Comment by sgt101 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sgt101 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

It's good and fair that you have been able to lay out your real position in this discussion to people who haven't read your full text. Your comments certainly deliver a much more sensible and reasonable perspective than the article would indicate. I especially agree with 3, the corner cases of behaviour on both sides (labour & capital) can be mitigated and controlled with policy and law. Capitalism and socialism both seem to fail as you start to skirt their extremes. From the outside it seems like the USA needs a little bit more government intervention in industrial policy and also in labour regulation. Perhaps the rise of insurgent candidates for President is pointing that the mass of the Demos in the USA is hankering for a bit of this?

While I have sworn a vow not to write specifically about the US election, it is clear that one of the things buoying certain insurgent candidates is the feeling of less-educated working class white Americans that their position in society has been declining.

The thing is, they are right; their relatively unskilled labor is no longer valuable to the system (especially when equivalent labor is available at a fraction of the price in other countries). Where they are wrong is the belief that isolationist and anti-immigrant policies will restore a happy time when blue collar workers without a college education or special training could have secure, well-paid jobs that would allow them to live a comfortable middle-class existence.

I think you are right, but for the sake of social stability some sort of more equitable bargain must be struck. The alternative model is visible in Mexico City and San Palo; office commutes by chopper or kidnap and ransom risk every day !

Yes, inequality is self-limiting. Either the haves realize that they need to avoid tearing apart the fabric of society, or the have-nots realize that they represent the majority of the people, and rise up in revolution. The former is a lot less bloody than the latter.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com