Google and most SV companies are somewhere between left to far-left.

Google is currently fighting unionization efforts. That's not leftist.

What Google as a profit-seeking corporation does is not the same as the majority internal political culture amongst its employees.

And what Google does, as one of the largest profit-seeking corporations in the world, matters a lot more than the views of its employees, and is not particularly affected by them.

So Google is a ' left to far left' company except when it's being 'right to far right' sometimes?

1) Yes, it's a giant company that does many things.

2) The thread is about the majority political position of its employees. This is entire separate from the actions as a corporation.

3) Many of things Google does that people think are "right-wing" have nothing to do with left-vs-right at all.

> Google and most SV companies are somewhere between left to far-left.

1) Completely contradicts what you said earlier above

2) How? When does it stop being people and start being a corp? Aren't the decisions made by employees?

3) So? You just linked 'diversity' to left and far-left, isn't that the same thing that started this side thread? How is that site linked with activism or left politics? You mentioned a "pretty clear" connection.

Obviously nothing is absolute, that doesn't make anything contradictory.

The majority political stance is left/far-left. The company is massive and sometimes will do things people consider right-wing, but usually those things are not actually "right-wing" but just normal behavior of a giant corporation seeking to maximize profit and shareholder value.

Corporations and capitalism are not antithetical to left-wing politics.

If Google were calling for the nationalization of major industries and a radical leveling of wealth, then I might call them "far-left." But being vaguely LGBT-friendly or talking about diversity is pretty centrist, maybe a bit socially liberal.

> Corporations and capitalism are not antithetical to left-wing politics.

Fuck I didn't realize I actually like capitalism whoops.

Wikipedia:

> The term was later applied to a number of movements, ... socialism, communism, anarchism and social democracy in the 19th and 20th centuries.

This is the funniest thing I've read all week thanks.

Would you please not post ideological battle-style comments that take HN threads further into flamewar? Those lead to scorched earth, and we're trying for something different than that here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Your account has also posted thoughtful comments that have contributed to good conversation. That is good.

You just linked 'diversity' to left and far-left, isn't that the same thing that started this side thread? How is that site linked with activism or left politics? You mentioned a "pretty clear" connection.

I could just as easily say it's a decision for the economics of the company and you're projecting your own politics into that, confusing capitalism with left/right? But you know your example is a political decision pushed by the company? The same company that sometimes pushes the opposite political message? You're assertions are lacking consistency

"Diversity" based on identity politics and physical characteristics (race, gender, skin color) is a left-wing position. Hiring the best people for the job is a universal capitalistic non-political position.

Is your counter argument that this "diversity" is also part of the right-wing party?

> "Diversity" based on identity politics and physical characteristics (race, gender, skin color) is a left-wing position.

It's actually a centrist neoliberal capitalist position; the left-wing positions sees neoliberal identity politics and checklist-diversity catering to it as a tool of the capitalist class to distract from economic justice issues. (There are left-wing identity politics, but they aren't focussed on diversity, they are focussed on addressing the unique economic and social justice issues facing particular identity communities as well as the more general cross-cutting issues facing the working and under class as a whole.)

In the US neoliberal identity politics might seem like a relatively left-wing position only because the two major political parties consist of one that ranges from Right to Far Right and one that ranges from Center-Right neoliberal capitalist to the moderate Left of Democratic socialism, with the dominant faction being (clearly until the current election cycle, and by all indications still though less solidly now) firmly planted in the center-right neoliberal capitalist camp.

No my counter is that the Google site posted above which started this has very little in common with "radical left identity politics"

A survey in the last year or two of Silicon Valley execs found them to be very left in just about every category except for financial regulation and taxation.

Yes. I think Google (and others) are selectively leftist.

Sort of like Bill Gates on taxing billionaires.

If they lean left, they get love from the media. But when it's really, really against their self-interest they'll resist and show their true colors.

It's just corporate hypocrisy. I hope it ends and corporations go back to being apolitical.

I think it's beyond Left and Right. Google, like most companies and individuals, is self interested. When something benefits Google, they'll pursue it, regardless of where it falls on the ideological spectrum.

Unions? That's bad for business owners, so Google is against. Diversity? That increases the number of workers you can have, so Google is in favor of it. Immigration? Google's in favor, for the same reason. More taxes on tech companies? Google's against, etc.

There is not a serious unionization effort for them to fight. The activists are just making themselves out to be victims, as usual.

US "left" is basically center though.

Not anymore. US left has stretched very far to the left in the last few years while the right has moved slightly more to the right. It's created a whole new "center".

Here's Pew research, check page 12: http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/201...

Thanks, the paper looks interesting!

Though I wouldn't call it "very far". Solidarity peak is the same as it was around 2008 (the Great Financial Crises I guess), regulation and waste views are interestingly conflicting, the anti-corporatism shift is happening across all cohorts, so again it doesn't seem like the Dems are going that much more left.

The views of immigration are very polarized. That's interesting, and probably the result of the excessive media coverage plus the very real recent underlying events.

The emptying out of the center is the effect of Trump.

Though it'll be interesting what will happen in the upcoming 2020 primaries. And we'll get a lot of data about what people value. (With the usual caveat about polling and statistics.)

