Bobjones
Active Member
Not government. Workers and labour unions. A socialized workforce.
COMMUNITY Raising minimum wage and universal basic income. Are these bad things?
- Thread starter SeaSnake
- Start date
Not government. Workers and labour unions. A socialized workforce.
Richdollaz
Member
Minimum wage increase is a bandaid on a broke system, a half assed attempt at helping poor ppl. It’s wild workers in the US keep comparing themselves to countries with strong labor unions like the Scandinavian countries. It’s a reason you saw more members support broad expansion of social services par blanket raising minimum wage, something noticeable in the other countries used in comparison. One addresses cost drivers to regular person’s income, the other does not, leaving whatever gains income to be consumed by rent, healthcare, child care and education costs. Hell Medicare for All or Medicaid expansion in Red states can quite possibly boost income of these same folks by 20%.
PhenomTheMac
OG
Minimum wage tied to inflation. Ubi and baby bonds tied to a social wealth fund(s).
25centsandwich
Member
This is basic macro economics...more jobs = higher wages.
It creates a competition and demand for workers that will increase wages naturally. This actually happened in the US recently.
One of the problems is that we export a ridiculous amount of jobs to other countries. And this aint just makin shoes in some sweatshop somewhere...these are good engineering, it, and manufacturing jobs. Plus our political system is fucked up so we cant get government to actually create jobs for infrastructure, energy, or health care.
Bobjones
Active Member
How substantial are these increases? That's the real question. Any rise helps, as long as we don't lose sight of gunning for a multifaceted, dynamic approach to increasing living standards.
It's the problem I have with libertarians and the like... pretending a free market is the answer to life's woes.
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Mr BFK
Active Member
and how would you accomplish this? with rules and someone to administer/enforce the rules right?
wouldn't this new entity be doing the same thing like say, a govt? and in your opinion what makes a union better than the govt in this case?
that just sounds like the HOAs they have in communities, where the HOA has the ability to foreclose on your house if you don't follow petty rules
and how would you handle liability if everyone owned everything?
IMO there should be unions, but unions aren't equipped to own means of production
and workers already "own" their labor so I'm not sure what other means of production you are referring to
Bobjones
Active Member
Any capitalist form can only be held together by rules and their enforcement, often of violent and forceful means.
At least union control of work puts more power in workers' hands to democratically determine their wages, benefits, scheduling and roles. Gov't wouldn't necessarily allow this if they're a third party to the goings-on of any workplace.
If unions aren't equipped why are a few who reap most of the gains? Technically, hierarchical schemes of work are centralized means of control. The idea of unions is to decentralize the decision making process.
Who owns labour depends on the career or relationship. If you've set up your own business, working from home, hiring your own people and the like.. you have a relatively greater degree of personal liberty because you've shifted the power dynamic in your favour.. In many other cases, workers don't own their labour. Employers own their workers' labour. They set up their own contractual terms, enforce their one-sided rules and expect workers to follow suit, democratic process be damned.
Liability is determined in the same ways, but unions and co-ops allow for fairer negotiating and collective determination in the face of any in house issues or illegalities.
Mr BFK
Active Member
I already said I'm in favor of unions
but nowhere did u describe how a union structure would be able to own means of production
and yes workers DO own their labor.........they have the option to quit, u never have to work a MW paying job...........ur point would be more valid if u were referring to military members or convicts/slaves/etc
as far as liability u still didn't explain this well.............negotiation/collective bargaining for employee benefits doesn't help when a business u own is getting sued
I've done multiple contracts where the vendor was working with a union for their employees, and the union literally negotiated their own members out of a job.......leading the vendor to ultimately lose the contract.........big L for everyone involved except for the union leadership who still got paid from dues
but just like unions have still have value, u still need private ownership of business
but all this group ownership just sounds like a centralized way of no one getting paid for their talent/effort/risks taken
Bobjones
Active Member
I'm not sure what you mean by not getting paid for their talent/effort/risks taken. Is a more egalitarian structuring of wages wrong? The present scenario already works disproportionately in favour of a relative few.
