Live data from Hacker News

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

theweek.com

61–70 of 309 posts

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

#61
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because educating immigrants is cheaper? If you support immigrants, surprisingly, they tend to embrace the existentially important parts of your culture and integrate smoothly. But my guess is that you take issue more with their skin color.

>But my guess is that you take issue more with their skin color

Lol, I feel like having a family is way too expensive and disagree that importing replacements is the only way to go. Giving birth shouldn't bankrupt you, and that has to be a huge reason young people (including me and my friends) are pushing off having children. Combine that with the overwhelming student debt crisis, I don't feel I can take on a child. So it seems weird that the solution is "screw them, just import the people we need".

But sure, make it about me being "racist" so you can imagine yourself as a big warrior fighting off bigots online.

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

#62

[flagged]

Most young people are paradoxically for unfettered immigration I'm not sure that is true.

Yup not my experience either. If there was a reaction, it was mostly to the caging/seperating children stories.

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

#64
post #58

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…

Occupy Wallstreet did happen but it was torpedoed by identity politics, the establishment only permits fervent discussion about gender and skin color.

And who benefits from and promotes that? The wealthy and powerful. They WANT us to be divided along those lines so we'll all get out and vote for corporate Democrats who say the right things about identity politics and pretend to be leftists.

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

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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

The number of people embracing extremes has increased rapidly though (generally, and on both sides). In regards to this, "Replace Capitalism" seems to be gaining ground faster than "Improve Capitalism". 43% of Americans say socialism would be a good thing for the country [1] 1. https://news.gallup.com/poll/257639/four-americans-embrace-f...

I don’t think they mean socialism in the sense of the Soviet Union but more what Europe does. And whole Western Europe is deeply capitalist.

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

#66
post #14

[flagged]

Why is immigration tied to lower wages? Searching for it yields rather the opposite.

> Why is immigration tied to lower wages?

Obviously this can greatly vary. In America, immigration is tied to lower wages for lower tier jobs like chefs, construction workers, factory workers. I don't know enough to state immigration's effects on high tier white collar jobs like software engineering.

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

#67
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My kingdom for a single thread criticizing Capitalism without a response like this. People looking for social justice do not want Stalinism. Why would they?

You don’t want Stalinism, but you do want to limit the speech of people who disagree with what you want? Or you just wish and fantasize for it?

What? How did you even manage to reach such a pathetic conclusion?

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

#68
post #2

Imagine if the current protests against inequality (and thereabouts) going on all around the world would be reported, scrutinized, and debated as much as when any of the established "enemies" have civil unrest. How quickly would things change?

Imagine if instead of people protesting against income inequality, they protested against value contribution inequality...

To even have such a conversation you'd have to define value, and I think you'll have a tough time doing this.

You're also essentially defining an economic aristocracy. Folks with more resources can contribute more value, which in common worldviews associated with what you said suggests they deserve more profit. That's the crassest form of economic attachment, and it's silly to pretend that it's efficient or fair.

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

#69
post #15

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?

Lambasting abstract economic theories is meaningless. The U.S. economy already implements some socialized policies and moving further in that direction for some aspects of our economy isn't necessarily bad. For example, a single-payer healthcare system is obviously superior to our current one, even if it is "socialized", but having socialized healthcare doesn't mean the U.S. is "socialist" any more than the existence of public schools makes it "socialist". Nobody is suggesting we nationalize the means of production or bestow collective ownership of private capital to the proletariat, so stop invoking the socialism boogyman.

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

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if instead of people protesting against income inequality, they protested against value contribution inequality...

What do you say to people who are protesting against income inequality because they benefit from it and know how unfair the whole thing is? Say I received a million $ from my father (that's income inequality, isn't it?) and now I'm saving all my work income because I can live on my capital gains from "gifts" and watch all my friends work harder and harder to try and earn few extra cents while I'm getting richer doing…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN