Progressive Radio Rants -- Minimum Wage

[leftysergeant]

Material resources != wealth. The idea that it does is not even pseudo-science.

You're right only in part. Material resources+labor=wealth.

Capital is just a management tool used to bring the two together. When the capitalists are no longer doing that, they are of no further use to us, thus do not deserve to be coddled while the rest of us struggle.

 

[leftysergeant]

That notion is completely absurd. For example, even an invention such as a washing machine or the building of a bridge can effectively make everybody wealthier.

This is more redistribution of wealth than creationn of wealth. There remains a finite amount of steel and fuel with which to make the product.

 

[Ziggurat]

You're right only in part. Material resources+labor=wealth.

No, it isn't.

I can spend forever and a day banging on a rock with a hammer, and I can't turn it into an ipod. But that rock can be turned into an ipod. It just takes more than merely my labor to do it.

But even if we (wrongly) restrict ourselves to a picture of wealth = resources + labor, we still find that, contrary to your assertion, the amount of wealth is not a fixed quantity, and thus economics is not a zero-sum game.

Capital is just a management tool used to bring the two together.

Clearly, you don't know what capital is. It isn't just money.

 

[Ziggurat]

There remains a finite amount of steel and fuel with which to make the product.

Perhaps so. But we aren't at the limit of either, so it doesn't matter.

 

[portlandatheist]

This is more redistribution of wealth than creationn of wealth. There remains a finite amount of steel and fuel with which to make the product.

I completely disagree. Yes, material resources and fuel are finite in nature but we are constantly figuring out how to accomplish the same tasks using less energy and materials. My new natural gas furnace, as just one example, uses far less materials(is less than half the size), was less expensive and vastly more efficient that the oil furnace monster that it replaced(and less CO2 emissions). This little gadget has improved my personal wealth as well as the folks that created it and our collective wealth by emitted less pollution. Once upon a time, virtually all of our collective labor, materials, and fuel were devoted to food production but as we became more clever, we can spend our wealth of time and energy on other endeavors. This is not zero sum or simply a redistribution of wealth.

 

[respect]

Who does volunteer work for a for-profit corporation?

That was so utterly random!

The aim of the business isn't relevant to your claims of theft. If someone who voluntarily works for $8.00 an hour is being robbed, surely someone who voluntarily works for $0.00 an hour is really being fleeced.

 

[leftysergeant]

Once upon a time, virtually all of our collective labor, materials, and fuel were devoted to food production but as we became more clever, we can spend our wealth of time and energy on other endeavors. This is not zero sum or simply a redistribution of wealth.

as long as the capitalist is using his wealth to do this sort of thing, and paying a decent wage to those who work on his behalf, everything does work out for the best for everyone.

But, if he makes his device in China and pays his sales people here so little that they cannot by the basics of a decent life style, it is a net loss to working people.

 

[respect]

as long as the capitalist is using his wealth to do this sort of thing, and paying a decent wage to those who work on his behalf, everything does work out for the best for everyone.

But, if he makes his device in China and pays his sales people here so little that they cannot by the basics of a decent life style, it is a net loss to working people.

So it would be a net gain for working people if he fired his sales staff, fired his Chinese employees and stuffed his money in a mattress?

 

[Skeptic]

I completely disagree. Yes, material resources and fuel are finite in nature but we are constantly figuring out how to accomplish the same tasks using less energy and materials. My new natural gas furnace, as just one example, uses far less materials(is less than half the size), was less expensive and vastly more efficient that the oil furnace monster that it replaced(and less CO2 emissions). This little gadget has improved my personal wealth as well as the folks that created it and our collective wealth by emitted less pollution. Once upon a time, virtually all of our collective labor, materials, and fuel were devoted to food production but as we became more clever, we can spend our wealth of time and energy on other endeavors. This is not zero sum or simply a redistribution of wealth.

... but but but Mom, Marx saaaaaaaaaid that...

 

[Skeptic]

So it would be a net gain for working people if he fired his sales staff, fired his Chinese employees and stuffed his money in a mattress?

No, but, what a wonderful world it would be if the government took his shop over and government beurocrats made sure the people get what they NEED from the store!

Because those USSR department stores offered so much convenience, plenty, and choice for the customer.

