Are Silicon Valley Workers Abandoning Libertarianism For Socialism? (salon.com) 611
Salon writes that Silicon Valley tech workers are "defying their overlords," arguing that recent unionization attempts by Kickstarter employees may be only the beginning:
The workers' Kickstarter campaign is not the first attempt, though, or even the first time rumblings of unionization, have circulated among programmers. In 2018, software engineers at the startup Lanetix announced their intent to unionize -- and were promptly fired by management (It is illegal to fire employees for trying to unionize). The National Labor Relations Board intervened, and ultimately forced Lanetix to pay the 15 fired engineers a total of $775,000. The show of worker power at Lanetix may have paved the way for Kickstarter's workers. Similarly, workers across the video game industry -- generally among the most overworked, underpaid workers within the tech industry -- have been making steps towards unionization. Game Workers Unite, profiled by Salon last year, is building a grassroots movement to organize the ranks of video game makers.
Together, this suggests that a small but visible movement for white-collar software engineers unionizing has been gaining steam in the Valley over the past few years -- suggesting that the people who make up the tech industry, once a bastion of libertarianism, are starting to understand the often subtle ways that their employers exploit them... For decades, libertarianism was part and parcel to the tech industry. Despite a grueling work culture and a high-profile collusion scandal among major tech corporations to suppress software engineers' wages, tech workers were more likely to see themselves as future founders than an exploited underclass -- a point of view encouraged by employers through high wages and generous, often absurd office perks. Recent developments suggest such endearing tactics are no longer working.
Together, this suggests that a small but visible movement for white-collar software engineers unionizing has been gaining steam in the Valley over the past few years -- suggesting that the people who make up the tech industry, once a bastion of libertarianism, are starting to understand the often subtle ways that their employers exploit them... For decades, libertarianism was part and parcel to the tech industry. Despite a grueling work culture and a high-profile collusion scandal among major tech corporations to suppress software engineers' wages, tech workers were more likely to see themselves as future founders than an exploited underclass -- a point of view encouraged by employers through high wages and generous, often absurd office perks. Recent developments suggest such endearing tactics are no longer working.
definition of terms first (Score:5, Insightful)
Suggestion : Before we yell at each other in the comments about this possible ideological shift, perhaps we should have a meeting of the minds as to what libertarianism, liberalism, socialism, conservatism, fascism, et all mean (or have multiple meanings) before moving on to the topic at hand.
Re:definition of terms first (Score:5, Insightful)
Ya, the article is dumb and is assuming unionization is related to socialism. I really think that this stuff is deriving from some talking points on the right, trying to paint anything slightly left of center as 'socialist' in an attempt to scare voters. And it seems to be working as this sort of fuzziness is terms just keeps increasing. Note all the idiots who keep repeating that Nazis were socialists, not because they learned this in a history book but because those are the talking points they're told to repeat. Repeat a lie often enough and people start to believe it.
Re:definition of terms first (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:definition of terms first (Score:5, Insightful)
Important hint with anything political. If a country has the word "Democratic" in it's official name, it is about a 95% certainty there is nothing resembling democracy going on there.
If the name has "People's" in the name, remember the great words of Adrian Monk: "Not THOSE people!"
Re: (Score:3)
Um, no. USSR had labor unions. And workers most certainly weren't the "owners" of anything. Government was. CPSU nomenclature lived like kings, everyone else kinda got by. Source: grew up in the USSR, so have some experience with the whole "socialism" thing.
Re: (Score:2)
There's a lot of tech now in Silicon Valley that are indeed replaceable cogs. Ie, engineering has vanished and been replaced with IT, IT help desks, IT support, IT infrastructure. And many of those workers just get a Microsoft certification and then wonder why cheaper workers get hired over them.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
On the other hand, it's a physical impossibility that Galt mined the ore, smelted it and made the steel, formed it into rails, chopped down the trees, cut and treated the wood to make the ties, and drove every spike himself, yet he alone built the railroad? REALLY?
Re: (Score:2)
1. Zero-Sum market NAP: High profit in the short term, low profit long term.
2. quasi-cooperative governments: High profit in the long term, low profit in the short term.
Without fiat government separated from market and cultural inertia, you won't achieve the 99% cooperation rate you need to achieve cooperative game. Warlords (the guys owning the sov you're in, they may or may not enforce NAP locally) will generally exhibit same behav
Re: (Score:2)
From what I've seen so far, socialism is when the government owns the corporations and capitalism is the opposite thereof.
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European countries are generally welfare-state capitalist countries, not socialist countries. There were plenty of socialist countries (in soviet block), who happily abandoned socialism in 1989 and returned back to (european-style) capitalism.
Re:definition of terms first (Score:4, Insightful)
Fascist = Anyone a liberal doesn't like. Synonyms: Racist, Misogynist, xxxxxxphobe
Communist = Anyone that disagrees with a conservative. Synonyms: Hippie, Unemployed, Basement Dweller.
Libertarian = You keep what you kill
Socialist = I want some of the other guy's kill
Re: (Score:3)
Capitalism = the owners keep what you kill.
Re: (Score:3)
There is a whole science field about that: Political Science.
Just look for any handbook about political ideologies. You may also want to have a look at Giovanni Sartori's work on conceptualization.
Re: (Score:2)
..that has come from a very, very free market.
