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On June 03 2013 11:05 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2013 07:54 Sermokala wrote:On June 03 2013 07:19 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On June 03 2013 05:32 farvacola wrote:On June 03 2013 05:29 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On June 03 2013 02:14 silynxer wrote:
What do you mean by "add value" exactly and how do you measure it in this case? I propose an experiment, let's fire all cashiers and see how little "value" they add. Just replace with automated checkouts. Problem solved. Hardly. Check out this article, it covers the topic nicely. The long and short of it is that customers like to see people working. Automated self-checkout is appearing in more and more retail stores, with Walmart this year installing 10,000 self-service kiosks in hundreds of stores. But self-checkout is a technology direction with risks -- and even as Walmart moves ahead with its plan, other companies are already abandoning it.
Retailer Albertsons LLC, for instance, has already pulled its self-checkout systems, as did Big Y, a New England grocer. Ikea is moving to do the same thing.
At the heart of these reversals: Customer rejection.
Even so, stores like Walmart say automated self-checkout kiosks can increase customer convenience and choice. But what does a checkout kiosk system actually fix?
Vendors argue that having more checkout options means shorter lanes and speedier customer transactions. But there are concerns about the impact on jobs, since stores that roll out the technology can steer customers to self-checkout systems -- and cut back on human cashiers.
That later issue is a flash point. Walmart, jobs and the rise of self-service checkout tech Yes customers generally prefer seeing people - but not at any price. There are limits to how much people will pay for things, cashiers included. Costco would like a word with you on that point. Insert drunk anti free trade argument based on that the countries beifitng from free trade are the ones with a free- protectionist economic policy resulting in their quality of life going up and ours going down. Tbh target is the anti union company wal mart is just big enough not to give a shit about the protests. Costco would like to say what? They don't pay their workers infinite money. They have limits too. Their limits are higher because their business model can sustain it. And no, their business model isn't copyable across all retailers. Walmart is one of the most technologically advanced and efficient retailers on the planet and they still don't have much room to raise wages. That should say something about the value of bottom end retailing right there.
~2 million employees and $15-16 billion in profit. They have room to raise wages/compensation by $6-8 an hour per employee (at least) before they red-line it. Not that it's necessarily the smartest business decision or that every employee deserves a raise, but they do have the room for it.
Related: A (highly opinionated) piece on Wal-Mart vs Costco
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United States41938 Posts
On June 03 2013 10:40 Ingsoc101 wrote:
@Kwark
Yes, there is a significant difference between real slavery and so called "wage slavery." The difference is that one is created by the natural order of life, and the other is created by human institutions and laws. Humans can only be held responsible for the institutions they have created, not for the nature of nature.
Poverty is not a human construct, it is the natural order. None of us exit the womb with food, clothing, and a 401k. If you want to blame nature for the fact that you are forced to work in order to survive, go right ahead. Because that is true of every economic system in every country in the history of the world. It was true even in the time of cavemen. If cavemen didn't constantly work and struggle to survive, they would simply die. Who should the caveman blame for his condition? Who enslaved the caveman? Nature, not man. That is how the world works, it is the natural order.
Government sanctioned slavery, on the other hand, is completely different. We cannot change the natural order of existence, but we can change human institutions, laws, and so on. It is incredibly immoral to support a system where humans can own and abuse others with legal sanction.
"Wage slavery", on the other hand, is not abuse. And it is not abuse because in the absence of the job, the person would be even worse off. That is the missing point in the wage slavery argument. With a job, a person is always better off than without a job. Offering work to someone is helping someone, even if you don't like how much they are being helped. Even if you think they should be helped even more, it is still help. It is still mutual benefit. It is not the employer which has made the worker poor, it is the natural order of existence which has made him or her poor. Poverty is natural.
If you want to argue that we have a social right to help people survive now that we have the means to do so, that is fine. But that is completely different from blaming employers or capitalism itself for something that is a natural part of existence. And that is why comparing free markets with human slavery is not just stupid, it is offensive.
What utter nonsense.
