[renewiltord]

One of the ideal things that companies can do is not hire people. A company that never hires someone will never let anyone go and consequently is the only ethical company. The worst thing that a company could do is pay someone to do a job for a while. In fact, one thing we could do is make sure that all jobs should be perpetual. If someone hires you, they can't stop paying you until they die or declare bankruptcy. This is sure to be good for workers.

[whamlastxmas]

Oracle has record revenue and has for many years in a row. Laying people off is a result of mismanagement and not because they can't afford to keep them. In an ideal world I believe we'd have human centered employment instead of profit centered, and while I know that's unlikely to happen, it doesn't mean we can't criticize profit centered

[WalterBright]

> Laying people off is a result of mismanagement and not because they can't afford to keep them.

Markets are a chaotic system and the needs of a business must constantly adapt - or they go out of business.

[psychoslave]

https://academic.oup.com/ser/article/22/4/1843/7644954?login...

[whamlastxmas]

in other words: "won't somebody think of the economy!"

[perching_aix]

> In fact, one thing we could do is make sure that all jobs should be perpetual. If someone hires you, they can't stop paying you until they die or declare bankruptcy. This is sure to be good for workers

You jest, but that's pretty much South Korea if this video (and my interpretation of it) is to be believed: https://youtu.be/pjjhrwVYPE8

For those not interested in watching 30 mins of this, long story short, it doesn't bode well. They do have some other circumstances going on in addition though.

[BlueRock-Jake]

That is insane. Like a turbo charged pension

[zulux]

My only problem with this is: Some of my best people are those that "I gave them a chance." I'd only hire perfect people from my tribe if I had to have them forever.

[renewiltord]

And what about those who you have a chance to and they didn’t cut it? Their life is ruined by being fired.

[zulux]

Haha.. No. I've rehired people I've fired, so I know that's not the case. Had one guy pop back a decade later and thank me for saving his life. I was fully aware he had a drinking problem and lived in a van. It didn't work out for long, but the job gave him enough stability to sort some things out.

[triceratops]

> One of the ideal things that companies can do is not hire people

This, but unironically. Companies that make money without hiring anyone provide the most "value".

Simultaneously we should stop calling business owners "job creators". They're actually "job minimizers". They only hire people when there's no other choice.

[renewiltord]

Make money? Seems kind of corpofascistic. That’s profit that should be shared with workers. If no employees it could be distributed to unions.

[triceratops]

Ok go for it.

[the_real_cher]

Termination will take on a while different meaning of this turns out to come true on some Black Mirror future.

[shepherdjerred]

It’s not unethical to lay someone off

[Zigurd]

It's a failure of hiring, planning, and management. It's an off the books opportunity cost. It's an off the books cost of hiring a replacement. And if over hiring was done willfully, then yes it's straight up unethical.

[whamlastxmas]

When done for profit maximizing reasons it's not any worse than capitalism itself, but then this degrades into whether capitalism is ethical which is off topic

[genthree]

There’s weirdly-weak evidence that the layoff-happy strategy is actually better for long term company health than trying to retain workers through down periods. Like, it’s kinda just something you do now because it’s “how things are done” but it wasn’t always that way, and it might not even be the right call for profit-maximizing.

Basically, yet more management by fad.

[WalterBright]

Profit maximization makes for the high standard of living we enjoy.

[wiseowise]

The one where one trip to ER can leave you on the street and students have six digit debts?

[WalterBright]

Ironically, you picked two systems that are heavily interfered with by the government.

Back in the Great Depression, my great grandmother got sick and was hospitalized, and they took care of her until she passed. My grandfather did not have enough to pay the bill. The hospital told him not to worry, just pay what he could. It took him a while, but he paid the bill in full.

[Synthetic7346]

Heavily interfered how? Canada / UK / Australia have healthcare which is "heavily interfered" as you call it, and they're better off for it

[razakel]

Was the hospital affiliated with a religious order?

[wiseowise]

> Back in Great Depression

Why not civil war?

> It took him a while, but he paid the bill in full.

How long was “a while” specifically? And how much did it affect your grandfathers life?

[whamlastxmas]

ah yes, the high standard of living inlcuding checks notes world-leading medical bankruptcies, collapsing life expectancy despite insane healthcare spending, crippling student debt, unaffordable housing that requires a trust fund just to rent, and wages that stagnated decades ago while corporate profits and CEO pay skyrocketed.

i spent $57 on a regular size pack of paper towels and toilet paper in the bay area yesterday

truly, the invisible hand is giving us the finger

[WalterBright]

Interestingly, you mentioned the trifecta of industries most interfered with by the government - healthcare, education, and housing.

The government puts its foot on the scale there.

In contrast, look at the software industry. No regulations, yet highly sophisticated software where the price went to zero. I just reinstalled Ubuntu on my (now fixed!) computer, and every bit of the software was 100% free. And I give away the software I write for it!

$zero!! Can you believe it?

[whamlastxmas]

Socialzied medicine works well in many countries where it's 100% government controlled and socialism is much more cultural accepted. The problem isn't government involvement, it's the AMERICAN government involvement, which is largely controlled by billionaires and rich donors (i.e. capitalism)

Also software can be reproduced without cost. I cannot get back surgery without a lot of physical time and labor and resources.

I think you're rage baiting at this point so I'm done.

[js8]

Actually, it is. You have been blinded by capitalism to consider it ethical.

The tribes usually treat the members as a family. While kicking someone from a tribe can happen, it's considered to be a harsh punishment.

In a tribe, when hard times come, people usually redistribute. That's a normal, human way of dealing with that situation. Not a layoff.

The other aspect is the economic crises. When a central bank decides to increase interest rates, it decreases lending to new investments in favor of lower inflation. This can lead to layoffs, instead of having inflation inflicted on everyone (especially the rich with huge savings). So that decision is essentially some random guys get kicked out of economic (and societal) participation in order to prevent more redistribution of existing wealth.

If you think about it, yes layoffs are deeply immoral. But we can understand, why they happen in capitalism, as a sort of big tragedy of the commons.

[shepherdjerred]

My employer is not my “tribe”. That is crazy. We have a contract saying I do X units of work and they pay me Y in return. Either of us end it at any time.

At least this is in the case in the US. What you are saying might be true in other cultures.

[bombcar]

What we have in the USA is not necessarily the final and best form of all interactions, as much as it pains me to say it.

Most people's reactions to large-scale movements like this seem to imply that we feel there should be something more than a simple "money duty" between employer and employee, and we seem to also have respect for companies that act that way (e.g, some Japanese companies perhaps, or baseball teams keeping a sick player on the payroll so they get healthcare even though they never play another game).

Attempting to realize that duty and at the same time abscond it to the state or the family may be an aspect of the failing.

[js8]

No, that's another sort of misconception, also expressed in another comment by WalterBright, which conveniently ignores the reality of most jobs.

It glosses over the fact that employers exercise control over the social relations required for production (of anything larger that can be built by a self-employed person). This happens by virtue of owning all the crucial means of production involved. And that point, where you need to coordinate work of several people, it ceases to be a system of contractors who freely determine their working conditions, and becomes a collective that has a common goal.

So no, it's not case in the U.S., in no economy of the world is majority of production organized into everyone being a little independent contractor who brings (or rents) their own equipment. That would be horribly inefficient (not to mention that people don't want it either, by and large).

There is a clear rebut to this, how can employer own the social relations (required for production), like managerial relationships, when they ostensibly only own the factory equipment? Well, it's like when you own an appartment, you technically only own the four walls, but practically you also enjoy the privacy that comes with it. In a similar way, capitalists owning a factory don't just rent equipment to a bunch workers, but can dictate the whole social superstructure of production, including the redistribution of earnings.

[Apocryphon]

And yet, employers love to use the "we're a family", "we're a team", and other such messaging, especially in the tech industry. They elide the transactional nature of the entire relationship.

[BeetleB]

It's a job. Not a tribe.

The role an employer plays in societies varies from culture to culture, but note that in many cultures, it is "just a job".

[js8]

Yes, that's what people tell themselves to deal with it psychologically. That it's just a job, not a community, and you better not make friends in the workplace (despite spending majority of your life there). And that when you're unemployed, life just goes on, as if it doesn't mean much.

Like when a traumatised kid never loved by the parents concludes that life is harsh and love doesn't exist, so better be tough.

[BeetleB]

> Yes, that's what people tell themselves to deal with it psychologically. That it's just a job, not a community, and you better not make friends in the workplace (despite spending majority of your life there). And that when you're unemployed, life just goes on, as if it doesn't mean much.

That's a lot of stuff you're saying. Not what I'm saying.

[psychoslave]

Sure. Also the profitability of a company is just a number, and shareholders dividend is just fiduciary fictions, and company hierarchy is just arbitrary title attaching this or that person to this or that loosely defined role.

Drama is just in the head of people melted in the ambient narrative, sure.

[christkv]

Yeah because marxists systems "take such good care" off people in comparison.

[wiseowise]

Marxist systems don’t exist in real life.

[christkv]

They do in some peoples heads as an utopian dream.

[js8]

Actually they kinda do, for example worker cooperatives. Not common, have some issues (different than those claimed by propaganda), but they do exist. (If we understand "marxist" as somewhat in favor of worker emancipation instead of alienation. Marx was an eclectic guy and can be interpreted in different ways.)

[WalterBright]

> layoffs are deeply immoral

It's no more immoral than you deciding to buy from Safeway, even though you'd been buying from Fred Meyer before.

[wiseowise]

Safeway won’t starve and die if I decide to buy from Fred Meyer. You really don’t see that an individual is not on equal footing with multibillion company? It is absolutely immoral. And I’m not even talking about charity, those people were hired and did actual job for the fucking trillion dollar company.

[WalterBright]

Several grocery stores in Seattle have closed recently. The same with local Starbucks outlets. Locations that don't make money get closed, even if the rest of the company is doing well.

Also, employees can quit anytime, no notice required. Nobody is obliged to work.

[wiseowise]

> Several grocery stores in Seattle have closed recently. The same with local Starbucks outlets. Locations that don't make money get closed, even if the rest of the company is doing well.

Irrelevant to the topic at hand. Don’t give me a sob story about mom and pop shop, we’re talking about a trillion dollar company.

> Also, employees can quit anytime, no notice required. Nobody is obliged to work.

Okay? What’s your point?

[nickpp]

> Safeway won’t starve and die if I decide to buy from Fred Meyer.

Ironically, you (along with a significant number of others) deciding to buy from a competitor will eventually lead to financial trouble for Safeway and thus to layoffs and losses for their investors (pension funds among them).

So, do you find your decision to buy from Fred Meyer "absolutely immoral"?!

[wiseowise]

I don’t think there’s any point in having a conversation with you if you don’t see any difference between employment, community, civic duty and market. If you treat people as a market product, then we have even less to discuss.

[arkaic]

Irresponsible, careless, negligent. No planning leads to all of this. Ultimately unethical from this point of view

[throwaway85825]

It's an unpriced negative externality.

[wiseowise]

It is unethical, if there was nothing wrong with their performance and the company never tried to find a replacement position within the company. Stop licking boots, I heard they don’t even taste that good.

[WalterBright]

Mandated perpetual employment is bad for workers because the company will be extremely reluctant to hire and take on such an open-ended liability.