The Real Class War • Hacker News Board

Re: The Real Class War

#601

Post by lainga » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 4:41 PM UTC

gerbilly wrote: post #570

asdff wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The working class is already radicalized, however it's powerless through division. A poor minority in the city and a poor majority in the countryside have a lot more in common than either of them might like to believe; their economic interests are shared as they are both simply the working class. However, the poor person in the city is unlikely to vote at all, and the poor person in the country is likely to vote agai…

IIRC, revolutionaries in Russia didn't wait for the proletariat class consciousness to arise on it's own, as it had been predicted by Marx. The middle class helped spark the revolution hoping that the proletariat would come around eventually. The fact that the article, and many of the commenters here are mentioning this again makes me wonder if socialist movements have always been primarily middle class movements.

> The middle class helped spark the revolution hoping that the proletariat would come around eventually.

That resulted in several decades of false starts by what Krein would call the Russian "secondary elite", in the form of the Narodniks, in the 1870s and 1880s. They had almost zero experience with the real "narod", only an idealized mental picture, and when they moved out of the big cities into the countryside (where the majority of the poor, Russia being vastly unindustrialised, lived), most of them got homesick and went back again.

Re: The Real Class War

#602

Post by dwaltrip » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 5:13 PM UTC

porknubbins wrote: post #449

maerF0x0 wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've often suggested this to the chagrin of relatively equally wealthy people (people earning 0.5-2x what I earn) . We're all living the same life, just with different levels of shiny. One drives a used corolla, the other a new one, the 3rd a lexus (made by toyota still). Each has a house with varying levels of pretty etc. The 0.01% is living in an existence far removed from us. They dont play games of wondering whic…

Different levels of shiny perfectly captures how I feel after taking a 66% paycut. Now I mostly buy food at Costco instead of Whole Foods and wear uniqlo. But I’m much happier having more time and less stress. I couldn’t buy a decent 2br house/apt in my big city before, still can’t. Unless you are trying to pay for kids college or something making an extra 100K in a major metro area mostly just raises your taxes.

I'm sorry you received a pay cut, and I'm glad you are happy with more free time.

However, making an extra $100k puts an extra $65k in your bank account. It's basic math. Now, psychologically, I can see it being not so clear cut, especially if one lets their standard of living and spending habits rise up as their paycheck increases.

Re: The Real Class War

#603

Post by throwaway100773 » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 5:46 PM UTC

kaycebasques wrote: post #444

kingkawn wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because his class consciousness is with them so he sees their participation as pivotal to anything taking root across the whole of society because they are how he relates to the whole of society

It’s also not a coincidence that this thread has 400 comments

Well said.

Re: The Real Class War

#604

Post by landryraccoon » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 8:18 PM UTC

golergka wrote: post #549

humanrebar wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty common to Christian, especially Protestant, theology and culture. "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise." And that principle is the often (most?) quoted part of the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evid…

That's equality in eyes of the law - not the equality of the outcome, which leftist movements try to preach.

That's a pretty political bent on things, especially if you are considering the protestant world view:

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -- not by works, so that no one can boast." (book of Ephesians)

The text (and theology) clearly divorce the outcome from the work being done. Frankly a plan reading of the text would be sympathetic to socialism (also see the day of Pentecost, the parable of the workers, etc..). It's very tortured to suggest that somehow this is actually a libertarian "pull yourself up" world view.

Re: The Real Class War

#605

Post by disqard » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 8:22 PM UTC

munificent wrote: post #466

nine_k wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my book, work has negative utility. It is something you tolerate to get the fruits of it, which may have positive utility. Being paid in exchange for work is the sign that otherwise the work won't be worth doing for you. The less work you do to achieve a desired result, the better. This is why technical improvements are valuable: they allow you do less work. There are activities that are rewarding by themselves, l…

I fundamentally disagree with the separation of life into toil and leisure. That mentality debases both acts. It implies that the more miserable our job is, the greater the moral reward we have earned. And, conversely, our leisure must be maximally hedonistic and selfish to make that suffering worthwhile. All of our waking day is a mixture of good and bad experiences, intertwined with all manner of internal and exter…

> A hobby is just a job that pays you more in fun than cash, and a job is a weird club you go to more than you want but that pays you dues in return.

That is beautifully expressed, and captures the non-dichotomous nature of life. Well-put!

Re: The Real Class War

#606

Post by maerF0x0 » Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 9:29 PM UTC

dwaltrip wrote: post #602

porknubbins wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different levels of shiny perfectly captures how I feel after taking a 66% paycut. Now I mostly buy food at Costco instead of Whole Foods and wear uniqlo. But I’m much happier having more time and less stress. I couldn’t buy a decent 2br house/apt in my big city before, still can’t. Unless you are trying to pay for kids college or something making an extra 100K in a major metro area mostly just raises your taxes.