Your argument goes as follows:
1) All humans are born naked and with no food on their plates and therefore that is their natural state
2) Hypothetical wage slavery will give them sufficient clothing and food to work
3) It is therefore beneficial and not slavery
Actual slavery involved people who were born naked getting fed and clothed. Actual slavery, if you assume that without it blacks would be naked and hungry, is beneficial. Food and clothes do not define slavery, choice does. The free market could, under the right conditions if lacking safeguards, create an exploitative lack of choice comparable to slavery.
Also to the others weighing in about obesity or Wal-Mart, my point is about unrestrained free markets in a world where private property is held as sacred (so stealing, looting, rioting doesn't happen when the population are exploited).
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On June 03 2013 10:55 Ingsoc101 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2013 10:45 OuchyDathurts wrote:On June 03 2013 10:04 coverpunch wrote:On June 03 2013 10:01 Shiori wrote:On June 03 2013 09:09 coverpunch wrote:On June 03 2013 08:30 KwarK wrote:On June 03 2013 08:20 coverpunch wrote:On June 03 2013 08:05 KwarK wrote:On June 03 2013 07:33 coverpunch wrote:On June 03 2013 06:52 KwarK wrote:
[quote]
The knowledge that their employment contract is technically different from a bill of ownership would not keep the hypothetical wage slaves warm at night.
It is not a meaningful difference. Huh? It has all the meaning in the world. The simple difference is a free person can leave if they want and a slave cannot. And one of the twin criticisms of Wal-Mart and one of the big reasons it has been difficult to form a union is that it has tremendous turnover, a large percentage of people quit within the first year of working there. Any human anywhere may wish to do anything he likes, slave or not. Our minds are not limited, our bodies are. If a slave wishes to end his labour then he may attempt to run away and seek an improvement in his fortune but he will most likely remain a slave or die. If a wage labourer living day to day wishes to end his labour he too can attempt to leave but again, he will most likely remain a wage labourer or starve. Wal-Mart doesn't apply to this hypothetical because it is a hypothetical, the free market has been distorted to prevent such a nightmare. Slavery isn't the whip, slavery is the loss of the ability to control one's own labour. Oh, c'mon, you can see that you are stretching like taffy to make slave = wage laborer, right? That's not to say Wal-Mart doesn't deserve criticism for its employment practices. Again, large turnover is a sign that Wal-Mart is a pretty bad employer. But, I don't think having the government raise the minimum wage or somehow force Wal-Mart to change is a good solution. You can't help people control their own labor by wielding a bigger whip. I'm talking purely hypotheticals here, not about Wal-Mart. My point is that given no government distortions and a surplus of labour the competition for jobs will depress wages to the minimum that someone will work for or the level at which further reduction reduces the productivity of the labourer. The minimum that someone will voluntarily work for can be assumed to be basic survival, if given a choice between working and eating and not working and not eating people will choose the former. At this point they have lost all control over their labour, their only remaining exit is death, while the profits of their labour are kept by those who exploit them. The fact that they choose to work each day does not change the fact that it is slavery, they choose it because they wish to continue to live. Cotton pickers chose to pick cotton rather than to rise up, a human body will not do anything the mind does not wish it to, but we still characterise the slavery of blacks in America as slavery because there was no reasonable alternative to the exploitation of their labour. The free market could conceivably create a scenario in which workers lacked a reasonable alternative to the exploitation of their labour, the reason it does not is because of social improvements, government intervention and the threat of revolution. With competition between employers and the freedom to leave, a person should eventually get the equilibrium wage between what their productivity is worth. Is this before or after their malnourished corpse is exhumed? Does America have an obesity problem or not? You can do better than this. If people didn't have to eat garbage because their cripplingly low wages at Wal-mart forced them to work 2 or 3 terrible jobs maybe some of the obesity problem might go away? You expect people to eat well end exercise with no time or money? Also odds are if you're obese you're in-taking no actual nourishment. Just because you put matter into your face doesn't mean its nourishing at all. Again, here is the same fallacy that I hear repeated again and again. It just doesn't make sense. "I would drive a Ferrari if Bill Gates gave me a million dollars, but he doesn't, therefore Bill Gates stole my Ferrari." A logic that come only come from a pure entitlement mentality.
