Dave Smith and Robbie Bernstein dismantle libertarian Hassan Piker's anarcho-capitalist arguments, countering claims that workplace democracy stifles efficiency. They assert that while life lacks perfect fairness, meritocratic markets reward value-creators like LeBron James, whereas worker co-ops often suffer from poor incentives. Citing the Pareto distribution, they argue top-down management by the most talented is essential for innovation, dismissing Piker's dismissal of cooperatives and noting how current capitalism already blends socialist elements with judicial order. Ultimately, the hosts conclude that prioritizing shareholder value drives necessary job creation, warning that replacing market logic with political voting risks societal stagnation. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Roll Back The State00:07:06
Fill her up.
You're listening to the Gash Digital Network.
We need to roll back the state.
We spy on all of our own citizens.
Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
You're listening to part of the problem on the Gas Digital Network.
Here's your host, Jay Smith.
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
I'm Dave Smith, and I am joined by my partner in crime, the one and only Robbie the Fire Bernstein, king of the caulks.
How are you, my brother?
I'm doing well, man.
We're cooking this week.
Two for two on episodes.
Yeah, there you go.
We're getting it.
We're banging them out.
We're banging them out.
So today, I guess we're going to do something a little bit different.
I thought we'd have some fun with this.
And I will tell you that I'm a little bit, listen, maybe I'm taking the easy way out, or maybe I'm just following the incentives of the marketplace and doing what the people want.
But the Brian, our wonderful producer here, sent me a Hassan Piker video.
And for those of you guys who know, me and we've made a few videos about Hassan Piker.
He's made a few videos about me.
We've gone back and forth a little bit.
Brian sent me a video of his and that was unrelated to anything.
It was just like, oh, dude, we have to just smash this.
And I was like, no, no, we're not, because it's just too stupid.
It was just, I mean, it literally feels like, it feels like, no, I can't, I can't just spend my time taking this on.
It's too stupid.
And everything he does is.
But this one, then he sends me this.
He goes, well, he just did this a couple of days ago.
And it's him like smashing libertarians.
And I was like, oh, all right.
I have had a policy from the very beginning of part of the problem that if you are trying to debunk libertarians, I will respond to your thing.
And he's a pretty big guy with a lot of followers.
So that kind of gives me permission to do it.
And he's made videos, you know, going at me before.
And the last time I did the video responding to him, did very well.
People really seem to like it.
So I guess we're going to do it.
Let's have some fun.
Listen, when you make these videos responding to Hassan, it's never about actually beating Hassan's argument because that's there isn't arguments.
He doesn't do arguments.
He just, he just scoffs at you like a child.
And like, he does this, like, as I said last time, it's like this, like, like, he wants to be like, yeah, like he wants to be the monopoly guy.
Well, but it's like he wants to be the cool girl in high school.
Like, that's the way he talks.
Like, seriously, man, seriously.
That's what you believe?
Like, I don't even, oh my God.
Oh, it's just so, oh, like, that's, that's all he does, the whole videos.
But it allows you to kind of like play off that and then explain why you're actually an idiot and then get in.
So we deal in, you know, the current events so much and all the crises that are facing the country, but it's theory is important too.
And so I have a feeling we'll get into some interesting theory stuff in this episode.
So anyway, Hassan Piker just put out a video called Libertarians on TikTok, something aren't right or something like that.
So let's get into it.
We're going to be picking Piker.
Me and you'll respond.
He's responding to someone else who's a libertarian and we'll respond to him.
I don't know if this guy's going to do a response video to him.
So we'll fucking, we'll catch his back.
There'll be a lot of people here.
It's a little different than what we usually do.
Let's see if we can have some fun.
It's a big circle of content.
Don't make me go back at him.
No one ever has to do their homework.
By the way, oh, it's even more meta.
It's this guy responding.
There's a video of a TikTok guy responding to someone else and then Hassan's responding to them and then we'll respond to Hassan.
But we'll get into some interesting fucking shit.
We'll make some good points on theory, I'm sure, throughout it.
So let's check it out.
Least arranged and cap.
If America loves democracy so much, why don't we have democracy in the workplace?
Like we love freedom, but when we go into work, we just start taking orders from someone, no questions asked.
How about the workers choose their managers rather than the other way around?
How about when management is coming up with policies that directly affect the worker?
Why don't the workers have a say in creating those policies?
Okay, so the first guy is classic.
This is like first guy is a Richard Wolf Andy.
Okay, I already know.
Of course, I don't personally disagree with that take.
I agree with it, but it's a classic Richard Wolfe Andy.
This guy looks like he's got a pause already.
Yeah, he just pulled some Mountain Dew out of a little mini fridge.
He's got like band of nail polish, dude.
I mean, it's just, yeah, what can you say?
What can you say about this?
Damn it.
If I had a, if I was a better comedian, I'd have something like, I don't know why that's so fucking funny, but it's like just so not cool.
I don't even know.
Help me out, everybody.
I feel like no two parts of him go together.
They're all just picked off of different human beings.
Like the hat, the glasses, the face, and the hand aren't the same person.
But what do I listen?
What do I know?
Hassan's probably more up on the cultural trends than we are.
But anyway, so he's, yeah, so that's the point, which is this like, I don't know.
I mean, I haven't, by the way, I did, I did not watch this video.
I did not.
I was just sent this and I was like, it's a video on libertarians.
So, okay, we'll go for it.
I like doing it this way.
But so I don't know.
I got the idea of it.
I watched maybe 40 seconds of it.
But so I got the idea that this guy's saying things, that other guy's responding to him, and he's responding to him.
I know it's the least important thing we're going to cover today, but can I watch the replay of his nail-polished hand getting Mountain Dew out of a mini fridge?
Go for it, bro.
Give him one more workers choose their managers rather than the other way around.
How about when management is coming up with policies that directly affect the worker?
Why don't the workers have a say in creating those policies?
Okay, so the first guy is classic.
This is like first guy is a Richard Wolf Andy.
Okay, I already know.
Of course, I don't personally disagree with that take.
I agree with it, but it's the classic Richard Wolfe Andy.
It's also the jump cut, like he's really showing off how cool he is for having a mini fridge of Mountain Dew.
Yeah, right.
All right.
You know what's got to be nice about nail polish is that when you're jerking off, if you look down, maybe it looks like a lady's doing it.
Oh, there you go.
All right.
Well, you know what?
You're already one step to selling people on this nail polish.
I might try it out.
I'll come back and report back next week.
Rob's going to do a 180 on this.
He goes, that is really cool.
And I like Mountain Dew.
I start getting like full manicures.
Well, let's deal with what this guy said first.
Maybe give our response to that, and then we'll see what this guy has to say about it.
But, you know, I would say the idea, this is like the Richard Wolf type argument, right?
That democracy, if we love democracy so much, why don't we extend it to the workplace, you know?
Socialism Built In Democracy00:02:10
And I would just say that I don't really think people in America love democracy that much.
I mean, they sure love to say that they love democracy, you know?
Like everyone loves to say democracy, but democracy is almost like just interchangeable with good, right?
Like that's just, that's the good thing.
And being against democracy is the bad thing.
But I don't think people love democracy so much when the other side wins.
You know, I mean, like, I don't know.
They want their person to win.
And so I don't think that people are like, you know, I've used this example a lot before, but like, I don't think anyone on the left, when the Supreme Court made gay marriage the law of the land in all 50 states, I don't think anyone on the left went, no, We need all of these states to vote on this issue.
We didn't do it democratically.
We just won through judicial, you know, orders.
That's not no.
We love to, you know, they want to win.
And so I don't really think like who would, if there was some policy that you thought was truly evil, who would support it?
Because 51% of the people like it.
So I don't really think they love it to begin with.