I'm sorry you received a pay cut, and I'm glad you are happy with more free time. However, making an extra $100k puts an extra $65k in your bank account. It's basic math. Now, psychologically, I can see it being not so clear cut, especially if one lets their standard of living and spending habits rise up as their paycheck increases.

In SF/Peninsula that's not even enough marginal income to go from renter to home owner. Eg: Single bedroom apartment is ~4k and mortgage on a 1.6M home is almost 12K a month unless you have 350K down payment.

IMO the only option in the bay area is FAANG or live as frugal as possible and take the wealth to a lower CoL area.

EDIT: or improbably be a highly paid Cofounder / Executive and earn >400K per year.

Re: The Real Class War

#607

Post by humanrebar » Fri, Nov 29, 2019, 2:45 AM UTC

landryraccoon wrote: post #604

golergka wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's equality in eyes of the law - not the equality of the outcome, which leftist movements try to preach.

That's a pretty political bent on things, especially if you are considering the protestant world view: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -- not by works, so that no one can boast." (book of Ephesians) The text (and theology) clearly divorce the outcome from the work being done. Frankly a plan reading of the text would be sympathetic to socialis…

I'm not sure what you mean by socialism. Jesus didn't say much about the means of production. Or even about single payer healthcare systems.

Re: The Real Class War

#608

Post by pyuser583 » Fri, Nov 29, 2019, 6:10 AM UTC

cryptica wrote: post #541

motohagiography wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To +1 one this: Having spent a great deal of time consulting to government, in addition to working in media, but with a deep background in tech, the managerial class of people making policy have a revolving door to the universities, which are seized by faddish ideas as often as the elected representatives. Many of these policy people actually come to hate technologists because they find their more chauvinistic plans…

I wonder how this would relate to the Peter principle which states that every employee rises to their level of incompetence. The conclusion might be that the managerial class is not qualified to decide on what's good for others. If you were to look at the individual histories of most senior corporate executives, most of them were in various middle management positions at some point before they became executives... Th…

My own experience is that the Peter principle is outdated. People don’t rise vertically anymore: they rise horizontally.

Instead of working their way up within a single institution, they make lots of “lateral” transfers.

The government/lobbyist revolving doors are a good example, but not the only one. How many tech workers go back and forth between big tech companies and startups, each time rising more than if they stayed put?

It creates an administrative class that has little commitment to the institutions they “serve”, and an overly valued senior class that is able to run out the door, taking the company with it.

Meanwhile people who stick with the same company - often for reasons beyond their control - end up in “lower management” positions at best.

BTW, my own experience with executives is that most have a sales or engineering background. Very few, of any, have a background in true middle management background (HR, accounting, governmental compliance, etc.)

Re: The Real Class War

#609

Post by pyuser583 » Fri, Nov 29, 2019, 6:18 AM UTC

analyst74 wrote: post #457

jrochkind1 wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"journalists in particular no longer find themselves in the upper middle class" For most of the history of journalism in the U.S., journalists were not in the "upper middle class". Journalism was a poorly paid working class job for most of the 20th century. Maybe a couple decades at the end of it different.

That low pay serves as a gatekeeping mechanism so poor people can't survive on that career. On the other hand, journalists have a disproportionate influence over public discourse, now tightly controlled by the elite class. Or maybe it's the reverse, because the field has high prestige and impact, it attracts upper class children who don't need the salary, causing a downward pressure for journalist wages.

Lots of “journalists” are people who established themselves outside of journalism and then transferred in.

Re: The Real Class War

#610

Post by pyuser583 » Fri, Nov 29, 2019, 6:21 AM UTC

blurbleblurble wrote: post #269

snowwrestler wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you never heard of the labor movement? The grassroots activism by working class people that forced the federal government to develop an entire arm of federal law, with its own Cabinet-level agency, to protect them from the professional managerial class? How have you spent your career working in public policy circles and come away with so little understanding of what grassroots activism is, and the impact it has…

For the same reason that Hillary Clinton got nominated in 2016. Because too many politicians are completely out of touch with the movements, conditions and perspectives of working people. Where I live, grassroots organizers are doing all the hard work. I'm not talking about protesters. I'm talking about people who are building and connecting organically, who are facilitating workshops and popular education sessions,…

Not just the politicians. I recently overheard a conversation at the startup where I work where people were talking about the benefits of unionizing I’m front the executive team.

It was clear they wouldn’t do it and talked about it like it was a joke. Something poor people do.

Part of it is that unions badly need reforming.

The other part is that nobody cares enough to reform them.

Most folks at my company don’t care because they get paid too much to care. Not a bad reason.

Once the economy goes to crap that might change.