[toyg]

The hypocrisy, it burns!

So it's ok to exploit one's personal situation (family and financial commitments stopping one from moving to a location where the cartel is not in force, for example), but hey, no physical violence please, psychological one will do!

There is a main difference between the two actors: employers own original capital, employees don't. The penalty for employers (losing some profit if all workers quit or get fired) is virtually nonexistent: limited-liability companies are set up with the explicit aim of exonerating capital owners from responsibility beyond the invested capital. You lose the company, you lose a bit of capital; but in most cases, there is more where that came from. Workers don't own original capital (which is why they are workers, after all). The penalty for them is much higher, they could lose their house and/or livelihood.

Refusing to consider the fundamental imbalance of labor relationships is disingenuous at best. It's sad that we're still debating this same stuff in 2014.

[smsm42]

Yes, it is OK to "exploit" the fact that somebody wants to sell something cheap, but it's not OK to take it by force. If you think it is hypocritical, next time you buy something at a discounted sale instead of stealing it you're a hypocrite.

>>> The penalty for employers (losing some profit if all workers quit or get fired) is virtually nonexistent:

Because in your world running a business carries no risk as businesses never go bust. I see. Must be nice.

>>> limited-liability companies are set up with the explicit aim of exonerating capital owners from responsibility beyond the invested capital.

And losing invested capital (for small business/startup - likely all one has and also a lot of borrowed money) is nothing. Again, must be nice to be a man for whom losing all investment is nothing.

>>> The penalty for them is much higher

You mean, they have to go to work to another place now? If they possess marketable skills of decent quality, it won't be long before they'd be paid for them. If not, now we know why the business went bust - they shouldn't have hired workers which are incompetent.

>>> Refusing to consider the fundamental imbalance of labor relationships is disingenuous at best.

Here we considered it and found you fundamentally misunderstand both nature of business and nature of employment, suggesting business carries no risk and employment only possible with single employer and if that goes bust the worker can not work anymore. Yes, it does sound a bit sad.

[toyg]

Because in your world running a business carries no risk as businesses never go bust. [...] And losing invested capital (for small business/startup - likely all one has and also a lot of borrowed money) is nothing

We are talking about Google, Apple, Intel and Adobe -- startups? Small businesses? No, market-clearing companies with billions in profit and rich dividends, quarter after quarter.

If they possess marketable skills of decent quality, it won't be long before they'd be paid for them.

As you put it, must be nice to be a man for whom losing a job is nothing. If you are a major investor in Intel or Adobe, chances are you are not going to lose your house over it; things tend to be different for most workers.

I am not saying business never carries risk; what I'm saying is that the type of risk is qualitatively different from the risk of losing a job for an average salaried worker.

[smsm42]

Google, Apple, Intel and Adobe were startups once. They took risks. These risks played out. Hundreds of others took the same risks, and you don't know their names, because their risks didn't. But you can also remember names like Compaq, DEC and Ashton-Tate. They were giants once. They are no more. There's always risk, and Adobe of today may become Ashton-Tate of tomorrow.

>>> must be nice to be a man for whom losing a job is nothing.

I didn't say it's nothing. I said it's not losing your livelihood on permanent basis. If you have marketable skills, you will find another job, and unlike capital, your skills can not be lost. They can become stale and out of date, but there's an easy remedy for that - keep learning and improving - and that needs to happen even if you do have a job.

>>> If you are a major investor in Intel or Adobe, chances are you are not going to lose your house over it;

Unless you deal in trivialities like "if you're a billionaire, then losing a million does not matter", many people lost a lot on dotcom boost, and many lost their house quite literally betting on housing market. Unless you are a politician or friends with one, investment always carries a risk of loss.

>>> I'm saying is that the type of risk is qualitatively different from the risk of losing a job for an average salaried worker.

Yes, it is, investor risk what can be easily and irreversibly lost and can not be protected (I exclude bailout shenanigans of course, this is plain old robbery that our politicians facilitated) and the salaryman risks only a temporary dip in the cash flow in the most cases, and his skills can not be taken away or lost, indeed they are usually improving constantly (15 years of experience is usually better than 5). The nature of risk is substantially different. That's why most people prefer salary.

[adventured]

Who's debating anything here? Literally the only thing I did is relay what the actual ideology is, compared to what the author claimed it is. You reacted viscerally without any further consideration. I actually was careful to put in the last section to specifically try to prevent your type of response.

[jpttsn]

This seems more like a matter of opinion. What's hypocritical?

> Refusing to consider the fundamental imbalance of labor relationships is disingenuous at best

What makes it disingenuous? Isn't grandparent just disagreeing with some of your assumptions?

[cbsmith]

> The hypocrisy, it burns!

Sorry. Would you like a cool compress? ;-)

> So it's ok to exploit one's personal situation (family and financial commitments stopping one from moving to a location where the cartel is not in force, for example), but hey, no physical violence please, psychological one will do!

I don't know how to describe the ludicrousness of describing not cold calling someone as "psychological violence".

In general though, I'm no libertarian, but I'm pretty sure they'd be the first to admit that the libertarian model is without exploitation, immorality, or evil. They'd just argue that the use of force to exert controls would invariably be a greater exploitation/immorality/evil.

> employers own original capital

At least with startups in the valley, they most certainly don't.

To clarify: investors by definition are risking original capital, so they always own original capital... of course with a typical investment model, once they invest that capital, they no longer own said capital and in fact may no longer own any original capital.

Employers are generally the businesses themselves, and so don't necessarily have original capital and statistically at least are disproportionately likely to either be in debt or at least have negative cash flow, particularly with startups.