People seem to like democracy with a lot of socialism built into it.
So everyone that's, you know, I guess behind our current democracy, it includes a Federal Reserve, it includes free health care, and includes Social Security.
It's a lot of socialism built into our current democracy.
Sure, sure.
Well, look, and I don't care.
Like perhaps that's like you certainly some of those programs, you could say, well, they've been supported by the majority, but I, that doesn't mean anything to me in the same way that it wouldn't mean anything to you, but you know, socialist, if the majority was against them.
It's that you want the policies that you think are the correct policies.
And that's not, you know, again, like it's like, you know, there's a million obvious examples of this, but like if 60% of the country supported slavery, let's just say hypothetically in like, you know, in 1840 or something like that, it's probably more than that, but if it was 60%, but slavery was abolished, you wouldn't be like, oh, no, this is such a violation of democracy.
Why Managers Work For You00:08:41
You know what I mean?
Like, or is this some awful policy like that?
You wouldn't, no, you'd still want that evil policy abolished, no matter what percentage.
I mean, you might prefer that more people were against it, but it's not as if this process is somehow magical.
It's if you're in any room with people, just the majority isn't necessarily right.
Anyway, his argument that why shouldn't we extend that to the workplace then is it's a very interesting kind of like, it's like you're coming at it from this idea that everyone knows equally how a company should be run, including the guy who was hired yesterday.
He knows just as well as the supervisor who's been there 20 years.
Well, you know, if they say managers choose the workers, why shouldn't workers choose the managers?
I mean, in a sense, they do.
They can choose whether or not to work at that company.
But the idea that you should just be able to walk into a company that has everything figured out already, they already have, you know, whatever it may be.
They already have a building and workers and a product and a system and a schedule and clients and, you know, all of these things that you should just get to go in there and go, I'm going to choose how everything works.
Sounds like that might not work as well.
The reality of the situation is that some people are better than other people at many things.
And those people are probably better to be making the decision making in a lot of these different companies.
Like the idea that you think, what do you think like any one of us could just walk into some Fortune 500 company tomorrow and just start making decisions?
No.
And the idea that even just someone who works at that company, I mean, do you think somebody, even if they've been there for a long time, I mean, do you think that just like anybody who works at some company knows as much as the people at the highest levels?
I mean, I'm not saying it's a pure meritocracy, but you don't think there's something to be said for people who rise to the absolute top having some talent?
Do you not believe talent is a thing?
Also, to a point, I know it's a little bit backwards, but sometimes your managers and your bosses, they actually work for you.
And what I mean by that is if they're not creating opportunity for you, people leave.
Like if when you start a company, like in the first couple of years, you're kind of working for your employees.
It's very rare that you start a company and you're profitable in the first couple of years.
If anything, you're kind of working to make sure that your workers are actually getting paid and they've got a job opportunity and that the business is going to grow and you're going to be able to make money.
But I can tell you.
Yeah.
No, listen, I used this example before.
I mean, I've never been an employee of Gas Digital.
I'm like a contractor, I guess.
And like I own part of the problem, but I contract it to Gas Digital.
And that's kind of our agreement.
But I'll tell you, I was here from the very beginning.
I'm starting off this podcast network and it's become very successful.
And like Lewis and Ralph do very well now.
But I was making money way before Lewis and Ralph were making money off Gas Digital.
This is just a fact.
Because I never really put any risk into it and I didn't have to pay for any of the overhead or anything like that.
And they were the ones trying to build up this company and invest all of this into the future.
So it's, yeah, you're absolutely right about that.
And there's many examples of that.
You know, I've definitely had shitty bosses and shitty managers.
That's part of jobs.
And sometimes the idiots do move forward.
But I've also seen a lot of very clearly why some people got promoted and even people who were like, oh, good, that guy's going to be my manager now.
And an actual excitement to have that guy be your manager, especially in sales offices, because you're like, oh, that guy's going to make me money.
He actually knows how to help me close deals.
He knows how to prospect.
You know, he's going to keep us motivated.
So it's not always like there's some guy standing over you at the whip, you know?
Yeah.
And I'll tell you, there's also one more thing, right?
Like there's also a lot of different jobs, and this is true a lot, where people don't want the promotion.
There's a lot of jobs where people don't want to be the manager.
Or they're like, oh, like, you know, they'll actually come to you because you're like the best salesman or whatever, be like, hey, do you want to manage the whole team?
You'd be like, no, I really just want to make sales.
I've seen that.
I really just want to make sales because the increase in pay is not enough to justify taking on all the responsibility and the headache of managing this whole thing.
And a lot of people want to be like, listen, I'm good at my job.
I will come in.
I will do my job.
I want to get paid a reasonable wage for what I do.
And then I want to go home.
I don't want to stick around and vote on every single issue that's up for discussion.
That's just a fact that a lot of people don't want to do that.
You can also flip this guy's argument against democracy and go, oh, look, there's a different system that seems to work really well at creating value that people that otherwise wouldn't have jobs are able to show up to a place and get paid.
And you got some other structure here where people are able to, I guess, freely trade amongst each other my time for your money.
And they seem to be organizing each other really well.
If anything, it might be an argument against democracy.
Well, look, I mean, there's also like for these people who are like, well, look, we love democracy.
Why shouldn't we extend it to the workplace?
Well, I'll just say to you also, like, why shouldn't we extend it to like everything?
I mean, like, why shouldn't we all vote on who you marry?
Or we all vote on what outfit you wear today or we all vote on what you eat or we all vote.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, are there some areas in life where you would grant that like, oh, no, these are kind of limits of democracy.
And the reason being, who the fuck do you think you are to get a vote?
Right.
Like, basically, like, if I was like, should everyone vote unlike what me and my wife, where me and my wife go at to dinner next week?
Or can we just choose?
Like, cause who the fuck do you think you are to tell me, right?
You get the point I'm making.
Yeah.
And if there's somebody who, which is the case for many companies, okay, who literally like works their ass off for years.
First off, it's their idea.
They put their investment into it.
They put their time and energy into it.
Like, look, for someone who comes to a new employee to Gas Digital today, it just gets hired now.
Should they get, is it really, would you say this is fair or just if they had the same equal say as Ralph and Lewis have over what the policy of Gas Digital is?
Where these guys have been like literally invested their money, their blood, sweat, and tears for years to create something.
Now you come in when it's already created and think you just get to tell them what to do.
No, they made you an offer.
Are you willing to come on board to this machine we already have for X?
And if yes, then yes.
And one more point to it, like that, right?
Is that like, so just to use another example?
Again, I'm not an employee, but I have, I'm, I'm a part of, I believe, the two biggest shows on the network.
There might be, I might be wrong about that, but I think Legion of Skanks and part of the problem are the two biggest shows on Gas Digital.
Legion of Skanks is definitely number one.
Part of the problem is definitely very close behind, whatever the answer to that is.
I don't have a vote.
I actually have no official authority.
I have no like ownership stake in Gas Digital.
I have a lot of power.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, if I really want something to happen, I can, and not just because like I'm friends with the people involved and stuff like that, but like, because I bring a lot of money in, and that means something.
Like, if you bring a lot of money, if you're very good at your job, then it's going to be like kind of like, oh, okay, that's an issue.
Like, and this is true for everybody.
You have some power over me because you're very good at your job as being my co-host.
And Brian has some power because he's very good at his job of being my producer.
And I mean this, like, completely genuinely.
Like, if Rob was like, yo, I don't like this.
I don't like what you're doing with this show.
I'm going to leave if we keep doing this.
I'd have to be like, whoa, okay, I got to sit down with you.
Cause like, shit, if you leave, then fuck.
I don't know exactly what I'm going to do.
And that's, you know, like, so there, it's not a vote exactly.
It's much, much better than that.
