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We expect our companies to be efficient and competitive -- and that is the correct expectation to have in a market economy! Giving people busywork will hurt companies, and thus the overall economy, in the long run. That will make everything worse, including school funding and homelessness and inequality. After all, if you want to redistribute wealth, you have to generate wealth!

It would also mean companies would be less likely to hire people. A lot of those people who got laid off never would have been hired in the first place if it was not going to be easy to get rid of them if market conditions changed.

Everyone who works for a startup should know that the market is very dynamic and companies that scale up might also scale down, and they should have a mercenary mindset about this. People who don't like that should work in different industries. People are expected to be adults about this stuff. And frankly the severance package the people who are laid off from Stripe are getting will add up to more money than most Americans make in a year.

I would never under any circumstances recommend the way Japan runs companies to anyone. Their economy is stagnant for a reason, and being an employee in Japan is terrible. You get lifetime employment at the cost of your own personal life, because the company owns all of your time.




Japan isn't the only other example of difference out there.

Odd that you should have chosen such an extreme example.


I didn't choose Japan as an example. The person I was responding to did.


My bad.

Same question to them then!


Companies should be able to hire / lay off at will. They exists to generate profit for owners. To protect people we have taxes and we should also have UBI. Some countries can definitely afford it.




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