I think you're confusing the way it ought to be and the way it is.
Yes, investment is a risk and it should be rewarded. No one is arguing otherwise. The question is of proportion. If you create a company and you work 3 times as hard as your employees, but it's your money or startup investment on the line (which is so very seldom the case, as I remarked above, but nonetheless) what portion do you feel is owed you? If you have a company that makes 10 million in profits before paying employees, and you have 100 employees including yourself, what do you each get paid?
Socialism would dictate everyone takes home $100k. A fair distribution might be the owner/operator makes 25% and everyone else makes makes $75k. Our current system has the owner take home everything but $1.5 million, enough to pay his 99 workers minimum wage.
It isn't a question of working hard. 3x the diligence and thoughfulness of mopping a floor or washing dishes is just improving society enough to pay them more than a fraction of a person who employs 100 people making beer or running a restaurant chain. Any decision on who gets paid what would be a bureaucratic nightmare for a planned economy, besides taking away incentives. I think I answered your question of what do you each get paid?, by saying whatever the market will bear. Also smart money invests, if the workers were payed according to profits, what's left to expand the company, or save for a downturn?
In your example, when the company goes belly up, who is paying those workers?
Also, you didn't disagree with me. You have actually taken the position that money is more valuable than work.
You are in favor of wealth incumbency. You are against economic mobility, that someone who works hard is more likely to earn lots of money than someone who doesn't work as hard.
I'm in favor of people being paid for working hard.
You are in favor of people being paid for being rich.
When the company goes belly up, the investor in the company is stuck with the loss, the people working for the company are out of a job, so they don't get paid.
I'm lawful neutral on people getting paid for working hard or being rich. I don't favor any legislation for the workers, or for the investors. I was against the bailouts, and I've posted on my thoughts about organized labor. I can see why I'm being taken as being for "the man" and against the worker, it's just been polarized that way because this is seems to be a pro-labor thread.
In your example, when the company goes belly up, who is paying those workers?
Also, you didn't disagree with me. You have actually taken the position that money is more valuable than work.
You are in favor of wealth incumbency. You are against economic mobility, that someone who works hard is more likely to earn lots of money than someone who doesn't work as hard.
I'm in favor of people being paid for working hard.
You are in favor of people being paid for being rich.
When the company goes belly up, the investor in the company is stuck with the loss, the people working for the company are out of a job, so they don't get paid.
I'm lawful neutral on people getting paid for working hard or being rich. I don't favor any legislation for the workers, or for the investors. I was against the bailouts, and I've posted on my thoughts about organized labor. I can see why I'm being taken as being for "the man" and against the worker, it's just been polarized that way because this is seems to be a pro-labor thread.
By not favoring legislation either way, you favor those who start from the stronger barganing position, which will always be those those with money. Thus, you favor employers having power over the workers. This wont be the case in situations where there is so much competition for labor that workers can choose where to go, but the industries where that is true are rediculously few and far between, and usually have an artifical barrier to entry and/or require significant levels of expertise. If the barriers are skill or knowlesge based, they wont last long, as people will train for those positions to satisfy the need, and then the need wont necessarily stick arround.
In your example, when the company goes belly up, who is paying those workers?
Also, you didn't disagree with me. You have actually taken the position that money is more valuable than work.
You are in favor of wealth incumbency. You are against economic mobility, that someone who works hard is more likely to earn lots of money than someone who doesn't work as hard.
I'm in favor of people being paid for working hard.
You are in favor of people being paid for being rich.
When the company goes belly up, the investor in the company is stuck with the loss, the people working for the company are out of a job, so they don't get paid.
I'm lawful neutral on people getting paid for working hard or being rich. I don't favor any legislation for the workers, or for the investors. I was against the bailouts, and I've posted on my thoughts about organized labor. I can see why I'm being taken as being for "the man" and against the worker, it's just been polarized that way because this is seems to be a pro-labor thread.
