Live data from Hacker News

The Real Class War

americanaffairsjournal.org

611–620 of 634 posts

Re: The Real Class War

#611

I've spent my career working in public policy circles, and this rings true to me. > At most, working-class voters can cast their ballots for an “un­acceptable” candidate, but they can exercise no influence on policy formation or agency personnel, much less on governance areas that have been transferred to technocratic bodies. > Unlike the work­ing class, the professional managerial class is still capable of, and re­q…

Gay people can get married in America, which was completely unthinkable a generation ago. 100% due to activists, many who risked their lives to make it happen.

Federal judges, not activists.

Federal judges care little about mass opinion, but a great deal about elite opinion.

Roe v. Wade had nothing to do with feminism, and everything to do with the positions of the American Medical Association, the Mayo Clinic (formerly represented by Blackmun), and academic researchers at elite universities.

Not a terribly important distinction if you’re pro-gay rights or pro-choice.

But give credit where credit is due.

Re: The Real Class War

#612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gilettes jaunes are on the streets, nobody cares to make them cultural icons. Gays had very visible and generally disproportionate (compared to population) media coverage of their rights. Was it really 100% due to activists on the street, or very influential but high profile gay people who helped build one of the few successful rights movements of our times?

high profile gay people When I read this the first person I thought of was Alan Turing [1]. His was the fate of high profile gay people until the grassroots movement sprang from the Stonewall riots [1]. It was these activists who took the first steps to even make it possible for a high profile gay person to come out in public. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_r…

Do you seriously believe that upper class gays/lesbians and lower class gays/lesbians was the same?

In order for Alan Turing to be charged with “gross indecency”, he had to go the police himself, inform them he was gay (without being asked or prompted), and affirm it in a statement signed under penalty of perjury.

The only reason he did that was because he was so accustomed to people not caring, he didn’t think he was in any danger.

Being privileged has its privileges.

Re: The Real Class War

#613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a few things to unpick here. My belief that Brexit will lead to lower NHS funding is as follows: assuming Brexit results in higher trade barriers with the EU, our biggest trading partners, it will dent trade, which will lead to lower growth, which will lead to lower tax receipts, which will lead to lower funding available for the NHS (and other things). The unknowns are by how much trade with the EU is affe…

The unknowns are by how much trade with the EU is affected and how quickly trade with other countries grows to fill the gap. Yes, this is an entirely reasonable perspective, but I'd note that it's also a projection of hypothetical future events (large trade barriers) based on a projection of what Brussels thinks (no trade deal with the treacherous Brits regardless of the mutual costs). My projection is not less valid…

It seems that you are not disagreeing with the concept of false consciousness. You just believe that a different group of people suffer from it. I hope you don't consider it too much of a caricature of your position for me to say that you think the elite labour under a lot of false beliefs but the working classes are able to see through all of this based on their own experience and clear insight.

I think at the core of this discussion, and false consciousness in general, is the question of how can we know what knowledge is true. I certainly agree with you, probably more than it appears in this thread, that we shouldn't take economics as some objective science. That's why I said up-thread that this is all discursive. But I think we are in real danger of throwing the baby out with the bath water and dismissing any economic knowledge at all. Larry Elliot has a good article here about economists' failings [1]. What I take from that is that, yes, forecasts are very shaky but economics itself analyses the failings and uses it to build better understanding (whether HMT uses that knowledge is a different question). SWL talks here [2] about the benefits of trade and compares dismissals of economic knowledge to climate denial. I think that's too strong but I am reluctant to dismiss the idea that we can gain empirical economic knowledge. (Incidentally if you know any good, pro-Brexit economics blogs please do let me know).

It seems that you implicitly rely on economics in some of your scenarios, thinking etc but then when you come against an economic idea or prediction you disagree with you just dismiss it with "oh well, economists are always wrong". I mean, if they are then how do you know the economics implied in your scenarios are correct? Why bother trying to get trade deals? Why bother making any economic arguments for Brexit if it's all unknowable? How do you know which of the US-style economic policies are the ones that created the growth? Surely there is some validity in testing hypotheses?

