door5

They are made better off if their wages are improved, ie if they organize and struggle for a minimum wage or a union. Employers will work their employees as much as possible for as little pay as possible, only the law and organized struggle prevents them from paying less. Capitalism encourages businesses to reduce their costs as much as possible, including labor costs, so obviously they will do anything they can to pay people less unless they fight back

That's correct, but why does he have the resources to do it? Because he came from a rich family with capital to invest. Why isn't capital distributed evenly across all workers, not just of Amazon, but in an entire society, so that everyone shares in the profits instead of one man? What is exceptional about the fact that he had the capital to make an initial investment, why does that mean he should be a billionaire? We invested collectively in the technology that created the internet in the first place through publicly funded research, and yet we do not see the material benefits, only a small few do.

I'm saying a small number of people amassing a large amount of wealth through exploitation of the labor of others for personal gain is not what drives a socialist economy. Corruption and exploitation exists in all societies, but in capitalism it is a necessary element for the function to survive. There is no non-exploitative, fair capitalism.

Bezos didn't build Amazon or AWS, his workers did. He contributed as CEO, but the work was done by thousands of smart, hard-working and talented people around the world, but they don't own the company. Bezos's salary is just $80,000 a year -- his wealth doesn't come from the work he does for Amazon but the fact that he is the one who owns the capital and reaps the profit.

Socialism, ie a system whereby resources are allocated according to some sort of public good as opposed to mere expansion of capital

Capitalism cannot function without people exploiting the system for personal gain. If some CEO decided to stop trying to make as much money as possible but rather commit their resources to providing some sort of public good, they would be succinctly ousted by the board. Or their firm would tank, because companies that don't put profit first can't survive on the market.

Jeff Bezos can amass $100 billion in wealth and donate it to philanthropic causes, but if he decided to open source AWS or pay his workers a living wage, or pay publishers a reasonable price for books, etc, he wouldn't have $100 billion in the first place.

Corporations have no priority except to make money. If making money is at odds with positive user experience (which is almost always is), making money wins.

Why not just ban all commercial advertising in public spaces and online? I don't think anyone thinks advertising is a public good, why do we tolerate it?

Those are two great examples -- one thing I'd like to add is that the audience of Hackernews is pretty upper-middle class (as are the anecdotes in this thread), these issues are compounded greatly when it comes to poor or working class women, who may feel completely trapped in a bad marriage economically, or may be struggling as single working mothers.

Men take more overtime, women do more domestic work, men are paid for overtime, women are not paid for domestic work. Is this not unjust?

I always thought performance based pay was a very right wing proposal, supported by right wing organisations.

I think that's a good point -- unions are not perfect and may support the interests of their members over the interests of other workers or society at large. However, in my view they are far preferable to any corporate board of directors, which represents only the interests of the owners of the company. Politics is struggle, it isn't just opting out of things you don't like, or else you'll end up a hermit. it's organizing for representation and power, and unions are one example of that kind of organization. An imperfect one, yes, but far preferable in my view to none at all

I have very left wing politics, socially and economically. A union is by nature far more likely to represent my views than any corporation. If your politics are "rich people should be able to do whatever they want, collaborate with whatever despicable organizations they like, treat employees however they like and have little oversight over their business", that is a justifiable reason to oppose unionization. I don't share those views, but that's the status quo, and it is almost completely inescapable in this industry.

what if no employers in your field share your values?

Apologies if that was read as ad hominem, I meant that the argument is in my view elitist not that you personally are. My point is that formal education is not the only way to develop informed political consciousness. And in fact formal education may in many cases overlook the struggles of marginalized groups.

No, I'm saying they are equally equipped to make decisions in a democracy.

Imperialism continued after the end of formal colonization, and takes place even in countries that weren't formally colonized. Capitalism and imperialism are global systems that affect every nation on Earth, there is no unaffected country to compare to.

"Education" isn't just "knowing more things", it spending time at specific institutions -- institutions which some people have more access to than others, and institutions that impart a specific worldview. Going to a Chinese university vs an American University, or even an Ivy League vs a state school is a very different experience. And people can be educated about politics in a non-institutional context, ie through news media, local activism, friends and co-workers, unions, etc. What is shockingly disconnected from the real world is the idea that elite American educational institutions are somehow totally disconnected from social realities and study politics in a field of pure, unbiased reason

Here you assume that both engineering and politics are purely objective sciences, where one's cultural background is irrelevant, but that is true in neither case. The fact that silicon valley is mostly white men of a certain age and economic status has a big effect on what gets built, and what doesn't get built -- think about elon musk's obsession with tunnels and car transportation and disdain for public transit. Regardless how you feel, tht isn't just an objective rational problem, the fact that Elon isn't someone who has ever taken or relied upon public transit matters.

The same is true if social policy -- it's easy to look at the voting decisions of people without college degrees as "stupid" and "uninformed", but I would challenge you to think about how their actions are just as informed and reasoned as people in your demographic, they just come to a different conclusion because of their economic and cultural background. "Education" is often a proxy for race or class in political discussions. I would argue that policy (and engineering) is much more about values than knowledge -- is housing a human right? Is healthcare a human right? Should the United States acknowledge and repair the damages of slavery and systemic racism? Should we accept asylum seekers? Everyone may have compelling, reasoned arguments to these questions, but it is naive to say only college educated specialists have the correct ones.

Africa is a mess because of relentless Western imperialism, not because of "too much democracy".

It's rather elitist to say that more educated (AKA richer) citizens make "better" political decisions than less educated (AKA poorer) citizens. They both make decisions with relatively similar amounts of clarity in their respective class interests.