I also don't see how the option to quit means a person owns their work. That's purely customary and expected of any free and civil society. You don't truly own your work when you're thrust into one-sided, barely negotiable contracts. You truly own your work when you have a say, just as you truly have a stake in a political process when you can vote, attend hall meetings and debates, utilize a free press etc. Otherwise, you're playing someone else's game. Quitting your employers game just to find yourself perpetually hampered by the pervasiveness of work just as hierarchically ruthless and controlling makes any appeal to "options" meaningless. Especially when millions don't have the skills to avoid MW work. Which isn't necessarily a fault of their own.
Mr BFK
Active Member
yes a more "egalitarian" structure of pay is wrong...........when u don't bring the same talents/efforts or take on as much risk as the employer
now to be fair, statistically most folks are just lucky by genetic lottery and a lot falls in their favor off of circumstance to where they end up being "successful"
but u really think it's fair to that small business owner who grinded and put their livelihood on the line
to be forced to pay more than what a MW earner brings in marginal value to that SB owner's bottom line?
when people talk about MW, they forget that the economy consists of thousands of SBs built with someone's life savings (in America)
owners of the business take on all the liability, while workers can come and go as they please
nobody is forced to work at McD's or Chik Fila or businesses like that.............that's why I think UBI is a great idea, but sharply raising MW across the board is BS......cause even if u allow unionizing (which is a good idea) in most MW paying industries, raising the MW would just price union workers out
Bobjones
Active Member
Of course, some are naturally equipped and some aren't. As long as we understand environment plays a significant role. And that refusing to provide a rational degree of assistance to the ill-equipped in a country that is abundant enough to do so is wrong.
I don't buy the skills argument. I don't care if a guy hasn't even finished highschool. If he's slugging around over hundred pound boxes into dark dusty 50ft trailers in the freezing cold and scorching heat and being paid peanuts to do it despite him and his coworkers' essentiality to the profit driven machine, he does deserve more pay. A burger flipper isn't quite as dramatically labourious an example, but the same sentiment applies. Workers aren't merely individuals, their ultimate worth and power in bargaining and setting production into motion resides in their collective might.
And that's the crux of it. This is why strikes have been successful. You stop work, it becomes all too apparent how essentially important and vital low skilled work is. We're talking potential losses of millions. There's nothing marginal about it. That undermining mindset is borne of class antagonisms and sociolegal conditioning. Corporatists and other business minded people use the law to protect their interests even where it may let moral sensibility, fairness and freedoms falter. It pains me to hear of workers as numbers or cogs measured by their profit value and not as human beings.
The fact that some SBs can't survive paying a decent wage is a serious indictment of the system. We feebly accept that it's just the way it's gotta be.
With that said, this type of work isn't exactly rewarding and is better off automated. Automation can free up a whole lot of drudgery.
Mr BFK
Active Member
u are contradicting urself tho
u are supporting automation while at the same time advocating more pay for less skilled workers
where will these workers get a job if they have less skills, and the only jobs available are more complicated that those that can be done by automation?
u are basically ignoring the fact that people go into business to make money............hence why it's unfair to those SBs
and it's funny that u think people "deserve" to be paid more than what value they bring to the table
but yet as a customer it's considered ok to shop for discounts/deals whenever u shop
all these high MW supporters are the same customers looking for every opportunity to pay the least amount as possible for goods and services
yet it's only a problem when business owner doesn't want to overpay........it just sounds like entitlement/envy to me
Bobjones
Active Member
People go into business to make money. Yeah. And people work for them to make a living and effectively set the head honcho's vision into motion. Go figure.
