Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

I see. With that understanding, yes, the form of the statement is the same.

The difference, to me, is that I can see how renting myself to a corporation (yes, it's a dictatorship) can result in more net freedom for me on the axes I care more about, but I cannot imagine the same being true of slavery. So, yes, the form of the statement can be the same, but the underlying reality seems to me to be quite different. (People by the millions voluntarily left the family farm to go work for a corporation, but at least in modern times, nobody voluntarily enters slavery.)

So, yes, "complete freedom means that I should be free to do X" may be logically true for all values of X (or at least those that don't impinge on someone else's freedom). But as a practical argument rather than a purely logical one, people only care about acting in ways that they view as increasing their well-being. Some actually view working for a corporation as doing so; nobody views slavery that way. So some of us care about the freedom to work for a corporation. Saying that we should not have the freedom to do so feels restrictive in a way that is different from saying the same about slavery.



That's a fair argument that is well reasoned.

Where I disagree is the idea that working for a Boss is as fulfilling as you indicate.

It may very well be true for you, but for the rest of the population, we'd prefer not to have one.

We'd prefer not to have 1 human being able to make any decision they want, while making more than all of us combined.


I never said working for a boss was fulfilling.

I said that working for a boss may be, for example, more financially secure than working for a coop or employee-owned business or starting my own business. I may value that financial security more than I value the fulfillment of not being under a boss.

Not having a boss is good. But there's more than one thing that's good, and I may value other ones more highly.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: