Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession • Hacker News Board

Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

#21

Post by Ididntdothis » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 2:23 PM UTC

perceptronas wrote: post #10

>After the 2008 recession, President Obama and the Democrats effectively saved capitalism from itself; a more radical leadership would fight to replace it with a better system. This time around there may be far more pressure from below to do just that, especially with a more organized left and more class conscious young people. As a former soviet occupied country citizen, I am amazed that westerners would want to ove…

“that westerners would want to overthrow capitalism.”

Almost nobody wants to overthrow capitalism. People want to make adjustments to the current form of it to address concerns. That’s very legitimate and necessary in a functioning democracy. The people who scream “socialism “ all the time just want to move the discussion to extremes

Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

#22

Post by nohope » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 2:23 PM UTC

perceptronas wrote: post #10

>After the 2008 recession, President Obama and the Democrats effectively saved capitalism from itself; a more radical leadership would fight to replace it with a better system. This time around there may be far more pressure from below to do just that, especially with a more organized left and more class conscious young people. As a former soviet occupied country citizen, I am amazed that westerners would want to ove…

What you mean by "west"? Latin America (where I live), all the Africa and some poor european countries are "west" and those are not very good examples of prosperity.

Even in "western" rich countries there is a lot of growing unequality. The capitalism is falling by itself.

Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

#23

Post by perceptronas » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 2:23 PM UTC

ebg13 wrote: post #11

perceptronas wrote: post #10

>After the 2008 recession, President Obama and the Democrats effectively saved capitalism from itself; a more radical leadership would fight to replace it with a better system. This time around there may be far more pressure from below to do just that, especially with a more organized left and more class conscious young people. As a former soviet occupied country citizen, I am amazed that westerners would want to ove…

> As a former soviet occupied country citizen, I am amazed that westerners would want to overthrow capitalism. They would probably say that they perceive a difference between "democratic socialism" and "fascist communism".

Well there is no difference. If majority oppresses minority (democracy) - how is this different from Bolsheviks. You kill/take assets from the rich, make private entities illegal and then it is the same. If you allow freedom for people to open a shop to sell meat in your local area - well its capitalism then.

Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

#24

Post by enlyth » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 2:24 PM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #16

corporateslave5 wrote: post #6

[flagged]

I can't comment on US, but Germany and some other EU countries have fertility rate below 1.5. Without immigration the system will collapse as pensioners will outnumber working population. EDIT: this is an observation, I am not advocating 'substitution'

Because young people can't afford to have more kids. Mass influx of unskilled labour is not going to save us.

Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

#25

Post by rcMgD2BwE72F » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 2:25 PM UTC

perceptronas wrote: post #10

>After the 2008 recession, President Obama and the Democrats effectively saved capitalism from itself; a more radical leadership would fight to replace it with a better system. This time around there may be far more pressure from below to do just that, especially with a more organized left and more class conscious young people. As a former soviet occupied country citizen, I am amazed that westerners would want to ove…

>Its what makes the west so prosperous

And destroy our habitat.

Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

#26

Post by adultSwim » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 2:25 PM UTC

Wait until this soft gentle wave of climate activism fails...

Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

#27

Post by adventured » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 2:26 PM UTC

npo9 wrote: post #3

I’m really surprised this piece was almost entirely about public opinion, only using economics to discuss the likelihood of a recession soon and the effects of inequality. The levers our governments have been pulling to steer the economy are reaching their maximum. The system where we reduce interest rates to spur spending to stimulate the economy (probably) don’t work when interest rates negative.

> The system where we reduce interest rates to spur spending to stimulate the economy (probably) don’t work when interest rates negative.

Sure it will. We're just in the early stages of the government abusing the Fed & USD for spending expansion, they've yet to begin getting truly outlandish on what could be done. They'll pump up the government spending projects, directly funded (subsidized) by the Fed's policies. It will continue to work at least for a while yet. 30 more years at a minimum, based on what Japan was able to manage (with a weaker currency (ie not the global reserve currency), in a weaker economy, lower incomes, with far less wealth to debase).

Negative rates means you get a 'free' national high-speed rail project. You get 'free' $2 trillion in infrastructure spending. You get 'free' expansion of Medicare down the ladder and Medicaid up the ladder (likely lessens the tax hammer short-term anyway). I mention those things because the next President after Trump is guaranteed to be a Democrat and is guaranteed to pursue some variation of those general things (high-speed rail is questionable, unfortunately). We're likely to enter a window in the next decade, where the US can float a trillion dollars for 30 years at 0.5% or lower. We desperately need to violently take advantage of that small window of opportunity to build a national high-speed rail network and pull off a once-in-a-generation repair of our infrastructure. The voters will support it in that time frame.

Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

#28

Post by jtcruthers » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 2:26 PM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #16

corporateslave5 wrote: post #6

[flagged]

I can't comment on US, but Germany and some other EU countries have fertility rate below 1.5. Without immigration the system will collapse as pensioners will outnumber working population. EDIT: this is an observation, I am not advocating 'substitution'

Yes, lets bring in loads of uneducated, poor immigrants instead of addressing the issues causing fertility rates below the replacement level. Why let our children have families when we can import them for cheaper?

Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

#29

Post by nohope » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 2:26 PM UTC

Ididntdothis wrote: post #21

perceptronas wrote: post #10

>After the 2008 recession, President Obama and the Democrats effectively saved capitalism from itself; a more radical leadership would fight to replace it with a better system. This time around there may be far more pressure from below to do just that, especially with a more organized left and more class conscious young people. As a former soviet occupied country citizen, I am amazed that westerners would want to ove…

“that westerners would want to overthrow capitalism.” Almost nobody wants to overthrow capitalism. People want to make adjustments to the current form of it to address concerns. That’s very legitimate and necessary in a functioning democracy. The people who scream “socialism “ all the time just want to move the discussion to extremes

> Almost nobody wants to overthrow capitalism. People want to make adjustments to the current form of it to address concerns.

You are right, and that is exactly the problem, since it is something history proved impossible to be reformed.

EDIT: reforming capitalism is a long term desire from part of the humankind. It is not a new idea and has yield very long discussions [1]. So, the big idea today is indeed how to overthrow it in favour of another form of social organization.

[1] https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1900/reform-revol...

Re: Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession

#30

Post by diffeomorphism » Tue, Oct 22, 2019, 2:27 PM UTC

xienze wrote: post #15

wayoutthere wrote: post #8

In the US, it's less active protest and more things like slacking off heavily at work because it's a treadmill we can't win. We have absolutely no incentive to work hard when doing so doesn't materially affect income. We as a nation have basically told people "no, you can't have a comfortable life or save for retirement because your parents' generation still needs to get 10% annual growth to make their retirement mat…

> We have absolutely no incentive to work hard when doing so doesn't materially affect income. And you think that would improve under socialism or communism?

That is literally the opposite of what the sentence said?