Declining worker power vs. rising monopoly power: explaining recent macro trends • Hacker News Board

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

#241

Post by milesvp » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 6:46 PM UTC

bedhead wrote: post #160

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've long argued for massive estate taxes on the very rich that forces a partial reset on wealth and avoid medieval times when land ownership was just passed down generation to generation. It's the only fair and practical wealth tax I can think of. I have no problem at all with Bezos being filthy rich, however, I have a giant problem with his kids and all descendants being billionaires. A huge estate tax would also m…

The bigger problem with estate taxes (and btw estate taxes often imply death taxes in US law) that you may not see is how they effect smaller players. One of the things fueling corporate consolidation is asset liquidation upon death. If I start and own a small company that’s worth $10million, when I die, there is likely a strong desire to liquidate that company in order to allow for some inheritance to multiple people. This likely means selling the business to another player. If there’s an estate tax, then you must sell. My understanding is this has been a very real problem for farmers for many generations, and they have been the largest opponents for estate taxes.

I suspect the bigger problem isn’t the Bezos’s of the world consolidating money and power generationally, it’s the big corporations getting bigger, with corporate taxation disproportionately hurting the smaller players rather than the bigger players. We would have a much healthier economy if the incentive structures hurt companies more the bigger they get to discourage things like vertical integration. A company doesn’t have to pay taxes on the intermediary steps of production but might have to (sales or B&O tax) if they were to purchase the same goods from a third party. This tends to distort markets away from lots of smaller players to a few big players.

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

#242

Post by mc32 » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 6:46 PM UTC

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.

HOAs too. As if municipal codes and such aren’t enough for people.

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

#243

Post by zorked » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 6:47 PM UTC

megaman821 wrote: post #217

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…

It seems that all the forms of collective control you listed are perfectly legal. If the majority of workers prefer workplaces like that then those places will thrive. What you are implying though, is that the government forces all workplaces to conform to your desired control scheme. So fuller democracy equals government limiting choice, as long as it is your desired choice.

That's a bit like saying "Here we are in 1650 under an absolute monarchy. The people are the majority, they could topple our illegitimate hereditary government and make it a democracy, but they haven't done it yet because they certainly prefer things this way".

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

#244

Post by matchbok » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 6:48 PM UTC

deegles wrote: post #112

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…

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, we aren't. Not even close.

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

#245

Post by danjac » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 6:49 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #211

alexose wrote: post #142

I find it very disappointing that the most reliably lucrative career arc for a programmer nowadays is to get hired by a tech giant and stay there as long as possible. And the second most is probably to go to work for a company that could get gobbled up by a tech giant. I've made a career out of small startups, and I wouldn't trade it for a thing. On the other hand, if I'd gone to work for Amazon straight out of colle…

And what kills me about this is it almost seems like the big tech companies are just grabbing up engineers to no purpose. When I hear stories about what people are actually doing at larger companies, it often seems somewhere between miniscule and just plain empty. And it's not like a lot of the people telling these stories don't understand that. But they're happy enough wasting a third of their day at that salary.

Thankfully we have modern Agile/Scrum with all its process and meetings to soak up that time and give us the feeling of business.

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

#246

Post by leetcrew » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 6:49 PM UTC

cvlasdkv wrote: post #188

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well yeah usually the more fun job pays less. That’s just basic economics. Life is all about trade offs.

There is nothing inherent in "basic economics" that postulates that fulfilling or fun jobs pay less. I also find the idea of "basic economics" laughable given how impossible economics is in the first place. I mean, yes, if you assume spherical cows...

this seems like basic common sense. if you have two job offers for the same salary, but one sounds really fun and the other sounds really boring, wouldn't you pick the fun one? but at the same time unless you're already pretty wealthy, there's probably a dollar amount that would make you pick the boring one instead. iterate this choice over enough people, and the "fun factor" depresses wages.

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

#247

Post by Nasrudith » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 6:54 PM UTC

kgin wrote: post #125

amaajemyfren wrote: post #93

TIL: NAIRU. Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment refers to a theoretical level of unemployment below which inflation would be expected to rise. It was first introduced as NIRU (non-inflationary rate of unemployment) by Franco Modigliani and Lucas Papademos in 1975, as an improvement over the "natural rate of unemployment" concept which was proposed earlier by Milton Friedman. In the United States, estimate…

It’s a fascinating thing to realize that policymakers consider zero unemployment to be too low. The economy is built on the idea that some people at the bottom will be desperate enough to keep minimum wages low.

