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Comment by lores | Hacker News Reader

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The idea that firing you or stealing your wages is the worst a CEO can do to you is itself a product of the taboo against physical violence. There are a number of famous incidents from the late 1800s and early 1900s, when the taboo was weaker, of CEOs sending private armies to shoot inconvenient labor movements. It's not an equilibrium you should defect from lightly.

A CEO can choose physical, mental, legal or financial violence against the common man. The common man only has the choice of physical violence. Without it he is impotent.

This mindset trivializes the immense achievements of "the common man" over the course of millennia.

Many of those achievements were achieved through physical violence. The 5-day work week, for example. We don't work 7 days because people kept shooting bosses until the bosses agreed to compromise on 5 days.

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Change and progress like the people of France deciding they had enough of injustice and nobles' impunity, then? A little short-term pain for social progress? We agree.

Look where France is now. Can't afford their own retirement.

If that's the worst problem they have, that still sounds like things worked out pretty well compared to most places.

That sounds suspiciously like a "ends justify the means" argument.

It's easy to say we need to be willing to accept short term pains when it's someone else who has to bear the brunt of them.

Are you willing to stand by this argument and give up your career?

> We'd have never progressed as a species with your mentality.

Please avoid swipes like this on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're trying for something better here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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