Its not that I'm pro-labor, I think our system should benefit the largest number of people possible, while putting as few people at a disadvantage as possible. It just happens to be that most people are workers in this country, so I'm in favor of making sure they get a fair shake.
The bottom 60% of Americans own 2.5% of the stock market. Please describe how a fair system produces this kind of result?
It isn't a question of working hard. 3x the diligence and thoughfulness of mopping a floor or washing dishes is just improving society enough to pay them more than a fraction of a person who employs 100 people making beer or running a restaurant chain. Any decision on who gets paid what would be a bureaucratic nightmare for a planned economy, besides taking away incentives. I think I answered your question of what do you each get paid?, by saying whatever the market will bear. Also smart money invests, if the workers were payed according to profits, what's left to expand the company, or save for a downturn?
Your response just shows how clueless you are.
We're not talking about a planned economy, we're talking about reasonable wage laws. Like, a minimum wage that an individual can actually live on, for start.When you say the laborers get paid what the market will bear, you show your ignorance as to what a market is. A market is bargaining between supply and demand. Unions are an ESSENTIAL part of that bargain and thus essential to that market process.
Markets only exist when there is an incentive for both sides to bargain. If the guy who runs the food stand doesn't sell his wares he goes out of business, if no one buys his wares they starve. Right now, since the vast majority of companies are owned by a shrinking minority of people who are already stinking rich, there's no incentive for them to hire anybody because they can just sit on their pile of cash. In short, the labor market is not a market at all.
I take that back. It's a slave market.
Furthermore, your part about profits being saved to expand the company or save for a downturn, that already isn't happening in almost any business. They don't save money to pay the bills in the bad times, they LAY PEOPLE OFF in the bad times. The people at the top siphon off the profits, load the company with debt, cook the books, and try to sell the company off to the next sucker. Who then, after seeing what a sorry state the previous owner left the company in, has to balance the books on the backs of the laborers. And the cycle continues.
Thing is, we know where "Whatever the market will bear" leads us, in the absence of government regulation and union pressure. We saw it during the early industrial age. We see it today in factories in the 3rd world.
Sweatshops. Wages that are barely enough to keep workers alive. Horrendous working conditions. Fire escapes & windows locked to keep workers from sneaking breaks. Exposure to toxic chemicals and wastes. Child labor.
It isn't the regulations that improve working and living conditions. I love game of thrones on HBO, and in that era, noone protested against child labor. Children had to work because the society was so poor. Children and laborers didn't toil in factories because it was the worst option, the other options were starving to death. It was only when we have material wealth and capitol investment that it is possible to improve conditions. If we enacted child labor, or osha-type regulations on a 3rd world country, or on the people living in a materially poor era like GOT, there would be mass starvation and unrest.
And possibly that last paycheck or two. And any leave/vacation/sicktime they'd accrued. And pension if they were lucky enough to have any.
While management cashes in before the bankruptcy and then pays themselves big checks to manage it. Or takes their golden parachute before it all comes tumbling down.
Sometimes, for say a million dollar company. But what about the local comic book store owner? Gas station owner, or local pc shop. They don't make headlines of the AIG ceo, but they have a cinder block tied to their feet instead of a parachute.
By not favoring legislation either way, you favor those who start from the stronger barganing position, which will always be those those with money. Thus, you favor employers having power over the workers. This wont be the case in situations where there is so much competition for labor that workers can choose where to go, but the industries where that is true are rediculously few and far between, and usually have an artifical barrier to entry and/or require significant levels of expertise. If the barriers are skill or knowlesge based, they wont last long, as people will train for those positions to satisfy the need, and then the need wont necessarily stick arround.
I think that keeping legislation out of the picture will help increase competition for workers. Burdening employers with regulation and labor bargining would only hurt their ability to be competitive, and be a barrier to entry for a company even opening. With less regulation there would be more employement and more competion for workers, giving them more freedom, compensation, and benifits.
Its not that I'm pro-labor, I think our system should benefit the largest number of people possible, while putting as few people at a disadvantage as possible. It just happens to be that most people are workers in this country, so I'm in favor of making sure they get a fair shake.