Unemployment to some degree is functionally a form of a buffer or reserve of labor. Obviously there is also a measure of skill mismatch, lag time, and similiar as well but lacking a reserve leads to disruptions which interupt growth and advancement.

While there is a bias against raising minimium wage there is also a fundamental constraint - if a job can't pay for itself in value generation it isn't sustainable.

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

#248

Post by throwaway2048 » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 6:55 PM UTC

rcoder wrote: post #167

technotony wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> It's not perfect, particularly for lower income people... I don't think many minimum-wage retail or service workers can just "vote with their feet" and easily get another job, especially if you don't consider major changes in location and hours to be a non-starter. For folks with kids, or who depend on public transit to get to work, "up and moving" isn't really an option. If you're one missed paycheck away from evi…

voting with your feet is almost certainly going to land you what is basically an equally shitty job when you have no leverage.

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

#249

Post by someguyorother » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 6:58 PM UTC

kebman wrote: post #218

someguyorother wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to be a kind of mixing of two concepts. First, that "a state that is big enough to give you anything, is big enough to take it all away". And second, that being provided resources "for free" is a forced exchange because you don't have a say. If the state was a dictatorship, then the point might apply. However, democratic states (to lesser or greater degrees) contain some measure of feedback; and that weake…

This is not a concept, but an observation. What you're talking about already exists. It's the capitalist cooperative, where people voluntarily come together to pool capital in order to build some company that produces things or services that are of benefit to the collective owners and/or their customers. However, while the price of membership in such a unit decreases with every new participant, the ownership is also…

Right, so the point that it is a matter of degree stands, and the point that you are not powerless in a state where you are part of the government also stands.

Given those points, it is not impossible to imagine a future state deciding to use some of its resources to constructing an automated production system. Its legitimacy is backed up in two ways: once, by the consent of the governed through the democratic process, and the other, by the positive externalities it grants to the people in common.

If the people of such a future state decides to create a common automation infrastructure, then they may also reach the conclusion that not everybody needs to work. The conclusion you reached in your initial post,

>Because if you cannot offer anything of value, someone else will offer that value on your behalf, making you an extraneous cost which anyone in their right mind would want to remove.

no longer holds, because even in the most selfish system, any bureaucrat who takes the time to "remove" you will have to face the consequences. And therefore, there can exist a state that does not demand everybody work.

To some extent, that already exists today. Welfare states protect (or are intended to protect) people who can't work. The people in a welfare state do not want to leave those who can't work to starvation, and so the state doesn't, either.

I do, of course, agree that states as they exist today are imperfect, sometimes grossly so. But I disagree that there is a necessary implication that everybody has to work. As long as the people have a say, and as long as the people do not only value labor, the state cannot simply rid itself of its unproductive constituents. If anyone "in their right mind" would remove people that are "extraneous costs", then the people are collectively insane - and they are coherently and strongly insane enough to check those who are not.

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

#250

Post by markus_zhang » Wed, Jun 03, 2020, 6:59 PM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #235

markus_zhang wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't solve the problem in conventional ways because rich people as well as large funds and corporations control legislation. You can vote 100 tines and be guaranteed that the outcome won't be different in that perspective. I'm not sure if ycombinators like the alternative way. BTW I agree to your idea in general, just want to say that I'd substitute WORK with anything that benefits human being.

The underlying problem is that money buys policy. That's not how democracy is supposed to work. But as long as that's true, you're going to get increasing disparities of both wealth and power - because you have a nice tight political and economic engine that cycles by turning one into the other, and back again. Redefining value as "social value" - of some kind - won't change this on its own, because that process is j…

As long as the state, or whoever manage and control the state machine, utilize "money" to purchase man power (to get whatever tasks they need to accomplish or whatever goods they need to build), it's impossible to bar money from the system. It is part of the system.

Democracy has always been like this, or worse, when it is not judged by money, but by your ancestors. Capitalism smashes Feudalism by bringing power to a lot of people than the Feudal lords agreed with, and then it's pretty much "money buys everything" mode.