Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A majority of millennials now reject capitalism, poll shows

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 135 posts

Re: A majority of millennials now reject capitalism, poll shows

#71

Post by dakrootie »

rocky1138 wrote: post #23
oconnore wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a bank account of almost zero, inflation can't possibly be stealing money from you (unless you also have gobs of cash under a mattress somewhere).

Except that the prices of everything rise every year.

Everything?

True, some prices have risen. But, if I may, here are some fun equations to ponder.

1996 (Florida)

Minimum wage $4.25 Gallon of milk $2.73 Gallon of gas $1.26 Dozen eggs $1.31

2017 Minimum wage $8.10 Gallon of milk $3.31 Gallon of gas $2.41(was almost $4.00, if I remember correctly a few years ago?) Dozen eggs $1.59

1996

Electronics (to do work, using one's natural talents, for example) Expensive.

2017 Electronics: Much cheaper. Adjusting for inflation: much, much cheaper.

Of course, with electronics, there are too many intricacies to list, but here's a specific one. I bought a 512MB compact flash card in 2001, which set me back $249. I think the last one I bought was 2 years ago, or so. It was $60 for 16 GB. I make my living taking pictures. What would 16 GB worth of pictures have cost me in 2001?

I'm happy with these numbers. Simply put, let's think very carefully before using absolutes.

Re: A majority of millennials now reject capitalism, poll shows

#72

Post by snowwrestler »

waisbrot wrote: post #37
twblalock wrote: post #26

This is like those surveys that show a majority of Americans oppose Obamacare, but a majority favor almost all of the individual policies that comprise Obamacare when the word "Obamacare" does not appear in the survey. What I would like to see is a survey that asks people their opinions on certain characteristics of capitalism, without mentioning the word "capitalism." I think the results would be very different.

But it's interesting to see that "capitalism" is becoming a dirty word, when in the cold-war era it was the opposite of "communism" which was a synonym for "evil".

During the Cold War, Americans opposing communism believed they were standing up for "freedom" and "democracy"--not capitalism.

People today get so caught up in economic arguments that they overlook the fact that communism was a system of government during the Cold War... a system that required censorship and oppression to maintain power.

The word "capitalist" has never been embraced broadly as a social movement in the U.S. Its earliest usages in the U.S. were largely pejorative, by socialists and communists attempting to highlight differences.

Even today, people who create and accumulate capital in the U.S. rarely refer to themselves as "capitalists." They call themselves entrepreneurs, business owners, managers, executives, businesspeople, investors, etc.

Re: A majority of millennials now reject capitalism, poll shows

#73

Post by Retra »

Clubber wrote: post #64
edblarney wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The cold war branding of anything communism/socialism as evil is being seen through as rhetoric" I can hardly believe that anyone who was alive during the 'cold war' would ever say that. I grew up in an immigrant community in Canada, and most of my friends fled those disastrous, oppressive and totalitarian 'communist paradises' all over E. Europe, China, Vietnam, Cuba - and also - Sweden, by the way. Nordic countrie…

The problem with the theory of communism economics is we've only seen it implemented a few times, and they've all been terrible. Communism, I believe, was to be implemented in a post industrial country. When Russia implemented it, they were pre-industrial, and during a massive war. As an aside, Germany actually shipped, by train, an exiled Lenin to Russia to destabilize it during WWI.

The problem with communism is the same problem with unregulated capitalism: when you give extraordinary power to a small minority, everyone else suffers.

There's also the problem that violent revolutions are extremely risky, and are unlikely to result in anything but a dictatorship, exacerbating the previous point.

Most failed communist communist governments have these problems, as do most failed capitalist governments. Until you have a peaceful transition into a communist system properly hardened against corruption, you'll have little real reason to believe it is any more flawed than capitalist economies.

Re: A majority of millennials now reject capitalism, poll shows

#74

Post by 0xfaded »

mjfl wrote: post #41
_m8fo wrote: post #4

In my experience, people who criticize this article are probably benefiting from "capitalism" (the majority of people on here, I reckon, do), meanwhile those struggling from inequality, not being here, will fail to have their voice heard. And so the echo chamber ensues. That being said, capitalism and having things like free healthcare and education are hardly mutually exclusive. So I think the article's conclusion,…

> meanwhile those struggling from inequality, not being here, will fail to have their voice heard. And so the echo chamber ensues. Those struggling from from inequality are struggling from relative deprivation, not absolute deprivation, while the latter is the only thing that rationally matters. I don't give a damn that Bill Gates is a ridiculous amount richer than me, in fact I admire him and want to be rich too som…

Society has to decide what "right" people have to a certain minimum quality of life and access to services. It turns out the level can actually be quite high, one only need look to the highly successful Nordic states.