The bottom 60% of Americans own 2.5% of the stock market. Please describe how a fair system produces this kind of result?
"Little pink houses for you and me"
Perform sing:Although recently the economy has taken a nose-dive (and will get worse) the material wealth that the bottom 60% enjoy is kingly compared to 100 years ago. They have cars, running water, electricity, cheap cloths and toothpaste, and get to send their kids to school instead of the factory. The incentives and capitol to create this material wealth is in the free market, and redistributing the wealth would make us paper-rich, but we wouldn't have anything to buy.
I think that keeping legislation out of the picture will help increase competition for workers. Burdening employers with regulation and labor bargaining would only hurt their ability to be competitive, and be a barrier to entry for a company even opening. With less regulation there would be more employment and more completion for workers, giving them more freedom, compensation, and benefits.
We've tried this before. It sucked. It empirically doesn't work. A few people amass an enormous amount of wealth and then collude to keep as much profit for themselves as possible, while using a small portion of the vast wealth they're gathering to neuter any government efforts to stop them from colluding.
Your response just shows how clueless you are.
We're not talking about a planned economy, we're talking about reasonable wage laws. Like, a minimum wage that an individual can actually live on, for start.
When you say the laborers get paid what the market will bear, you show your ignorance as to what a market is. A market is bargaining between supply and demand. Unions are an ESSENTIAL part of that bargain and thus essential to that market process.
Markets only exist when there is an incentive for both sides to bargain. If the guy who runs the food stand doesn't sell his wares he goes out of business, if no one buys his wares they starve. Right now, since the vast majority of companies are owned by a shrinking minority of people who are already stinking rich, there's no incentive for them to hire anybody because they can just sit on their pile of cash. In short, the labor market is not a market at all.
I take that back. It's a slave market.
Furthermore, your part about profits being saved to expand the company or save for a downturn, that already isn't happening in almost any business. They don't save money to pay the bills in the bad times, they LAY PEOPLE OFF in the bad times. The people at the top siphon off the profits, load the company with debt, cook the books, and try to sell the company off to the next sucker. Who then, after seeing what a sorry state the previous owner left the company in, has to balance the books on the backs of the laborers. And the cycle continues.
diplomacy:
Sure, there are some crooks that make headlines. There's also alot of decent people running companies. Giving us ipods and paizo publications. I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree.
By not favoring legislation either way, you favor those who start from the stronger barganing position, which will always be those those with money. Thus, you favor employers having power over the workers. This wont be the case in situations where there is so much competition for labor that workers can choose where to go, but the industries where that is true are rediculously few and far between, and usually have an artifical barrier to entry and/or require significant levels of expertise. If the barriers are skill or knowlesge based, they wont last long, as people will train for those positions to satisfy the need, and then the need wont necessarily stick arround.I think that keeping legislation out of the picture will help increase competition for workers. Burdening employers with regulation and labor bargining would only hurt their ability to be competitive, and be a barrier to entry for a company even opening. With less regulation there would be more employement and more competion for workers, giving them more freedom, compensation, and benifits.
And by "increase competition for workers," you mean drive salaries down until they barely pay for subsistence living, and then possibly a little lower. I know this because before we created our existing labor laws that is what was happening.
If "Burdening employers with regulation and labor bargining" is preventing someone from opening a buisness, they probably don't have a good enough buisness model to actually turn a profit in a way that will help society, so I don't really care if they can't open. Tell me, how does creating more jobs that pay less than a living wage help increase demand for workers in a way that will drive worker's wages up?
Your response just shows how clueless you are.
We're not talking about a planned economy, we're talking about reasonable wage laws. Like, a minimum wage that an individual can actually live on, for start.
When you say the laborers get paid what the market will bear, you show your ignorance as to what a market is. A market is bargaining between supply and demand. Unions are an ESSENTIAL part of that bargain and thus essential to that market process.
