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Comment by zdragnar | Hacker News Reader

This is just whitewashing crime.

The people being hurt by this aren't the millionaire or billionaire tech caste.

I'm reminded of when rioters were trashing stores in response to George Floyd's death. The usual justification was "oh business insurance will cover it, they need an outlet for their emotions" Well, the only grocery store in a predominantly black neighborhood was out of commission for weeks due to damage. A black owned liquor store was burned down, and he didn't have insurance. Lots of similar stories on Lake Street. The people who deserved that harm the very least got it the most.

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I really don't understand the connection between street art and the George Floyd protests. I understand that you generally don't like the idea of people operating outside of the State-mandated heteronormative way, in which case I say, the best way to prevent a riot is not have cops murder people.

We whitewash crime every day here, for example theft of labor value. It's not a crime in the USA but it is a crime insomuch as it's unethical.

I'm curious how you determine the value of your labor.

> how you determine the value of your labor.

Me too, but it's impossible to do so in any meaningfully accurate, objective, measurable way.

What works is when you negotiate with your employer and both come to an agreement on what labor you will provide and what you'll get paid for it.

Nobody has ever found a better system.

You said "value" of labor, not salary. Salary indicates at best, market rate, but often not even that. Value is something else entirely, and that something seems to be completely disconnected from capitalist measures of market price. See: investment banker salaries vs teachers. See also: the price of a monkey JPEG. Even capitalist value is disconnected from market price, see the current stock market.

> Nobody has ever found a better system.

Anarchists in Spain did in 1936 when they syndicalized the majority of the economy. BTW Walter I'm not sure you remember but I'm fairly certain you've replied these exact words to me before.

> Value is something else entirely

Value is what you're willing to pay for something, and what you're willing to accept as payment.

> Even capitalist value is disconnected from market price, see the current stock market.

The value of a stock is the market price. There is no other value.

The value of a teacher is what you're willing to pay for him, and what he is willing to accept. The value of government paid teachers is not knowable, since the money to pay them is forcibly extracted.

> I'm fairly certain you've replied these exact words to me before.

I've written this many times here!

Your confidence doesn't mean you're right. Your definition of value doesn't include a mechanism to determine the difference between contextual value, an awkwardness obvious in your comment, after all, the stock market wouldn't exist unless the value for a seller was different than the value for a buyer, or why else would the buyer buy? There's more than just price involved in the consideration.

Also, the word "value" is used outside of monetary contexts. If you said "I value you" to a loved one, I doubt even an avout capitalist libertarian such as yourself would be so heartless as to put a dollar price on that "value." So no, value is not just "what you're willing to pay." That's a Chicago school of economics lie that has been allowed to determine the mechanics of neoliberal society.

In any case this isn't really a conversation if you just keep saying the same thing over and over again, "value is cost," using basically undifferentiated examples.

If value was the price no trade would be possible. The seller needs to value the cash more than the good and vice versa.

> Nobody has ever found a better system.

Unions negotiating on behalf of the mass of workers works better.

That's very debatable.

It works here in Scandinavia.

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