Live data from Hacker News

Tech bosses are globalists, not libertarians

economist.com

101–110 of 222 posts

Re: Tech bosses are globalists, not libertarians

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bullshit. You're committing the fallacy that comes from Marxist thought--- that one's position/class/socio-economic-factors are the determining factors in their values and beliefs. People are not so simple, their thoughts can come from elsewhere. You're wildly underestimating the sentience of these people. I think a better model is that: People who understand economics tend to both be entrepreneurs (they understand t…

> People who understand economics tend to both be entrepreneurs ... and they are in favor of free trade and less regulation. People who want to be tycoons some day tend to have those views. That's not the same as understanding economics, and is arguably detrimental to it.

Plus if you're an entrepreneur who's NOT a tycoon you might feel very differently. I've kept a business alive these past ten years in spite of anything the market threw at me, and I had to notice the sharp correlation between my own well-being, and the Fed metric for the labor share.

Globalization hurt my business just as much as it helped. Yes, overseas sales, but my domestic sales just kept getting eroded as people live on less and less money, and it got to a point where I just got onto a Patreon model because my competitors in my industry were becoming too evil: I had to get disruptive in a big way because my industry sector was in a downward spiral of dishonesty, broken promises, DRM, and increasingly ruthless business behavior.

I expect major turmoil in that market within a few years, but I jumped off the train before it went into the ravine ;)

I think these days people who understand economics lean socialist, and I see unironic embracing of even more radical doctrines. Capitalism is following an easily observable trajectory as human worker productivity gains escalate year over year, and that trajectory is not 'upward'.

Re: Tech bosses are globalists, not libertarians

#102
post #58
post #33

Anyone else here familiar with "liberaltarianism"? I think that might be what the data is showing: the desire for a robust and efficient free market tethered to a redistributive social safety net. I think it's a pretty good idea.

Good idea but an awful name. "Liberal" has an existing meaning which has been warped by American politics. Both the American parties have a liberal heritage. Republicans are conservative liberals, and Democrats are largely progressive liberals. Libertarianism is a reactionary liberal ideology that seeks to return to a freer, less-regulated market. The confusion happened due to FDR. He ran on a progressive platform bu…

I agree with what you said about liberalism, but I think you're off the mark with regards to left-libertarianism. It's a disparate label, but I can't imagine any of these schools of thought showcasing "the desire for a robust and efficient free market" the parent comment calls for.

Liberal markets + social safety net sounds like garden variety Nordic model democracy to me. The term "left-libertarian" is usually ascribed to groups like Catalonian anarchists or Zapatistas.

Re: Tech bosses are globalists, not libertarians

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author of the study they were writing about here. That is the original expectation I had coming in, but I don't think what we find is totally consistent with that (although some is). We talk about that in the paper. Study here: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/working-papers... .

I quickly read your paper. The only way in which technology entrepreneurs deviate from what you would expect, is in their support for more redistribution. But all these people are not paying normal taxes, anyway. Why would they care? Also if you consider the risk of political or economic instability, then even redistribution might just be a self-interested policy stance.

Maybe tech companies know that they profit from redistribution, perhaps moreso than other companies? Tech products tend to be relatively expensive, but production is generally unlimited, because a significant proportion of the price reflects the fixed costs of development, which means that a larger market usually comes with profits. This is somewhat unlike e.g. agriculture or construction, where production quantities are more difficult to increase.

Re: Tech bosses are globalists, not libertarians

#104
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bullshit. You're committing the fallacy that comes from Marxist thought--- that one's position/class/socio-economic-factors are the determining factors in their values and beliefs. People are not so simple, their thoughts can come from elsewhere. You're wildly underestimating the sentience of these people. I think a better model is that: People who understand economics tend to both be entrepreneurs (they understand t…

Free trade benefits consumers at the local producers' expense.

There are no consumers anymore. Everybody's a micro-producer, and there's no market for any of it.

Re: Tech bosses are globalists, not libertarians

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote it, I don't feel like being an ass and I'm feeling overly aggressive today, not to mention I am a guest in someone else's house. ...but my overall point is that the tech elite is composed of a lot of rich white guys with connections, who naturally help each other out. Sam Altman runs YC now and as of last year was apparently seriously considering running for governor of California. That strikes me as grandios…

I welcome it. I'd much rather have a crowded field than what we had in the last election on the Democratic side - a field emptied by the presence of a dominant presumptive nominee. More competition is a good thing.

