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Marc Benioff: We Need a New Capitalism

nytimes.com

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Re: Marc Benioff: We Need a New Capitalism

#71

Post by geebee »

dev_dull wrote: post #21
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #8

> Legislation to close loopholes in the Equal Pay Act have stalled in Congress for years, and today women still only make about 80 cents, on average, for every dollar earned by men. But congressional inaction does not absolve companies from their responsibility. Since learning that we were paying women less than men for equal work at Salesforce, we have spent $10.3 million to ensure equal pay; today we conduct annual…

This whole discussion is so tired to me. I’d like to see organizations who genuinely want to end inequality to start compensation transparency practices. Let’s see the numbers and we’ll decide for ourselves. After all, it’s not in our interest that salaries are so closely guarded.

It does (or at least should) put Benioff in a difficult position, in terms of argument, if he cites his own company's pay gap as evidence of why we need broad societal change, but then refuses to provide the transparency and data that would enable society to evaluate his claim.

If Benioff says "our company did an internal audit, discovered an internal pay gap, and took internal measures to correct it", ok then. But if he says they did an internal audit and on the basis of these results, the rest of us need to change, then he needs to allow us to verify his claim, the way we'd do with any policy argument based on data.

Re: Marc Benioff: We Need a New Capitalism

#72

Post by bschne »

remarkEon wrote: post #52
jadell wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why is average pay for women across all positions less than men? It's not like Salesforce employees are doing heavy manual labor that skews itself towards hiring more men. Why aren't women being hired in positions at the same rates as men (at which point we can then address the issue of pay inequality for the same position?) If this is an issue of "we're not hiring women to the same higher paid positions as men",…

You're supposing that women all want or aspire to the same types of positions that men do, which isn't true.

If that is the case, it might still be problematic to have a society that economically disadvantages ~50% of its members for what they naturally strive for.

Of course this gets philosophical and idealistic fast, but I think it's still worth considering even though it's not a simple design/engineering problem with some obvious perfect solution.

Re: Marc Benioff: We Need a New Capitalism

#73

Post by morvita »

anonuser123456 wrote: post #27
Miner49er wrote: post #5

Well, he gave a nice list of problems caused by capitalism, and said we need a new capitalism, but gave no reason why. Why a new capitalism? Why not something different, like market socialism, where the shareholders are the employees?

What prevents employees from buying shares today?

Money? Opportunity?

How many employees (even high earning employees like engineers) are actually in a position to purchase enough shares to make a difference? Even for most "publicly owned" companies the vast majority of shares are held by a small number of investors who aren't giving up their control and power.

Re: Marc Benioff: We Need a New Capitalism

#74

Post by _jarroda »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #69
_jarroda wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes. No true Scotsman. From where I'm standing, it seems obvious that as you slide down the scale into more collectivism, you wind up with a totalitarian nightmare. It's been tried. It ends disastrously every time.

This isn't even close to being historically true, and repeating it over and over doesn't make it so.

[flagged]

Re: Marc Benioff: We Need a New Capitalism

#75

Post by geebee »

I agree with Marc that many of the things he'd like to do will take money. Solving homelessness in San Francisco, for instance, will cost a lot. But that doesn't mean all we need to do is spend some money. We've tried that - we're already up to a conservatively estimated $300 million a year. But plenty of people, hardly all on the right - including Gavin Newsom, who admits he was behind some of these failed attempts, for instance - opposed Benioff's initiative on the grounds that if we keep spending money they way we've been spending it, another 300 million will just make things worse off.

And while San Francisco may be a wealthy city, there's only so many times we can go to the well. As an example, every year there's a story in the Chron about how low and middle income San Franciscans sit at their computers with a list of affordable city run summer programs for kids, looking at the international clock, desperate to hit "submit" as if it's tickets to a Stones reunion tour - and the aftermath and scramble for where to put their kid this summer if they don't get them, which is about half the time. 300 mil would go a long way to helping with the middle and low income families that San Francisco is, frankly, bleeding away.

If I thought 300 mil more would solve homelessness, I'd happily spend it - hell, I'd triple it. I grew up here and I still love this city, but things are bad. The main difference between me and the people who bash SF here on HN is that to me, it's extremely painful, I don't get the gleeful thrill of pointing out how shitty SF's policies have made things, it hurts. I'd be willing to dig pretty deep into my limited financial assets if I could see it get better. But unfortunately, I really do think that 300 million more of the same will produce, well more of the same, which is things getting worse and worse.

Re: Marc Benioff: We Need a New Capitalism

#76

Post by kolbe »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #67
kolbe wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many do overs does socialism get? You can only say "that's not how REAL socialism is supposed to happen" so many times.

What are you actually defending here? A version of capitalism that is imploding under the weight of usurious debt, that considers widespread homelessness around the bases of empty "investment" apartment towers a feature and not a bug, that bankrupts half a million families a year because of health insurance sharking, that is regularly implicated in unquestionably immoral scandals and corruption (Boeing, opioid sales,…

Marx was so popular because he's really great at identifying problems. He could pinpoint exactly what was wrong with far more insight and acuteness than you did. What he never ever could do was propose a better one. We have tried his plan of having the government temporarily seize the means of production several times, and it never ever ceases and becomes Socialism. He's like a philosopher version of the hipster who will mock your taste in music, but never tell you what makes music good.

I don't love our problems. But I hate every single other large country's problems more. I am open to change, but if your change wants to be some minor variation on the old, perpetually failing socialism-like ones that we've seen kill tens if not hundreds of millions of people, I'll pass.

Re: Marc Benioff: We Need a New Capitalism

#77

Post by nradov »

jadell wrote: post #60
jimbokun wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If this is an issue of "we're not hiring women to the same higher paid positions as men", that is a problem separate from the problem of "we're not paying women equally to men in the same position." Which is exactly the point. The solution may be much farther back in the pipeline, when young people are making educational choices, and can't be solved at the point companies are looking to hire someone.

But it can be driven by those companies. Companies in the US have a huge influence on the educational pipeline, and in turn, who gets encouraged in that pipeline.

I live in Silicon Valley, and I've yet to see any major tech company representatives show up at our local school board meetings. Occasionally they kick in a small grant for a specific program. But their influence on the really important stuff like budgets, curriculum, and hiring is nearly zero.

Re: Marc Benioff: We Need a New Capitalism

#78

Post by Digory »

peterwwillis wrote: post #65
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #8

> Legislation to close loopholes in the Equal Pay Act have stalled in Congress for years, and today women still only make about 80 cents, on average, for every dollar earned by men. But congressional inaction does not absolve companies from their responsibility. Since learning that we were paying women less than men for equal work at Salesforce, we have spent $10.3 million to ensure equal pay; today we conduct annual…

I think this kind of misses the point. Even if there's only an 8% gap, the question isn't just "what causes the gap". Assume you can rationalize it. Is rationalized inequity OK? Why or why not? Women aren't the only group this applies to, of course. There's lots of inequity in our society. But I don't think anyone in modern-day times would agree that this is "the way it's supposed to be", as if women are supposed to…

You can't get rid of "inequity" if inequity reflects different desires and choices by human beings.

Beauty, strength, intelligence, youth and health are wanted by most men and women. But they are not distributed or desired equally. That unequal distribution of desires and characteristics among people will lead to some kinds of inequality.

Re: Marc Benioff: We Need a New Capitalism

#79

Post by easytiger »

geebee wrote: post #75

I agree with Marc that many of the things he'd like to do will take money. Solving homelessness in San Francisco, for instance, will cost a lot. But that doesn't mean all we need to do is spend some money. We've tried that - we're already up to a conservatively estimated $300 million a year. But plenty of people, hardly all on the right - including Gavin Newsom, who admits he was behind some of these failed attempts,…

It's literally impossible to "solve homelessness". You can't stop someone walking I to your town and sitting down on the street.

Thats not even getting into what you allude to, in that "solving it" creates more homelessness

Re: Marc Benioff: We Need a New Capitalism

#80

Post by chrshawkes »

kolbe wrote: post #22
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #8

> Legislation to close loopholes in the Equal Pay Act have stalled in Congress for years, and today women still only make about 80 cents, on average, for every dollar earned by men. But congressional inaction does not absolve companies from their responsibility. Since learning that we were paying women less than men for equal work at Salesforce, we have spent $10.3 million to ensure equal pay; today we conduct annual…

I don't think it's too unfair to read deeper into Marc's motives. Salesforce has never been interested in noble pursuits like making high quality products. They've been interested in creating moats to rent seek off of. They've been interested in promising functionality, then making it too hard for clients to leave once they find out its deficiencies. To that end, I'm sure Marc wants regulation because he knows that p…

Marc is a grade A showboat asshole. Your comment hits the nail on the head.
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