Unnecessariat • Hacker News Board

Re: Unnecessariat

#241

Post by dibujante » Wed, May 25, 2016, 11:14 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #239

dibujante wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, then Sanders is wrong. Socialism is state ownership of "the means of production". Socialism is planned economy. Socialism is the USSR. Sanders' criticism of capitalism can be entirely adequately paraphrased as "the safety net is inadequate". Americans (and pretty much all Westerners) are generally uniformly pro-capitalist. A debate over the extent to which the present capitalist system should be regulated is be…

> Socialism is state ownership of "the means of production". Socialism favors social ownership of the means of production; different branches of socialism prefer different mechanisms for this. These can broadly be split into top-down models (planned economy/state ownership models) and bottom-up models (council communism, etc.) It also includes models which are somewhere in between, like economic democracy (which tend…

> There are lots of socialisms.

Yes. But the point of this whole discussion is limited to whether or not Sanders is misusing the term. Even though there are all of these different socialisms that all satisfy the "social ownership" requirement, is Sanders advocating even a single one of them? I do not think that he is.

Re: Unnecessariat

#242

Post by douche » Wed, May 25, 2016, 11:26 PM UTC

collyw wrote: post #214

mindcrime wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is taxation theft? Because you're taking something you have no right to take possession of. And you're right, "theft" is a broader category of actions, but I don't consider that distinction relevant here. Eg, the State doesn't (yet, AFAIK) sneak into you home and take your property without your knowledge, in the name of taxation. Although they DO do some other pretty sneaky things, like civil asset forfeiture, bu…

Try living somewhere that has no / very little taxes, you will notice a complete lack of infrastructure. You want to live in a "developed" country where you have water, police, roads, schools.....

I live in a state with no income taxes, no sales taxes, and fairly low property taxes. Next door are states with far, far higher tax rates, of all assorted varieties. Infrastructure in my state is far, far better than infrastructure in those states. Corruption is far lower, however, and that probably makes all the difference.

Re: Unnecessariat

#243

Post by falcolas » Wed, May 25, 2016, 11:27 PM UTC

lmm wrote: post #161

labster wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will create jobs but not increase wealth at lower levels. Obviously not, because the whole reason companies do it is to avoid paying more to workers. It will just create more situations where people need to work two jobs, without the benefit of being paid overtime. Still no benefit to a man in his mid 50s looking for a low-skill job, because the job he was trained in doesn't exist now. TL;DR yes, I don't believe i…

> It will create jobs but not increase wealth at lower levels. Obviously not, because the whole reason companies do it is to avoid paying more to workers. It will increase wealth because the companies will still be paying more than they are today - if two 40-hour workers were cheaper than one 80-hour worker today, they'd be hiring the two 40-hour workers already. Additionally going from one unemployed person and one…

Probably cheaper to get 3 26.? hour employees and avoid full-time benefits like insurance and retirement.

They can get those through welfare, after all. /s

Re: Unnecessariat

#244

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, May 25, 2016, 11:29 PM UTC

dibujante wrote: post #240

pjlegato wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously Sanders uses a different definition for "socialist" than you do. What makes your definition correct and his wrong? An appeal to authority fallacy? He can produce just as many "authorities" with equally fancy credentials who agree with his definition and say yours is wrong. Part of the problem with socialism is that every particular faction thinks their own pet definition of "socialism" is the One True Corre…

People disagree on a lot of things, like the age of the earth. Are all of those viewpoints valid? My definition of "socialist" derives from original usage, is concise, and distinct from any definition of capitalist economy (regulated or otherwise). It's the right usage because of its historical correctness and its current utility. Sure, you can redefine "socialism". You can redefine any word you want. But if you then…

> My definition of "socialist" derives from original usage

It may "derive" from the original usage, but it both more restrictive than the original usage and more restrictive than the term has been used by large bodies of self-described socialists since the 19th Century.

> and distinct from any definition of capitalist economy (regulated or otherwise).

Your use of "regulated capitalism" to refer to the modern mixed economy is, BTW, inconsistent with original definition of the term.

> It's the right usage because of its historical correctness and its current utility.

No, its the wrong use, because of its historical incorrectness, and then fact that, insofar as there is utility in having a label for the category you want to apply the label to, there is already are broadly accepted terms for that group that don't require your ahistoric narrowing of "socialism" ("state socialism", "planned economy").

> Sure, you can redefine "socialism". But if you then apply that term in its historical context, e.g. "criticism of capitalism is now mainstream", then you're committing a fallacy of false equivalency.

Using terms in their correct, historical way (which your use of "socialism" doesn't, though that's somewhat tangential to the example you offer here, which doesn't even use "socialism", "criticism of capitalism" is decidedly mainstream in the US today, where the status quo is a mixed economy, and both social democracy as a stepping stone to socialism (on the left) and a return to capitalism (on the right) are among the alternatives with some mainstream traction (along with other tweaks to the mixed economy that neither move substantially to social democracy nor substantially back to capitalism.)

Re: Unnecessariat

#245

Post by Kostchei » Thu, May 26, 2016, 2:07 AM UTC

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #44

unimpressive wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what's the alternative? Removing the incentive gradient of capitalism doesn't create paradise, it just creates a new incentive gradient that can be even more perverse and horrifying than the last. http://www.sigcis.org/?q=node/85 http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/24/book-review-red-plenty/

Broken-clock Ayn Rand did get something right in a scene in Atlas Shrugged where the [malicious and grossly incompetent] government figures toast to the "end of the age of money," and are interrupted by a [flawless and endlessly brilliant] capitalist who warns them that it will only usher in "the age of pull." Power and money are largely interchangeable in a free market world where there's always a way to get what yo…

except, when you start looking into cash//fiat money (as opposed to promissory notes), it is anonymous and inherently dis-honest. What would be honest is a system where the "wealth" associated with an action could be traced. You could tell when wealth from a prostitution transaction, collected by a pimp, was paid to a councilman or official as a bribe. Our current cash system washes that stain and banks do their best to maintain that "privacy", with varying degrees of success.

Re: Unnecessariat

#246

Post by vintermann » Thu, May 26, 2016, 6:26 AM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #196

vintermann wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In any case, they don't come from your kids' work. So you have to go back to arguing for voluntarism (step two of the carousel) rather than desert in order to justify your children enjoying something they didn't work for. And the problem with that is that it really relies on a "facts on the ground" view on property entitlements. If our laws about property are man-made and supported with force, why shouldn't we change…

My beliefs include that I'm able to share or gift my surplus capital as I see fit (and said so explicitly above). You can disagree, you can certainly fight it, but you can't really morally condemn me for sharing my earnings with my family.

That you're able to isn't much of a belief, the question is whether you should be able to. Yes, you said so explicitly, and I acknowledged it.

But you're, as I said, not justifying it with desert now.

You think you deserve to be able to do as you wish with your money. But why do you deserve that? It can't be because you worked for it, because in giving money to people who didn't work for it (e.g. your kids), you acknowledge that having worked for it isn't important to you. And I guess you think that your kids, too, should be allowed to use the money you give them as they see fit.

Apparently, having the money ("facts on the ground") is sufficient for you to think you should be allowed to do with it as you please. That sounds like might makes right to me...

I'm not condemning you for "sharing your earnings with your family", but I'm certainly condemning your deficient justification for it.

Re: Unnecessariat

#247

Post by vintermann » Thu, May 26, 2016, 6:47 AM UTC

crikli wrote: post #198

vintermann wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matt Bruenig (yes, the guy who was recently hounded out of his job for calling a powerful Hillary supporter a scumbag) had an interesting description of this argument, or rather this series of arguments. First, he says, libertarians defend inequality through desert: * People should keep their money, they worked hard for it! Then Bruenig points out that there is capital income, which does not come from work. Capital w…

This whole thing is just a few chained together straw men. Libertarians do not say "people should keep their money because they worked hard for it." They say that "people should keep their money." No qualifier. Libertarians are not "against force and for voluntarism." Libertarians are fully in favor of force, particularly when it comes to the defense of personal property. Some libertarians are in favor of voluntarYis…

What counts as "defending" personal property, and what's using violence to take other people's stuff depends on which property claims you consider legitimate. This in turn depends on how you justify the property claims. Leaving out the qualifier is a cop-out. If you leave out the qualifier, what is the justification? Why is your claim on it any better than mine, or your government's?

There are three possible answers to that:

* Desert: It's mine because I deserve it, having worked hard for it.

* Contractualism/Voluntarism/VoluntarYism or whatever you want to call it, the idea that the arrangement is fair because it was all voluntary from the involved parties.

* Tradition: It's mine because however I got it, now I have it, and you can't take it from me. I call this the "facts on the ground" argument. It's not really a moral argument, so if you take this approach you can't morally condemn people who challenge the status quo (want to take it from you). If you leave out a justification for property claims, you're really here by default.

These three answers are not compatible, for reasons explained at length.

It's not bullshit, because it's a clear argument that I can follow. Whether it applies to "real" libertarians is another matter - as far as I can see it does, though.

Re: Unnecessariat

#248

Post by sokoloff » Thu, May 26, 2016, 8:24 AM UTC

vintermann wrote: post #246

sokoloff wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My beliefs include that I'm able to share or gift my surplus capital as I see fit (and said so explicitly above). You can disagree, you can certainly fight it, but you can't really morally condemn me for sharing my earnings with my family.

That you're able to isn't much of a belief, the question is whether you should be able to. Yes, you said so explicitly, and I acknowledged it. But you're, as I said, not justifying it with desert now. You think you deserve to be able to do as you wish with your money. But why do you deserve that? It can't be because you worked for it, because in giving money to people who didn't work for it (e.g. your kids), you ackn…

Inherent in a property right is the right to give or trade it to someone else.

If I have property rights over a steak or a measure of rice, I can cook it and share it with my family. Likewise with my house, car, or abstract medium of exchange (money). I don't see that as "might makes right", but rather as "that's inherently what property rights are".

Re: Unnecessariat

#249

Post by unprepare » Thu, May 26, 2016, 4:10 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #96

pjlegato wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the solution is that the US should abolish the minimum wage and make it possible to cheaply bribe your way out of following regulations, so that middle class people can afford servants again?

Yes, we should abolish the minimum wage, and if necessary directly subsidize the poor with EITC and similar programs. That will reduce disincentives. Of course, if we really cared about reducing poverty and inequality, we'd just skip the EITC and open our borders - but obviously the massive amounts of inequality between an American and an Indian are far less important than the relatively small amounts of inequality b…

>Another solution is a basic job - basically a basic income, but you need to work for it (e.g., fixing our crumbling infrastructure and providing free child care for working mothers).

So you want to nationalize the construction and child care industries?

This is radically more communist than any basic income scheme i've ever heard of.

Re: Unnecessariat

#250

Post by yummyfajitas » Thu, May 26, 2016, 5:54 PM UTC

unprepare wrote: post #249

yummyfajitas wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, we should abolish the minimum wage, and if necessary directly subsidize the poor with EITC and similar programs. That will reduce disincentives. Of course, if we really cared about reducing poverty and inequality, we'd just skip the EITC and open our borders - but obviously the massive amounts of inequality between an American and an Indian are far less important than the relatively small amounts of inequality b…

>Another solution is a basic job - basically a basic income, but you need to work for it (e.g., fixing our crumbling infrastructure and providing free child care for working mothers). So you want to nationalize the construction and child care industries? This is radically more communist than any basic income scheme i've ever heard of.

When did I say that?

All I propose is putting people on welfare to work on all the left wing's favorite projects. This will save money (we can reuse the existing pool of welfare money rather than finding new money to pay Davis-Bacon wages) and reduce work disincentives (either do a sucky government job or go be a maid).