You missed this bit:
Doesn't sound much like a free market to me.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
There IS NO SUCH THING as a free market. Every market has rules and laws and policies set by someone with metal in their hand. Pretending it is self-regulating invisible hand shit is self-deluding.
Is it a surprise? (Score:5, Insightful)
Enough young and dumb enough persons (Score:5, Interesting)
to fill out the workforce in Silicon Valley and put in 60+ hour weeks every week.
Batan death march (look it up) projects were for the first 10 years after college. The following years were for 40 to 45 hour workweeks and kids.
Switching later to consulting paid by the hour fixed the unpaid overtime problem.
It'd be just when the minimum salary you could pay per fed regulation is $250,000 or above will the unpaid overtime and other problems fall away. The current fed regulated minimum salary is $50k.
A 80% federal excise tax on pay paid to h1b would also fix many labor issues in the technology and engineering fields. H1B is for someone the company "can't just find anyone qualified" to work at the job at the price the company is willing to under pay. If it's a labor shortage and a H1B is the only answer, then cost should not be a high consideration and the company should be fortunate to pay salary + 80% tax on top.
H1B, fake skills shortage, failure to train existing employees in the desired skill area should not all fall on and be detrimental to the workers.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. Looks like people are slowly wising up and the carrot (which is mostly fake anyways) does not work anymore. Of course, denying the tech elite a good life is about the most stupid thing you can do, because they remember and there is no way to do without them.
Re: (Score:2)
It's called a risk, not interested, go work in a call center somewhere mid-west and you'd make plenty of money to drive around town. The problem is that everyone is flocking there in the hopes to hit it big, Silicon Valley is the 21st century Hollywood - some of you will just end up doing porno, some of you will end up paid okay for an extra role somewhere and very very few of you will end up making it big, and even if you are hitting it big, most of those people will still end up wasting it and at best end
There are many other places with scenes (Score:2)
And sucks midwestern
There's this little town called Chicago, maybe you should look it up sometime.
Or a bunch of towns in Texas, that are actually multi-cultural compared to pretty much anywhere in California.
And you don't have to keep your eyes on the sidewalk continuously walking anywhere in the midwest.
Re:Is it a surprise? (Score:5, Insightful)
What about the charm? (Score:3)
Re:Is it a surprise? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is it a surprise? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's obvious that you have never been to Europe because the phrase "European Socialist Utopias" as a criticism is 100% unrelated to life in the EU. There are places in the EU that have serious problems, but primarily they were previously under Communist regimes or had their economies destroyed by the 2008 global crash. Examples of the latter are Greece and Portugal which were driven into default by US, German, British and French bankers.
For example Goldman-Sachs outwitted the then Government of Greece by structuring loans that G-S knew were unsustainable. Meanwhile they issued Credit Default Swaps that paid out huge sums if there was a default. They made money selling the loans and they made money from the failures: heads G-S wins, tails Greece looses. The final debt burden was much larger for Greece because of the one-two punch.
By the way, I have been to Europe, both East and West, and people at the bottom of the economy are better off then those in the same situation in the US. And those at the top in the EU still have supercars and mansions and multiple houses etc. So what are you whining about?
Re: Is it a surprise? (Score:3, Informative)
"people at the bottom of the economy are better off then those in the same situation in the US"
Aside from likely-covered healthcare, that's not actually true. The "poor" in the US are far more likely to have air conditioning, own their home, 1 or 2 cars, a computer, internet connection, and a number of other life pleasantries as well as a larger average living space than the European "middle class".
And remember, this is with a heavier tax burden and a country which has likely under-spent four decades on de
Re: (Score:3)
https://www.heritage.org/pover... [heritage.org]
Poor as defined by the US "poverty line". Shouldn't you have signed in as "sophomoric pedant" instead of Anonymous Coward?
Read it and weep.
The typical poor household, as defined by the government, has a car and air conditioning, two color televisions, cable or satellite TV, a DVD player, and a VCR.
By its own report, the typical poor family was not hungry, was able to obtain medical care when needed.
The typical average poor American has more living space in his home than the
Re:Is it a surprise? (Score:5, Informative)
Getting to know the locals, I noticed how much less cluttered their lives often seemed to be. This was true in both the East and the West. There were lovely apartments and lots of fancy cars, along with middle-grade housing and plebeian autos, flat panel televisions, computers, and smart phones. But, it was very apparent that my American lifestyle, by comparison, was just crammed with crap.
One thing that was consistent: the Europeans I met were just plain puzzled by the United States. In particular, our brutal form of capitalism, and our perverse fascination with guns.
Jobs (Score:2)
Isn't Silicon Valley full of job opportunities? Shouldn't be too difficult to find a company that doesn't expect an 80 hour week from you.
white collar needs unions! (Score:3, Insightful)
white collar needs unions!
Salon? Really? (Score:3)
Re:Salon? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, labor unions were probably the only thing that saved many Western countries, including the US, from having full-blown socialist revolutions.
Labor unions are in many important ways the very opposite of socialism. Under capitalism, a corporation is the aggregation of capital for the benefit of a business. Labor unions are the aggregation of labor for the benefit of workers. They are two sides of the same coin. They cannot exist for very long without each other. You can chart the decline of capitalism and the rise of socialism in the US by the suppression of labor unions, which really got rolling in the early 1980s under Ronald Reagan and his "supply-side economics". That's when wages stagnated and middle class began to decline. Now it's gone so far the other way that a lot of young people see socialism as a reasonable way out of a completely corrupt system which is tilted against them.