It's a meritocracy.
You actually have the amount of influence that you deserve.
And if someone really sucks at their job, they don't have much of that because like you don't, you're very replaceable.
And maybe you should go do something else that you'd be better at.
I don't know.
All right.
Let's see how on the point of how important I am.
No, the other thing I was going to say is on this guy's example of democracies, the only reason our country is solving is because it's allowed to rob people.
So unless you're going to allow every corporation to go rob people for taxes, good luck having that structure remain solvent.
Yeah, there's another issue.
It's like, this will not work very well.
No One Is His Slave00:04:51
There's a reason why that.
And there's a reason why, look, I mean, you have like worker co-ops out there who operate in this manner.
And there are some worker co-ops who are successful.
Okay.
But why is it if worker co-ops are completely legal and top-down companies, you know, boss employee companies are completely legal?
Why is it that the vast, vast, vast majority of them are have bosses and aren't worker co-ops?
Because I think you need a sicko who actually really wants to go out and achieve greatness.
Well, that's better.
Yeah, it's just, look, it just works better.
And that is the truth with the big, big companies.
Okay.
That is actually the truth with those.
They're usually sick.
They're usually, and when I say sickos, just mean that the vast majority of people do not want to be a Bill Gates or an Elon Musk or, you know what I mean?
Someone like that.
Like it's just the vast majority of people do not want to obsessively work like 20 hours a day at what they do and take it to that level.
Most people want to like go to work and come home and have a family.
I sure don't.
I'm like, I wouldn't want to work that much where I'm away from my wife and my kids.
I wouldn't want to.
So yeah.
All right.
Let's get back into the video because we'll take fucking forever getting this.
About to intellectually dismantle him.
Okay.
This is incredibly stupid.
First of all, logically, just because something affects you doesn't mean you should have a say in it.
If 50 people wait, what?
Just because logically?
Bro, you can't just say logically and then say whatever the you want after it.
And then people will be like, well, that guy's logical.
Well, that's true.
I mean, to put this in leftist terms, just to put this in leftist terms, if somebody is, if some lady's outfit affects me, am I allowed to tell her to wear a different outfit?
Yeah, no, he didn't just say logically before it.
I mean, it is logically true.
I mean, you could say if some woman doesn't want to date a guy who's interested in her, that affects him, but that doesn't logically follow that he should be allowed to control it.
Like, yeah, no, he's absolutely right.
So, this is what this is what Hassan does.
He just laughs at you, but it's like you, you haven't countered this at all.
Like, it's like a counter to this would be like to say, like, well, no, if anything ever affects you, you do have a right to control it because that usually goes, oh, dude, you can't just say logically.
This is what he does.
It's just, it's really weak.
Anyway, I'm crushing dudes all day, bro.
Give him a break.
He's hopped up on do right now.
So he's not, he's not at the top of his game, or maybe he is.
All right, let's keep going.
It does.
Oh my God, he has his IQ.
Oh, no.
Oh, no.
I'm Ben, IQ137.
Oh, no.
Dude, okay.
Okay.
Listen, listen, listen.
I don't want to be rude, but okay, I'm lying.
I do want to be rude.
Most like this, who think they're going to thrive in an Ankapistan type civilization, who think that like, you know, they're going to logic their way into like owning a factory or whatever.
No, bitch, you are going to, you and your family will be enslaved by me.
Okay.
I'm just letting you know right now, Ankapistan, you will be my slave.
You will not be the factory owner.
You will not be enslaving others.
You will be my slave.
And then I will be Elon Musk's slave.
Okay.
Please stop thinking that in an ANCAP deregulated society that you will thrive in that society.
You will not.
Okay.
If you're not thriving in this situation, you're not thriving in that one.
People walk into my house.
I mean, I don't know.
Hold on.
Let's push it.
I don't know how much like demand there's going to be for a communist male model influencer in an ANCAP society.
I don't think anyone's going to be Hassan's slave.
I don't think in any society anywhere ever in the history of the world, anyone has ever been a slave to a master that had nail polish drinking mountain dew.
I just don't think that's ever happened.
And I don't think it's going to.
So I'm not worried about it.
But again, it's just this is like stupid assertions.
Oh, if you can't make it in this society, you wouldn't make it in an ANCAP society.
Like, okay.
So actually, yes, I think he would.
I think the vast majority of people would be doing way better in an ANCAP society.
Adults with toys and nail polish are going to the top, Dave.
Yeah, right.
I mean, I don't know.
Maybe it's amazing.
He's made himself something in this society.
So maybe he would.
I'm not even, I'm not even saying he wouldn't.
I don't know.
But I don't think anyone would be his slave.
I don't think he'd be Elon Musk's slave.
And in a weird way, you know, it's funny because even like that, you know, someone like Elon Musk, it's funny to say, look, he's got a ton of money for sure.
You know, but the idea of like being a slave, you usually think of someone who like they're out there in the field doing the work while you can kind of sit back and just enjoy the fruits of their labor, labor.
Elon Musk works his fucking ass off.
And that's the truth about most of these like hyper-obsessed men who take over the world.
They're not like, it's not like they're not working.
Honesty In This Conversation00:14:15
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All right, let's get back into the show.
Um, but anyway, let's uh let's keep playing.
That was all silly.
Walk into my home now just because they're going to be affected by the conditions of my house.
That does not mean that they get a say in what I do.
It is wait, what?
Uh, no, they absolutely do get a fucking that.
That's literally not true.
That's why there's like zoning restrictions.
And like, for example, if you have, uh, if you have your friends that come over to your house and they have children and they fall into your fucking pool and die, like you're absolutely liable for that for not putting up a fucking pool gate.
Okay.
So that's not even true.
Uh, okay, let's keep going.
Hold on.
I'll just pause it there.
So here's what Hassan.
Okay.
This is every now and then you have, oh, he's about to pull up democracy, the god that failed.
Okay, I like this kid even more than I thought I would.
Okay, hold on.
Let me just point out there because every now and then when you watch these videos with Hassan, it's like it's just nonsense, but then you kind of get excited.
This is what I like about him.
You get excited when he actually approaches an argument.
You're like, oh, you made an argument.
Oh, that was actually an argument.
But it's always a really, really bad one.
It's always like just an awful one.
But you're like, you still like, you feel like you're dealing with a third grader.
You're like, okay, but that was that.
So the guy said, like, um, things that affect you, you don't just have a right to control them because they affect you.
So like, if you walk into my house, the conditions of my house affect you, but you don't have a right to like control it.
And his response was like, well, yeah, sure, you do.
I mean, if your kids fall, their kids fall into your pool and like blah, blah, blah, that you don't have a guardrail.
Then it's like, okay, yeah, like even saying that's true, like, let's say that's true in an ANCAP society, there are rules like that.
That's not what you're saying is that if someone is injured and suffers damages due to negligence, that they would have a say.
But the claim was that if it affects you, you know what I mean?
If it affects you, you get a say in it.
So if it affects you, it could just be like, I don't like the layout.
I feel like uncomfortable here.
Oh, this isn't that clean.
Oh, it kind of skeves me out.
So you don't have like a say.
I mean, you can say the same way in the workplace, like, I don't want to be here if you're going to have it like this.
But so that's the point.
So you didn't actually take on his logic at all.
You used some other example of like, if this is like a severe risk to my health and well-being, I get a say, not if it affects me.
It's a different term.
So I'm proud of Hassan for making an argument, but as usual, it's a really, really bad one.
All right, let's go back.
As far as democracy itself, democracy is a terrible system.
I highly recommend reading Democracy: the God That Failed by Hans Hermann Hoppe or The Myth of the Rational Voter by Brian Kaplan.
Incorporated into the world.
At least the ANCAP is like, you know, doing the reporting.
