No, I think capitalism does breed poor people. While I’ll agree that inequality always existed, there was a tendency to create a bulwark against disaster, in say a peasant society. If you are a landholder, if you’re peasants are starving, they won’t produce for you, and you can’t kick it up the food chain. Read, for example, Mike Davis’ Late Victorian Holocaust, where he shows how under the capitalist system, a famine meant starving, where in a peasant society, there was a tendency to put away for the lean times. This is not to say one is better than the other, but to say that the sort of thing we think about as poverty is based on a system where everything functions on cash.
And there is no free flow of market, the whole system functions on a constant interaction between corporations and governments, where governments help create the means by which markets can work.
Let’s not get bogged down in what Smith might or might have intended and look at the system as it has actually functioned historically–there is a hell of a lot of exploitation and violence for that to be a bug not a feature of the system.
Also, all of this. I really get irritated with this whole notion that somehow we are the only people who historically had feelings, intelligence, and a complex view of life.
I became irate when I realized Americans have about the same tax burden as the Australians, and the conditions there are so much better for people, it seems.
Religious concerns abound within the birth control / abortion issue. Agree or not, those concerns do shape peoples actions. Besides that and the (beaten to death) life events argument, there are the simple issues of BC failure, and then there is the whole “human fallibility” issue. Can’t afford children? Don’t have children! is a valid argument right up until you remember you’re talking about human beings - with the massive amount of cognitive and emotional background those two simple words bring. Don’t drink drive! Don’t jaywalk! Just say no! They all make good, rational sense - but people simply aren’t always rational - especially about sex.
It had never occurred to me to do so before now, but a google search reveals a number of forums with substantial thread/post counts. “We have hustle tips”. “best community for lapdancers”. Yeah, I think I’ll actually do just that mister44
The exploitation and violence that does occur, I think, can be separated from the flow of markets. It doesn’t have to be an exploitative system, or an exploited one. I used to think it did… and thats sad because there are really great opportunities for people in a market based economy.
Corporations are a pretty miserable thing. From what I understand at first they were only tolerated for limited times to allow for public works. They used to have one purpose and expire at a certain date. Soon after they became a mechanism by which governments funneled money to themselves, and gave exclusive opportunities to corporations that began falling outside of their original constraints.
However, when it comes to the basics of capitalism and a market economy, I’m not willing to damn the whole enterprise because of rampant abuses. From what I can tell, the explotation and violence were already around before capitalism became a thing. They aren’t absolutely inclusive of one another.
Whats a better alternative? I’d like to see one. Thats an honest question, rather than a rhetorical one.
Citation please. Keep in mind that the lack of a diploma/degree does not mean that the person is still in school. Also, raising the minimum wage to something like $10 would affect anyone who currently makes more than $7.25 but less than $10, so do not forget about those workers.
Well if a person is on minimum wage and getting food stamps whilst in employment, it seems reasonable to tax the company paying them the minimum wage in the first place. Also, have the minimum wage go up with age slightly, so that people who are in school and have parents to support them can gain “work experience” without an undue financial burden, and people who are actually supporting a family can do so.
By the time you’re working 40 hours a week and doing the job over a year, the job has to pay a living wage, otherwise it’s exploitative to ask the state to pick up the difference.
Well, you can factor that into wage law, remembering that at the very least the 30 year old with low job prospects is at least likely to have experience in the workforce and for the few that don’t, other safety nets should exist, because most employers are unlikely to want to hire them.
What doesn’t make sense is that someone that works 40 hours a week, still requires considerable welfare.
I believe if I am reading this chart right, 16-24 yr olds account for 55% of the minimum wage workers. http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2012tbls.htm#7 Perhaps calling them completely unskilled is unfair, but generally people at that age don’t know a lot.
Raising the minimum wage sounds like a noble idea - but that money has to come from somewhere, it doesn’t just materialize. Some place like Walmart could do this and easily absorb the costs. In fact I know Costco does generally pay better than minimum wage. They save some money from having less turn over, and higher productivity, so you would think it would behoove Walmart to try the same. Then there are the small businesses with tighter margins where they couldn’t absorb the added cost so easily.
And like I said - if a lot of your employees are on gov. support, the gov. is basically propping up your business.
if it’s law it applies equally to every company, so the prices of goods would rise slightly, but each company would experience the same rise. It wouldn’t put McDonalds out of business due to competition, since all other food outlets would have a $1-2 price hike simultaneously.
If subsidies are happening anyway, and happening on a massive scale with companies like McDonalds and Walmart, wouldn’t both the government and employees be better off by raising the minimum wage and then paying subsidies directly to small businesses that need assistance to pay their wages, i.e. through traineeship and apprenticeship subsidy programs for businesses with less than a certain number of employees?
This would
Give small businesses assistance
Limit government subsidies for companies that are already raking in massive profits
Lower total subsidies the government must find funds for
Give employees of large corporations earn a wage they can actually live off
Produce more training and employment opportunities for unskilled workers
It’s also worth noting that lots of small businesses are on slimmer profit margins, precisely because massive companies like Walmart squeeze them out of business.
Except it would just give the larger companies that much more leverage over their smaller competition. Already larger companies tweak their profits by streamlining their supply streams, buying ingredients in bulk quantities, having processes that are followed company wide, etc. Some place like McDonalds, could absorb the increase and keep their prices lower, while a local burger joint or restaurant would have to raise prices to cover the additional costs.
I dunno - maybe. I don’t really know what the best solution is - especially when there is such a wide variety of variables.
I definitely think there should be more options for job training, starting with high school and opening more trade schools. On my grandpas report card from High School showed he took classes like machining. And he became - wait for it - a machinist.
well whats the solution? people at McD’s have to undertake a second job, or go into crime to get money? I just don’t see that it can make sense to have a society in which people are paid less than a living wage.
Those statistics ignore the fact that getting paid $7.45 is not much different than getting paid $7.25 (even WalMart will apparently give you a 20 cent raise after a year: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/16/walmarts-internal-compensation-plan_n_2145086.html ). So the fact that 24% of people making at or below minimum wage are teenagers could just mean that they have not been at their job long enough to get a ten cent raise. In any case, it does not support your claim that the income is not necessary because they might be living with their parents (a person can be living with their parents and working to help pay their parents’ bills).