Here's more from the Economist, check the chart: https://www.economist.com/united-states/2018/09/20/far-left-...

This is absolutely bonkers wrong. The US has shifted dramatically rightwards since 2014, and the right has shifted even more dramatically so.

Do you have research you can cite?

Well I can point to the literal white supremacists who are literally marching in the street with torches and chanting "blood and thunder" which is a distinctly post-2016 phenomenon.

Really?? There are actual communists and anarchists winning elections in the US west coast these days (e.g. Sawant, a Marxist and Chesa Boudin, an anarchist who worked for Hugo Chavez).

You shouldn't use political outliers to represent a party. In the same state that Sawant is a city council member, there is a state congressmen, Shea, that advocated for a religious war and training children in a Holy Army.

Boudin isn't anything new for San Francisco city politics. Harry Britt was a member of the Democratic Socialists of America when he was elected as a Supervisor back in 1979.

The SF politicians who continue to higher office tend to be mainstream Democrats: Kamala Harris, Dianne Feinstein, Gavin Newsom, Scott Wiener, David Chiu, etc.

There’s actual nazis running for the Republican party (https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2018/1...)

Does that make the Republican party nazi? Absolutely not and you should not project your feelings on an entire political branch.

That's not what the site you provided is about though.

I didn't post the site, but those are the politics involved within the company and its hiring. The connection is pretty clear.

Sorry I thought I was replying to the poster of the comment I replied to. How is the connection "pretty clear"?

"Diversity" based on identity politics and physical characteristics (race, gender, skin color) is a left-wing position.

First off, "identity politics" and centering ideologies around physical characteristics, religious views (almost as unchangeable), or ethnic backgrounds is practiced across the political spectrum. According to Wikipedia at least, "Left-wing politics supports social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy"[1]. There's nothing specific about identity politics there.

Secondly, looking at the website that's not even the whole scope of the program. For example, they have diversity initiatives for veterans, people with disabilities, and employee resource groups for older people.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-wing_politics

So this "diversity" is also part of right-wing politics then? And if so, why is there any political disagreement about it?

I don't know why you have scare-quotes around diversity, but practically every company has diversity initiatives (random examples)[1][2]. The existence of such says nothing about the company's politics, or those of its employees, one way or the other.

I have no clue what you mean by "diversity" (with scare-quotes), so I can't really answer your question. A simple search for the words "diversity" or "diverse" turns up nothing on the Wikipedia page for left-wing politics.[3]

1. https://corporate.dow.com/en-us/about/company/beliefs-and-cu...

2. https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/who-we-are/global-diver...

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-wing_politics

Imagine saying this with a straight face when “Google and most SV companies” became literally the largest donors of neoliberal lobbying in the US during the last 10 years (also, Europe).

Your worldview skews very right if you say that. While I respect you and your opinion, the framing of Google being ‘far-left’ is absolutely out of touch with reality. Sure, Google management tries to have a position in the US culture war but in the end they still work heavily with law enforcement and military and work strongly to suppress worker’s rights.

The keyword there is "between".

Google is a trillion dollar company and donates to lots of political causes all over the spectrum. We're talking about the internal politics which are clearly left-wing.

Sorry how is suppressing your right to organize in the workplace not internal politics?

Worker rights and working with the military and police are not left-vs-right politics.

Ok. I see our definitions diverge too much for me to work on your assumptions.

I'm excited for your shock when you _actually_ meet a leftist in that case instead of these milquetoast liberals.

Hint: Google still supports and enforces capitalism.

How on Earth do you figure? They're all big corporations owned by capitalists. How could they even come close to far-left?

They only seem far-left if you're a reactionary drowning in "Ben Shapiro pwns the libz with LOGIC" videos on YouTube.

I said "between" left and far-left, and that's the majority politics of the employees. Also capitalism has nothing to do with left-vs-right.

By your definition, every corporation is right-wing by the fact that it's a corporation and all leftists want communism.

What are you honestly trying to accomplish in this thread? What is the point of all of your overgeneralizing and contradictory statements? What are you doing this for?

How is the parent comment overgeneralizing? The generalization jumping out at me is the grandparent's "all corporations are right-leaning by nature". The position of "corporations' executive decisions and internal culture can evolve separately" appears to be the nuanced one.

The 'left' (as opposed to Liberals) are anticapitalist. HN's brainworm infested "anytime someone calls something racist it's leftist" has very little to do with political theory or history. The left is anticapitalist _by definition_. Any movement not associated with unionization or anticapitalism is not leftist, but either right or liberal.

If the majority of Google workers were leftist it would be structured like Mondragon corp, not like a normal capitalist corporation.

How is this comment downvoted? It’s true.

I stated that Silicon Valley company employees are majority left-leaning, sometimes to the far-left, in response to the original question about Google hiring left-wing activists.

What part was unclear? What do you think is contradictory?

> By your definition, every corporation is right-wing by the fact that it's a corporation and all leftists want communism.

Literally yes, although I'm an ancom and most of the leftists I know are demsoc or anarchist not ML.

Google and the other SV companies do nothing to change the relations between it's workers and the product of their work, nor do they do that for any other companies. They are 100% pure capitalist. There is nothing Left about them.