More competition is also how we got Trump on the republican side because the number of candidates lowered the bar for receiving a plurality of the votes. Trump never would have beaten someone like Cruz, Rubio, or even Jeb in a primary straight up.

Re: Tech bosses are globalists, not libertarians

#106
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote it, I don't feel like being an ass and I'm feeling overly aggressive today, not to mention I am a guest in someone else's house. ...but my overall point is that the tech elite is composed of a lot of rich white guys with connections, who naturally help each other out. Sam Altman runs YC now and as of last year was apparently seriously considering running for governor of California. That strikes me as grandios…

Trump lowered the bar so much that most people think they can do a better job than the current president, and are probably right. What they miss is that running as a republican is very different than running as a democrat (as I guess most tech people would want to). Zuckberg would beat Trump in the democratic primaries, no question about that. But he won't be in front of Trump, he would be in front of many experience…

In all fairness, the prior President was a one-term Senator, who pretty much started running for President just 18 months into that one term.

The actual merits of Trump or Obama notwithstanding, it's been three election cycles now since without traditional career politician in the White House. I'm not sure I can fault tech billionaires for thinking that this might be a real emerging trend, rather than just a pair of consecutive flukes.

Re: Tech bosses are globalists, not libertarians

#107

I think more simplistically: when you take this group of people and average them out what you get are beliefs that benefit the large companies they represent. That's the signal that is correlated with running a big tech company, and the rest is probably mostly noise. That's all really, they aren't for or against free trade in aggregate, they are for their company trading profitably, on average.

Author of the study they were writing about here. That is the original expectation I had coming in, but I don't think what we find is totally consistent with that (although some is). We talk about that in the paper. Study here: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/working-papers... .

Great work. Thanks a ton for climbing onto the hackernews thread!

When I look at chart in the article (I haven't read the paper) I get really curious about how 'support for regulation' might break down by issue. A lot of the regulation that the Trump administration is rolling back are environment rules that are strongly net positive for our economy once you account for health care externalities. While many of the regulations that hurt the economy the most (e.g. restrictions on urban housing construction.) are unchallenged.

http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/chang-tai.hsieh/research/gro...

How do you think the results would change if you broke "regulation" down by type e.g. environment/labor/business? I suspect there'd be a significant break between tech elite and the republican donor class on environmental/global warming issues. I also think there's a significant break between the tech elite and some democrats on zoning reform. Though I haven't conducted formal surveys :)

I think this is particularly interesting as it's the one issue were the tech elite didn't look like 'normal democrats' in your graphs - perhaps that outcome is more nuanced then the graphic shows.

Re: Tech bosses are globalists, not libertarians

#108
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump lowered the bar so much that most people think they can do a better job than the current president, and are probably right. What they miss is that running as a republican is very different than running as a democrat (as I guess most tech people would want to). Zuckberg would beat Trump in the democratic primaries, no question about that. But he won't be in front of Trump, he would be in front of many experience…

> What they miss is that running as a republican is very different than running as a democrat Yeah the republican primaries are more fair and balanced - we all saw what happened to Bernie in the democratic primaries.

> we all saw what happened to Bernie in the democratic primaries

I don't know what you saw, but I saw Clinton winning 55% of the vote.

Re: Tech bosses are globalists, not libertarians

#109
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote it, I don't feel like being an ass and I'm feeling overly aggressive today, not to mention I am a guest in someone else's house. ...but my overall point is that the tech elite is composed of a lot of rich white guys with connections, who naturally help each other out. Sam Altman runs YC now and as of last year was apparently seriously considering running for governor of California. That strikes me as grandios…

I'll be honest I had no idea who Sam Altman is so I read his wikipedia page and I still don't quite understand how he got to where he is today? Was his success started by the Loopt sale?

He's a very smart guy, according to a lot of people, and he's also nice. He made an app that was reasonably successful, sold it. When in YC, pg recognized his genius... and over time decided he's the guy who should run YC.

Re: Tech bosses are globalists, not libertarians

#110
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote it, I don't feel like being an ass and I'm feeling overly aggressive today, not to mention I am a guest in someone else's house. ...but my overall point is that the tech elite is composed of a lot of rich white guys with connections, who naturally help each other out. Sam Altman runs YC now and as of last year was apparently seriously considering running for governor of California. That strikes me as grandios…

I'll be honest I had no idea who Sam Altman is so I read his wikipedia page and I still don't quite understand how he got to where he is today? Was his success started by the Loopt sale?

He got to where he is today because Paul Graham took him under his wing and made him his de facto son. It's not really a replicable model.
Post reply on HN