Advocating for automation, even if it weren't inevitable, isn't a contradiction. There are many ways automation could offer a turn around for people who've lost their jobs. If all a high MW will do is create job loss and cut hours (I'll have to do a bit more research on this myself to see where it's worked and where it hasn't), then by this inherent fault of the capitalist system (the admittance that low wages are necessary for business to properly function), this sort of work should be done away with. Otherwise you get ppl like you pretending a set of workers are of low value, effectively demeaning their effort and vital role.
Because what is value if not providing an essential role in the production process? You're severely downplaying their worth. Why?
Anyone logically would looks for sales and discounts, no matter how much one is making. Businesses offer them to make money and prevent waste. The dynamic is mutually beneficial.
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Mr BFK
Active Member
I think the premise is going past u as far as why MW exists
from a business owner's perspective it's about efficiency and costs in terms of dollars........it's not about the emotional/existential "value" of a person, it's about value in terms of monetary cost to a bottom line of an income statement
that's why I hate the term human resources, because it makes someone's labor seem like they are just resources to be counted and used, instead of actual living people being affected
but ultimately it's not an employers responsibility to overpay, or provide jobs as some sort of moral obligation
the problem is not that low paying jobs are a fault of the capitalistic process.......................business owners are just paying the most efficient cost to maximize their profit..........nothing is wrong with that if customers on the flip side can be considered reasonable for shopping where they can get the most for their money
if automation of these unskilled jobs are cheaper, then that is what a rational business owner will pay for..............hence if u raise MW too high, than u are giving the employer the choice of overpaying for an unskilled worker to do the same work that can be done cheaper with a machine
otherwise where do these workers go to earn a check if they aren't skilled enough to be able to negotiate for better pay.......most people have to start somewhere (ie. getting an education, job experience, networking).........u are making it harder on the same people who need help the most when u make it harder for them to get a job
Bobjones
Active Member
what? MW exists because governments mandated it specifically to prevent exploitation. that was its original purpose and that sentiment absolutely is a moral matter. sensible economists balance moral questions with what's feasible for business.
with that said, i didn't actually throw my support behind MW. i asked if not mw, then what are the alternatives, specifically the fundamental ones. my argument is that wages should be livable. if that isn't possible then it quite clearly is a fault of capitalism. if capitalism invokes the rule that says business owners must maximize profit and that rule necessarily comes at the expense of decent wages, benefits and democratic process, it's inherently at fault for being a coldly calculating game of numbers that shackles workers to its processes.
this isn't the way forward.
you wanna throw the perpetual deadbeat to the wayside and let em get ground up by the machine, fine. but society under its current conditions will always have people without skill, education and networks and with enough impressionable environmental obstacles in their way and burdens on their backs to make striving beyond their present conditions difficult if not unrealistic. this is part in parcel why government steps in.
Y'all some smart mfs
Good convo
Good convo
Mr BFK
Active Member
I get the whole moral argument (which is specious IMO when u consider the point I made about customers being allowed to shop in order to get the most for their money, yet business owners aren't looked at in the same way)
ultimately the underlined is what the point of this debate is tho, right?
some low wage jobs were never structured in the 1st place to pay a "living wage"
how is that a bad thing when the original point was to give some kids job experience and a couple of dollars to buy teenager shit?
now because we have an economy that has adults working jobs that were never made to sustain a lifestyle on, all of a sudden MW is the problem?
what about adults taking responsibility for themselves? what about the customers who constantly want more cheaper goods/services, but they act like it's only the company's responsibility to look out for workers? Businesses only provide what customers seek..............so how is increasing MW a solution when customers are getting exactly what they ask for?
businesses are morally obligated to care for workers, but customers aren't? and we are supposed to blame the capitalistic system for that? no one is forced to be greedy when participating in capitalism IMO..........that's a larger cultural issue that is not being addressed
SeaSnake
OG
Americans were trained to hate socialism
Dwayne
Not Like Us
Socialism is not the answer. It need to be a mixture of a few different ways