 

[leftysergeant]

So it would be a net gain for working people if he fired his sales staff, fired his Chinese employees and stuffed his money in a mattress?

No. You are just being silly now. He can make it and sell it here and pay people a decent wage or pay one mind-boggling tariff so that people who are pulling their own weight and creating or performing jobs here can get a tax break.

 

[leftysergeant]

The aim of the business isn't relevant to your claims of theft. If someone who voluntarily works for $8.00 an hour is being robbed, surely someone who voluntarily works for $0.00 an hour is really being fleeced.

If he is accepting $0.00 from an outfit that is making a profit, he's stupid.

And it is relevant whether the business is for profit or not for our purposes here. If the object of the work is to create a profit for the entrepreneur, the entrepreneur owes a decent day's provisions in exchange for that labor. If he cannot pay that much, he should make the workers partners in the business so that they all recieve a more or less equal share. If he can't do that, he is too stupid to own a business any damned way and it is for the good of all that he go get a job mopping floors until he figures out what he is doing.

 

[Francesca R]

You're right only in part. Material resources+labor=wealth.

Marxian "labour theory of value" all over again. Not without its criticisms (from those who actually understand it)

It has pretty long since been buried by:

Value = f { labour, capital, innovation/productivity/whatever }

also known as the Cobb-Douglas production function, after the two who tested it in the 1920s (Paul Douglas was a Democrat Senator for a couple of decades)

Capital is just a management tool used to bring the two together.

Wrong as it ever was. Capital can only ever be obtained if people save (forego consumption). Innovation and productivity improvement can only usually be obtained if people invest (devote some labour (and capital) to efforts other than the production of consumables).

When the capitalists are no longer doing that, they are of no further use to us, thus do not deserve to be coddled while the rest of us struggle.

Since this is not what capital (itself, that is; never mind who owns it) does, this is wrong too. And the people who have always done without capital and always thought it was "of no use" are still hunting and gathering, and sleeping under bushes.

 

[Francesca R]

But, if he makes his device in China and pays his sales people here so little that they cannot by the basics of a decent life style, it is a net loss to working people.

Outsourcing production from America to China is a net gain for Americans. Keeping production in America, which is cheaper in China, is an unfair practice to give some Americans a gain while imposing a net loss on Americans as a whole.

 

[leftysergeant]

Outsourcing production from America to China is a net gain for Americans. Keeping production in America, which is cheaper in China, is an unfair practice to give some Americans a gain while imposing a net loss on Americans as a whole.

Mere sloganeering. How do we benefit from sending more and more of the national wealth off-shore?

 

[Francesca R]

You don't send "national wealth" offshore. You buy the fruits of China's "national wealth" (its labour output) and since it is cheaper than yours in the relevant areas, it's a better deal.

 

[leftysergeant]

You don't send "national wealth" offshore. You buy the fruits of China's "national wealth" (its labour output) and since it is cheaper than yours in the relevant areas, it's a better deal.

No, it is not a better deal if the price of getting those low prices is that none of us can afford to buy that cheap crap. Mao Mart is putting Americans out of work and the Walton larvae expect us to kiss their kundingis for providing a lot of minimum wage jobs.

You right wingers make no sense.

 

[Francesca R]

But that isn't the price of getting those low prices. Even if every American to lose a job as a result of offshoring never found another one it would not be the price, and net American income would increase.

But of course one of the good things about American folks is that they usually do.

 

[Ziggurat]

No, it is not a better deal if the price of getting those low prices is that none of us can afford to buy that cheap crap. Mao Mart is putting Americans out of work and the Walton larvae expect us to kiss their kundingis for providing a lot of minimum wage jobs.

You right wingers make no sense.

Almost all Walmart workers earn above minimum wage.

Which is part of why Walmart supports raising the minimum wage. It doesn't affect them, but it will hurt competitors.

 

[varwoche]

It's clear to me that a minimum wage causes hiring not to occur that otherwise would have.

It's equally clear to me that a minimum wage benefits a great many workers.

Unless and until there are facts that convince me otherwise, my default position is that overall, the upside of the latter outweights the downside of the former.

And as for the $100/hour absurdity that was raised upthread, the flip side is: Are you OK with the concept of people being paid say $1/hour? And sleeping in an alley and dining out of a dumpster? Is this part and parcel of Libertopia?