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

The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 445 posts

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#81

Post by coldtea »

rmc wrote: post #67
cbanek wrote: post #2

Seems like in America it's hard to win. Either get paid not nearly enough and struggle to make ends meet, or get a high paid high stress job, still work all day and all night. Maybe we just have too much of that protestant work ethic?

> Maybe we just have too much of that protestant work ethic? The UK has Protestantism as an official state religion and yet it has the NHS, mandatory paid holidays etc.

The average UK citizen hardly cares for any religion, much less have the protestant work ethic being pervasive.

In fact the Church of England if often jokingly called the closest thing a church has to atheism.

Don't conflate nominal state religions with actual ideas at play in citizen's heads...

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#82

Post by piva00 »

bildung wrote: post #29
pavlov wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not convinced that Protestant traditions are to blame. The Nordic countries have had an extreme Protestant majority ever since the Reformation. In 1950s Finland, 95% of the population was a member of the national Lutheran church! That's practically everyone. At the same time, these 95% Protestant societies were heavily unionized, built up strong social safety nets, and offered long vacations, public health care a…

AFAIK protestant work ethics are rooted in Calvinism, which heavily influenced many sects in the U.S., but not or to a lesser degree the northern european countries.

Calvinism influenced the Netherlands a lot, I'm not really so much versed in Calvinism in America but if you want to compare I'd suggest starting there.

Even more interesting because I consider Netherlands the closest you get in Continental Europe to a Scandinavian country (socially/economically speaking).

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#83

Post by pikzen »

supremesaboteur wrote: post #44
trome wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

58% of Americans would prefer a federally funded healthcare system[0], akin to healthcare in Canada. We only feel alone because both parties are bought and owned by multi-nationals, and don't give a shit about what most people want. First Past the Post ensures a 3rd party will cause carnage if it ever did rise, splitting the vote and not electing the candidate most voters would prefer. Look at Wolf PAC in Connecticut…

Doesn't federally funded healthcare system have problems like lower quality of healthcare, increased government spending, increased chances of corruption and creating a moral hazard of not working to earn what is consumed ?

>lower quality of healthcare

On the very top end of healthcare? Maybe, but countries with public healthcare aren't doing too bad on that side either. On average? The quality is insanely higher. Until budget gets cut because some dimwit thought it would be a good idea to stretch their resources thin.

>increased government spending

Covering everyone costs money, yes. But considering the amount of money that is already being invested by the US govt. into health care and the abysmally poor results it gives, it can't really be worse.

>increased chances of corruption

Very little. And it solves lobbying, doctors being paid by companies, etc. It's usually a net positive.

>creating a moral hazard of not working to earn what is consumed

Screw that. People have a right to live decently, even without earning it. That's why we made societies. That's why we keep elders alive, and not immediately send them off to the glue factory as soon as they retire, that's why we keep children and feed them and teach them until they're able to be a useful member of that society. In most sensible systems, their education is largely free too.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#84

Post by zelos »

supremesaboteur wrote: post #44
trome wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

58% of Americans would prefer a federally funded healthcare system[0], akin to healthcare in Canada. We only feel alone because both parties are bought and owned by multi-nationals, and don't give a shit about what most people want. First Past the Post ensures a 3rd party will cause carnage if it ever did rise, splitting the vote and not electing the candidate most voters would prefer. Look at Wolf PAC in Connecticut…

Doesn't federally funded healthcare system have problems like lower quality of healthcare, increased government spending, increased chances of corruption and creating a moral hazard of not working to earn what is consumed ?

The NHS in the UK seems to cost about $3,000/year/person. Admittedly, that probably needs to go up by $500-$1000 to provide a better service, but that seems to be comparable to federal spending in the US already?

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#85

Post by ikurei »

iaskwhy wrote: post #62
bildung wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK protestant work ethics are rooted in Calvinism, which heavily influenced many sects in the U.S., but not or to a lesser degree the northern european countries.

Can you guys expand on this? It's something I'm usually interested in but being raised in a Roman Catholic country doesn't make it obvious what differences might exist between Calvinism and Protestantism.