Markets only exist when there is an incentive for both sides to bargain. If the guy who runs the food stand doesn't sell his wares he goes out of business, if no one buys his wares they starve. Right now, since the vast majority of companies are owned by a shrinking minority of people who are already stinking rich, there's no incentive for them to hire anybody because they can just sit on their pile of cash. In short, the labor market is not a market at all.
I take that back. It's a slave market.
Furthermore, your part about profits being saved to expand the company or save for a downturn, that already isn't happening in almost any business. They don't save money to pay the bills in the bad times, they LAY PEOPLE OFF in the bad times. The people at the top siphon off the profits, load the company with debt, cook the books, and try to sell the company off to the next sucker. Who then, after seeing what a sorry state the previous owner left the company in, has to balance the books on the backs of the laborers. And the cycle continues.
diplomacy:1d20+11
Sure, there are some crooks that make headlines. There's also alot of decent people running companies. Giving us ipods and paizo publications. I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree.
Do you realize that pretty much all of corporate America is the "some crooks" that you are talking about? Hell, you mention ipods, but Apple is constantly getting hammered for piss poor payment to employees while being one of the most profitable companies in the world. Doubling the pay of all their non-managers would be something like 1% of their annual proffits.
If we enacted child labor, or osha-type regulations on a 3rd world country, or on the people living in a materially poor era like GOT, there would be mass starvation and unrest.
You mean, as opposed to the unrest coming from factory fires that kill 750+?
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Also smart money invests, if the workers were payed according to profits, what's left to expand the company, or save for a downturn?
Smart money treats reinvestments in the company and capital savings as business expenses. Those should already be taken out of the equation before profits are divided.
We've tried this before. It sucked. It empirically doesn't work. A few people amass an enormous amount of wealth and then collude to keep as much profit for themselves as possible, while using a small portion of the vast wealth they're gathering to neuter any government efforts to stop them from colluding.
I think you're talking about the robber-barrons from the industrial revolution? I'm unsure when capitolism didn't work. Are you talking about monopolies? The enormous wealth developed by standard oil "monopoly" cut the price of lamp oil by about 90%. Carnige Steel similarly slashed the price of steel.
I think you're talking about the robber-barrons from the industrial revolution? I'm unsure when capitolism didn't work. Are you talking about monopolies? The enormous wealth developed by standard oil "monopoly" cut the price of lamp oil by about 90%. Carnige Steel similarly slashed the price of steel.
And made peoples lives a living hell of 18 hour work days, crowded tenement housing that tended to catch fire, company towns that effectively owned the people there, and amassed so much wealth that they owned the government to the point that they could call in the national guard to squash the protests of people that were tired of living like that.
Who gives a flying fig about how well some abstract concept like "the economy" is doing or how low prices were if the people that the economy is supposed FOR are suffering?
They stayed rich. It was a little harder to get good servants, but they got all sorts of technological gadgets to make up for it.
I'm afraid I can't favorite the whole post due to ultraleft sectarianism, but this part made me giggle.
Hee hee!
There's some truth in that. At a subsistence level, everyone has to work.
However, the same argument's you are making now, were made when unions were fighting for the worker's rights we have now. The fight to end child labor. The fight for safe working conditions. The fight for the 40 hour week.
None of these were just granted by market forces when society was rich enough to support them. They were earned by workers organizing to demand them and voters pushing government to require them.
Children worked while adults couldn't find work. Because you could pay the children less. People were crippled in factory work because it was cheaper to replace them than to make the factories safer.
With every push for better conditions, the same dire threats of economic disaster were made. Everytime they were forced to provide those better conditions, the economy didn't collapse. The country got more prosperous.
Child labor I think was solved by market forces. Parents were able to afford to support their children with their labor. Working conditions are figured into compensation. A plumber or mechanic earns a premium due to the nature of his work. A dangerous job will pay more than a safe one, giving the incentive for employers to make their jobs less hazardous. The hours per standard week were a hinderance to me when I wanted to work longer than 40 hours, but was unable to, due to overtime. (Restaurant) No the economy didn't collapse, but is less efficient than it would be without the benefits. I think that at this point these are minor annoyances, but they definately don't add to the prosperity of the economy.
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Child labor I think was solved by market forces.
Blatant malarkey.
If you don't know better you've been drinking the free market koolaide too long to be trusted.
And by "increase competition for workers," you mean drive salaries down until they barely pay for subsistence living, and then possibly a little lower. I know this because before we created our existing labor laws that is what was happening.
If "Burdening employers with regulation and labor bargining" is preventing someone from opening a buisness, they probably don't have a good enough buisness model to actually turn a profit in a way that will help society, so I don't really care if they can't open. Tell me, how does creating more jobs that pay less than a living wage help increase demand for workers in a way that will drive worker's wages up?
Increased competition for workers results in increased wages due to higher demand for a workforce. Dealing with price fixing for wages distorts the business model. Creating jobs that pay any wage would be a step up for the many that are unemployed. It doesn't matter that a person is paid a low wage, if they are paid a wage, they are contributing to an abundance of goods and services. The greater the abundance, the cheaper the price. The cheaper the price the further a low wage will stretch. That was a couple of sentence reason, but another is that if wages are fixed high, those seeking employment with low skills will be priced out, and earn no wage at all.
Do you realize that pretty much all of corporate America is the "some crooks" that you are talking about? Hell, you mention ipods, but Apple is constantly getting hammered for piss poor payment to employees while being one of the most profitable companies in the world. Doubling the pay of all their non-managers would be something like 1% of their annual profits.
That is an interesting fact.(no sarcasm) If we decided that apple should hereby double their non-manager's pay, someone thinking of being a data base administrator could instead try and work for apple. People in other similar professions would leave their company an try to work for apple. The next startup company would have to end up increasing the saleries to their employees to retain them. The signal is set for where the people should work efficiently, and distorting it will distort the allocation of the workforce to where society needs them.
And that doesn't count the conditions offshore where most of the cool gadgets are actually made. Or where the rare mineral are mined.
I think that a large deposit of lithium was found in one of the middle eastern contries (forget which). The country is poor and mining there will help the country. The offshore conditions are probably similar to the industrial revolution the US went through, and is a necessary evolutionary stage of the economy.
Citizen Zordlon, if you have time in your busy one-man-against-the-thread routine (and, btw, you can have the thread for now, but I'm gonna be wanting it back later):
And that doesn't count the conditions offshore where most of the cool gadgets are actually made. Or where the rare mineral are mined.I think that a large deposit of lithium was found in one of the middle eastern contries (forget which). The country is poor and mining there will help the country. The offshore conditions are probably similar to the industrial revolution the US went through, and is a necessary evolutionary stage of the economy.
Why? I don't pretend to have read Friedman, and I've never taken an economics course, but I've never understood this part of the debate.
I mean, I don't know which Middle Eastern country you are referring to, but lots of them have modern militaries, why is it necessary for them to have terrible First World-a-century-ago working conditions?
(Although, when you look closely at America's First World working conditions--West Fertilizer, British Petroleum, Massey Energy--they start looking not so hot.)
And that doesn't count the conditions offshore where most of the cool gadgets are actually made. Or where the rare mineral are mined.I think that a large deposit of lithium was found in one of the middle eastern contries (forget which). The country is poor and mining there will help the country. The offshore conditions are probably similar to the industrial revolution the US went through, and is a necessary evolutionary stage of the economy.
Or the companies that are going to mine the lithium could set up safe mines and pay their workers reasonable rates, creating massive advancement in the country that would allow their ecconmy to grow. But since the company will likely be foreign, it wont care and will pay just enough to get people to want a position there over whatever other backbreaking work they could get, provide crappy housing for the people, but then make it too expensive for the people to leave so that they are stuck working there. Kinda like what happened to coal towns in the US.
You mean, as opposed to the unrest coming from factory fires that kill 750+?
I admit I don't have a link to where osha standards were enacted on a country to see the result. One I've heard of though is were child-labor laws were put into effect in a developing country. The children were found to go into prostitution or starved. I'll post a link when I find it.
You're on a roll, today, Comrade Jeff.
Citizen Zordlon, if you have time in your busy one-man-against-the-thread routine (and, btw, you can have the thread for now, but I'm gonna be wanting it back later):
It is getting difficult to manage. It is nice to have ideas challenged, and it's funny to be odd-man-out on this board, whereas i'm part of majority on others. I do feel it has been worth it, earning the title of citizen. I'll still try and respond as mood strikes me, probably all for today though.
Child labor I think was solved by market forces. Parents were able to afford to support their children with their labor. Working conditions are figured into compensation. A plumber or mechanic earns a premium due to the nature of his work. A dangerous job will pay more than a safe one, giving the incentive for employers to make their jobs less hazardous. The hours per standard week were a hinderance to me when I wanted to work longer than 40 hours, but was unable to, due to overtime. (Restaurant) No the economy didn't collapse, but is less efficient than it would be without the benefits. I think that at this point these are minor annoyances, but they definately don't add to the prosperity of the economy.There's some truth in that. At a subsistence level, everyone has to work.
However, the same argument's you are making now, were made when unions were fighting for the worker's rights we have now. The fight to end child labor. The fight for safe working conditions. The fight for the 40 hour week.
None of these were just granted by market forces when society was rich enough to support them. They were earned by workers organizing to demand them and voters pushing government to require them.
Children worked while adults couldn't find work. Because you could pay the children less. People were crippled in factory work because it was cheaper to replace them than to make the factories safer.
With every push for better conditions, the same dire threats of economic disaster were made. Everytime they were forced to provide those better conditions, the economy didn't collapse. The country got more prosperous.
if you truly believe this, then I have a bridge to sell you.
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You mean, as opposed to the unrest coming from factory fires that kill 750+?I admit I don't have a link to where osha standards were enacted on a country to see the result. One I've heard of though is were child-labor laws were put into effect in a developing country. The children were found to go into prostitution or starved. I'll post a link when I find it.
Here's what you also have to understand. When a country is industrializing it is moving people from poverty subsistence living and usually agriculture into unemployment--due to the industrialization of agriculture and the specialization of labor. That's the first thing that happens: industrialization of agriculture, because it allows for everything else that follows. One machine can easily do what 50 workers could--or more!--leaving vast swaths of unskilled or semi-skilled laborers unemployed.
Now, the industrial infrastructure seeks to put them to work again in manufacturing, to increase infinitely the liquidity of labor. They get paid a pittance and live on a street rather than a hut. The people that turn to prostitution or other employment (and mind you, I've heard your talking point before and it has NEVER been sourced, so I take it with a bucket-load of salt) are better off being employed in a factory...probably.
Thing is, they're even BETTER off STILL being employed in the agriculture where they were previously. Industrialization is the cause of their woes, and you want us to feel sympathy for the robber barons because it is now their only salvation as well? Poppycock.
The money powers have no altruism in mind when they extract wealth from poor nations, and any beneficial side-effects to colonization and industrialization is only to fill the void they themselves have created.
I'm with Anklebiter: I see no reason why countries just now industrializing can't learn from America and Europe's mistakes and leapfrog the robber baron/burning rivers of waste/national guard slaughtering laborers part of the process.
We seem to have two competing policy proscriptions which, essentially, have the same premise: the wages that the labor is paid, as a portion of the total wealth created, has a direct correlation to the overall economic well-being of a state.
Zordlon is saying that if you decrease infinitely the cost of labor, in other words pay labor a pittance, it will drive down the price of goods to where the labor can afford it.
Most of the rest of us are saying that if you increase the cost of labor to where they can afford goods at the pre-existing price point, that consumption of goods will feed a cycle that increases everyone's wealth.
Model 1 has, axiomatically, obscene levels of wealth inequality, but argues that it doesn't matter because the poor will still be better off...in the long run. But it works (if you can call it that) without government intervention.
Model 2 requires massive government intervention, to create labor regulations and to prevent the rich from trying to enstate Model 1, as it is easily better for them and they have more power.
Here's the difference, folks: Model 1 is only theorycraft. We've done it, and the results were not as promised.
Then we tried Model 2, and it worked swimmingly. In fact, it worked so well that every other first world nation followed our lead and you can index how well a country is now with how well they followed a pro-labor, Keynesian capitalist model. Germany and the rest of northern Europe, commonwealth countries like Canada, New Zealand and Austrailia, Japan.
Empiricism folks. Atlas Shrugged is a work of fiction, it doesn't actually work.
Its not that I'm pro-labor, I think our system should benefit the largest number of people possible, while putting as few people at a disadvantage as possible. It just happens to be that most people are workers in this country, so I'm in favor of making sure they get a fair shake.
The bottom 60% of Americans own 2.5% of the stock market. Please describe how a fair system produces this kind of result?
"Little pink houses for you and me"
Perform sing:1d20+2
Although recently the economy has taken a nose-dive (and will get worse) the material wealth that the bottom 60% enjoy is kingly compared to 100 years ago. They have cars, running water, electricity, cheap cloths and toothpaste, and get to send their kids to school instead of the factory. The incentives and capitol to create this material wealth is in the free market, and redistributing the wealth would make us paper-rich, but we wouldn't have anything to buy.
Again, your point is that wealth should be valued greater than work. Just own it and be done. You think the working class should serve the rich.
It is difficult to go against the tide, when believe it or not, I have your best interests at heart. I was reading through a early 20th century essay on unions, but it made me remember something much more interesting and entertaining that I came across.
From Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential:
he's talking about his job at the Rainbow Room in NYC atop Rockafeller Center
They were mostly older guys who'd worked in the hangar-sized kitchen forever, their jobs secured by a union who's only discernible benefits were guaranteed job security and an assured mediocrity of cuisine
Eventually he works his way through the ranks and is granted shop steward. This is sort of head negotiator and deals with union president. He won by election.
The next day, someone from management came by and made an unusually frank suggestion: if I wanted a long, successful and, most important, healthy career in the restaurant business, perhaps I should step down and let that nice Luis continue his good works as shop steward.
Child labor continued right up until laws were passed against it. The first fedearl labor laws were overturned by the courts and the practice continued until the New Deal era.
It was not stopped by market forces. It was stopped by public opposition leading to laws on both the state and federal level.
Child labor seems to be a sticking point. At a subsistence level it was negotiated as necessary, but when a society becomes wealthy, it is no longer needed. Not everyone is wealthy and some at subsistence level need to work. Farming actually comes to mind, where many children work on their family farms. Requiring them not to work is not the same as allowing them to decide whether to work or not. The second is easier to enact and allows decentralization of decision making. I'm sure that some children would appeal to labour laws to get out of chores:)
Do some research on the term "market failure." Leaving the market unregulated has been tried a dozen different ways on numerous occasions, and it always turns out badly for the workers and consumers. Always. As it turns out, what's good for General Motors is NOT what's good for America.
The argument against raising the minimum is always the same, and it's the same one that was made against even having a minimum wage in the first place. As always, it's wrong.
The market is allegedly self-correcting... in the long run. But in the long run, we're all dead.
I agree what is good for general motors is not what's good for America. They never should have been bailed out. (twice I think it's up to)
Why? I don't pretend to have read Friedman, and I've never taken an economics course, but I've never understood this part of the debate.
I mean, I don't know which Middle Eastern country you are referring to, but lots of them have modern militaries, why is it necessary for them to have terrible First World-a-century-ago working conditions?
(Although, when you look closely at America's First World working conditions--West Fertilizer, British Petroleum, Massey Energy--they start looking not so hot.)
Hopefully their working conditions will be 1st world rate. I've only read a little friedman, but I think it has to do with capitol investment and technology. I might follow the story on lithium mining in the middle east now to see how it goes.