Comment by kkjjkgjjgg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kkjjkgjjgg | Hacker News Reader

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You can go work for a company that permits discussion of salaries? That is the actual free market. And if no such company exists, you can start one. Surely you would attract all the workers from the other companies because they would prefer to work in a company with transparent information?

I don't think this "information asymmetry" thing will work out well for the workers. What if there are some people who are more productive than others, but have the same job title? Do they really want to hear "yeah we pay you less because you are less productive"? Or vice versa "yeah, you work twice as hard as Simon, but you have the same job title, so he still gets the same pay, sorry". Those social actions all sound very good, but I think people can sour on it quickly when they realize they are the ones who effectively pay for their unproductive colleagues that can't be fired.

I don't think that will go down well, and will just make things more difficult to run.

And the impetus is still "socialist", equal pay for everybody, businesses are exploiting people and so on, those are socialist talking points.

It’s silly to pretend that anyone could just magically start a company, and therefore no company will ever do harm. Consumers would also like to spend their money on ethically responsible products, and yet we have (and need) laws on pollution, workplace safety, etc. Why? Because the consumer isn’t going to maintain a complete list of misbehaving companies and their various subsidiaries, suppliers, and trademarks. Aka “information asymmetry”.

The comparison of salaries is used as a method not a goal (I think). And for your 10x-coder-god, the lesson seems to be that they should be given a title better in line with their genius and salary. If it’s somehow difficult because their value isn’t easily measured in terms that would work in a policy document, chances are your impression of their skills may just be imaginary: are they really worth the money, or do they just look and act like only a highly productive person could without being fired?

Who say things should start magically? Isn't HN a place were we hear a lot of stories about how hard it is to start a company? Yet if somebody succeeds, somehow they cross the line and become exploiters and own other people things. But workers should just magically be given wonderful comfy jobs? By whom?

As for coder gods, yes, there are people who are more productive than others.

"The comparison of salaries is used as a method not a goal"

A method to achieve what?

> You can go work for a company that permits discussion of salaries?

Its illegal for the company to prevent you, but that doesn't help any employee who doesn't know this fact.

Also, that is kinda the whole point of the anti-work movement, to stop working for companies that abuse you.

>And if no such company exists, you can start one.

I think you have an imperfect view of the situation given you likely work somewhere that pays you enough you have spare money left over to save up a rainy day fund. This movement isn't for you, and you should step out of the way.

Min wage workers don't have a rainy day fund, they don't have any money left over to put into a savings account, they can't even handle missing a single day of work without one of their bills being paid late, all while working a class of jobs that rarely has paid sick time, almost never has vacation, and no union to keep you from being fired for arbitrary or made up reasons.

How da fuck do you expect them to start a company? Its hard enough for them to handle the expense of changing jobs just from the one or two extra days between paychecks because they pay out on a different day.

That narrative of "poor people are so helpless, they have no chances at all, their only hope is socialism to rescue them" doesn't really convince me. Surely at least you can send out some applications from your phone on your daily 2 hour commute to work.

It can be really cheap to start a company. You could offer to help your antiwork colleagues to find better jobs, for example. Bam, you have a company.

On another note,

While I get that you don't see how more income leads to more ability to job hunt for a better job, I would like to ask why you think it is that when people got stimulus checks they started leaving their current wage slave job for better ones in droves?

There is still a labor shortage, where did you think it came from? Unemployment benefits don't apply to people who quit, or were fired for cause, and for most people out of work from the pandemic days, they are fully exhausted, and have been since the first week of sept when the federal """handout""" ended. Nobody who didn't lose their job this calendar year still has employment benefits. Yet there is still a labor shortage for bottom rung jobs?

Its almost like a bunch of people now having the means to eat the cost of job hopping did their job hopping and are working better jobs.

Now lets look at about why that might be...

>Surely at least you can send out some applications from your phone on your daily 2 hour commute to work.

Doesn't matter if you can't afford to take the job.

This is what people who haven't been poor recently don't understand...

If you can not afford to have your first paycheck delayed by a week to 3 weeks without either running out of gas or bus money to get to work(!), or ending up past the final date (!!) on a utility bill or rent bill, why would you waste your time applying to jobs?

That's just nonsense. How many people are in that situation? You can borrow money to bridge the three weeks, for example. And what happens to such people if they get fired, which presumably happens all the time?

I think you are talking about imaginary situations that don't actually reflect reality.

If people were able to find better jobs, that is exactly the solution I propose.

Calling setting min wage to be enough that you can have a savings account and have the financial freedom to move jobs "socialism" is premium intellectual dishonesty.

If the min wage is socialism then call me a socialist because thats not an argument you'll win with here

You people simply have it backwards. You truly seem to believe of the alternatives of somebody offering a job for 2$/h and no job, offering no job is the better alternative. When in reality you could simply not take the 2$/h job and be in the same situation as if there was no job.

The living wage theory is a completely moronic idea, because why should anybody who needs a job done have to pay for somebody else's whole life expenses? That makes zero sense and just makes it more difficult to offer jobs.

Like suppose you need somebody to paint your living room. Should you have to pay their whole living expenses to do that? How does that make sense? It is just a job.

Minimum wages only hit the poorest people who can't get jobs anymore. And the first victims will not even show up in the joblessness statistics, because they will be people who earned an extra income to their pension or student allowance.

The only proper solution is to increase demand for jobs. If you are desperate to find somebody to paint your living room, you will raise your rates to get the job done.

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