Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The deep roots of modern resentment

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 123 posts

Re: The deep roots of modern resentment

#11

Post by compiler-guy »

EekSnakePond wrote: post #9

Ladies and gentlemen: Exhibit A. I say (and deeply imply): > Make cheap brown people as expensive as Western natives And he says "That's a criticism, not a proposal" Supporters of Western liberalism LITERALLY cannot detect alternative proposals, even when you put it immediately in their face. Even when you spell it out to them. They're just too high on sacred cows and moral supremacy.

That isn't a proposal to replace capitalism, that is a small detail of a proposal. A single sentence that is a kernel of an idea (and probably a good one), but far from a sufficient argument.

Please give an alternative proposal. A link is fine.

Re: The deep roots of modern resentment

#12

Post by m_fayer »

dandare wrote: post #5

Sometimes I feel like the more has been achieved by western liberalism the more is it being criticized for not magically fixing everything there is to be fixed. Coincidentally those who criticize it never offer alternative realistic solutions.

Absolutely.

The basics of liberalism as we see it today - rule of law and representative democracy, are young. How many presently-unthinkable violations of liberalism were committed by a Western nation within the lifespan of someone who is 90 today, with full public support? Outright genocide, systematic persecution and disenfranchisement of whole races and genders, violent militarised colonialism, you name it.

Building a just state and society is a slow, delicate, multi-generational project of structural and cultural modification, and we are just at the beginning. We're just now getting to a place where we're moving past barbaric mass violence and mass racist persecution.

It's like people look around, notice that we're not in fact in some enlightened Star Trek utopia, declare the whole edifice rotten, and decide that the best response is to gleefully burn it all down.

Re: The deep roots of modern resentment

#13

Post by EekSnakePond »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #10
EekSnakePond wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes we do. It's just those who have benefited from this arrangement the most happen to also control the relationships that power mass media, which is then used to undermine alternative solutions as "racist", "sexist" and "evil" with no evidence whatsoever and immediately engage in mob swarming and plebeian intimidation. For example: Western Liberalism absolutely requires cheap brown people. (And that deep reliance AB…

How, exactly, does Western liberalism absolutely require cheap brown people?

Every single thing you touched (And every single thing connected to what you touched) to type that statement was made overseas.

Welcome to the international system of currency and labor arbitrage, a core prerequisite for any democratic experiment. Democracy has ALWAYS and WILL always require slaves.

Re: The deep roots of modern resentment

#14

Post by joyeuse6701 »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #2

Unfortunately this article doesn't penetrate this extremelly important topic. It doesn't arrive anywhere. > Ceaseless change gave birth to liberalism, which, for all the mistakes made in its name, continues to adapt. Despite those mistakes, it remains the best response today. I mean, seriously? That's proof by assertion.

it's a book review.

Re: The deep roots of modern resentment

#15

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

dandare wrote: post #5

Sometimes I feel like the more has been achieved by western liberalism the more is it being criticized for not magically fixing everything there is to be fixed. Coincidentally those who criticize it never offer alternative realistic solutions.

In my perspective, the issue is less that the critics decline to offer alternative realistic solutions, but rather that they seek to repackage discredited and harmful solutions (like supply-side economics) as being the correct fix if only it gets implemented correctly and without opposition meddling.

This line of argument is also often used to whitewash Communism by saying things along the line of: "Communism would work just fine if it wasn't implemented poorly like the way China or the Soviet Union did."

It's rather troubling that in such a connected and technologically advanced age, we can't seem help ourselves from looking to the past to organize ourselves for the future.

Re: The deep roots of modern resentment

#16

Post by 1_2__3 »

EekSnakePond wrote: post #9

Ladies and gentlemen: Exhibit A. I say (and deeply imply): > Make cheap brown people as expensive as Western natives And he says "That's a criticism, not a proposal" Supporters of Western liberalism LITERALLY cannot detect alternative proposals, even when you put it immediately in their face. Even when you spell it out to them. They're just too high on sacred cows and moral supremacy.