Like, he basically is like, yeah, this doesn't work.
Like, this doesn't democracy a failure.
He's doing the anarcho-capitalist.
And of course, because of that, I am a fascist take.
That's what it is.
At least there's honesty in this.
I'm really rational and really logical.
And that's why I'm a fucking Nazi.
Let's pause it real quick right there.
I mean, he just pointed to two books that talk about democracy that are critiques of democracy.
And of course, Hassan, who, as we all know from the other videos, is a true binary thinker.
Like a binary thinker that you encounter a lot of binary thinking in the world, but he's a binary thinker.
Like you cannot believe.
And this is a sign of like not impressive intellect.
But the idea that there is, it's a binary between democracy and fascism.
Like this very specific movement that overtook a few countries in Europe in the 30s.
And I suppose there's other countries you could label under the fascist umbrella and democracy.
Like there's been many different systems of government.
Before.
Just like whether you're talking about monarchy or feudalism, or like all, like many different systems of government, and the idea that it's either democracy or fascist is not true at all.
I mean like, for example like uh, a republic that's.
That's a system of government that has existed in the world many times and that's neither fascist nor democratic.
And, of course, what this guy's arguing for is to be it is anarcho-capitalism or libertarianism.
That is not fascism, but it's also not democracy.
So just because you challenge one does not mean you automatically become the other.
That's just kind of, I think, obvious.
But all right, let's keep playing.
Many, many times, a democratized workplace is called a worker cooperative.
Yugoslavia actually once had a system entirely made up of worker cooperatives, and this is a great paper from the London School OF Economics analyzing.
Oh, I wonder what the London School OF Economics had to say about Yugoslavia, dude, let's see this worker cooperative system in Yugoslavia, increased unemployment, decreased job finding rates, even increased the natural rate of unemployment.
At one point more than 20 of the workforce was working in other countries because they couldn't find jobs.
Definitely better.
Now i'm glad that that system you know that system failed so disastrously that it's it's now excellent.
Now shit is popping, shit's popping.
The fuck off now, dude.
Very good, now much much, much better.
I know I say no Balkan talk, but but come on okay, come the fuck on, dude.
There's a one of those major, all right well, you pause it right there for a second.
I mean, I mean whatever.
I'm not going to get into the whole fucking Balkan, balkanization and the wars in the 90s and all that shit, but I don't think it's so.
Anyway, it does.
It wouldn't.
Even even if you think things aren't good now, that would not be an argument against what he's saying.
He's saying that they had a system when they were under worker co-ops and it was.
It did not work out well, it was like a disaster um and, by the way, our country could use some balkanization.
So whatever anyway, let's keep.
Hazon said, come on man, so i'm going with him on this one, and he said it twice in a row.
I said anyway, he does, his shit is like.
It literally is like political arguments for 16 year old girls.
It's unbelievable, it's.
It's, it's kind of entertaining in a way to watch because, like in today's world, you're so removed from like, like we just exist in a different world right, like Rob is like really into like economics and he'll read like David Stockman and he'll read like these other guys who's like really interested in.
We'll kind of like keep up on this other stuff.
And i'm really interested in like foreign policy.
So I go to like Antiwar.com and all this other stuff and we're both really interested in like the Covid regime.
So we look at the numbers and the data of like all this and And then we try to make these arguments and you know, whatever.
I'm not saying like we're fucking, you know, we're idiot comedians too, but we're at least, we talk about politics from the perspective of like, hey, I think this is the argument that's correct.
And let's put on an entertaining show while we do it.
And you're so removed from the fact that you're like, someone else just does it like this.
Like someone else just talks about politics and they're just kind of like, all right, Mountain Deal, let's do this.
You stupid lame.
It's just so, it's so bananas to me that that's like, oh, you can also do it that way.
I'm learning a lesson here.
I got to learn on my Asian girl laugh.
Yeah, like that's just like a way to do it too, I guess.
I don't know.
I find it there's something about it that's really, you know, you're so removed from this shit.
It's just, it's interesting to see.
So anyway, let's keep going.
I like this guy.
I got to find out who this guy on the TikTok is.
Handsome fella.
One of the major internal factors was distorted labor incentives.
If your workplace is a democracy and not a meritocracy, you do not have incentives to perform better.
You don't have okay.
Perform better by what metric, dude?
By what metric?
We never have this conversation.
Every time people talk about efficiency, they're talking about efficiency from a capitalist point of view.
And yes, if you look at efficiency from a capitalist point of view, obviously other kinds of organizations are probably not going to look like they're performing better.
You have to look at the different kinds of metrics that help, like turnover rate, the workplace conditions, the happiness metrics, even though they're very qualitative and difficult to fucking look at whether the many rather than the few is doing a good job of exacting that.
Okay.
What it's set out to do.
Yeah, pause, pause it there.
You know what makes me really happy when I get paid not to work.
You know what's really inefficient when you pay people not to work because then they don't work.
The idea that like he's like, we never have this conversation.
So let's have this conversation about what does efficiency mean?
It's like, well, all right.
I mean, are you telling me there's no measure, like no objective measure?
Like if you were doing sales, selling more, if you were doing, I mean, like, it's not just like, oh, what the, like, what the idiots think.
It's like, I don't know, if you were making a product, making a product that people want, if you were doing good work, I mean, it could be like showing up on time, getting all of your tasks done in an orderly way, getting along with your co-workers, getting like, I mean, there's a lot of like metrics that are fairly objective, whether or not, I mean, like, and on a societal level, it's like, I don't know, raising the standard of living for the average person.
Like that, like all of these things would be like very reasonable metrics, but he's just kind of optional, you know, like he's just saying, like, well, we can't even really measure this.
And there's all these different types of ways.
And how about like worker conditions or happiness or no, worker conditions are a fair thing to point out.
If you have some argument about worker conditions and why they're better in a certain system, that's not like nothing.
However, I do remember there was this big poll.
When I do these videos, I'm sorry, I don't have this stuff in front of me.
There was a big poll that was done in South Africa.
Excuse me, I'm sorry, in South America, in, I think it was three different countries, where they went down there and they asked the people in really poor conditions and they asked them of all of these things what they would like.
And it was either like better working conditions, less hours, all of these other things, or more pay.
And more pay dominated everything.
Like that's what they choose if they want to.
And I remember in Milton Friedman's documentary, Free to Choose, when he talked about in Hong Kong, as Hong Kong was literally coming, they were in the process of going from mud huts to skyscrapers.
You know what I mean?
Like literally making this transition.
And there were these people who worked in these factories with kind of shitty working conditions, but they were like the highest paid factory workers.
And it's kind of like, yeah, because in that phase, listen, when you're going from mud huts to skyscrapers, everyone's not going to have perfect working conditions.
That's just the physical reality of the situation.
And these people were like, yeah, I'll work in a fucking place that's not quite as nice to make more money.
So by what metric do we determine what efficiency and what product?
Well, by the employees voluntarily choosing to be there, by the owners and managers voluntarily choosing to hire those people, and by the customers voluntarily choosing to purchase their product.
That's it.
You're right.
He's right in the sense that value is subjective, but that's how you figure it out.
What more people want.
So there you go.
And as far as the, what was the other point about?
Oh, yeah, he says happiness standards.
That's the dumbest shit ever, which he admits right after he says it.
This idea of like measuring happiness, I think is so ridiculous of asking people a few questions and measuring what happiness means.
Happiness polls are retarded and they tell you absolutely nothing.
Well, you know, what's particularly dumb with that in a work setting is you walk up to some guy at his job.
Are you happy at this job?
He might say no, but if you took away that job from him and he was poor and broke, how much more unhappy would he be?
So it's not really that unhappy.
He'd probably, if you really preferred the alternative, maybe he'd stop working there.
But also, I just think that there's something about like asking, you know, sometimes like someone who's going to make you better and more productive and push you more makes you unhappy in the short term.
You know what I mean?
Like sometimes you're kind of like, okay, like, oh, like there was this old manager and I used to just goof off and be on my computer all day and do nothing.
And then this new manager came in and now he's making sure we don't goof off and we're working all the time.
And you're like, yeah, you might be less happy under that guy.
But what type of measure is that that that guy wasn't a better manager?
You know what I mean?
Like there's a lot of things like that.
You know, if you're, if you're training for a marathon when you're getting up every morning at five in the morning to go fucking run and you're exhausted and all this, you're probably not that happy.
If you're sitting on your ass eating a bag of chips, you're probably more happy.
That doesn't mean like one is a better thing to do than the others.
Anyway, they're just very misleading.
Meritocracy Isn't Pure00:09:01
Let's keep playing.
Also, he said meritocracy is real, which is why I laugh.
Obviously, it's not fucking real.
Meritocracy is a lie.
I'm a dumbass.
Look at the amount of success I have.
Meritocracy is a fucking lie.
I work hard, okay?
But I got very fortunate.
Your spawn point is incredibly important for you.
Okay.
That's why it's not that, you know, America pound for pound has like way more, you know, way more fucking billionaires than all these other countries of the Western world has all these like incredibly successful people because they are just so brilliant.
It's because they were born in a material, their, their spawn point was better than someone was born in fucking Zimbabwe.
That doesn't mean that there aren't like capable individuals in Zimbabwe if they were put through an exact same kind of system and get all the same fucking material equality and the material conditions.
How much money does this guy give to Zimbabwe?
I agree, 100%.
How much money does he give to Zimbabwe?
He's so interested in this equality thing and he feels so guilty about the fact that he's successful as a nail polish wearing, you know, dude who drinks Mountain Dew.
How much money he gives to Zimbabwe, brother?
And he's listening, it's interesting because there is, this is actually almost approaching a thoughtful moment from Hassan.
I've never seen this out of him before.
But look, he said something there.
This is the best argument I've ever heard Hassan make, where he says, look at me.
I'm successful.
How much of a meritocracy is this?
And there is something to that.
I think it's silly to argue that we live in a perfect meritocracy.
And I'll say for myself too, I mean, look, there are people more talented than me or maybe work harder than me or whatever.
They're just, you know, look, there are people out there, right?
Nothing's a perfect meritocracy.
There'd be some dude who's like fucking unbelievably talented.
And let's say there's like some guy who's like, you know, like going to be a NBA superstar and just gets killed in a drive-by shooting.
You know, okay.
It wasn't like anything about merit.
And he didn't even have any beef with that guy in the car.
He just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It gets taken out, you know?
So you could say it's not a pure meritocracy.
There are some people who get ahead who don't deserve to.
And then for him to say, well, it's just about your circumstances and where your starting point were.
It's like, okay, well, here's the thing.
To say it's a pure meritocracy and everyone gets where they are due to merit is stupid.
But to say there's no merit to it and it's just about where you start out from, that is equally stupid.
It's not either.
It's a mix, which is better than nothing at all, right?
So, no, I mean, you have, there are people who are enormously successful who like they just disprove this rule right away, right?
Like there are people who are enormously successful who started it at a far worse starting point than others.
And the idea that like you think that someone like, okay, it's not that, how do I put this?
It's not that there wasn't ever someone who maybe could have been Steve Jobs, but something got in the way of his life and fucked it up.
That wasn't his fault.
And so he didn't get that opportunity.
Okay.
I'm not saying that's the case.
But if you think anyone could have been Steve Jobs, you're out of your goddamn mind.
Like, no, talent is a real thing.
Intelligence is a real thing.
Ability is a real thing.
And the idea that just anybody, if they were put in that situation, would have been able to do that.
Like, no, look, there might have been someone who's as good as LeBron James who fucking got shot.
You know, it's possible.
But if you think anybody could do what LeBron James did does, like, that's just banette.
That's not true.
So, yeah, that's life under almost any system, but at least under a free market system, you have more of an ability, if you do have that ability, to overcome your obstacles and make the most for yourself.
And if it's a free market, the only way you're ever going to get anywhere is by providing value to other people, right?
So it doesn't matter how far these billionaires go, they're just creating value.
It's only when you introduce force that someone's able to remove value from the system.
Yes, I agree with that.
But it's, but I don't want to like pretend there's nothing to his point.
He's just being just as oversimplistic as the opposite making would be.
But it doesn't matter because it's a false prism that people being successful is removing opportunity from other people.
So I'm saying the fact that I'm just saying, what the truth to the point is that there is some like there are looking at the wrong way.
If you look at some very successful person, you go, well, that's not fair that he had a higher IQ.
Yeah, but the guy with the higher IQ might be really rich because he cured cancer.
And curing cancer creates a lot of value for people.
So why do I care if that guy's really rich?
Why do I care if LeBron James is the best at playing basketball?
No, there's not that it's nothing to that.
But I will say, like, there is a true unfairness to the world.
Just to steal man his argument and give it as much as you can.
That like, look, like, I, I give a very nice life to my kids.
There are other people who really don't give a very nice life to their kids.
And that's unfair.
It's not like, it's not like fair.
Like, it's not that my kids deserve this any more than those other kids do.
I mean, you know, I think the answer would be they all deserve a nice life in some way, right?
They're just kids.
They have nothing to do with this, right?
So it's not that there aren't, it's not like there is an advantage to that.
My kids have an advantage in their life.
You know what I mean?
Over those other kids because they've been given more than them.
And that is unfair.
But there really is no way to ever equalize for that completely.
You know what I'm saying?
And like what the what you want is the system that will then give those other kids the best possible opportunity.
So it's not the argument should come down to where do you have more opportunity and what system will that create more opportunity.
And to your point, in a free market system, the way people get ahead, even those, you know, really crazy ones who end up taking over like huge, you know, companies and stuff like that, they get ahead by providing a product that a lot of just regular, unprivileged people enjoy using, at least a lot of the time.
So it's not that there's nothing to the fact that life is not perfectly fair.
Life is not a perfect meritocracy, but that doesn't mean that the idea of merit doesn't exist at all.
And by the way, none of this took on the guy's argument.
Whereas the guy's argument was actually that if you have a system where the workers already just get to vote and everyone gets an equal vote, no matter what they do, no matter what work they put in, or you have a system where you have to like add value to move up the ranks.
Okay.
It's not that he's wrong that like, yes, someone might get promoted just because they're like the someone on the board's niece.
You know what I mean?
It's not that everyone who moves up is based on merit, but at least some of them are, right?
Like at least some of them are like, if you do bring in a lot of money to the company, someone's going to be like, shit, it's in our interest.
Our interests align for you to move up here because you're bringing so much money in.
You're so talented, right?
Whereas if everyone just has one equal vote, there's no incentive to even bring more money in.
No matter how far up the ranks I get, where I'm all just going to have the same equal one vote that I have now.
That's kind of the idea that he's not addressing.
All right, let's go ahead.
Off of that, let's say you have some brilliant guy, like 175 IQ, fucking freak genius, right?
So that's not fair.
Now, that guy might squander his opportunity of his freak geniusness.
I don't know what he'll do with it, but I'm just saying he's got more opportunity than me or you.
He's a freak genius.
He can go out and achieve a lot in the world.
Would you want to prevent him from doing that?
Yes, yes.
Well, that's like if you give him the freedom to go achieve stuff, we don't know what he might invent, what he might create.
Well, that's actually a separate point that you're making, which is a very important one, which is actually that it's kind of like something to do with like the Pareto distribution, that actually it is really in the general interest for the most talented people to get into positions where they can utilize that talent the most.
So like we don't want, as a society, we don't want mediocre engineers and scientists.
Like we don't want Fauci's of the world.
We want like the absolute best of the best to be in the most important positions.
And so it's very important.
It's very important for everyone that you have a system that at least gives the chance for those very talented people or gives the best chance for those very talented people to rise into those positions.
Talent Must Rise Up00:15:21
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All right, let's get back into the show.
Um, yeah, all right, let's keep going.
Uh, Westerner has doesn't mean that they're not going to succeed in a similar, if not even greater capacity.
Okay, it's so stupid.
It's just a way for dummies to make themselves feel better, okay?
But when you're this guy, when you're Prax Ben, you're just boot licking, okay?
I like, I like Prax Ben hoppy in neo-reactionary, Jesus Christ, right?
Was distorted labor incentives.
If your workplace is a democracy and not a meritocracy, you do you have if your workplace is a democracy, you have distorted labor, you have distorted labor incentives, dude.
Yeah, like what fucking better workplace conditions, like uh having better benefits, time off.
I mean, even if we're not talking about a cooperative, you can literally take this exact same fucking argument and compare it to countries with higher rates of unionization versus countries with lower rates of unionization because a cooperative ultimately is enacting the interests of the many, allowing workers to have a say in the process, allowing workers to have a say in how much of the profits go back to them versus how much of the profits actually go to, like, I don't know, marketing and shit like that.
Uh, it's most reductive take.
That's what this does, okay?
Turning the workplace, which is an authoritarian uh style of governance into something that's closer to a democracy.
If you look at countries here, let's pause it.
No, that's just wrong.
I mean, like the idea that like um a union, at least a non-government union is no, that's actually operating under the under our model, right?
Like that's operating under the model of like workers are just getting together and they're leveraging like in the same way that I said I have a lot of leverage at Cass Digital, which is a bunch of people getting together and using that leverage.
That's not the same thing as everybody owning the company, so that's just just flat wrong.
Like you're just getting your theory mixed up.
Um, let's keep playing rates.
Their workers have significantly better benefits and their workers are significantly happier.
That's it.
There you go.
If your workplace is a democracy and not a meritocracy, you do not perform better.
I mean, just to what he just said is if you can have higher product, you how do you measure higher productivity?
Because if the workers have a say, they might work in a nicer office and have better benefits.
Having a nicer office or better benefits doesn't mean that you're more productive.
If I show up to an office every day and there's just lounges and video games and I could sit down and go, hey, this is the nicest office I've ever been to.
I can sit here, play video games, and eat junk food because there's a free kitchen.
And then I can, you know, I got great benefits, a lot of vacation.
None of that has anything to do with productivity.
It's literally the opposite of what measuring productivity might be.
Yeah, if you take it to its logical conclusion, it becomes not working.
Yeah.
It just becomes just sitting on your ass all day.
It's such a great job.
But I'm so happy.
Look how happy I am.
I show up to a job that we all voted that we don't have to work while we're here.
This is amazing.
Yeah, right.
Exactly.
All right, let's keep playing.
Perform better for who?
Perform better for your boss.
Amazon is a great example of this.
Their efficiency is through the fucking roof, dude, but workers are pissing in bottles.
Their efficiency is through the roof, but they have to have an ambulance outside of the fucking distribution center because it's a lot cheaper to fucking, you know, send that ambulance back and forth to the hospital than to actually pay for the fucking AC.
They're performing really well, though.
The efficiency is high.
That good?
No.
I feel like maybe there should be a better balance here.
If only there was a way to have a say, to have a seat at the table.
Just pause again for a second.
I'm not saying that the end.
I'll agree with him and say if either of those stories are true, that's that's not great.
But we don't live in a free market.
And I don't believe that Amazon, you know what I mean?
Like these biggest companies that they didn't just come about organically.
Like I don't like, you know, these people are not the best examples of what a free market would look like or the economic opportunities that would exist for workers in a true free market.
So I don't want to endorse like people peeing in bottles and go, oh, yeah, that's capitalism at its best.
Yeah, no.
Now, look, I always feel like I just go like, I think these stories are like somewhat exaggerated.
And they picked like one or two like horrific instances because I don't think this is an accurate example of like what it is to work at Amazon.
But I don't know for sure.
I mean, I'd be interested to talk to some people who work for Amazon and be like, is this your experience or not?
I have a feeling this is kind of sensationalized stuff.
I think you're absolutely right that these, when you go to the like biggest companies in the world, they're all basically in bed with government.
That's the way our system works at this point.
So it's hard to make the argument exactly right there.
But there is no question that Amazon does produce something of value that people really enjoy.
And so to say that whatever the worker conditions are, it's like, okay, so if a co-op provides way better worker conditions than Amazon ever would, like if you're telling me that a co-op can give you these like amazing worker conditions, and then over here, they're pissing in a bottle and going to the hospital constantly because they're basically like, I mean, that sounds like modern day slavery almost.
So why not just like start a co-op and steal all of the workers from Amazon?
Like if this is really true, why not just go?
Nothing's stopping you from doing this.
Just like you go, hey, Amazon guys, I mean, you're living in this squalor.
Come on over here.
We're going to treat you way better.
Right.
Why was it?
Why wouldn't that just work and take off?
And maybe part of that is, because as much as this is not the typical condition of an Amazon worker, that Amazon is a system that literally has revolutionized the way people buy products.
I think you're wrong.
It's way more convenient.
I think you and I are locked into this prism and we don't quite understand the way efficiency will work.
And so if this guy can just sprinkle his magical fairy dust, you know, and start their worker cooperatives, we don't understand the way that they'd be more efficient, but maybe they could take on Amazon.
It's hard to explain how magical pixie fairy dust might work.
Well, but this is right the thing where it's just like, if you have this magical fairy dust, like, you know, listen, I don't mean to like straw man the argument here, if that's what it is.
I don't know.
But if you have a system that's so much better, why do you have to advocate that it be forced on everybody?
Like, why can't wouldn't you?
Everyone needs to believe in the fairy dust.
If everyone would believe, then it would work its magic.
But until everyone believes.
If there's, there's like, Gene Epstein makes this point all the time, but he always like uses the numbers where he's like, whatever it is, it's like, I forget the exact numbers that he always says, but where he's like, you know, the bottom, you know, like 50% of America controls this huge percentage of the spending money.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's like, it's like, if you're like, okay, well, if you're, if you could convince all, if life will be so much better for all of the workers, and all of the workers in America control a lot of the consumption, you know what I mean?
So like, wouldn't you just kind of want a free market?
Because then you'd be like, well, look, in a free market, we're going to start these co-ops up.
The workers will love this.
They'll only want to shop at co-ops because this is like, you know, this is the way to get back at the system.
And you could just do it that way.
You'll have a way better life, way more efficiency by your standards or all of that.
So, how come to whatever degree of freedom you have, that never ends up being the case?
And again, if those are the conditions at Amazon, that's pretty fucked up.
But I'm just, I don't know.
I'm not buying that.
That's like very common.
Maybe I'm wrong.
Anyway, let's keep, let's keep going.
To have a say, to have a seat at the table.
I'm not like, I'm not saying that the end-all be-all is cooperative corporations.
I don't think that like everything should be a co-op.
Okay.
I'm not.
I'm not one of those individuals.
But it's a good start.
A lot better than fucking having an authoritarian and inarguably authoritarian way of organizing your workplace, which is what we exist under currently.
Our empirical findings reveal that long-standing labor voice and corporate governance is associated with significantly depressed shareholder value, sale growth, and job creation.
No way, dude.
No way.
Are you telling me that shareholder value diminishes when workers have a say, dude?
What?
That's it, bro.
Yeah, that's the point, idiot.
Of course.
Of course, shareholder value is going to decrease because that means that that fucking place is redistributing profits, which is the surplus labor value extracted from the worker in a better, more meaningful capacity back to the fucking workers that are generating it.
And therefore, yes, shareholder values are decreasing.
This isn't just me who recognizes this.
Okay.
You don't have to be a fucking commie or whatever.
I'm going to pause for a second.
Notice though, I guess you don't have to be a commie to believe that you should get a return on your capital.
So this guy doesn't like people who have earned money being able to invest it into a corporation so that corporation could get off the ground and earn profits.
And then these people can see a return.
So then how are corporations going to get started?
If there's no incentive to put money into a corporation and not put your money into it.
So how are all these going to be created?
I will agree with him that you don't have to be a commie to believe in the labor theory of value.
You just have to not understand economics.
That's the only prerequisite to believe in the labor theory of value.
And that's what he's espousing here.
And it's really unbelievable that anybody in the year 2021 could even still spit out any of this shit.
Like the idea that value comes from the labor and that's how it's derived.
And therefore, anything that you're making off the top of that is like you've taken it away from the person who did the work.
I mean, like, no, that's just not true.
Like, and we've gone through this a million times before, but there's a million different examples of this.
But the fact that someone works harder or works more does not create the labor.
And in fact, that's why there's such things as labor saving devices where you come up with a machine that lets someone work way less and produce 10 times as much as they used to.
You know what I mean?
Like, and so of course, then the person, if you were like, you know, if someone is, you know, trying to take something down with a hammer and somebody else is like, well, we could get a bulldozer.
But in order to get a bulldozer, we're going to have to ask for money.
We're going to have to ask for parts.
We're going to have to build it.
We're going to have to do all this.
And then someone fronts the money to do all of that.
Yeah, that person's going to get paid back a little bit too, because if they didn't, they wouldn't have fronted all of the money to lend to this business.
But if they front all the money and get a little bit back too, that's not stealing from anyone else.
They've made everyone else vastly more productive than they would have been before.
So the idea is that we all make more.
But if you're just like, well, no, it's just the labor that makes the value in that guy.
Shouldn't get anything, then you'll just keep using a hammer and never get the fucking labor-saving device.
So that's just not how things work.
But the other thing is that he didn't just say shareholders going down.
He said it also hurt job growth.
And that's kind of a thing that seems like it matters too, if more people get jobs, right?
You got to look at the magical land that this guy lives in.
Worker co-ops are magically going to be created because no one's going to be investing in them.
So I don't exactly know where they're getting these funds, the funds to create these corporations.
And then once this corporation magically comes to be without funding, we're going to measure productivity off of people's happiness so the workers don't have to actually work.
So they're going to work for non-existent corporations because there's no reason to fund them, right?
Because there's no profits in funding them.
And then the people who are working are the productivity is measured off of happiness.
So they're not going to work.
What am I missing here, Dave?
How does this system come to be?
What reality is this?
You got it, dog.
There you go.
Man, we picked the wrong side.
This whole fucking libertarian loving logic and argument side, it's just because you and I, we live in the prism of capitalism and men in charge.
And so we've already bought into this reality.
So we can't understand the reality that he's pitching to us that somehow you understand the magic that you and I can't see in the world.
Somehow corporations can spontaneously come into existence and be profitable with workers that don't work.
But you and I, because we live in this capitalist reality, we can't see it.
I feel deprived.
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All right, let's get back on the show.
All right, let's keep playing.
CEOs notice it too.
After all, that's precisely why all the fucking Forbes, the Fortune 500 top CEOs got together and wrote a letter to say we need to shift our priorities away from increasing and improving shareholder value to increasing and improving stakeholder value, which also features community, which is like, you know, whatever symbolic bullshit.
Workers Control Profits00:12:19
And also our workers.
So they realize it too.
They realize that wealth and income disparity and inequality has got to be.
Again, I'm sorry.
I hate this guy.
Yes, they realize that through compliance and ESG scores, they can be more profitable than competing in the market, which is a form of robbing all of us because it's a way of them figuring out how do we not have to actually create value and still be profitable.
Yeah.
Oh my God, this guy's dumb.
Yeah, it's like, it's like, well, look, all these bit, like, even if you were right, then the argument would be that you should support a free market because this is what's actually more profitable.
No, this guy now thinks that the biggest corporations are actually being charitable.
They now figured out to be charitable.
This is the guy that, like, hey, we got these giant corporations that are super evil and we can't have them in charge.
But in his, even they realize that we need to be charitable.
Right, right.
All right, let's keep playing.
Fucks, this fucking sucks.
I'm going to go into Home Depot with 10 of my homies and we're going to steal as many fucking, as many hammers as we can so we can go fucking rob the goddamn Louis Vuitton store and maybe, you know, make more money for Christmas time so we can pay rent.
Cannot believe that capitalists got together and said that socialist organizations of the workplace or cooperative organizations of the workplace that try to place the material conditions of the worker above those who do not actually add value, those workplaces are not as efficient under capitalist metrics of success.
That's crazy.
There is an avoidance in certain types of investment, capital expenditure, RD spending, and high-risk investments in general.
The thing is, the average person isn't willing to make high-risk investments.
So when you democratize the workplace, that's going to be reflected in the decision.
No way.
That's terrible, dude.
What?
No high-risk investments?
What the fuck, dude?
That sucks.
Bro, this motherfucker is literally saying when workers have a say in the seat of the table on what to do with the profits that they generate through their labor, if workers have to do with the profits of the company, they end up saying, hey, maybe we should spend some of that that we generated back on ourselves.
And also, high-risk investments have obviously never caused chaos.
I assume Prax Ben was born in 2009.
So he's unaware of anything that has happened throughout history.
Most creating your own company, I guess, is kind of a high-risk investment.
Oh, yes.
And think about how many more jobs are created every time someone engages in a risky investment and it's actually profitable.
Now, yes, there are some high-risk investments, which are like, I don't know, the things that are happening with easy money that's flowing because of bad financial policies from the U.S. government that, yes, you're right.
Like, you know, what they've done with junk bonds or what they did with subprime mortgages, like, yes, those were risky investments that didn't benefit all of us, but they were all initiated because of loose monetary policy from government.
You deciding, hey, I'm going to go start like a business, which is very high risk.
And if it works out, it means that more people are going to have jobs.
And if you take those jobs, I mean, if you take the money that you earn off of that, and instead of just saying, hey, I'm going to take a vacation or I'm handing it back to my workers, you go, you know what?
I'm going to use this.
I'm going to get a loan from the bank, which is very risky.
So I can open up a new factory.
Guess what that means?
That means more jobs for more people.
Yes.
No, there's no amount of like large job creation is ever going to happen without a high risk investment.
So you can demonize high risk investments, but no, the high risk investments aren't really the problem if you're risking your own money.
Okay.
That's like there's not an issue with that.
The issue is when you pass that risk off to the taxpayer through government, that's going to be like your issue.
But yeah, like he just doesn't even get it.
It's like, he's like, oh, he just thinks workers are creating all the value and investors are creating none of it.
I guess in his eyes, it's just complete bullshit.
If you understand like the very basics of how an economy works, then you're going to realize that it's like, no, without capital investment, you're not getting very far, man.
And like, yeah, if you're just being completely conservative and no one's willing to make the capital investment, yeah, that's going to be a real problem.
And think about it like this, right?
Think about it.
If you have, let's say you have a completely democratized horse and buggy industry, who wants to launch a big capital investment into automobiles when it's just like all of Right.
Well, when it's all the workers who work for the horse and buggy industry, they might be like, well, no, because this is going to put us all out of business.
Right.
So what happens is some, you know, investor comes along who is willing to take that risk and isn't concerned with the same things that those workers are and ends up creating something that makes everybody's life better.
This, you know, it completely destroys the creative destruction of the free market where, yeah, people are going to take some risks.
A lot of them won't pay off.
And those people will suffer.
And that's okay because they took the risk and that's what taking risks is all about.
But the ones that do pay off are what revolutionize the world and raise all of our standards of living.
And so, by the way, those same, like you could complain and cry all day long about the people who operated horse and buggies who were put out of work, but lots of other jobs were created for those people in different fields.
And they all drive their car to those jobs.
So life actually became a lot better for those people.
And that's something that you're not going to get a vote from the workers on.
According to this guy, if everyone in the world went outside tomorrow and spent their entire day shoveling dirt, they worked their ass off.
I mean, you're sweating, hands are blistering, back hurts.
Can you imagine?
I mean, there's some spiritual power that you and I just don't understand of what that labor would create of everybody doing the hardest work, just an entire day in a ditch, and we'd have these holes in the ground and we could just keep digging into the earth.
And I guess we'd be the wealthiest planet ever in existence.
Because labor creates value.
Right, exactly.
If everyone just spent all day working really, really hard and there was nothing else that created the actual economy and all the money that went around, that's how we make the world a better place.
Everyone just needs to start digging ditches.
Why do we go to school?
I'll tell you right now, we're not going to get through all of this and it's just too long and too dumb, but let's play for another and see if we can't get one more funny moment out of it.
Since then, prioritizing safety and workplace conditions and better benefits for the workers that ultimately generate the profits regardless and create all the value is the appropriate way to go forward.
It might not be the most efficient way from a capitalist mode of production standpoint, but it's still the right thing to do.
It's the fair, more importantly than that, it's the fair thing to do.
Higher time preference and capitalists generally have a lower time preference.
So owners are willing to make these high-risk investments that will bring in high rewards down the road.
This results in more growth and job creation.
Yeah, totally, dude.
Owners wanting to improve shareholder value and boards and corporations wanting to consistently grow and consistently increase shareholder value has been great for the American working class.
Oh my God, so good.
That's why, you know, when you go to Syracuse, for example, it's a wonderful, robust city that still has a blossoming economy.
Or when you go to anywhere in the fucking Rust Belt, go to West Virginia, for example.
Oh, man, owners creating so many more fucking jobs out there.
It's sick.
It's sick.
Oh, wait, that didn't happen because they fucking moved manufacturing overseas.
No, that isn't happening because they wanted to improve their margins.
They wanted to increase shareholder value.
And that's precisely what happened.
Look at this.
There's no socialist policies that incentivized businesses to move their jobs overseas.
Yeah, it's more like, it's funny as he's bragging about like, oh, these better worker conditions and all of these things.
It's like, actually, no, the more regulations that came in and demanded these better working conditions and all of this other regulations that businesses had to go through eventually became too burdensome that they were like, yep, you know what?
We're just going to move them overseas, which by the way, from his perspective, he should be thrilled about because those jobs went to far poorer people who are far more oppressed than any of those people he's talking about.
So he should really appreciate that, really, because those people are way richer than the people in China or Mexico or wherever the fucking jobs went to.
But regardless of that, to act like it's like that there's no understanding here that actually the more like demands you make about how happy all the workers have to be and all these like conditions of workplace, you know, like, I don't know, a nicer workplace actually make it a lot more expensive to produce things and it relate to this problem that you're talking about.
But also just to blame this on the on the very concept of markets, it's like, no, the concept of investing capital and a low time preference, investing for future returns, that is why we are in the place we are today and not in the place we were in, say, the year, I don't know, 1500.
That's why we have air conditioning and electricity and like all of the luxuries that we enjoy in modern society.
Not to say that those towns haven't been devastated, but that has a whole lot to do with government regulation, Federal Reserve policy.
Oh, there's a whole host of other issues that aren't just whether you have pure like ability to run companies with a boss or not.
I hate this guy.
Yeah, he's the worst.
All right, one more, one more little click and then we're going to wrap up the episode.
Everywhere in the wealthiest nation on earth, we have fucking ghost towns.
We have been prioritizing the interests of the wealthy that never even step foot in the fucking factory floor.
Okay.
And that could be all of you and even myself in some meaningful capacity because this is just a financialized economy.
There's nothing else to do.
If you want to even have a nest egg, if you don't want to work for the rest of your fucking life, you have to get a 401k, for example, because we don't even have social safety nets.
We don't even have adequate social safety nets for people who are no longer productive laborers.
Okay.
In that system, we prioritize people that are putting money into the stock market rather than people who are actually doing the productive labor.
It's hilarious.
He's basically arguing that worker co-ops are bad because they don't do capitalism as well.
Such an inherent bias from the super rational objective, dude.
That's precisely what he's doing here.
They found that worker cooperatives tended to have lower pay.
And worker cooperatives were constrained by financial difficulties, management inexperience, and interpersonal rivalry.
This is the funnest Gish Gallup I've ever engaged in.
Obviously, I'm not going to fucking go through every single one of these or every single one of these fucking journals that he is citing here.
But once again, the journals he's citing are looking at socialized workplaces from a capitalist mode of production standpoint.
So of course, the metrics that they've designed the game for are going to be for capitalist metrics.
But not only that, but also the last thing I was going to say is like, there aren't that many worker cooperatives.
The way that our economy works is that there aren't that many worker cooperatives.
The idea that they're getting paid lower wages is a falsehood.
Even unions, which are more or less an entry point, okay?
Unions and their development.
I think Hassan actually forgot what they were talking about.
He was talking about a study of Yugoslavia.
And then he started getting into like, well, I don't even know where they're getting it because we don't even have that many worker co-ops.
It's like, no, he was talking about a country where they were filled with worker co-ops.
But the idea that like what he brought up there in the journal was incompetent managers and internal rivalries and financial difficulties and financial difficulties.
To say that that's just a capitalist metric, like wouldn't anyone by any system standard consider those all to be not good?
You don't understand.
Yeah, yeah.
Like, no, incompetent management is a really good thing by socialist standards or something like that.
But no, of course, of course, this is going to be a problem.
And in the same sense, look, let's say you go, and we'll end on this, okay?
He starts, you know, with the other guy in the video saying, well, we love democracy so much.
Why don't we extend that to the workplace?
All right.
Stop Calling It Politics00:01:53
Do you think that politicians are really honest, capable, impressive people?
Do you think when you look at Congress and the presidents of the United States, everybody who's democratically elected, you go, man, this is just the best we've got.
These are the guys.
They're so honest, so much integrity.
They're so like really just the most impressive, intelligent people we could put up there.
Or do you think democracy ends up producing some kind of sleaze balls who do anything to play to the crowd, are incredibly dishonest, make promises they can't keep, lie their asses off, right?
So of course you would think, look, it's not to say that under, you know, like free market conditions, there aren't like inner office politics that get people promoted.
But imagine if you made politics the office, how much worse it's going to be.
And that's the point this guy's making that this study was acknowledging.
And it's like, yeah, dude, now you're turning the whole thing into politics.
That's it.
You know, say, it's like a whole, there's a much better way to look at it.
You say, we love democracy.
Let's make everything democracy.
How about use the word politics?
Do you love politics so much that you want to make your work all politics also?
Because that's what you're talking about.
All right, let's wrap on that because this is really too stupid to continue anymore on.
But that'll be our episode for today.
Anything you want to plug, Rob?
Robbinthefire.com slash shows.
Albany this Saturday.
Sunday, I'm in Connecticut with the local Libertarian Party.
Hell yeah.
And then I got Mexico with peddling fiction, Denver at another libertarian place, New Hampshire, only 15 tickets left on Friday.