In a way, the same impulses led to Donald Trump. People saw the utter destruction of democratic institutions as the best solution to a corrupt system that was tilted against them, and they were convinced Trump was just the chaos agent to make that destruction happen. They decided to burn the house down because the roof had been allowed to rot, and in this way they were led to proto-fascism.
Re: Salon? Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, history proves you wrong. An oil man is in charge of the Dept of the Interior. Another oil man is in charge of the Dept of Energy. EPA, FDA, right down the line.
The working class has lost more ground in the past two years than at any time in the last 30. Did you know that the ranks of the permanently unemployed has grown by over 10 million since Trump has been president? More people have left the work force since January of 2017 than any two year period since the recession. Unemployment rate is down because so many people have stopped looking for work.
And working people still haven't gotten a raise.
The warmonger and rape apologist would have been a big upgrade over what we've got.
Re: (Score:3)
There is no "downturn" in permanent unemployment. Just the opposite, in fact. The ranks of the permanently unemployed have grown under Trump.
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When the alternate was a warmonger and rape apologist Hillary Clinton?
You say this like it means something, but it does not. Warmongering is typical of American presidents. We're a warlike nation, we've generally been at war (declared or not) throughout our history. And Trump is both a rapist and a rape apologist, and hires rapists and attempted rapists. Drone strikes have increased during his presidency, and he rescinded an order that provided us information about them so we no longer know by how much. Donald Trump is everything you claim to hate about Hillary Clinton, and t
Not exactly socialism (Score:3)
This is not exactly socialism. When fundamental forces like supply and demand can interact to properly price goods and services markets work most efficiently. This could easily be capitalism when you think about it.
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This is not exactly socialism.
If you haven't noticed, nowadays there's a group of people to whom "socialism" means any attempt to do anything they don't agree with.
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This is not exactly socialism. When fundamental forces like supply and demand can interact to properly price goods and services markets work most efficiently. This could easily be capitalism when you think about it.
Exactly, A union, in many ways, is simply another supplier of goods. If the supply exceeds demand then they will have to price less, if it doesn't they can price higher.
From one extreme to the other? (Score:5, Insightful)
First rampant Libertarianism and Tech Utopianism, then Socialism and ... Progressive Tech Utopianism.
I think everyone in the Bay Area would do well to spend time in the rest of the country -- like, several years of time -- where it's blindingly obvious in day-to-day life that neither approach will work.
We've spent so much time and energy in this industry catering to the residents of, and solving problems that basically only exist in, the Bay Area. Imagine if some of this had been crafted by those with more sense.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, unions are more popular elsewhere, so maybe that's why the tech sector is the oddball?
Just got back from the Centrists Rally (Score:2)
Shamelessly stolen from here [twitter.com]
Re:Just got back from the Centrists Rally (Score:4, Insightful)
Centrists by their nature aren't inclined to think that screaming their lungs out with fellow believers changes anything. But if there was such a rally, I'm pretty sure their chant would be more like "Stop pandering with your transparently utopian bullshit". Or maybe, "No, if the one opposition politician that you've decided to hate beyond all rationality disappears tomorrow, the world's problems won't be solved instantly."
Or maybe just, "Grow the-fuck Up".
When you reach a certain age, you start to realize that mountains aren't climbed by leaping off a cliff and hoping you can fly; they're climbed by taking tens of thousands of little steps, each of which don't seem like they're accomplishing anything.
Re:From one extreme to the other? (Score:5, Insightful)
We've spent so much time and energy in this industry catering to the residents of, and solving problems that basically only exist in, the Bay Area.
That's really nonsense. The big problems faced by the expensive parts of California are high cost of living, and high numbers of homeless people. Every place with a high cost of living has a homelessness problem, because the high cost of living causes people to become homeless. There are multiple strategies for solving it, including shipping people out to other places. That's how a lot of the homeless people in California got to be homeless people in California. They either came here of their own accord, or were literally sent here because they were homeless. I also hear a lot of complaints about fecal matter, but from what I've heard from people who have done more world travel than I have, that's also a problem in much of Europe. A FOAF was so struck by this that she did a photo series of turds in famous places, with landmarks in the background. You know, turd and The Louvre, turd and the Eiffel Tower, that kind of thing.
The problem with inadequate housing for workers exists everywhere that's expensive. San Francisco has a particularly serious problem because of mismanagement of its light rail system, which should have something like twice as many trains on it in order to gracefully handle demand. It's there, and it's capable of doing the job (in spite of having an odd design, it's not a bad one) if only it were used correctly. The bus system is also fairly deplorable; when I lived there it took as long to walk from Bernal Heights (where I lived) to Potrero Hill (where I worked) as to get there via MUNI, in the best case.
The homelessness problem has to be addressed at the national level, it cannot simply be pushed off on California. We can pay our bills, but we can't pay everyone else's as well. If Trump is going to take away our rail funding, we can't really afford to be sending so much money to the federal government, either. We need that HSR. The whole country does, in fact. It would go a long way to solving the worker housing problem.
The annoying thing about cities, for those who dislike them, is that they can be amazingly efficient if done correctly. With good public transportation that people want to use, the roads can be free to transport goods in and out of them, and the population density provides improved efficiency. High density housing in particular can reduce resource consumption from construction, heating and cooling, and transportation. Obviously, San Francisco has some way to go in these regards, but most other large cities have problems with these issues as well. Traffic and homelessness are problems in New York, Chicago, Houston, Seattle... You name a major city in the USA, and it's either decaying or choking, or it's choking on decay.
FDR... (Score:4, Informative)
...introduced govt. support for unionisation as a way to save capitalism from itself. Without some form of constraint from the govt. or the workers or both, corporations were set to start a Bolshevik revolution. In other words, unions are what keep the Bolsheviks at bay.
It seems that every new generation of capitalists have to learn this the hard way: In the longer term, unions are the least bad option they have.
still not balance (Score:5, Insightful)
Left unchecked, capitalism leads to worker oppression and mismanagement of natural resources and disruption of the stable governments that provide stability that allowed them to foster in the first place. This many on slashdot know and understand deep in their bones.
Left unchecked, unions cause wages to grow to unsustainable levels. They do not seek balance or fair compensation in negations. They are forces to always get more. This is also unsustainable. Furthermore, unions tend to protect incompetence, since they make no distinction between good employee and bad. Management never has a fair point in the eyes of a union. This is something many on slashdot do not seem to know
The answer, I think like many issues of our day, lies in acknowledging the valid parts of both arguments. We need to get back to listening to each other, and understanding the truths that lie within. This constant demonizing is helping no one.
Unionizing isn't socialism (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Thats what's makes US capitalism so good at producing the products and services the world wants.
The freedom to try something, see if it works, sell and make a profit. The try someone th new again. Fail and start again.
Its not like the UK with strong regulation and laws about who can try what.
A France and Germany where once the "brand"/"company" is approved and established it "has" to look after its full time workers.
Nations outside the USA keep regulations on starting a com
It's not a shift. (Score:2)
It's not a shift. SV has always been driven by strong ties to academia and, as with any well-educated and successful area, understands that strong public sector institutions are critical. Look at the original Jargon File/Hacker's Dictionary: the wide-spread left-leaning politics is obvious. It wasn't until the hostile takeover by gibbering reactionary nutcase ESR that he imposed his personal ideology for a bit of historical revisionism that the dictionary started representing a ton of libertarian nonsense.
Obligatory Ferengi quote (Score:5, Funny)
"You don't understand. Ferengi workers don't want to stop the exploitation. We want to find a way to become the exploiters."
- Rom, responding to Bashir's suggestion that he form a union
Good, but not in a way they think (Score:2)
Good because it might convince companies to move elsewhere. Too much tech is concentrated in a small area. It makes it difficult for non-tech workers to get decent housing and everything is equally expensive.
As a tech worker, I would like to move out of the area, but my options are limited.
Unions don't need to equal socialism (Score:5, Interesting)
There's no particular reason to think of a union as fundamentally any different from the corporation that employs its members. In other words, just make it one corporation employing another corporation to do a job. More than a contractor, with the framework laid out so that it's effectively as if the union members (which is also the union's employees--the union's name would be on all of the paychecks) are working for the original employer. I've actually worked at a company that did this trick for liability reasons (not unionization), so I'm pretty sure it's legally possible.
So why don't union organizers use this technique as a loophole in "right to work" states that forbid membership dues? This bypasses those laws entirely. Your old employer pays the union and the union cuts the check to you with pass-through taxation (LLC or nonprofit or something.) You show up for work at the same place, the employees are all owners the union-corporation and the union-corporation negotiates with the employer for all of the things unions traditionally negotiate for, with all of the bargaining power that unions typically have, even if it's a right to work state.
That's interesting on its own to think about. But then I wonder about taking it a step further... first, you imagine for a moment if telecommuting can be more widely accepted, so that you could have a union of white collar workers who all telecommuted. Just for the sake of this thought experiment, imagine that. Then, imagine there are guildlike union-corporations built on meritocracy and whatever other shared values and positive vibes that you think makes workers effective and pleasant to be around. If one employer starts giving you too much shit, well, the union starts shopping its collective resume around at other employers. Obviously it isn't feasible without telecommuting (you can't expect the whole union to pick up and physically move around), but just imagine for a moment if that was a given. Imagine if you had an identity as a union-corporation, as a collection of self-selected workers. You provide a certain set of skills, you have a certain kind of people working there with a certain kind of workflow and workplace vibe, and as a union-corporation you have a certain reputation in the marketplace. And if you have a good reputation and your employer starts screwing you over, you have the option of moving to greener pastures, taking all of your coworkers with you without having to slog through the interview process yourself. Or the union can simply threaten to do this as part of the bargaining process. This all could be as cutthroat or as reasonable as you want it to be--different unions could have different philosophies. A union might have a reputation for stability and loyalty to its employer even in tough times (some of that loyalty might be written into the contracts as well), and some prospective employers might find that loyal stability attractive. Larger unions might have multiple partners they provide workers for.
It probably sounds like I'm describing a consulting firm or something, but this would be for real long term employment purposes, with "pass through" benefits paid for by the employer (and also hopefully pass through taxation via nonprofit or LLC status) and you'd interact with the employer's supervisors as you normally would. Employers would still have the ability to fire specific individuals, subject to whatever dispute resolution stuff the union has agreed to with them.
I know there are major hurdles preventing this from ever happening but as far as pipe dreams go, it feels like a pretty nice one. And I like it as a thought experiment because it really puts the question to anti-union conservatives: how is this hybrid corporate-union-firm setup in any way u
Unions are to correct a power imballance (Score:2)
Betteridge says "no" (Score:2)
Conscience, empathy, responsibility? (Score:2)
Conscience, empathy, responsibility, does that add up to socialism? If so, I'm all for it.
Unions (Score:5, Insightful)
>"Are Silicon Valley Workers Abandoning Libertarianism For Socialism? Silicon Valley tech workers are "defying their overlords," arguing that recent unionization attempts by Kickstarter employees..."
Voluntary unionization is neither Socialism nor "abandoning Libertarianism." It would only be a move towards Socialism if they were calling for compulsory unionization and/or government control.
The Libertarian philosophy supports voluntary unions and right to work.
The Libertarians Party support unions even more strongly:
http://www.dehnbase.org/lpus/l... [dehnbase.org]
Socialism??? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
It switched a ew years back (Score:3)
On the internet in the 2000-2010ish there was a type of geek I met online a lot. He thought he understood politics/economics/etc. very well. The key to everything was liberty. From privacy rights to taxation to affirmative action liberty was the answer. Government out! The fact that getting the government 100% out of privacy rights would inevitably lead to for-profit companies being 100% in? Woosh.
I haven't met that guy in a few years. The guy who is absolutely convinced we should adopt socialism and oppose neo-liberalism and corporatism just like Denmark/Canada/etc.? Meet that guy all the time.
For the record, if you go by the early-2000s definitions of all those terms Denmark/Canada/etc. are none of the things he thinks they are. And if you tell this guy that? Woosh.
Perhaps .... but if so, sad..... (Score:3)
I first learned about libertarian ideals from some of the early Internet users/frequent message posters. IMO, the computer-savvy have always been a bastion of libertarian thought.
I think you have an awful lot of younger people entering the tech workforce, now, who really haven't even given politics that much consideration. For them, it's about "hating Orange man Trump" because that's an easy bandwagon to get on.... and after that? You hear a lot from our "Democratic Socialists" about promises they'll solve their anxiety over money and how they'll pay for things like big student loans or health insurance costs. So they latch on to that platform.
Really though? I think the libertarian aspects of the Internet stemmed more from the vision early users had of it being this empowering form of communication. All of a sudden, you could talk to someone on the other side of the planet, just as easily (and inexpensively!) as talking to your neighbor next door who got online. Once you're no longer tethered to a long distance phone provider who billed you by the minute for a voice call, based on which country you dialed -- you have a new type of freedom. And that ALSO enabled the ability for anyone to become their own online publisher -- producing content that was in reach of any Internet user, the world over.
The fact that some of the tech businesses out there exploit their workforce doesn't mean technology ITSELF helped prove libertarian ideas a failure!
I think at least in America, we need to remember that our government is not and has never been libertarian in nature. The closest it's ever come were a couple of Republican presidents (like Ronald Reagan) who made some very libertarian quotes -- but didn't really do a lot of very libertarian things, politically, to change the system in place.
"The Fascism" (Score:4, Interesting)
I see, again, hot discussion about the similarities, or not, between socialism/communism and the nazis.
Here is something to think about.
The first democratically elected president of my country after the fall of the wall was a philosopher and a dissident. Why was he a dissident?
Well, back in the 60-ies he wrote a book. Called “The Fascism”. The communists were very vocal about the fact that we were with the germans during the war and claimed that all those people they killed, tortured and send to camps (all the way until the 80-ies, mind you) were fascist, helping the fascist government. So, I guess at the beginning they liked the subject of the book.
However, when the author characterizes the fascist state, listing all those features (economic, social, religious, racial ect.) that we discuss in this tread it turned out that our society, the one we knew so well, the one we lived in every day checks all the boxes that the fascist checked!!! Without saying one direct word against the communist regime, the author exposed them fully, for anyone with more than 2 brain cells to see. It was poetic, truly poetic!
Well, the communists did not miss this. The book was banned and taken away from shops and libraries. Of course, they never stated a reason, just in case they don’t point the obvious to those with less than 2 brain cells. And they did not really prosecute the author; did not kill him or threw him in a Gulag. Just quietly kept him under wraps. After all, that book was elucidating what horrible criminals the fascists were; how inhuman their doctrine was. Oh, the delicious irony!
Look chaps, it does not matter that nominally both ideologies begin from supposedly the opposite ends of the political spectrum. They both end up in the SAME PLACE! And both have been tried all over the globe, so we can’t pin it on a particular person (Stalin was bad, but Brezhnev was good!) or particular culture (all continents participated).