Employees on the other hand, have almost no capital at risk tied to their involvement in a venture beyond equity/warrants in the company. It is entirely possible (and particularly in the case of the tech industry, and particularly in the case of senior employees like those targeted by these practices) that they'd have original capital, and in fact in I think every case of the named companies they have opportunities to contribute original capital into their employer at better than market rates, as well as having sweat equity translated in to options or straight out equity/grants in their employer. So they are more than encouraged to have either original capital or at least the equivalent thereof.

In short, the power dynamic you are implying as universal to the employer-employee relationship isn't universal and most importantly is a particular ill fit to the context in question.

> employees don't

At last with startups in the valley, that is far from necessarily true.

> The penalty for employers (losing some profit if all workers quit or get fired) is virtually nonexistent: limited-liability companies are set up with the explicit aim of exonerating capital owners from responsibility beyond the invested capital.

Yeah... but that limited liability is very hard to escape and often significantly outweighs the relative penalty for employees of quitting or getting fired. Again, at startups... most employees don't recoil in horror about the economic (psychological is a different matter) consequences of quitting or getting fired.

> Workers don't own original capital (which is why they are workers, after all).

Again, at a startup up, it'd be a huge assumption to think they are working there because they don't own original capital.

> The penalty for them is much higher, they could lose their house and/or livelihood.

Assuming there is demand from other employers, the penalty is almost 0. Particularly as a logical consequence of the hiring practices alluded to in the article, an engineer who is laid off is going to get snatched off the market almost immediately. In fact, they are likely to not even miss a single paycheck and could very well end up with a raise out of the whole thing.

> Refusing to consider the fundamental imbalance of labor relationships is disingenuous at best.

Refusing to consider the full impact of distortions on labor relationships is disingenuous at best. Engaging in a debate about this same stuff in 2014 without considering the market & economic realities that motivate these practices in the first place is beyond sad.

[toyg]

>I don't know how to describe the ludicrousness of describing not cold calling someone as "psychological violence".

Cold calling is not necessary, a worker has networks of his own. Given a situation where the worker is trying to improve his condition by getting fairer compensation for his work, and is forced to renounce by a localised cartel of employers exploiting his conditions (i.e. that he can't leave the area), I'd say that's psychological violence alright... but I guess we'll never agree on the exact degree of intensity of such force.

>At least with startups in the valley, they most certainly don't [own original capital].

We are talking about Apple, Intel, Google etc; they are not startups anymore. Startups are not the ones who colluded, they already cannot pay market wages in most cases. It's the companies who could and should pay full wages, the ones who tried to scrimp on salaries.

I agree that the fundamental asymmetry in labor relationship is mitigated by factors such as business size and investor's own history, but it's still there (how often do we get stories on HN about startup workers being screwed out of rewards for successful business outcomes), and anyway these factors simply do not apply to Google, Apple et al.

>Assuming there is demand from other employers

That's a big assumption. It might be true for Silicon Valley as of 2014, but in most years and in most areas that's simply not the case.

> Refusing to consider the fundamental imbalance of labor relationships is disingenuous at best. >> Refusing to consider the full impact of distortions on labor relationships is disingenuous at best.

I agree, it's a complex matter, but you cannot take as fundamental principles for economic doctrine some localised, exceptional and very limited situation: you take the common scenario and build principles from it, then you tweak it for outliers. "Engineers in Silicon Valley" is the outlier, not the common scenario, and people trying to use that as the basis for "new" theories are, in most cases, just rehashing old excuses for exploiting the workforce.

[cbsmith]

> Cold calling is not necessary, a worker has networks of his own.

You are making these company's arguments for them. Although the notion that these individuals would need to know someone to find gainful employment at a competitor is wrong.

> and is forced to renounce by a localised cartel of employers exploiting his conditions (i.e. that he can't leave the area), I'd say that's psychological violence alright... but I guess we'll never agree on the exact degree of intensity of such force.

Rather, I think we should agree that you have created a straw man that while it may very well be an accurate depiction of some circumstances, does not apply to the story you are commenting on.

> It's the companies who could and should pay full wages, the ones who tried to scrimp on salaries.

Google is known to compensate their employees at the upper end of the market. Once you factor in benefits and equity, all of these companies compensate well above median salary for their low level employees as well as the ones targeted by these policies. What you are saying does not reflect reality.

I think a very good case could be made that these policies may constitute unfair labour practices, but if you think about how much the bottom line of these companies would be impacted if the targeted employees had their wages and compensation even doubled, you might begin to appreciate that you are barking up the wrong tree here.

> That's a big assumption.

That's really not a really big assumption when the entire practice was based on there being demand from other employers.

> "Engineers in Silicon Valley" is the outlier, not the common scenario, and people trying to use that as the basis for "new" theories are, in most cases, just rehashing old excuses for exploiting the workforce.

One could paraphrase that as, "it makes sense to apply a common principle to a specific situation, asserting as postulates foundational characteristics of that common principle even when the specific situation directly contradicts those characteristics."

On that basis I could assert that since you and I are arguing on the web that we are both introverted and socially isolated juvenile white males expressing internalized aggression, regardless of the sounds of my spouse and child asking for help with homework...

[dnautics]

hey, no physical violence please, psychological one will do!

Yes, because physical violence is provable, psychological violence is easier to fabricate. If the state cannot satisfy a certain level of probity, then it should stay out for the risk of making the accused a victim of physical violence.

That doesn't make psychological damage is morally acceptable, it just means as a society we should find another means of punishing it that doesn't involve the state.