The argument in america seems to be that if you work hard, you can have a decent life and a house in the suburbs. There are already problems here, what of the people born with disabilities?

But assuming everyone is capable of work, there is still the assumption that adequately rewarding work exists for everybody. Perhaps this assumption can be summarised as the american dream that people need to wake from. Conservatives argue that bringing back well paying, low skilled jobs can restore this dream time. Perhaps if they also rolled back 50 years of legislation and restored the unions this would be true, but times have changed.

The reality is that access to rewarding work almost requires a privileged upbringing. It is completely unfair to assume that if poor people worked harder they would make it. I personally have a friend who grew up in a trailer park. After slogging it out through multiple entrepreneurial ventures, in his 30's he used his life savings to relocate his mother to find better medical care. Imagine at 30, a time when by your argument one should be buying and reading books, the burden of caring for you parents fell solely on your shoulders. Even in your 30's you are at a disadvantage due to your family's wealth.

I personally believe that I should not have such an automatic advantage (for what its worth I do). I would be much happier in a world where I was taxed 50% but lived in a world where I knew the person serving me at a restaurant wasn't potentially a desperate single mother trying to hold down a job to care for her child. A person who probably doesn't have time for books.

Before we get to charity, long story short I don't believe that wealthy people should get to choose were their money goes. That's a decision for society as a whole, and I believe people should be represented in that decision equally. Therefore I don't donate to charity.

> "Why shouldn't the American people take half my money from me? I took all of it from them."

Edward Albert Filene

Re: A majority of millennials now reject capitalism, poll shows

#76

Post by oconnore »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #70
oconnore wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blaming wage stickiness relative to prices is different than blaming inflation. And, outside unions and jobs with competitive labor markets, the best advocate for wage un-stickiness many workers have is government involvement via the minimum wage.

96% of hourly workers already earn more than minimum wage, so it shouldn't be the first place to look at improving wage stickiness. Start with the cost of employment, primarily health care, which has sucked up a lot of money that should have gone to wage increases. https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2015/home.htm

Minimum wage sets a floor which affects wages close to it, too.

Re: A majority of millennials now reject capitalism, poll shows

#78

Post by mjfl »

0xfaded wrote: post #74
mjfl wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> meanwhile those struggling from inequality, not being here, will fail to have their voice heard. And so the echo chamber ensues. Those struggling from from inequality are struggling from relative deprivation, not absolute deprivation, while the latter is the only thing that rationally matters. I don't give a damn that Bill Gates is a ridiculous amount richer than me, in fact I admire him and want to be rich too som…

Society has to decide what "right" people have to a certain minimum quality of life and access to services. It turns out the level can actually be quite high, one only need look to the highly successful Nordic states. The argument in america seems to be that if you work hard, you can have a decent life and a house in the suburbs. There are already problems here, what of the people born with disabilities? But assuming…

You're still making the "standard of living" argument that is essentially hypocritical when you think about it globally. You are extremely privileged to be born in the USA, rich or poor.

Also, you would realistically need to be taxed more like 80-95% to get to the global mean.

Re: A majority of millennials now reject capitalism, poll shows

#79

Post by gremlinsinc »

salesguy222 wrote: post #7

Any political/economic system will have individual actors that destroy the lives and wellbeings of others. if your system can prevent these people from wielding such power, i'd like to hear how!

Part 1: Caps on Exec pay - 25x avg salary for first x # of employees, as you add more employees over your baseline that multiplier goes up for example every 1000 employees = 1x so hire 10k and now you're able to earn 35x median wage -- i.e. more employees = more money for execs, as wages increase that also = more money for execs. That handles the corporate side of the corruption.

Part 2: Enact the Anti-corruption act in every governmental capacity from mayorships to congress to ban all money in politics.

Part 3: Members of congress can earn no more than the average salary of an American Citizen, and their healthcare plan is--the same as the average American w/ no perks above what American's get.

Part 4: Term limits for congress, not life-time bans, but you can only server in congress non-congruent terms, meaning you can't serve back to back, someone else has to take your place for a term. More lifeblood bled into congress can't be a bad thing.

Post reply on HN