they all get cars as part of a cheap employee deal
Well how nice for them, bravo capitalism!
You’re missing a wee little link to the supposed obligation for a company to “pay its people enough to afford its products” though.
…that isn’t what’s being discussed. Nice try.
Your logic works out just fine if you are talking about a system that only contains the company and its employees. That would be a really silly hypothetical to be talking about, but I guess it does fit your “nothing matters unless it directly benefits me” stance.
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if you are talking about a system that only contains the company and its employees
No, it works the same way in a proper economy. You wouldn’t pay your employees so that they can afford your competitor’s products either. And your competitor won’t do so either.
One man’s “goofy concept” is another man’s economic allegory. It’s meant to make you think about the fact that all businesses really depend upon having a consumer base that can afford their products. Thus, if your political philosophy is based around having the right (and protecting the right of your compatriots in the capital class) to impoverish your own workers to enrich your company in the short term, you are actually contributing to the hollowing out the consumer base you rely on in the long term. Biting the hand that feeds you, as it were (and no, I don’t mean literally biting your employees hands, but let’s be clear, it wasn’t market forces that stopped that either).
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the right of your compatriots in the capital class) to impoverish your own workers
You know what’s even more “impoverishing”? Unemployment.
Or, you know, ‘enough to live on, and afford the necessities of modern life’. Which include adequate transportation to get to work. You’re saying, what, they shouldn’t do that? In the face of masses of data, political and economic thought that they should? Fair enough, if I work for Rolls Royce, I probably wouldn’t be able to afford a brand-new Rolls Royce (though I imagine I’d be able to run an old model. Shit, I could probably do that now, if it was the only luxury I allowed myself, and I ain’t rich). However, that doesn’t hold true for most consumer goods. What do you propose, in order for most everyone to live like a human being? Please include a minimum standard you’d be happy with, and be prepared to show your workings-out.
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What do you propose, in order for most everyone to live like a human being?
Naturally, I propose no minimum wage, as little regulation & taxation as possible. Exact amounts to be negotiated between workers, customers, employees. Trust them, they will work it out acceptably between them.
Why not?
You’re aware that the vast majority of the company’s profits are coming from people who aren’t its employees, and who are presumably being paid enough by their employers that they can afford your products?
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So is your argument that industrialists and capitalists are setting wages low to selflessly protect the employment rate? Or are you arguing that a free market, left to it’s own devices, cannot actually provide an adequate living for a populous. Because if it’s the latter, I guess we agree.
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You see, we’ve got plenty of historical data where that turned out to be fucking awful
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While I have a tendency to agree with you on a lot of what you are saying here, you are placing a awful lot of trust in people.
Sort of how I feel about the concept of predatory lending…the lion isn’t hunting and eating the gazelle, it has the right to walk away if it understands the terms of the deal are not in its favor. Yet a lot of people see it entirely as the banks fault.
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#notallponies
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Your confusion lies in the supposed desiderata that a company wants to assure a rich customer base which is to be accomplished by a well-compensated employee base. That is rubbish.
Companies don’t - and shouldn’t - pay their employees in order to raise the general welfare or whatever. They pay their employees however much they need to in order to keep a workforce of specified longevity, skill level, etc. It’s pure mutual self-interest, and that is A-OK.
Say, how about turning this around. Do you think plain employees work at companies in order to ensure the availability of products of those companies that they can then buy? Or do they perhaps work because they wish to pursue their own happiness, and gainful employment is a big part of that?
Let’s imagine the US was communist (you know, magic-ideal-on-paper-communist). Would everyone doing work according to their abilities be enough work to produce enough iPhones for everyone who wanted one? I think the answer is yes, but if it’s not yes then increased automation will probably make it yes in the near future. The same for if we expand it from the US to the whole world.
In our society we have crumbling infrastructure, people who want to work, and enough food and clothing for everyone. It’s not a question of whether enough wealth exists for us to have the things we need, or even the things we want. It’s a question of how we direct wealth. No one can come up with a perfect solution (that magic-communism will never happen), but looking around the world, it seems like economic equality is much better for everyone than economic inequality. I think people having enough money to buy the things they make is a metaphor to express that.
On the other hand, rather than a silly hypothetical it could be a good metaphor for the entirety of humanity. So let’s ask, which would be “economic suicide” or a “pyramid scheme”:
- A civilization that produced things (food, clothing, shelter, etc) that the people living in that society could afford
- A civilization that produced things (food, clothing, shelter, etc) that the people living in that society could not afford
I’d be interested to know @fche’s answer.
What? I thought in an efficient market unemployed people just became entrepreneurs.
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They (we) are working it out…that’s called government…anything else is just raw exploitation. Libertarians, can you pleeeeeeaaaase hurry up and create your extra-national utopia islands so we can finally have a laboratory to show you how fucked up your ideas are. Apparently just saying “yeah, we tried that, it’s called feudalism” doesn’t do it for you.
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Context is important, but so is delivery/presentation.
And the way some people consistently phrase their commentary seems far too similar to sociopathy for comfort.
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you are placing a awful lot of trust in people
I trust people who have skin in the game more than governmental aristocracy that has none, and is secure with lifetime employment, a defined benefit pension plan (with an unfunded liability), and an obedient tax base.
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I personally work at an early childhood non-profit and I can tell you that it’s a good mixture of both. Now, I’m in a privileged position to be able to say that but we can certainly work toward conditions that make every worker feel they are contributing positively to life (and not even resort to brutal authoritarianism along the way!). Worker-owned private businesses are a thing, for example…
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Well, that’s almost the definition of the thinking behind trickle-down economics (if we really simplified it down). So, yeah, I’d agree that it’s rubbish, but it doesn’t have to be.
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work toward conditions that make every worker feel they are contributing positively to life
It’s the leftie type of rabble-rouser that tries to tell workers that they are not doing that - or that they’re exploited, should Fight The Man, etc. etc. etc… Conservatives will say that everyone participating in the economy is automatically contributing positively to economic life.