Also catholic-raised, but from my understanding Calvino very strongly defended discipline and hard work over faith. In contrast, catholicism places a greater emphasis on... well, not sinning.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#86

Post by wiz21c »

J-dawg wrote: post #73
rmc wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And many of them think that people in Europe have it worse. That the economy would just collapse into African-levels of poverty if there was mandatory paid holidays. This is a danger of American TV shows and movie studios remaking shows for the American audiences. They don't get to see that Europe is mostly a developed place.

Not to disagree with the parent comment (because overall I prefer the European way) but we do have it worse in some ways. Salaries for professionals are markedly lower, we live in much smaller houses etc. I get the feeling that when you're winning at life in America, you're really winning. But when you're losing you're really losing. In Europe the ups and downs of life are more smoothed out.

What you describe about really winning/loosing is inequality. I generally think that inequality is bad for populations (you may disagree, but usually, those in favor of inequality are those on the right side of it)

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#87

Post by pikzen »

WalterBright wrote: post #38
WaxProlix wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Too much capitalism" would imply that the people who get money funneled to them at the top don't work hard enough (or take enough risk) to earn that money. Surely you don't believe that? edit: Sarcasm on HN is a bad idea. Obviously earning 400x a worker's wage is bullshit, there's no amount of work that justifies that.

It's not at all about how hard you work. It's about working smart, i.e. working on the right things.

Some people don't get to work on the right things. Hell, most people don't get to work on the right things, by virtue of not being born in the right social class, the right skin color, the right neighbourhood, the right family.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#88

Post by haikuginger »

Terr_ wrote: post #69
NTDF9 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Seems like in America it's hard to win. Either get paid not nearly enough and struggle to make ends meet, or get a high paid high stress job, still work all day and all night. A consequence of worshipping money. Even a human is valued by the amount of money they make or what they can afford. Other societies have agreed that there are some fundamental things that they will all share the burden for collectively and…

> A consequence of worshipping money. I disagree -- if money was truly worshiped, why would discussing salary be taboo? I think it has more to do with things like a just-world hypothesis [0] run amok, a long-term political trend in decreasing union power, and a lack of awareness about exactly how much surplus value is being siphoned away before the average person sees any of it. I mean, "stop worshiping money" almost…

> if money was truly worshiped, why would discussing salary be taboo?

Perhaps worship isn't the right word- it's more akin to fetishization. The religious right does a similar thing with sex, with similar results.

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#89

Post by ikurei »

piva00 wrote: post #82
bildung wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK protestant work ethics are rooted in Calvinism, which heavily influenced many sects in the U.S., but not or to a lesser degree the northern european countries.

Calvinism influenced the Netherlands a lot, I'm not really so much versed in Calvinism in America but if you want to compare I'd suggest starting there. Even more interesting because I consider Netherlands the closest you get in Continental Europe to a Scandinavian country (socially/economically speaking).

Isn't it also true that in Scandinavia religion started losing ground earlier and faster than in the rest of the West? As far as I know, religion is barely relevant for most scandinavians (apart from the influence it has had on all western culture, of course), whereas it still greatly influences the worldview of most americans.

May be protestantism is the origin of this kind of work ethics, probably exacerbated by american history (colonising a new world, carving a new place for themselves in a barely-known land...).

Re: The Gig Economy Celebrates Working To Excess

#90

Post by gommm »

J-dawg wrote: post #73
rmc wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And many of them think that people in Europe have it worse. That the economy would just collapse into African-levels of poverty if there was mandatory paid holidays. This is a danger of American TV shows and movie studios remaking shows for the American audiences. They don't get to see that Europe is mostly a developed place.

Not to disagree with the parent comment (because overall I prefer the European way) but we do have it worse in some ways. Salaries for professionals are markedly lower, we live in much smaller houses etc. I get the feeling that when you're winning at life in America, you're really winning. But when you're losing you're really losing. In Europe the ups and downs of life are more smoothed out.

In France, it's mostly the middle class and smaller companies that face a heavy tax burden. The really rich have a lot of ways to reduce their tax burden. It creates a system that disincentives creating a small company because of how tough it is. At a lower level, the welfare system sometimes create situation where people would lose money if they started a part time job instead of not having a job. So, there are some problems.

That said, I still feel that the system is better than the US system, there's less inequalities, less worry of disasters because you know that you'll be protected by the system and brilliant kids have a chance of getting a good education even if their parents are poor.

Post reply on HN