivalents - CDs, bonds, etc. That's not the capital-as-control which we're discussing here.

More importantly, the 401k-s invested in the stock market aren't capital either but they do provide intermediating third parties with controlling power without any assurance that it will be used in the interest of the account holders - pretty much like bank accounts work.

Thus, 401k holders are not holders of capital, they only notionally own a share of pooled assets which are controlled by third parties for those parties' own ends and connections - mutual funds, banks, etc.

> That's not the capital-as-control which we're discussing here.

I feel you. I'm saying the exact same thing all over this thread.

> 401k holders are not holders of capital

There's capital and Capital. All 401k holders own capital. But the run of the mill retirement saver has no outsize influence on politics or business beyond what's available to a private citizen. Capital, with a capital C (haha!) controls both.

> Are those people "capital" or not?

Probably not. In the sense it's being used in this discussion, capital are people whose majority of income comes from dividends and rents. So your typical 401k (likely - I am not American) isn't in that category, rather they are labor with some savings for an old age.

The main difference is whether you need to work for someone or not. That determines your social class and to a large extent, self-interests.

>capital are people whose majority of income comes from dividends and rents

So the average boomer after retirement?

Yes that's how retirement works. Other people work and take care of you. That's how it's always worked.

I also don't see too many boomers funding Super PACs and getting their favorite laws passed.

I think you're making a good point. I have an honest question for you.

Aren't you scared how American system pits retirees and their kids against each other? What you just said means, essentially, if workers want to improve their working conditions, they have to go against shareholder profits, and they're threatening their parents survival (which relies on these profits). Isn't it f'ed up?

Social security is the largest source of income for the median boomer (the median boomer has approximately $100k in financial assets, not nearly enough to generate substantial income)

I have a 401k and a decent amount invested in the stock market. I have almost no power because my capital cannot be meaningfully exercised in the same way other groups of capital can. My influence (as a middle class software engineer) has dwindled over the past 30+ years or so because more and more power (ie, capital) is being taken from the lower classes and being distributed to fewer hands at the upper end of society.

The market, emergent phenomena greater than the sum of their parts etc. I don't think it's unreasonable in 2025 to speak as if these things have agency beyond the level of individual humans living within the system.

Of course they could start their own business with better morals but they'd be outcompeted by businesses which didn't care, that's the whole reason we need regulations and all the rest of it.

> make a change yourself. Start a business and try a 4 day work week. Everyone should love it according to your world view...

Back to reality, we would have 16x6 workweeks if not for government regulation. That much is not up for debate. Moving to 4x8 workweek is just a logical next step demanded by the circumstances.

I'm pretty sure there's no law that says you can't require people to work 16x6 and plenty of bankers do that. We don't because someone else offers us better options (i.e. competition)

We also don't because the law mandates overtime pay. But then for some mysterious reason we specifically exempt quite a lot of (mostly white-collar) jobs from that.

While people simultaneously scream for people to have more children. See you at terminally low total fertility rates.

I follow the pro/anti natalist space and I'm not sure if anybody is "screaming" at people to have more kids.

How about the vice president

https://apnews.com/article/jd-vance-childless-cat-ladies-bir...

Is this "screaming?"

It’s less “screaming” and more “tut-tut moralizing and shaming”. Ironically, it’s mostly from the same people who spent the previous decades going “don’t have kids you can’t afford!” and are now appalled that people took their advice.

Wasn't the previous advice meant for black and muslim people, rather than WASPs?

I happen to live near a very religious community, and I share some common spaces with some of the families coming from that background (swimming pool, parks).

They don't scream, but the social pressure is absolutely there.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44423897

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/30/nx-s1-5382208/whats-behind-th...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/bridget-phil...

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/jun/25/parenti...

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/may/25...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/11/what-is-pron...

https://www.vox.com/policy/363543/pronatalism-vance-birth-ra...

https://www.heritage.org/marriage-and-family/commentary/the-...

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/17/style/women-pronatalist-m...

https://fairerdisputations.org/have-more-kids/

https://world.hey.com/dhh/the-parental-dead-end-of-consent-m...

As someone who also follows pro/anti natalist space closely, I'm not worried pronatlism efforts are going to move the needle though.

https://www.axios.com/2024/07/25/adults-no-children-why-pew-...

https://iop.harvard.edu/youth-poll/50th-edition-spring-2025

https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jesusfv/Slides_London.pdf

This is people talking about the issue, not "screaming."

If you were going to have children, you'd have them regardless of what your income was. There are people in the developing world living on a dollar a day who become parents.

There are hundreds of thousands if not millions of people who would definitely have more children if they won the lottery tomorrow. Maybe not in your surroundings, or even in your country, but very much so elsewhere.

>There are hundreds of thousands if not millions of people who would definitely have more children if they won the lottery tomorrow.

If this were true (and I don't concede that it is), then you've just stated that the minimum bribe sufficient to persuade someone to become a parent is a lottery jackpot.

Mostly though, people who won lotteries would rather spend that on themselves. Demographic collapse is inevitable, and you'll die without even understanding why it happened.

They absolutely said nothing about a minimum.

They did. The implicit statement is right there... if there were something significantly lesser that had the same effect, then that would be the salient example. If he had any such examples to choose from, why choose the absurdly improbable one?

Well, the reason why you choose the absurdly improbable example, is because it's still the least absurd/improbable. Why does this need to be explained to you?

It is true, but they're in cultures and countries you haven't experienced. Here it's common for people who have experienced a sudden windfall to get a second child that they had been wanting to have but weren't having because of financial reasons. Zero chance this is the only place in the world where that's the case.

As the other person pointed out, a lottery jackpot is also far above the minimum, it was just the most obvious example of a sudden windfall. And even then I was considering lottery jackpots here which are usually $0.5m-5m, not tens or hundreds of millions which seems common in the US (I could be wrong on that).

In other news, Cattle are are being inseminated to not only provide milk, but also to have their children culled for meat after birth.

Children have been treated like state/church assets for multiple centuries if not millennia now.

That’s very simplified but the base reason is correct.

> That’s very simplified but the base reason is correct.

Case in point: the “but capitalists don’t form a group”/“Why workweek had been shortened to 40h then? No gays, no imigrants back then?” on this submission.

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