The article is really making the point that shitting on workers is OK—desirable even!—so that individual companies can make trillions of dollars. “Innovation” to the author equals making money, and being unable to sack hundreds of people at once with complete disregard for them or the social impact it causes is seen as a negative.
The case is very simple: Working on risky ventures requires the ability to lay people off when the venture is not profitable. When only 1/5 risky ventures is profitable, you can't expect a business to take a risk if the likely result is severe financial penalties for failure.
I understand the argument the article is making. The point I’m making is that “innovation” which consists of a select few being better off at the expense of the majority is not something to be celebrated.
First, the vast majority of tech work is not in risky startups.
Second, the risk is known. That is why high salaries are negotiated going into startups.
Third, most comprehension is not in equity. Startup employees do invest in their retirement outside of their equity.
Fourth, anyone can invest in software in the public market and through institutional investments like mutual funds, ETFs, ect.
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Criticize the system if you want. What's better? Feudalism? Communism? They're all much worse. Maybe someday someone will care enough to figure out a better system that doesn't repeat the mistakes of the past.
And then all your examples are about tech work and startups. Other types of work exist, and they comprise the majority of jobs. Labour laws don’t exist only for startups and tech workers.
You’re also ignoring the argument of the article.
> Criticize the system if you want. What's better? Feudalism? Communism?
Let’s please leave out the purposefully exaggerated bad examples and engage in good faith. You don’t have to change the whole system to increase respect and conditions for workers, as proven by the difference between the USA and Europe described in the article.
> You’re also ignoring the argument of the article.
No I'm not. I've spent most of my career in the 4/ths of startups that aren't wildly successful. I've also walked away from situations where I wouldn't get paid because I'm not financially independent.
I'm not "rolling in dough," but I've done pretty well for myself. Of course I want more, but I'm well past the point of "enough."
> I've spent most of my career in the 4/ths of startups that aren't wildly successful.
That has nothing to do with the point. And again, you’re only focusing on one type of job which is not the only one which exists. There are other people in the world.
> I've done pretty well for myself. Of course I want more, but I'm well past the point of "enough."
And therein lies the issue. No, it’s not “of course”, that idea of “I have enough but want more” is not a universal desire. But it is a major source of the world’s problems. That’s how we get to major corporations exploiting workers, customers, polluting the environment, rigging elections… All because of “more” well past what they need. That is called “greed”.
This one quote summarizes the whole point of the article:
> Rather, the sheer difficulty of shedding staff en masse—a reality of corporate life—steers Europe’s biggest companies away from making risky bets in innovative fields.
And then the article goes on to defend that point. It explains the difference in cost here:
> An American firm shedding workers will incur costs equivalent to paying those sacked for seven months and be done with it. In Germany costs amount to 31 months of wages for each employee let go; in France 38 months. Beyond severance pay and sops to keep unions happy, the biggest expense is firms keeping unproductive workers on their books they would rather be rid of. New investments are delayed for years as dismissed employees are gradually replaced. American firms quickly pivot to new moon-shot opportunities; Europeans ones are stuck in the same old mire as they haggle with unions, due often to laws devised nearly a century ago.
There's no economically feasible way to hire someone to build a product that may not succeed in the marketplace and guarantee them lifetime employment. That requires a certain about of clairvoyance about the market and many other variables that go into product development that no one has.
So your position is that there is no economically feasible way in Europe to open an new restaurant, bakery, hair or nail salon, or any other new enterprise. Yet reality shows that somehow such activities exist and keep happening.
Restaurants, bakeries, hair and nail salons are not startups and do not do product development. Their market is known before the business is opened. Running one of those businesses is extremely different than a tech startup, where the risk is from not knowing what the market will be for the product in development.
(And you should know that, given that this message board you caters to the startup crowd, and is sponsored by a company that educates people on how to run a startup.)
I encourage you to read through YCombinator's "startup school" materials to understand the fundamental difference.
You might want to look at "Why Liberalism Failed", specifically the chapter "The New Aristocracy."
The section "Classical Liberalism: Roots of the New Aristocracy", summarizes the fundamental philosophy behind why a certain amount of inequality is embraced in classically liberal countries (IE, democracies): Overall, it rises everyone's everyone's living standards; even the poor.
(Just a warning: The author is very conservative and outspoken about social issues. Try to read to understand the author's opinion, instead of reading to agree or disagree.)
High-skill professionals, entrepreneurs, specialized trades, creative workers, young people, immigrants... and most other professions.
> Can we skip the transparent rage bait and personal jabs, though?
If you make nebulous complaints about "shitting on workers" without considering tradeoffs, you've made a feelings-based argument, so expect that kind of rebuttal.
Thank you for providing sources. Though you’re focused solely on money, which I think is a pretty poor measure for how “better off” one is (and was my original criticism of the article). Especially when you’re ignoring the percentage of people living in poverty and massive income inequality.
Furthermore, making more money can be offset by having to spend more money for basic things like healthcare.
I’d say happiness is a much better indicator of how “better off” one is than how much money one earns. The happiness index takes a much broader view with several indicators (of which GPD per capita is but one).
You’re entitled to valuing different things. But the whole point of my original comment is that I find the focus on money over people to not be something to celebrate. Clearly you (and the author) disagree.
Despite the ellipsis, that doesn’t really answer the question. Those definitions are so vague, they could all together describe a single person.
> immigrants
Are you really arguing, with the current state of the USA, that immigrants are “better off”? I’m somehow doubt the ones who are being grabbed and sent to jail without due process every day would agree with you.
> If you make nebulous complaints
It’s not “nebulous”. Read the article. It’s in context.
> so expect that kind of rebuttal
If you think someone made a bad argument, do better. That’s what the HN guidelines explicitly ask of us. Responding with a bad answer because you think that’s what someone did does not benefit the discussion.
Again, if your objective with a discussion is to “win”, there are other forums better suited for that.
I would argue that unemployment isn't solely about "money", but fair enough. I'm not sure how to respond overall. Because every time I debate this topic (which isn't a lot), a Europe defender will basically diminish the importance income numbers. Because "money is a poor measure of being better-off". In fact, money is quite a good measure of being better-off, and there is a lot of evidence for this. Europe has better public transportation, Europe has better healthcare, people are happier in Europe, etc etc... There is always more things. But the original discussion was specifically in the context of labor economics. Whether or not the US has single-player healthcare, that has a different topic. Average self-reported happiness numbers is obviously subjective and influenced by an infinitude of different things that are going on in one's life, which may or may not be related to labor. I also didn't find the other wikipedia articles very convincing. They show that ~2.0% of the US population is living below even the most generous measure of absolute poverty. I only see income inequality numbers as useful insofar as they give to average income number. I had cited median income so that the typical worker could be represented.
I don't consider "who is better off" to be a very good question. The answer is, the average worker is better off. My answer is therefore going to be vague. Of course, there are differences by industry, but do you have a point about that? Also, I am really arguing that with the current state of the USA, immigrants make higher incomes than immigrants to other countries. Saying that immigrants are treated poorly in other ways is just bringing up a political issue unrelated to labor economics.
> I don't consider "who is better off" to be a very good question.
Your entire argument in the original response was “the American worker is much better off than the European worker”. That’s the only reason we’re discussing what that means. If “who is better off” isn’t a good question, then “X is better off than Y” isn’t a good argument.
> Saying that immigrants are treated poorly in other ways is just bringing up a political issue unrelated to labor economics.
They are not separate. Saying “it doesn’t matter that you could be wrongfully imprisoned and separated from your children without recourse for committing no crime, but that’s OK because if it doesn’t happen you’ll make a bit more money” is detached from the reality of what matters. Most individuals aren’t money-hungry ghouls who care for wealth above all, including their own personal safety and liberty.
I said the American worker is better off in general. The only question I don't consider is good is, "which types of workers?" Unless your point is that some kinds of workers are better off than others? In which case, make that argument.
> “it doesn’t matter that you could be wrongfully imprisoned and separated from your children without recourse for committing no crime, but that’s OK because if it doesn’t happen you’ll make a bit more money” is detached from the reality of what matters.
You put that in quotes, but my comments have nothing whatsoever to do with that. Can you clarify what this has to do with whether a country should enact regulations which make it difficult for firms to lay off employees?
> Most individuals aren’t money-hungry ghouls who care for wealth above all, including their own personal safety and liberty.
Great. Again, what does this have to do with labor market regulations? I am not interested in debating "what matters" generally, in a "meaning of life" sort of way, unless you can connect it to labor market regulations, the discussion you entered.
To be fair, while Europe dominates the top ten happiness scores, those countries at the top of the list are mostly all some of the richest countries in the world.
And there are 20+ European countries with lower happiness scores than the US, including France, Spain, and Italy. So living in Europe means you’re about as happy as Americans but also poorer…
I don’t think it’s as clear cut as you’re indicating.
> I don’t think it’s as clear cut as you’re indicating.
I’m not saying it’s clear cut. On the contrary, I’m saying it’s not. Unlike the person who responded to me, who claimed “the American worker is much better off than the European worker”, I am not claiming “every worker in every European country is better off than the US American worker”.
Median wages while prices are higher doesn't mean much, Americans earn more but also pay quite a bit more in most products and services needed for living: housing, healthy food, transportation, healthcare, etc.
After experiencing the American work life I'd never trade my life in Sweden to earn 2-3x more in California, I'm sorry to say but it wasn't better to earn more in the USA, I could buy more trinkets but daily life was just not better.
There's a point where you should look past wages, what's the overall quality of life of living in a place where workaholism is rampant, stress from financial anxiety is constant, having to hedge for potential catastrophic events such as a health scare putting oneself into massive debt, losing your job in a downturn (or simply due to an industry going into herd mode and colluding on layoffs), so on and so forth.
Or you can keep using wages and money as your only guidance in life, I understand that's the only way most Americans can think about life. It's rather puerile though, as if simple metrics are the determining factor of a good life.
I'm not interested in debating the grab-bag of ways life is better in Sweden than in California.
I've said this before, but every "US vs Europe work" debate ends with the European patronizingly scolding the American for thinking money is the most important thing in life. I'm also not interested in that.
I am only interested in the labor market.
You can say the numbers don't matter, but then you've adopted essentially an unfalsifiable position.
Another factor to consider is the ease of quitting your job. In the US (at least, I have found), it is quite easy to quite your job and find a new one.
This matches the logic under which it's easy to fire in the US. Every cost of a regulation has a side-effect. If it's easy to fire, it's easy to hire. The article explains how American companies are more willing to hire for positions which wouldn't otherwise exist.
If you are not interested in that, then quit your job and don't work in a position which involves innovation. Which in America, is easy to do.
> You can say the numbers don't matter, but then you've adopted essentially an unfalsifiable position.
Numbers do matter, just not the cherry-picked narrow ones such as "median wage" with disregard for any context, and all other metrics that could somehow quantify quality of life vs purely financial terms.
> Another factor to consider is the ease of quitting your job. In the US (at least, I have found), it is quite easy to quite your job and find a new one.
Ease of quitting is also a non-problem, most jobs I had in Europe had a 1-3 months notice period which was easily negotiated if you really wanted to quit on the spot, no company wants to keep a disgruntled worker around so it's best to negotiate if said worker explicitly states they would like to shorten it.
> The article explains how American companies are more willing to hire for positions which wouldn't otherwise exist.
That's great for a selected set of jobs which workers would like to do that while being detrimental to society at large, making precarious conditions the default is not great for the less skilled people who prefer stability to keep their families afloat and secure.
> If you are not interested in that, then quit your job and don't work in a position which involves innovation. Which in America, is easy to do.
Not working in "innovation" still has the same precariousness, with no upside, making the divide in society between the haves and have-nots even more intense. It works up to a point, leave enough people behind and you get MAGA.
> and all other metrics that could somehow quantify quality of life vs purely financial terms
If you have measures in non-financial terms, I'm happy to consider those, as long as they have to do with labor market regulations.
> most jobs I had in Europe had a 1-3 months notice period which was easily negotiated if you really wanted to quit on the spot, no company wants to keep a disgruntled worker around
I could quibble that 1-3 months sounds like a shockingly long time from a US perspective, but the bigger problem is the "ease of finding a new job" part of the equation.
> making precarious conditions the default is not great for the less skilled people who prefer stability to keep their families afloat and secure.
The industries which don't experience as much instability are less likely to lay off people anyway. So workers who want stability can self-select into government jobs or something, which offer that stability.
> Not working in "innovation" still has the same precariousness, with no upside
Some industries are less precarious, I would say getting paid nearly twice as much is an upside.
> leave enough people behind and you get MAGA.
I don't think there's any strong evidence that income inequality caused maga. I couldn't find any evidence that poorer people are more likely to support Trump. But let me know if I'm wrong here.