I am still not sure why this is, although when it comes to the communism I think it is the equality of outcome doctrine that fucks up everything. After all, nothing in nature has equal outcome, not even the stupidly named “spectrum” of human sexuality. Every spectrum expresses different frequencies with different intensities. If they are all expressed equally that is called “noise” and it is not very helpful. The other state with equal outcome is the heat dead of the Universe (maximum entropy). In short, if there is no difference, there is no potential. No potential, no driving force. No driving force, no nothingoh, and just to make matters more perverse, the commies encourage us to perform. Yes, they did! I got numerous awards in front of the whole school for excellent marks. However, they used the doctrine to remove inconvenient people. If I became inconvenient, all of a sudden, all my successes would be due to my “privileges”, for instance my “bourgeois family”, which I did not have but that does not really matter, they’d find something to hang me for. Isn’t that funny! Doesn’t it remind you of what is happening every day in our society? Where people, like those techies, who got there by being better than others, working harder than others, competing with other, all of sudden find all kind of “privileges” in others who are successful, forgetting they are also in the 1%. I mean 90% of the conversations between my parents about their work had to do with yet another incompetent ass who rose to prominence due to loyalty to the party line and uses the system to remove the competent, the conscientious and the knowledgeable.
When it comes to the fascist it seems that racial superiority is the alarm word, after which we should stop listening to whoever is advocating italso, since that doctrine does not try mimicking itself behind “universal brotherhood” or any number of seemingly good ideas, it is easier to identify and dismiss.
Just my 20 cents (wrote a bit too much for 2)
Re:*Yawn* (Score:4, Insightful)
Who cares?
Slashdot's owners, apparently, as they are quickly throwing that "socalism" label onto unionization. Trying to pounce on this grenade early and make sure the serfs remain libertarian, are you Slashdot?
Re:*Yawn* (Score:4, Informative)
The new slashdot handlers need to come up with better headlines.
The answer is No.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
No.
"in the vast majority of cases, that the story is tendentious or over-sold. It is often a scare story, or an attempt to elevate some run-of-the-mill piece of reporting into a national controversy and, preferably, a national panic. To a busy journalist hunting for real information a question mark means 'don't bother reading this bit'"
** Marr, Andrew (2004). My Trade: a short history of British journalism. London: Macmillan. p. 253. ISBN 978-1-4050-0536-4.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd be really interested in hearing your explanation for this that focuses on the fact that libertarianism is a very broad term that encompasses (among other things) a lot of leftist ideologies.
Are you sure you're not just being a reactionary and associating "Libertarian" with a very specific form of American conservatism?
Re: (Score:2)
What you're referring to is generally a straw man picture that replaces libertarian with anarchist.
Re: (Score:3)
libertarian with anarchist.
You're being redundant. The problem is the purists who refuse to face reality discredit the entire concept.
Re:If they're smart, they should (Score:5, Interesting)
Not really.
On principle, the goal of libertarianism is simply to preserve individual choice wherever possible. Smaller government that provides less direct interference or control over people's lives is the result, but it's certainly not a call for no government and there's no point at which it ceases to work...because it's simply a goal to preserve where possible. Any hint of "purism" would remove the "where possible" with "everywhere"...which is closer to anarchy.
Simple examples:
Schools. Preservation of choice would allow parents to decide that a particular school is a better fit for their child than another and have the choice to send them there. The schools can still be public schools, accessible to everyone...but the individual or the family has a choice rather than the location being forced on them.
Basic Income. Rather than welfare, food stamps and many different programs that have specific restrictions on what you can and can't do with the money a basic income actually fits libertarian philosophy because it puts the money in the hands of the individual and allows them to choose how to use it themselves.
Government. Federal laws essentially remove individuals from having any say in how they are governed. Having the law exist primarily at more localized levels (state, county and city) rather than federally allows for the maximum degree of freedom of governance for individuals. They have the ability to choose to move when legal objections are strong and the ability to contact politicians, run for local seats, etc to influence things directly. The state of California has a higher population than Canada...there's very little reason that California should primarily be legislating itself. There's also very little reason that California policy should be pushed in Nebraska.
These are clear, simple and straightforward principles that work in literally all scenarios because they are goals and not hard lines. Sometimes those things will not be possible, but as long as the respect for individual choices is a core tenant the results become better for everyone. The only place where these ideals don't work is for people who quite literally want to determine how other people should be forced to live their lives.
Re:If they're smart, they should (Score:4, Insightful)
Ultimately all systems die in the face of human failings. Capitalism dies for the obvious reason that there are capitalists far-and-above all capital...the multi-billionaires that can distort the economy and politics alike. Socialism dies when society stops believing in its own good, or because of external governance that's not really considerate to society as a whole. Communism dies because it splits society into the haves and the have-nots, with the haves being government. It's just like capitalism but with a veneer of "it's good for everyone".
Every system will fail. Invent a new system and it will fail. They fail because of human failure, and that's intrinsic.
Re:If they're smart, they should (Score:5, Insightful)
Might as well say libertarianism could work if humans were perfect and altruistic.
Communism will never work because the perfect AI will never exist.
Re: If they're smart, they should (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the concentration of wealth is where libertarians diverge with one another. Some see, as I do, the concentration of wealth in the extreme as being the equivalent of concentration of government power. And therefore something that society has a legitimate concern to regulate against.
Unions are just corporations. People associating and pooling resources towards greater benefit to themselves.
Re: If they're smart, they should (Score:3, Insightful)
"Libertarianism" and "Socialism" mean what? (Score:2)
The words "Libertarianism" and "Socialism" don't have clear definitions.
Re:"Libertarianism" and "Socialism" mean what? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Libertarianism" and "Socialism" mean what?
