aguywhoplaysthief on 31/3/2006 at 18:17
Quote Posted by Uncia
Slavery?
Very profitable, true.
I may very well be wrong here, but I think that plantation owners were more profitable after slavery than before. I'm pretty sure that paying a trivial wage worked better than having to cover their workers entire living, but feel free to correct.
Uncia on 31/3/2006 at 18:23
How exactly did the workers with said trivial wage survive? When their wage was (apparently) less than it cost slaves to survive on? Or did slaves just get really posh food and accommodations?
Myoldnamebroke on 31/3/2006 at 19:00
Well, once you don't own them you don't care if they survive or not. If you had to pay to get them in the first place I guess you're more likely to look after your investment.
But if you pay them a pittance and they die, I guess if there's enough of them around you just get a few more.
And hope they don't form a union ;)
Uncia on 1/4/2006 at 00:05
Both a slave and an employee are An Investment. The difference is that a slave can't just walk away, whereas the worker has to at least be kept happy enough by the employer to keep working.
Ultraviolet on 1/4/2006 at 01:37
Quote Posted by aguywhoplaysthief
You probably get paid 10 an hour because you're doing a job that anyone worth 10 an hour could do. People with less responsibility get paid less, and people with more responsibility get paid more. Clearly you should get that job where you don't do anything and get paid lots of money - you've certainly proven your worth to the world!
Try doing something a little more in-demand and get back to me. Have you considered nursing, caregiving, or computer science?
Also, and I would hope that you could understand this, the company has to pay rent, utilities, and it has to recoup capital costs to pay off the people who loaned them the money to start the business, as well as pay you people.
Patronizing tone unnecessary.
I'm part of a larger function. Without myself and the other people that do this particular job, the larger whole wouldn't work. And it's not about "responsibility" having anything to do with the money made. In fact, I believe I accused the situation of being backward in that respect. Clearly this job that I should get where I don't do anything and get paid lots of money would be a job as a corporate higher-up. I could have a personal assistant to organize my golfing trips!
This business doesn't owe anyone money for startup fees. It's been around for some decades and has had plenty of time to recover its operating costs. As for rent, I KNOW that in my area it is cheap. As for utilities, they aren't that expensive here either. And as for payroll, I've already factored that in, if you read my post at all.
aguywhoplaysthief on 1/4/2006 at 02:28
Quote Posted by Ultraviolet
Patronizing tone unnecessary.
I think it's perfectly fine.
You apparently aren't all that you crack yourself up to be. If they couldn't find a hundred other people to do your job just as well as you can, then they would pay you more. Clearly they can, and that's why you get paid $10 an hour.
If running a business is so easy, and clearly you're the shit, then the answer is simply to start and run your own business. I'm sure you'll enjoy lapping in luxury, and making millions, while doing no work.
Quote Posted by Ultraviolet
I'm part of a larger function. Without myself and the other people that do this particular job, the larger whole wouldn't work.
And unfortunately enough for you there are plenty of qualified people who do what you do, and a scarcity of those qualified for upper management.
Quote Posted by Ultraviolet
Clearly this job that I should get where I don't do anything and get paid lots of money would be a job as a corporate higher-up. I could have a personal assistant to organize my golfing trips!
That's exactly what I was saying. Why don't you get that job if it's so easy?
It'd be one thing if there were not well paying jobs anywhere, but that's just a lie. They may not be jobs that you want to do, but you'd be damn surprised how much some people get paid. I know a complete fuck-up who got a job with starting pay 2.5x as much as you because he took a course in machining at CC and can put more than two words of English together. The reason? They just can't find people with the right combination of skills.
Clearly you're in the wrong line of work, and it's no one else's fault but your own.
Quote Posted by Ultraviolet
This business doesn't owe anyone money for startup fees. It's been around for some decades and has had plenty of time to recover its operating costs. As for rent, I KNOW that in my area it is cheap. As for utilities, they aren't that expensive here either. And as for payroll, I've already factored that in, if you read my post at all.
What's the name of this company? Clearly this is a business that I want to invest in.
TheGreatGodPan on 1/4/2006 at 05:19
Quote Posted by Strontium Dog
Don't be an idiot. There is a finite amount of money in the economy.
The point was that most jobs increase the marginal revenue of a firm by much less than a million dollars so it would be irrational to hire people for that much.
Quote Posted by Agent Monkeysee
The emission credits program is something that does work. It's pretty clever. OH AND IT'S A GOVERNMENT PROGRAM WHOOPS. I think you need to read up on this stuff more before you try and rebut it.
I wasn't attempting to rebut it. Here's a quote from me in another (
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1364491#post1364491) thread:
Quote Posted by TheGreatGodPan
I've already stated that I am ignorant when it comes to matters of the environment the externalities involved in it and don't intend to dispute anything said on the subject (although of course I have my doubts as to the effectiveness of government intervening in this area, as with others).
Quote Posted by Deep Quantas
Can you think of an example where the company would be willing to drop B in your special case, but wouldn't be tempted to do it with every employee?