He neglected to finish his thought: "...and on the rare occasion conservatives do offer a counter-proposal it's so laughably naive, so completely devoid of any understanding of nuance or unintended consequences, as to beggar belief".

You think alternative proposals are a game of whack-a-mole. While liberals are trying to knit a fabric of policy and government conservatives run around yanking on loose threads saying "see! see! we told you this was bullshit!".

Thread-yanking is not alternatives, if anything your suggestion gives a good indication of how little you understand the subject.

Re: The deep roots of modern resentment

#17

Post by beaconstudios »

EekSnakePond wrote: post #9

Ladies and gentlemen: Exhibit A. I say (and deeply imply): > Make cheap brown people as expensive as Western natives And he says "That's a criticism, not a proposal" Supporters of Western liberalism LITERALLY cannot detect alternative proposals, even when you put it immediately in their face. Even when you spell it out to them. They're just too high on sacred cows and moral supremacy.

cheap labour certainly feeds into the modern capitalist/globalist system and often leads to horrendous exploitation, but your focus on those people being brown is odd. People from LEDC countries of every colour have been exploited.

Re: The deep roots of modern resentment

#18

Post by beat »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #10
EekSnakePond wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes we do. It's just those who have benefited from this arrangement the most happen to also control the relationships that power mass media, which is then used to undermine alternative solutions as "racist", "sexist" and "evil" with no evidence whatsoever and immediately engage in mob swarming and plebeian intimidation. For example: Western Liberalism absolutely requires cheap brown people. (And that deep reliance AB…

How, exactly, does Western liberalism absolutely require cheap brown people?

It doesn't. Western liberalism has, at times, relied on cheap white people, too.

But the need for unskilled labor has dropped precipitously, while demand for skilled labor has spiked. See, for example, the IT industry's need for "cheap brown people" (from India, Pakistan, and elsewhere in Asia). They're only marginally cheaper than white citizen labor, and a lot more expensive than unskilled labor. This has been offset some by outsourcing, so the labor can have a lower cost of living in their native country, but still.

Brown labor is always, always an act of desperation. A racist society would rather not have brown people at all, and only employs them if whites cannot or will not do the job.

Re: The deep roots of modern resentment

#19

Post by EekSnakePond »

compiler-guy wrote: post #11
EekSnakePond wrote: post #9

Ladies and gentlemen: Exhibit A. I say (and deeply imply): > Make cheap brown people as expensive as Western natives And he says "That's a criticism, not a proposal" Supporters of Western liberalism LITERALLY cannot detect alternative proposals, even when you put it immediately in their face. Even when you spell it out to them. They're just too high on sacred cows and moral supremacy.

That isn't a proposal to replace capitalism, that is a small detail of a proposal. A single sentence that is a kernel of an idea (and probably a good one), but far from a sufficient argument. Please give an alternative proposal. A link is fine.

> That isn't a proposal to replace capitalism

Put down the Marxism for 5 seconds and follow my original premise all the way to it's logical end.

- Make the slaves as expensive as the natives.

- Why would you need slaves in this scenario?

- You wouldn't.

- If slaves and natives are equal cost, then machines are given incentives to outperform both.

- Western liberalism is completely flipped on its head in a world where humans can never compete against machine labor.

There is your solution. Close the slave/native arbitrage, let machines compete. This is where you opine about protecting your sacred cows.

Re: The deep roots of modern resentment

#20

Post by beat »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #15
dandare wrote: post #5

Sometimes I feel like the more has been achieved by western liberalism the more is it being criticized for not magically fixing everything there is to be fixed. Coincidentally those who criticize it never offer alternative realistic solutions.

In my perspective, the issue is less that the critics decline to offer alternative realistic solutions, but rather that they seek to repackage discredited and harmful solutions (like supply-side economics) as being the correct fix if only it gets implemented correctly and without opposition meddling. This line of argument is also often used to whitewash Communism by saying things along the line of: "Communism would w…

Those are almost always No True Scotsman fallacies. Supply-side failed because it wasn't supply-side enough. Etc.
Post reply on HN