Whatever you want them to mean. Watch how many comments will define them for us. There will be hundreds of variations. It's like those old ladies that make quilts, but at least they end up with a quilt.
Funny comment. (Score:3)
The result of "defining" those words is more confusion. Nothing as useful as a quilt.
Libertarians and socialists (Score:3, Insightful)
Ask six libertarians for their answer on something, get at least a dozen answers. Or even six socialists for that matter, much the same.
Hell, as me for something and I can generally come up with at least three myself. The philosophically ideal answer, the real world answer, the practical answer, the "corrective" answer, and the achievable answer. ;)
Ideal: The way it would be in my ideal libertarian society
Real World: Not everybody are libertarian gods. This adds controls for failings
Practical: No long
Socialism (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm a socialist so I'll have a go at defining it.
Socialism is "democratic ownership of the means of production". What that would look like in reality is a pretty radical departure to corporate governance.
Corporations wouldn't be allowed to be dictatorships like they are today. Workers would be like temporary shareholders, gaining voting rights while joining a company, and losing those votes once they leave.Democracy would fill not only the political sphere but be fully infused into the economic sphere. Nothing would be shielded from democratic forces. Capital does not give anyone the right to dominate and enslave anyone else.
While worker co-ops exist on a small scale, they can't compete with massive tax-dodging transnationals that shit their externalities all over people in poorer countries damaging their health and environment. That makes socialism by definition an international project.
Socialism is not "social democratic policies", which are tax funded state-projects used to soften capitalism. To a socialist, welfare spending is not a solution, but the indication that a fundamental problem exists in society.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Socialism is "democratic ownership of the means of production".
Yes, that is socialism. But when young people say they want "socialism" that is not what they mean. They mean they want to be like Denmark: Capitalism with universal healthcare.
Workers would be like temporary shareholders, gaining voting rights while joining a company
That sounds great until the company has a bad quarter and your paycheck is $0. Ownership has a negative side as well.
GOP marketing (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, that is socialism. But when young people say they want "socialism" that is not what they mean. They mean they want to be like Denmark: Capitalism with universal healthcare.
Well, perhaps if the GOP stopped demonizing a social safety net, perhaps the term wouldn't be so muddled.
That sounds great until the company has a bad quarter and your paycheck is $0. Ownership has a negative side as well.
The suits get a base pay plus options and bonuses, why not the workers? Ownership is not a novel idea, even in the US:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_employee-owned_companies
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_worker_cooperatives
* https://hbr.org/2018/08/why-the-u-s-needs-more-worker-owned-companies
Or at least having workers represented on boards:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany
Re:GOP marketing (Score:5, Insightful)
The suits get a base pay plus options and bonuses, why not the workers?
The "suits" are the managers, not the owners.
Shareholders don't get "base pay".
Ownership doesn't mean "free money from thin air".
Re:GOP marketing (Score:4, Informative)
So what? You think that would change in an employee-owned company? Employees still get paid normally - they just *also* are the shareholders with ultimate control over company policy, they collect the dividends, etc., rather than that being the domain of a separate capitalist class.
Re:Socialism (Score:5, Informative)
Workers would be like temporary shareholders, gaining voting rights while joining a company That sounds great until the company has a bad quarter and your paycheck is $0. Ownership has a negative side as well.
If in doubt, make shit up based on how you want the world to be. Worker cooperatives are actually a thing and don't simply stop paying workers the instant profits are down. They are still companies so they still pay salaries.
Got one part right. Force instead of choice (Score:2, Interesting)
> While worker co-ops exist on a small scale, they can't compete
True. They exist, and generally don't do well compared to companies where the techs are profesional techs and the CEOs are professional CEOs. Generally, someone educated and trained to do a CEO job isn't very good at configuring routers, and someone trained in configuring routers isn't very good at selecting which companies their company should buy, or which divisions should be spun off as separate companies.
Actually specialization, each us
Re:Got one part right. Force instead of choice (Score:5, Interesting)
I will refer you to this fragment which argues against the notion that stock ownership is equivalent to democratic ownership of the means of production:
http://www.carlbeijer.com/2017... [carlbeijer.com]
For an example of worker ownership which has saved factories that would have otherwise been shut down (not for being unprofitable, but for not being profitable *enough*), look into Argentina's "recovered factory" movement, specifically FaSinPat ("Factory Without Bosses", formerly Zanon). In the latter case, the factory and the jobs were about to disappear, but the workers refused to stop coming to work; the factory is now more productive than ever, its worker-owners are better compensated, and enough surplus product is produced to be given freely to local community development projects.
There are many ways to run a co-op. As with any innovation, there is more risk when you have few templates from history to work from. But even a worker-owned enterprise must contend with the ordinary concerns of business cycles. It's not as though a worker-owned enterprise spends every dime of surplus on paychecks and other benefits. Surplus can be reserved to keep everyone fed during hard times. The thing is, workers have a say in what is done with the surplus. To contrast, the typical way a private (or publicly-traded but with decision-making power effectively concentrated in the hands of a CEO or board) enterprise handles recessions is to lay off huge numbers of workers. So yes, there are certainly trade-offs between the arrangements.
Re:Got one part right. Force instead of choice (Score:5, Insightful)
If these workers' coops are really so wonderfully productive, then why can't they compete with capitalist companies? Why do they always seem to fail and fade away, rather than prospering?