Continuing this skepticism, maybe you don't intend this but your comments read as if you think working-class people have some kind of natural, clear-headed insight from their lived experience that the elite and their academics don't have. I'm not sure from where you draw your certainty that you know what the entire working class is thinking, nor why a judgement based on individual lived experience should be any more reliable than one based on broader evidence. I don't think "economists missed the 2008 crash and got post-Brexit wrong so I can ignore them all now and go off what I see around me" is really a strong argument.

If all these expert economists with their models and their papers can't make a prediction why should you or I believe that you can? Maybe, like some economist, you've got a model that worked a few times but is going to come crashing down any day now. Shouldn't the same skepticism apply to you? Your whole scenario was based on the idea that the EU coveted the UK's growth rate but when I linked to World Bank data showing that in 2018 the UK underperformed literally every member state but Italy (ok, level with Germany) you still say that we're doing very well compared to other member states. See [3] for more recent data -- hardly comparing very well either. France is comparable and I wouldn't say the US is in a different ballpark. It doesn't seem like you update your priors in response to new data so what makes you think you are any more likely to be right? Or, to return to falsifiability, what would make you think you're wrong?

Coming back to false consciousness, I don't think it's the views themselves that are problematic but the way in which they are reached. I am doubtful that many people complaining about immigrants overcrowding their hospitals have looked at any evidence to decide whether the complaint is valid. I don't think "lived experience" is enough to make an objective, accurate assessment. You are right of course that we should critique arguments and not just take them at face value. For what it's worth, I'm a lukewarm remainer and I agree entirely with you about the Remain campaign's terrible campaigning. They also failed to mention the impact on N Ireland, which is far more significant and it's a terrible indictment of the British public that neither side bothered to think about the border. That didn't last long anyway...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/economics-blog/2017/jan... [2] https://mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2019/10/brexit-is-denial-of... [3] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/2995521/10075412/2-1...

Re: The Real Class War

#614
post #24

What a fantastic article; this might be the high point for my 2019 Hacker News reading. What clarity of vision. It is remarkable reflecting after an article like that on the complete inability of the US political system to organise itself to reward work done rather than access to the super-elite social circles. I'd love to know if this Julius fellow has a take on what mechanisms the 0.1% are using to drive the growin…

Economic growth increases the gap. The only fix is working with other countries on inheritance tax and anti-tax evasion schemes.

> Economic growth increases the gap.

Piketty et.al. showed the exact opposite, for the US and other countries. Economic growth seems to generate more opportunities for upwards social mobility.

But they and you (and me) agree that inheritance is a main driver for the growing inequality, and progressive taxation of capital was proposed as a solution in the book, too.

Re: The Real Class War

#615
post #24

What a fantastic article; this might be the high point for my 2019 Hacker News reading. What clarity of vision. It is remarkable reflecting after an article like that on the complete inability of the US political system to organise itself to reward work done rather than access to the super-elite social circles. I'd love to know if this Julius fellow has a take on what mechanisms the 0.1% are using to drive the growin…

Economic growth increases the gap. The only fix is working with other countries on inheritance tax and anti-tax evasion schemes.

> Economic growth increases the gap.

Economic growth may or may not, but neoliberal trade regimes definitely do, for both more and less developed partners in such trade; they also tend to cement the position of economically advantages (and disadvantaged) ethnic groups by the same process.

Re: The Real Class War

#616
> At most, working-class voters can cast their ballots for an “un­acceptable” candidate, but they can exercise no influence on policy formation or agency personnel, much less on governance areas that have been transferred to technocratic bodies.

The problem here is that we don't have direct democracy. I've noticed that citizens in countries with direct democracy elements like Switzerland seem to feel significantly better represented by their governments.