Companies do offer their employees choices between different deals/benefits, different retirement plans being one example. There will probably be other potential employees who have the preferences AECD < ABCD < ABCDE, and will not be affected by the law. It's silly to talk about a company trying to resist a temptation to do something, the people that find the offer without B unnacceptable won't take it (if they did, their revealed preference shows it to be acceptable). As Adam Smith said, it is not out of the goodness of the hearts of bakers and butchers that we get our meat and bread, it is their desire for profit. The desire for profit is the same reason why people are hired and offers are made to entice potential employees.
Quote Posted by Wyclef
Haha, it's hard to believe tggp's ideologically rooted lack of imagination. Unbridled capitalism has never been exploitative, and there's no possible scenario in which it could be; no one has ever gained from coordination with other actors in the labor market, and no one ever will; government action has never yielded more than the markets could have delivered, and never will; market failures in the form of externalities have never appeared, and never will.
I'm a minarchist libertarian, not an anarcho-capitalist. I do believe in externalities and that it is best to have a government that tries to fix them. As for exploitive, once again I'd like to hear what qualifies something as exploitive. To me a contract entered into freely by an adult without coercion and without any deception or fraud is not something for me to judge in the abscence of any harm caused to a third party. I do believe that coordination is beneficial, and that the market is very good at coordinating the actions of different economic actors. I believe in free association, which I think would encompass the coordination you're talking about.
Quote Posted by Wyclef
EDIT: Also, isn't it a bit ironic (LOL, ALANIS) that tggp lists a public university in his location field?
Not that much more ironic than that I didn't drop out of public school when I turned 16. I have a corporate scholarship to go here that would be void if I went anywhere else.
Ultraviolet: Of course you are payed less than you bring into the company. Otherwise they wouldn't hire you. Your pay would have seemed a great deal for many Americans of the past and people elsewhere in the world today. If it is exploitation you are complicit in it everyday you go to work.
Quote Posted by Strontium Dog
Whether it does or not is not a bone of contention. I personally cannot condone a law that treats young adults as second-class citizens, whatever the intention.
If the law also applied to older adults, would it be more acceptable?
On slavery: they are often less efficient workers than people who have an incentive beyond "don't get beat and/or killed". I would guess that's offset by their cheapness though. I've heard that its supposed to be less efficient than free labor (and the economy of the north vs the south and non-communist vs communist countries would seem to support this) but I'm not sure. I do know that when Virginia was first settled most of the work was done by indentured servants because the death rate meant they would work about as long as slaves but cost a lot less. Similarly, when unloading ships it was said to be okay if you screwed up and killed an Irishman because the main person that would be upset is dead (at least if he didn't get payed until after his workday was done) but killing a slave is destruction of valuable property. Another thing to remember is that a business can hire and layoff employees as their profitability shifts, but a slaveowner would lose money if he kept selling slaves when they weren't in demand and buying them when they were. This is actually one thing slavery apologists brought in defense of the institution, saying it represented the ideal that European socialists were striving for (I hate socialism as much as anybody, but I find it hard to imagine anyone saying that with a straight face)!
Myoldnamebroke on 1/4/2006 at 10:42
Quote Posted by Uncia
Both a slave and an employee are An Investment. The difference is that a slave can't just walk away, whereas the worker has to at least be kept happy enough by the employer to keep working.
This depends on the labour market. If there are enough of them you can do what you like. They're competing to be employed by you.
If you're competing with other employers to get people in then you do have to keep them happy. But if they need the wage to survive they have to work whether they like it or not. Hence the importance of labour laws and unions in preventing people being exploited. Because given enough workers, there's always going to be someone in a more needy state than you, and so be willing to work for a bit less or in worse conditions.
Uncia on 1/4/2006 at 13:31
Yes, but you're comparing this to the conditions of a slave. Some perspective, please.
Convict on 1/4/2006 at 16:41
Quote Posted by Strontium Dog
Sometimes people are surprised to hear me (a liberal) endorsing profoundly socialist policies like the redistribution of wealth, because it's not a classic liberal belief, but it's really a logical leap for any modern liberal to make. Because as liberals we believe in freedom for everyone - and when you 're below the poverty line, being exploited by the upper echelons of society, you cannot ever be truly free. Or do you mean that they would not be free outside of work? No more so than anyone else I suspect (noone is truly free to do what they want - and get away with it).
Umm, having written all that, I'm not sure what the point of this post was, but I think it probably belongs in this thread :).
How does living below the "poverty line" (which has changed over the last few decades as to what it means IIRC) make you not free? If you are working then you are not free at work (noone is - even the big boss and even then they are beholden unto the shareholders) and if you are unemployed then you are not being exploited by the low price of labour.
On a partially related note, there was a meatworks factory in my city that was paying good wages for the workers (meatworkers (cut up carcasses) are apparently skilled workers) but the workers kept doing all this industrial action. In the end the meatworks closed. However some time later another company bought the meatworks but this time employed overseas cheap labour who don't carry on unneccessarily and will work for less money.