Because you can't "compete" against someone who had your kneecaps broken before the race even started.
Start to get close to cutting into their business and suddenly capitalist companies become distinctly mafia oriented. You get buried under lawsuits, their agents inside the government start auditing/investigating you, they buy up all the raw materials so none is available to you or they give away their product until you collapse.
Re: (Score:3)
Ownership implies control - if every non-executive employee of the company owns stock in the company, and they all agree that a certain policy must be changed - how likely is it that the policy will change?
If they actually owned the company, that would approach 100%. In reality, it's probably closer to 0%, because the company is owned primarily by a small group of wealthy investors, and all the employee stock combined amount to a rounding error.
If you want a hybrid system for (partial) employee ownership y
Re: (Score:3)
While worker co-ops exist on a small scale, they can't compete
True. They exist, and generally don't do well compared to companies where the techs are profesional techs and the CEOs are professional CEOs.
Co-op doesn't mean "sans CEO". I'd believe that co-ops where everyone is involved in all the decisions don't do well, though; at least, they certainly won't scale easily.
Re: Clear definitions (Score:2, Informative)
Rarely have I seen such a short post make three points and get all three so very, very wrong.
Re: Libertarian here (Score:3, Insightful)
It's insane that you believe the right to self defense is dystopian.
Re: If they're smart, they should (Score:5, Insightful)
The only reason I can freely change jobs is because unions have made that possible. Otherwise, company stores and forced purchases would still have enslaved many workers, making a change of jobs impossible. Collusion between employers to not hire uppity folk would not be something they would try to avoid because of fines, but standard practice.
A good union (and not the guild-type of union the US is riddled with) defends the legitimate interest of all workers in a branch or sector. Even the "smart" ones that think they can handle lawyers and corporations on their own - while not realizing that that only works because there is an overheating economy and a labour shortage.
Re: If they're smart, they should (Score:5, Insightful)
Those things only make sense for people who are replaceable.
So for the majority of people it makes sense to unionize :)
Also, collusion in Silicon Valley makes a lot of sense: the opportunity loss of not gaining a new employee you really wanted is much lower than the cost of paying all those other people a lot more than you otherwise have to under no-poaching agreements. Remember: people find it extremely hard to judge competence when someone is more competent than they are themselves. Are they 2x as competent or 10x, or just 1%? They have no basis to judge this. So collusion keeps costs down, and they'll take the risk of losing a desirable software engineer because it works both ways (they also get to keep someone that would otherwise pack up and move).
In other words, the potential for collusion is a huge and certain cost saving, while not doing it is risky and uncertain. Guess what managers like and don't like?
Re: (Score:3)
Let's just say they were a mixed blessing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The fact there is a whole folklore surrounding them, complete with protest songs, does indicate a few issues at the very least.
Re: (Score:3)
Sounds like somebody hasn't actually studied history. The company stores - the only place you could spend your company scrip, often charged several times as much as the public stores down the street. Nobody in their right mind would rather get paid pennies on the dollar, even if it means avoiding taxes.
Re: Ah... the Liz Warren deceit (Score:5, Informative)
Really? You're using the spectacularly dysfunctional American healthcare system as an example of capitalism _working well_? Really?!
Re: Ah... the Liz Warren deceit (Score:4, Insightful)
Seems to me it's an example of what happens when you take the worst bits of socialism - unrestrained government funding - and combine them with the worst bits of capitalism - unrestrained free markets applied where consumers are not free. With that combination, no wonder it's a mess.
Re: (Score:3)
Seems to me it's an example of what happens when you take the worst bits of socialism - unrestrained government funding - and combine them with the worst bits of capitalism - unrestrained free markets applied where consumers are not free.
Only when you don't know that private insurers pay more for the same procedures.
Private insurers always negotiate with providers a price that is "Medicare + X%", where X is always a positive number.
The reason government dollars spent is relatively high is the expensive people are insured by the government. 65+ people are expensive, and on Medicare. Disabled people have little-to-no income, so they qualify for Medicaid. Your average 20-something doesn't need treatment for getting a limb blown off, but if
Re: (Score:3)
Only the dumb ones......... The rest of us who are competent will be stick to libertarianism forever.
Sometimes they just write themselves.
Re:The left didn't implode (Score:4, Insightful)
Immigrants, yes. Now do illegal aliens.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Immigrants, yes. Now do illegal aliens.
Most of the people in question aren't illegals, regardless of what Trump calls them. They're following the legally-defined process for seeking asylum.
Re: (Score:2)
Should be fine to dump them into LA then, amirite? https://twitter.com/cher/statu... [twitter.com]
They did, go read the article (Score:3)
For my money I'm far more concerned about legal immigrants. H1-B and H2-Bs take jobs Americans want. I could even live with that if we had a single payer medical system, a robust safety net and tuition free colleges. In other words, if I was getting benefits from the wealth generated by immigration.
I mean, realistically birthrates are down and like it or not will likely continue to drop. That appear
Re:We (tech worker) aren't paid enough (Score:4, Informative)
How fucking detached from reality are you?
You're competing for work with people earning $8k/year. Even in the US over half of households have less than $60k/year income. That's households, not individual salaries.
$100-200k/year is a great salary. If you can't afford to live on that the issue is not the fucking salary.