It blows my mind how little is spoken about direct democracy and concepts like delogative/liquid democracy. There's absolutely no reason we must confine ourselves to a representative democracy conceived in a time when direct democracy was literally impossible because messages were delivered on horseback.

Re: The Real Class War

#617
post #321

George Orwell covered this basic point in `1984` (published in 1949): > The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcilable. The aim of the High is to remain where they are. The aim of the Middle is to change places with the High. The aim of the Low, when they have an aim -- for it is an abiding characteristic of the Low that they are too much crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of any…

> abolish all distinctions and create a society in which all men shall be equal And who on earth would seriously think that this would be any other than total nightmare?

I know, the idea that we'd all be born into more or less equal stations and afforded the more or less the same opportunities, is a thought too frightening to behold amiright?

/s

Re: The Real Class War

#618
post #5

I disagree that the working class is not going to radicalize itself. They too are out here on the internet, talking to each other and culturally evolving at an unprecedented rate, like everyone else. For the first time they have the power to publish and think in public uncoupled from professional barrier. Better believe it’s being used, and that they will assert their awareness.

Agreed. The author is looking through slightly blue tinted glasses. The "working class" put "their guy" in a certain colored house in the US and got together to tell the EU to screw off in the UK. They might not be using their political power for things we all agree with or you could argue they're all being duped but they certainly aren't powerless. Furthermore, I think the author is over stating the homogeneity of w…

The author explicitly acknowledged that the deplorable majority can pull the lever once every four years, “At most, working-class voters can cast their ballots for an “un­acceptable” candidate, but they can exercise no influence on policy formation or agency personnel, much less on governance areas that have been transferred to technocratic bodies”

But once in office their guy maintains the status quo even though populist rhetoric got him into office.

So far this theory appears to be true. Historical data corroborates. What is less certain imho is that grassroots activism has ceased to be ineffective. Nobody expects the pitchforks and guillotines until they show up on their doorstep.

Re: The Real Class War

#619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

high profile gay people When I read this the first person I thought of was Alan Turing [1]. His was the fate of high profile gay people until the grassroots movement sprang from the Stonewall riots [1]. It was these activists who took the first steps to even make it possible for a high profile gay person to come out in public. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_r…

Do you seriously believe that upper class gays/lesbians and lower class gays/lesbians was the same? In order for Alan Turing to be charged with “gross indecency”, he had to go the police himself, inform them he was gay (without being asked or prompted), and affirm it in a statement signed under penalty of perjury. The only reason he did that was because he was so accustomed to people not caring, he didn’t think he wa…

I just had to look up that claim, and it seems that Turing admitted a homosexual relationship during a police investigation about his house being burgled, seeing as that relationship was with the accused burglar. That's slightly different to the implication that he walked into a police station of his own free will and promptly signed his own castration order.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing#Conviction_for_i...

(I'm aware of wikipedia fallibility but I'm on mobile and will generally trust in the citations for this particular individual)

Re: The Real Class War

#620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech has always gone through boom and bust cycles. At the end of the day though, it's really hard to write good software and we're only going to see demand go up over time. There may be some bumps in the road, but there will always be new opportunities. I think programmers are one of the only professions not at risk of automation or disruption as all of that is powered by software which maybe 5%-10% of the population…

> software which maybe 5%-10% of the population has the ability to write and maintain I sure hope you're right about this. I have no doubts on the rest of what you said, but given enough incentives (both push and pull), there may be a lot more latent ability out there than you think. Especially as the on-ramps from raw talent to real productivity keep improving. From my direct personal experience, I suspect there are…

I used to think most people had the ability to code but ~20 years of managing development has made me reconsider. Most people just really can't deal very well with abstraction and complexity (not to mention things like recursion). I think a lot of people can write some code, but it won't be good and it will require someone more senior to extend, maintain and scale it. So basically the more people who write code, the more in demand those top 10% of people with natural coding ability will be.
Post reply on HN