That's a pretty neat fallacy that has nothing to do with anything.
You're paying people slave wages that drive them to either become part of the welfare system or have to work 2 or 3 jobs to maintain their dignity. There are 24 hours in a day, if you expect someone working multiple jobs to find the time to cook legitimate decent food, take care of their families and life, find some sort of unwinding every human needs, and to sleep you're out of your mind.
No one is talking about a million dollars or supercars. We're talking about basic needs.
I'm sorry but many of the problems in this country are very much intertwined to poverty. It's not just working a shit job that pays you nothing and it ends there. It helps contribute to things like obesity, medical health, depression, divorce, and shit parenting due to lack of time to actually parent properly. Shit parenting alone goes on to help contribute to crime and lack of education in poverty stricken areas. Will paying someone a reasonable amount completely alleviate all these problems? Of course not but it sure would do a lot to help.
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On June 03 2013 11:20 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2013 10:40 Ingsoc101 wrote:
@Kwark
Yes, there is a significant difference between real slavery and so called "wage slavery." The difference is that one is created by the natural order of life, and the other is created by human institutions and laws. Humans can only be held responsible for the institutions they have created, not for the nature of nature.
Poverty is not a human construct, it is the natural order. None of us exit the womb with food, clothing, and a 401k. If you want to blame nature for the fact that you are forced to work in order to survive, go right ahead. Because that is true of every economic system in every country in the history of the world. It was true even in the time of cavemen. If cavemen didn't constantly work and struggle to survive, they would simply die. Who should the caveman blame for his condition? Who enslaved the caveman? Nature, not man. That is how the world works, it is the natural order.
Government sanctioned slavery, on the other hand, is completely different. We cannot change the natural order of existence, but we can change human institutions, laws, and so on. It is incredibly immoral to support a system where humans can own and abuse others with legal sanction.
"Wage slavery", on the other hand, is not abuse. And it is not abuse because in the absence of the job, the person would be even worse off. That is the missing point in the wage slavery argument. With a job, a person is always better off than without a job. Offering work to someone is helping someone, even if you don't like how much they are being helped. Even if you think they should be helped even more, it is still help. It is still mutual benefit. It is not the employer which has made the worker poor, it is the natural order of existence which has made him or her poor. Poverty is natural.
If you want to argue that we have a social right to help people survive now that we have the means to do so, that is fine. But that is completely different from blaming employers or capitalism itself for something that is a natural part of existence. And that is why comparing free markets with human slavery is not just stupid, it is offensive. What utter nonsense. Your argument goes as follows: 1) All humans are born naked and with no food on their plates and therefore that is their natural state 2) Hypothetical wage slavery will give them sufficient clothing and food to work 3) It is therefore beneficial and not slavery Actual slavery involved people who were born naked getting fed and clothed. Actual slavery, if you assume that without it blacks would be naked and hungry, is beneficial. Food and clothes do not define slavery, choice does. The free market could, under the right conditions if lacking safeguards, create an exploitative lack of choice comparable to slavery. Also to the others weighing in about obesity or Wal-Mart, my point is about unrestrained free markets in a world where private property is held as sacred (so stealing, looting, rioting doesn't happen when the population are exploited).
Wow, you didn't even read my post. I can't respond to arguments I didn't actually make.
Being forced to work is the natural order, therefore slavery cannot be defined as such.
No, the free market cannot under any circumstances provide less choice than the absence of a free market. A free market is a series of voluntary opportunities. Again, if you want to blame something for that fact that many people have limited options due to poverty, you can only blame nature, which established poverty as the norm for all life on Earth.
