Hacker News Reader

Comment by _8j50 | Hacker News Reader

You don't get it. This isn't about society benefiting but society stabilizing. If someone is dumb as bricks and has no meaningful talents or interests they use to be able to find some hard labor,manual work or low level trade jobs that lets them enter the lower middle class (under $50k/yr iirc). If a person is talented they would fare far better. This is very practical in the richest country.

View on HN

This claim would imply that, at some point in American history, every single person below the middle class was just a lazy bum who couldn't be bothered to get a good job. I'm not sure that's true and I kinda suspect you don't think so either.

I don't think so either, the operating phrase there is "even if" ,and no,that excludes lazy people and criminals. Honest,law abiding and hard working would translate to a livable life however below average it may be. And it has always been a dream that only some live up to. For many classes of society,this has never been true.

If you chronically underpay and exploit people of lower class who aren't dumb as bricks then you create a class of lazy people and criminals who act that way because they are aware that they have no other choices.

"what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.”

Thomas More, Utopia

> some hard labor,manual work or low level trade jobs

That kind of work is still valued, just less so than before. It makes sense to supplement low incomes with UBI or negative income tax, so that no one is denied a tolerably comfortable life. Our social safety nets are totally unfit for the present world, they're still built for the assumption that high-paying manual work is everywhere.

I don't disagree with your sentiment at all.

How would you reduce the polarization of the population between upper and lower classes?

The fact that a person in a lower economic class has a livable wage will solve many problems. Home ownership, affording a family and health care will east most economic friction. As far as social polarizarion, I think that's an entirely different topic,two people of high income can be socially and politically polarized for non-economical reasons.

I would suggest that a stable housing situation and outlook (even if not owned) might be sufficient on the housing side. Part of the renting problem in the US isn't the ownership arrangement, but rather the precariousness.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com