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Declining worker power vs. rising monopoly power: explaining recent macro trends

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Re: Declining worker power vs. rising monopoly power: explaining recent macro trends

#191

Post by someguyorother »

kebman wrote: post #176
strbean wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It can only represent the collective, and you cannot ensure that all individuals in such a collective would agree to such an exchange, or feel benevolent about it. As such, there is no such thing as a benevolent state. A state is only benevolent if every single citizen is benevolent? That seems like a pointless assertion. In a democracy, in theory, the majority is what matters.

Ah, yes. The majority that forced Socrates to drink poison.

If democracy is majority dictatorship, then why do constitutions provide rights also to the minority?

Re: Declining worker power vs. rising monopoly power: explaining recent macro trends

#192

Post by cvlasdkv »

fsckboy wrote: post #181
deegles wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should everyone have to work? We are 100% capable of creating a society where everyone's basic needs are met with the automation and technology we have today. The idea that a person is only worth something if they work needs to be deeply reexamined.

no reexamination necessary, I'm drawn to emulate and recommend the humans that work hard toward long term goals. I like when Darwinism shows tangible progress against entropy rather than producing viruses that leech off of life.

What long term goal is slaving away at McDonalds or Wal-Mart accomplishing? All the people advancing society are being paid pittances compared to the true leeches (landlords and shareholders).

People should not be required to work to survive. People should be required to work to make the world a better place. Most people work bullshit jobs that do not advance anything but the wealth of the 1%.

Re: Declining worker power vs. rising monopoly power: explaining recent macro trends

#193

Post by jtr1 »

technotony wrote: post #158
jtr1 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an argument a lot of non-authoritarian socialists make: democracy only governs the few hours when people are not sleeping or at work, so a deeper, fuller democracy would include running workplaces democratically as well. Whether by employee-elected boards, cooperatives, democratically run unions (a necessary distinction), or some other form of collective control, that the consent of the governed is a question…

This comes up a lot, nobody is literally chained to their desks. Democracy in the workplace comes from voting with your feet and taking another job at another company. It's not perfect, particularly for lower income people, but it's also not slavery and generally the arc of worker rights is improving through time. You could make a case that some of the current anger in the united states is because COVID's destruction…

Personally, I'd love it if everyone could easily vote with their feet. I think there's more overlap between certain libertarian and socialist visions of the economy than most people realize. In our current system, there's a lot of factors that prevent people from voting with their feet: healthcare, location, switching costs, and availability of jobs being chief among them, but also newer phenomena like non-compete contracts.

Re: Declining worker power vs. rising monopoly power: explaining recent macro trends

#194

Post by Dumblydorr »

lanevorockz wrote: post #59

Trying to break the conditioning here but government should always tax in a way that it incentive WORK. The way things are Wealth is no longer being produced, so those who have it will be on top because income will never be enough to prop you up. Therefore we should want a Growth market so that more wealth is produced and risk averse people will still be rich but more people will become as rich as them. To resolve In…

I think your point mirrors Scott Galloway's and Warren Buffet's philosophies. Why is sweat, regular labor, taxed much more than capital gains? Why do CEOs who are fantastically rich need lower taxation rates than the 100s of laborers their lifestyle relies upon? We tax sweat, we let riches run free.

Re: Declining worker power vs. rising monopoly power: explaining recent macro trends

#195

Post by ck425 »

jimmaswell wrote: post #110
sokoloff wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone believes that "owning land entitles you to eternally increasing prices". I think most people accept that owning land/buildings and renting it out to other people is an appropriate type of economic transaction to allow.

I'm skeptical of its implementation. So much land is bought up by a small number of entities with a lot of money then rented out at a profit indefinitely with little to no value added. My parents have been paying rent for 15 years and the only involvement from the landlord has been fixing the heater once or twice after having to be harassed to do so. In this situation he's essentially a parasitic middleman for proper…

I don't think artificial limits are the answer. A far better way to do it is to regulate the rental market in ways that increase the quality of rental accommodation across the board (minimum sizes, improved safety standards, increased tenant rights etc). This puts off people looking for a cheap buck but allows people who can efficiently provide quality housing stock to make a fair profit.

Re: Declining worker power vs. rising monopoly power: explaining recent macro trends

#196

Post by Avicebron »

Frost1x wrote: post #173
aj7 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporate governance is authoritarian. Period.

And its growing ever more unavoidable in daily life for anyone trying to live. Pretty much everyone is becoming subject to these authoritarian regimes (corporate structures) as they invade and carve away at our democracy through financial influence, regulatory capture, etc.

This should be actively fought every step of the way. We don't have to allow any corporation to do anything, they belong to the people who believe and give them power. Everything can be taken away, and everything can be burned.

Re: Declining worker power vs. rising monopoly power: explaining recent macro trends

#197

Post by kulig »

technotony wrote: post #158
jtr1 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an argument a lot of non-authoritarian socialists make: democracy only governs the few hours when people are not sleeping or at work, so a deeper, fuller democracy would include running workplaces democratically as well. Whether by employee-elected boards, cooperatives, democratically run unions (a necessary distinction), or some other form of collective control, that the consent of the governed is a question…

This comes up a lot, nobody is literally chained to their desks. Democracy in the workplace comes from voting with your feet and taking another job at another company. It's not perfect, particularly for lower income people, but it's also not slavery and generally the arc of worker rights is improving through time. You could make a case that some of the current anger in the united states is because COVID's destruction…

Most people cannot simply walk away from a job. Thats a seriously clueless take. Only people with an established career and plenty of connections can even consider just walking away.

Re: Declining worker power vs. rising monopoly power: explaining recent macro trends

#198

Post by Dumblydorr »

kebman wrote: post #113

To me it's pretty easy to understand. It's far easier for state organs to control large corporations, than many small and independent businesses. Meanwhile, it's far easier for coroporations with means to lobby for legislation that makes it difficult for smaller, i.e. competing, businesses to thrive. They can do this, because they can afford the armies of lawyers and lobbyists needed to uphold and exploit all those r…

I'd argue it's simpler for governments to foster a free and competitive market than try to work against massive vertically integrated companies with tons of lobbyists and power.

Are you suggesting the US has any control over the tech giants? It's clearly not the case, most politicians talk the talk, but they take massive donations in private events and then craft legislation to favor big tech. What we need is more companies, more competition, government needs to bust up the big players and disallow M&A.

Re: Declining worker power vs. rising monopoly power: explaining recent macro trends

#199

Post by markus_zhang »

chillacy wrote: post #179
lanevorockz wrote: post #59

Trying to break the conditioning here but government should always tax in a way that it incentive WORK. The way things are Wealth is no longer being produced, so those who have it will be on top because income will never be enough to prop you up. Therefore we should want a Growth market so that more wealth is produced and risk averse people will still be rich but more people will become as rich as them. To resolve In…

I'm with you but substitute WORK for Value Creation. It's way to easy to "create jobs" which are essentially busy-work with 0 to negative productivity. In the coming decades, economic productivity will become more and more important as gains from elsewhere start to taper out.

Agreed. Value Creation is a better word. Idea world is to have everyone getting rid off the necessary of repetitive work (of course he can still do it if he wants) and everyone is motivated to create value, in one way or another, and people generally don't say things like "Hey because I build rockets/control banks I should have a much more lucrative life than the rest of you guys".

If we look at history, most of the stuffs that improve human civilization were indeed funded by "VC" of the time, but the core motive is not to earn profit, but to solve problems and satisfy personal interest. Now if you can remove VC from the picture, you pretty much get a society in which everyone is automatically doing things that are beneficial to the collective. Anyone who wants to just be super lazy will get bored easily and will start doing things sooner or later, especially when all of his friends are creating value.

Sounds familiar somehow.

Re: Declining worker power vs. rising monopoly power: explaining recent macro trends

#200

Post by [deleted] »

kebman wrote: post #176
strbean wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It can only represent the collective, and you cannot ensure that all individuals in such a collective would agree to such an exchange, or feel benevolent about it. As such, there is no such thing as a benevolent state. A state is only benevolent if every single citizen is benevolent? That seems like a pointless assertion. In a democracy, in theory, the majority is what matters.

Ah, yes. The majority that forced Socrates to drink poison.

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