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On June 03 2013 11:24 OuchyDathurts wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2013 10:55 Ingsoc101 wrote:On June 03 2013 10:45 OuchyDathurts wrote:On June 03 2013 10:04 coverpunch wrote:On June 03 2013 10:01 Shiori wrote:On June 03 2013 09:09 coverpunch wrote:On June 03 2013 08:30 KwarK wrote:On June 03 2013 08:20 coverpunch wrote:On June 03 2013 08:05 KwarK wrote:On June 03 2013 07:33 coverpunch wrote:
[quote]
Huh? It has all the meaning in the world. The simple difference is a free person can leave if they want and a slave cannot. And one of the twin criticisms of Wal-Mart and one of the big reasons it has been difficult to form a union is that it has tremendous turnover, a large percentage of people quit within the first year of working there. Any human anywhere may wish to do anything he likes, slave or not. Our minds are not limited, our bodies are. If a slave wishes to end his labour then he may attempt to run away and seek an improvement in his fortune but he will most likely remain a slave or die. If a wage labourer living day to day wishes to end his labour he too can attempt to leave but again, he will most likely remain a wage labourer or starve. Wal-Mart doesn't apply to this hypothetical because it is a hypothetical, the free market has been distorted to prevent such a nightmare. Slavery isn't the whip, slavery is the loss of the ability to control one's own labour. Oh, c'mon, you can see that you are stretching like taffy to make slave = wage laborer, right? That's not to say Wal-Mart doesn't deserve criticism for its employment practices. Again, large turnover is a sign that Wal-Mart is a pretty bad employer. But, I don't think having the government raise the minimum wage or somehow force Wal-Mart to change is a good solution. You can't help people control their own labor by wielding a bigger whip. I'm talking purely hypotheticals here, not about Wal-Mart. My point is that given no government distortions and a surplus of labour the competition for jobs will depress wages to the minimum that someone will work for or the level at which further reduction reduces the productivity of the labourer. The minimum that someone will voluntarily work for can be assumed to be basic survival, if given a choice between working and eating and not working and not eating people will choose the former. At this point they have lost all control over their labour, their only remaining exit is death, while the profits of their labour are kept by those who exploit them. The fact that they choose to work each day does not change the fact that it is slavery, they choose it because they wish to continue to live. Cotton pickers chose to pick cotton rather than to rise up, a human body will not do anything the mind does not wish it to, but we still characterise the slavery of blacks in America as slavery because there was no reasonable alternative to the exploitation of their labour. The free market could conceivably create a scenario in which workers lacked a reasonable alternative to the exploitation of their labour, the reason it does not is because of social improvements, government intervention and the threat of revolution. With competition between employers and the freedom to leave, a person should eventually get the equilibrium wage between what their productivity is worth. Is this before or after their malnourished corpse is exhumed? Does America have an obesity problem or not? You can do better than this. If people didn't have to eat garbage because their cripplingly low wages at Wal-mart forced them to work 2 or 3 terrible jobs maybe some of the obesity problem might go away? You expect people to eat well end exercise with no time or money? Also odds are if you're obese you're in-taking no actual nourishment. Just because you put matter into your face doesn't mean its nourishing at all. Again, here is the same fallacy that I hear repeated again and again. It just doesn't make sense. "I would drive a Ferrari if Bill Gates gave me a million dollars, but he doesn't, therefore Bill Gates stole my Ferrari." A logic that come only come from a pure entitlement mentality. wages that drive them to...
Again, the wages don't drive them to anything. In the absence of employment, they would be even worse off. The wages are a gain, not a loss.
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On June 03 2013 11:28 Ingsoc101 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2013 11:24 OuchyDathurts wrote:On June 03 2013 10:55 Ingsoc101 wrote:On June 03 2013 10:45 OuchyDathurts wrote:On June 03 2013 10:04 coverpunch wrote:On June 03 2013 10:01 Shiori wrote:On June 03 2013 09:09 coverpunch wrote:On June 03 2013 08:30 KwarK wrote:On June 03 2013 08:20 coverpunch wrote:On June 03 2013 08:05 KwarK wrote:
[quote]
Any human anywhere may wish to do anything he likes, slave or not. Our minds are not limited, our bodies are. If a slave wishes to end his labour then he may attempt to run away and seek an improvement in his fortune but he will most likely remain a slave or die. If a wage labourer living day to day wishes to end his labour he too can attempt to leave but again, he will most likely remain a wage labourer or starve. Wal-Mart doesn't apply to this hypothetical because it is a hypothetical, the free market has been distorted to prevent such a nightmare.
Slavery isn't the whip, slavery is the loss of the ability to control one's own labour. Oh, c'mon, you can see that you are stretching like taffy to make slave = wage laborer, right? That's not to say Wal-Mart doesn't deserve criticism for its employment practices. Again, large turnover is a sign that Wal-Mart is a pretty bad employer. But, I don't think having the government raise the minimum wage or somehow force Wal-Mart to change is a good solution. You can't help people control their own labor by wielding a bigger whip. I'm talking purely hypotheticals here, not about Wal-Mart. My point is that given no government distortions and a surplus of labour the competition for jobs will depress wages to the minimum that someone will work for or the level at which further reduction reduces the productivity of the labourer. The minimum that someone will voluntarily work for can be assumed to be basic survival, if given a choice between working and eating and not working and not eating people will choose the former. At this point they have lost all control over their labour, their only remaining exit is death, while the profits of their labour are kept by those who exploit them. The fact that they choose to work each day does not change the fact that it is slavery, they choose it because they wish to continue to live. Cotton pickers chose to pick cotton rather than to rise up, a human body will not do anything the mind does not wish it to, but we still characterise the slavery of blacks in America as slavery because there was no reasonable alternative to the exploitation of their labour. The free market could conceivably create a scenario in which workers lacked a reasonable alternative to the exploitation of their labour, the reason it does not is because of social improvements, government intervention and the threat of revolution. With competition between employers and the freedom to leave, a person should eventually get the equilibrium wage between what their productivity is worth. Is this before or after their malnourished corpse is exhumed? Does America have an obesity problem or not? You can do better than this. If people didn't have to eat garbage because their cripplingly low wages at Wal-mart forced them to work 2 or 3 terrible jobs maybe some of the obesity problem might go away? You expect people to eat well end exercise with no time or money? Also odds are if you're obese you're in-taking no actual nourishment. Just because you put matter into your face doesn't mean its nourishing at all. Again, here is the same fallacy that I hear repeated again and again. It just doesn't make sense. "I would drive a Ferrari if Bill Gates gave me a million dollars, but he doesn't, therefore Bill Gates stole my Ferrari." A logic that come only come from a pure entitlement mentality. wages that drive them to... Again, the wages don't drive them to anything. In the absence of employment, they would be even worse off. The wages are a gain, not a loss.
So they should just apply to be doctors and make bank then huh? I mean they've got every option in the world for decent high paying jobs! The country is booming with them!
You people can't have it both ways. You either pay people legitimate money so they aren't DRIVEN to completely insane activities like working multiple shit jobs. OR you have a massive welfare state that pays people legitimate money to sit on their ass. The choice is yours.
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On June 03 2013 11:26 Ingsoc101 wrote:
Wow, you didn't even read my post. I can't respond to arguments I didn't actually make.
Being forced to work is the natural order, therefore slavery cannot be defined as such.
No, the free market cannot under any circumstances provide less choice than the absence of a free market. A free market is a series of voluntary opportunities. Again, if you want to blame something for that fact that many people have limited options due to poverty, you can only blame nature, which established poverty as the norm for all life on Earth.
WARNING:
WE HAVE A FREE MARKET BONER
8===========D
FREE MARKET GOD IS COMING TO SAVE YOU
FREE MARKET IS SO AWESOME
I READ ABOUT IN MY TEXTBOOK
IT'S AS AWESOME AS GANDHI, EINSTEIN, CHRIST, WASHINGTON, AND DIO COMBINED.
Notice that the above (like your entire post) is an unsubstantiated opinion with little relevance to the conversation.
Yes, I agree, the free market (and god, and human kindness, and a zombie apocalypse) can come and solve all of our problems. Unfortunately the free market on paper doesn't take into account human nature. Government is the experiment which intends to bring the actual market somewhat closer to the IDEAL of a free market by mitigating the negative effects of human nature (like exploiting employees).
User was temp banned for this post.
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On June 03 2013 11:30 OuchyDathurts wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2013 11:28 Ingsoc101 wrote:On June 03 2013 11:24 OuchyDathurts wrote:On June 03 2013 10:55 Ingsoc101 wrote:On June 03 2013 10:45 OuchyDathurts wrote:On June 03 2013 10:04 coverpunch wrote:On June 03 2013 10:01 Shiori wrote:On June 03 2013 09:09 coverpunch wrote:On June 03 2013 08:30 KwarK wrote:On June 03 2013 08:20 coverpunch wrote:
[quote]
Oh, c'mon, you can see that you are stretching like taffy to make slave = wage laborer, right?
That's not to say Wal-Mart doesn't deserve criticism for its employment practices. Again, large turnover is a sign that Wal-Mart is a pretty bad employer. But, I don't think having the government raise the minimum wage or somehow force Wal-Mart to change is a good solution. You can't help people control their own labor by wielding a bigger whip. I'm talking purely hypotheticals here, not about Wal-Mart. My point is that given no government distortions and a surplus of labour the competition for jobs will depress wages to the minimum that someone will work for or the level at which further reduction reduces the productivity of the labourer. The minimum that someone will voluntarily work for can be assumed to be basic survival, if given a choice between working and eating and not working and not eating people will choose the former. At this point they have lost all control over their labour, their only remaining exit is death, while the profits of their labour are kept by those who exploit them. The fact that they choose to work each day does not change the fact that it is slavery, they choose it because they wish to continue to live. Cotton pickers chose to pick cotton rather than to rise up, a human body will not do anything the mind does not wish it to, but we still characterise the slavery of blacks in America as slavery because there was no reasonable alternative to the exploitation of their labour. The free market could conceivably create a scenario in which workers lacked a reasonable alternative to the exploitation of their labour, the reason it does not is because of social improvements, government intervention and the threat of revolution. With competition between employers and the freedom to leave, a person should eventually get the equilibrium wage between what their productivity is worth. Is this before or after their malnourished corpse is exhumed? Does America have an obesity problem or not? You can do better than this. If people didn't have to eat garbage because their cripplingly low wages at Wal-mart forced them to work 2 or 3 terrible jobs maybe some of the obesity problem might go away? You expect people to eat well end exercise with no time or money? Also odds are if you're obese you're in-taking no actual nourishment. Just because you put matter into your face doesn't mean its nourishing at all. Again, here is the same fallacy that I hear repeated again and again. It just doesn't make sense. "I would drive a Ferrari if Bill Gates gave me a million dollars, but he doesn't, therefore Bill Gates stole my Ferrari." A logic that come only come from a pure entitlement mentality. wages that drive them to... Again, the wages don't drive them to anything. In the absence of employment, they would be even worse off. The wages are a gain, not a loss. So they should just apply to be doctors and make bank then huh? I mean they've got every option in the world for decent high paying jobs! The country is booming with them! You people can't have it both ways. You either pay people legitimate money so they aren't DRIVEN to completely insane activities like working multiple shit jobs. OR you have a massive welfare state that pays people legitimate money to sit on their ass. The choice is yours.
What the fuck does "you people" mean? I don't give a fuck how much welfare you give people. Stop lumping me with straw men.
My argument here is that you cannot blame capitalism for what is the natural order of life. And also that the concept of "wage slavery" is completely idiotic, for this reason among others.
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On June 03 2013 11:34 Jormundr wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2013 11:26 Ingsoc101 wrote:
Wow, you didn't even read my post. I can't respond to arguments I didn't actually make.
Being forced to work is the natural order, therefore slavery cannot be defined as such.
No, the free market cannot under any circumstances provide less choice than the absence of a free market. A free market is a series of voluntary opportunities. Again, if you want to blame something for that fact that many people have limited options due to poverty, you can only blame nature, which established poverty as the norm for all life on Earth. WARNING: WE HAVE A FREE MARKET BONER 8===========D FREE MARKET GOD IS COMING TO SAVE YOU FREE MARKET IS SO AWESOME I READ ABOUT IN MY TEXTBOOK IT'S AS AWESOME AS GANDHI, EINSTEIN, CHRIST, WASHINGTON, AND DIO COMBINED. