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Comment by Herring | Hacker News Reader

The problem with these threads is everybody wants to complain about Trump, but nobody wants to talk about policies that actually help buffer against the far-right. Eg implementing robust safety nets and low inequality, to reduce status anxiety and grievance. How many of you software engineers want to sign up for European-style welfare states and pay for them with high taxes? It's basically tragedy of the commons.

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/10/welfare-cuts...

Economics on its own is probably not sufficient either. You probably also need widespread unionization, a Cordon Sanitaire, and probably German-style intelligence surveillance of the far-right too.

Edit: Looking at the comments below you also need a MUCH better education system. FYI 99% of the time immigration is great for the economy, which is why the US has been wholesale accepting immigrants for a very long time.

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If you want to bring in something from the overall European region, Switzerland would be a more appropriate model. Instead of trying to implement constitutionally impossible rules and mandates, work with a model that is more realistic to US policies and expectations.

Can you give specific examples of what you mean by that?

> High trust, consensus governance

Yeah I don’t see that happening here either. Maybe in some rich areas, like tech/finance hubs, operating like mini-Switzerlands. Even then, the poor will keep voting for disruption, so those hubs will need private security vs the federal government? I just don’t see how this is possible or at all desirable. I think we have to tackle inequality……

laws need to be enforced. that's it. 90% of trump horror goes away with just that simple thing

What happened to enforcing the law on those who assaulted the Capitol?

Yeah exactly, if the US actually took its rule of law seriously, we won't be having this Trump problems because he'd be in prison for the rest of his life.

Biden really dropped the ball here.

Yep, his administration took the worst possible approach by waiting so long only to bring these slow milquetoast prosecutions against trump. They should have gone after him and his accomplices immediately, but failing that doing nothing would have been better.

These weak prosecutions did nothing to stop trump and only caused republicans to rally around him.

it would have helped a lot ! we'd not have an insurrectionist as president, which is illegal!

Sure, but how do the laws get enforced when law enforcement itself has gone rogue? State governors can't deploy their branches of the National Guard to restore Constitutional law and order without risking that the corrupt federal executive will end up taking control of those as well.

Congress is supposed to remove ineffective executives from power, or change the laws/constitution to make the enforcement legal. Some would say they're abdicating those responsibilities.

Oh sure, I'd be one of those people. I was talking about an alternative approach under our system of dual sovereignty. The federal government is currently in gross violation of our Constitution that spells out the relations between the co-sovereigns. Both in terms of good-faith executing the offices laid out in the Constitution document itself, and overtly violating our natural rights including ones described in the Bill of Rights.

> The problem with these threads is everybody wants to complain about Trump, but nobody wants to talk about policies that actually help buffer against the far-right. Eg implementing robust safety nets and low inequality, to reduce status anxiety and grievance. How many of you software engineers want to sign up for European-style welfare states and pay for them with high taxes? It's basically tragedy of the commons...

> Economics on its own is probably not sufficient either. You probably also need widespread unionization...

I think you're right about that.

> ...a Cordon Sanitaire, and probably German-style intelligence surveillance of the far-right too.

> Edit: Looking at the comments below you also need a MUCH better education system. FYI 99% of the time immigration is great for the economy, which is why the US has been wholesale accepting immigrants for a very long time.

You're getting off track there.

You also need a democratically responsive government. If the technocrats say "99% of the time immigration is great for the economy" and the people say "we don't want it, less immigration, please," what do you do? If you want a Trump, you say "shut up people, the technocrats say you're wrong, and you're going to get what they recommend good and hard." If you want to avoid a Trump in the future, you say, "OK, we'll tighten the border and reduce immigration quotas."

I don't care how smart or correct you are: if you can't make your case to the people and get your policy widespread popular support, it shouldn't be implemented in a democracy, end of story.

> If the technocrats say "99% of the time immigration is great for the economy" and the people say "we don't want it, less immigration, please," what do you do?

Do less immigration where people feel it, invest into economic education of the general populace.

>> If the technocrats say "99% of the time immigration is great for the economy" and the people say "we don't want it, less immigration, please," what do you do?

> Do less immigration where people feel it, invest into economic education of the general populace.

There can be a lot of legitimate disagreement about what the economy should look like or what's "great" for it. It's not just "GDP number go up."

And isn't it undemocratic for a government to be "investing" into educating people to think about and prioritize issues in a certain way (e.g. according to certain economic ideologies, like a technocrat)? A democratic government is supposed to represent its people, not control them to make them "better" according to some official's opinion.

You've pretty much nailed why almost all the highest immigration nations are monarchies. You basically need a ruler to tell the populace they are his bitch and they'll get the free market and open work visa immigration (UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain) whether they like it or not.

It does work and made those countries much richer but basically it won't easily happen under democracies with paths to citizenship for immigrants and strong welfare. For both rational and irrational reasons.

> You've pretty much nailed why almost all the highest immigration nations are monarchies. You basically need a ruler to tell the populace they are his bitch and they'll get the free market and open work visa immigration (UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain) whether they like it or not.

> It does work and made those countries much richer

What, exactly, do you mean by "countries" and "richer"? The monarch is wealthier and more powerful? Some aggregate GDP number went up? More bank deposits?

There are a lot of ways to make the few gain at the expense of the many, and depending on the statistics you look at, that may look like the country becoming richer. However, those kinds of scenarios are one of the things democracy is supposed to prevent.

In relatively free market (UAE is ranked pretty high in economic freedom), it should result in the many gaining at the gain of the many. Since people only enter a transaction if they are better off (some exceptions, but by and large). Of course the monarch can tilt the scales, although this is largely done in those countries to benefit the oil industry, which needs outside help and the profits of which are paid out as benefits to citizens.

The monarch is probably the biggest winner, but that doesn't necessarily mean the citizens are net losers.

I was more thinking of raising the school budget and increasing the economic part of the curriculum, but for adults I think there is a difference between honest information and manipulative advertisements.

A lot of western societies are aging. If you don’t import immigrants, you’re on a timer. The economy slows, quality of life drops, and people elect the far right anyway. It’s happening to Japan right now. I’d set up the safety nets and hope enough people will appreciate the better cost of living and reelect sane politicians.

Of course there are no guarantees. People hated Obamacare and punished democrats so hard they lost the most seats since Eisenhower.

If the quality of life was unsustainable without immigration, what makes it sustainable with?

Current immigrants come from countries with high population growth. When their population growth slows down, will they get their immigrants too?

> If the quality of life was unsustainable without immigration, what makes it sustainable with?

Think of it like (internal) trade, it's a win-win. I've been reading about Brexit recently. It's super easy to convince uninformed UK voters that "look the EU is benefiting from trade with us, so if we stop trade we can take all their benefit and keep all our benefit" ... That's not how it works. In the real world it's like Taiwan specializes at chips, China specializes at solar, India specializes at medicines, etc everyone brings something unique to the table and we ALL benefit from working together. It takes a lot of balls to leave your original country family/friends/etc. Immigrants are usually high quality people, it's best to just let them work.

> Current immigrants come from countries with high population growth. When their population growth slows down, will they get their immigrants too?

1) How is that your problem? Have you ever been worried about China not having enough immigrants before? The US is extremely well-positioned to win this one.

2) Yes there will be increased competition for immigrants, but it's really not a bad thing. I'd love it if the UK was politically stable so I could just move over since the US keeps trying to elect Hitler.

Thank you for your reply as I posted my comment in part with the hopes to have my view changed. But I don't think you really addressed my concerns.

1. I support globalization and the specialization of countries. Taiwan specialising in chips is one of the major reasons china hasn't annexed it yet.

2. I am pro immigration in the sense that anyone should be free to move to any country that they choose.

3. I am not worried about china's immigration policy as I don't think they encourage immigration.

4. I am ambivalent to increased competition among immigrants, competition will always be present.

What I'm arguing against is the notion that developed countries need immigration. Why should any one country need it? Immigration should be welcomed to those who align with the values of the country. Want to be a devout Muslim? Move to the middle east. Love Confucianism? Move to an east Asia. Want American style freedom? Move to the US. But when a nation is not able to sustain their quality of life solely with the resources they possess, requiring immigration to prop themselves up seems like a desperate move and only kicks the proverbial can down the road to future generations.

I think there's always going to be people who would rather be "VP marketing" over "parent". When you have an entire nation of DINK (double income no kids), it must age and therefore it must import immigrants to keep the treadmill going. Must keep ahead of China, after all.

The older I get the more I kinda want to retire from that lifestyle and move to Spain or something. It's much easier to move than to try convincing Americans anything about healthcare or parental leave or any of those socialist policies.

That's great that you have your plans sorted out. I'm working in a HCOL area and plan to move to a more relaxed place for retirement myself. The thing is, neither of us would be part of the immigration that is necessary for a continued QOL.

In the extreme case of an entire nation of DINKs, that nation will cease to exist as it once was. It I think in some sense, having kids is like paying for social security. If an entire society does not have kids, then who are they to demand that their quality of life remains? In fact, it feels a little selfish to me that they did not wish to bear the burden to child rearing, yet ask for others to maintain what they did not work to keep. Perhaps this makes childbirth seem too transactional, but I believe it has always been somewhat the case.

It's a shame that the world is a rat race. Why worry about letting China race ahead when they subject themselves to so much stress that the younger generations are "lying flat"? The race to more wealth as an indicator of a good life sounds too convenient to be true.

It's mostly the same party, politicians, and cheerleaders who have been dismantling those safety nets, while supporting offshoring and massive handouts to the rich (via the asset bubble). The economic issues driving the destructionist anger are themselves the results of primarily Republican policies becoming un-ignoreable. But rather than any sort of self reflection they're just turning the blame to new scapegoats.

This has effectively been a death spiral for the past several decades - blame the government for incompetence while preventing it from doing anything. For example a major reason that so much power accrued to executive agencies in the first place is the trend of Congressional gridlock kicked off by Newt Gingrich.

As a libertarian I have plenty of criticism of the Democratic party as well, but they're not the ones currently wholesale destroying our Constitution.

As a leftist, i can tell you that any kind of unchecked capitalism or inequality threatens democracies and their constitutions in the long run.

The contradiction of private vs public interests surfaces when growth/ROI demands become harder to achieve. Marx predicted it as diminishing profit rates [0]. The decades of lowering taxes for rich individuals and corporations led to the present budget pressure on institutions, civic decay and agitated uninformed voters. This happens in all capitalistic democracies and we hear the same songs everywhere, about more austerity with a xenophobic background.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_profit...

> As a leftist, i can tell you that any kind of unchecked capitalism or inequality threatens democracies and their constitutions in the long run.

And as a libertarian I can emphatically agree. A foundation of libertarianism is freedom of individual choice, and when a significant number of are economically disenfranchised such that they face economic coercion while simply trying to exist, it completely undermines that foundation. And looking at the structure from the top, completely ineffective anti-trust enforcement has made it so there aren't even many choices to choose from.

> The decades of lowering taxes for rich individuals and corporations lead to the [pressing] budget pressure on institutions, civic decay and agitated uninformed voters

I agree with your description of this trend, as well. I learned long ago that it's not enough to merely push in one direction and assume any results will be positive by construction. Rather you must look at what actually stands to be achieved, in order to avoid merely being a patsy for entrenched interests.

I do question why diminishing profit rates are relevant though. Even if profits had generally been going up, wouldn't the desire for even more wealth lead to the same lobbying / looting pattern?

I haven't really studied Marx though. A quick reading of your link, and trying to restate what I took away in my own terms: As labor becomes less important to capital, then capital is less inclined to invest in the labor pool? That does basically fit the overall trends.

> I do question why diminishing profit rates are relevant though. Even if profits had generally been going up, wouldn't the desire for even more wealth lead to the same lobbying / looting pattern?

Yes, it would, because the expectations of growth/profit/ROI are baked into the system (eg. by interests rates ticking on everything) but in this case, not necessarily to the detriment of society. The profit drive is the root of the problem. Achieving these profits is the point of conflict.

In early capitalistic societies, economic growth is easier because of untapped resources but once the growth of the economic pie slows down, environmental exploitation becomes societal explotation. Previously the point of conflict was capitalists, externalizing cost onto nature (waste products, side effects), today, it is them externalizing operational cost onto the public. Marxs take is, as i understand it, that this profit margin is physically bound to shrink when the remaining space for cost externalization shrinks too, because free markets eventually propagate the lower product prices.

Welfare state and loose illegal immigration enforcement are at odds policies. Remember in US illegal immigrants can still get WIC and public schooling and their reward for popping out a child is the child now has citizenship and the benefits of such-- those European countries you mention don't normally offer unrestricted jus soli citizenship.

It's 'safety net' itself that helps fuel the immigration rage and delivers people into the hands of the right-wing.

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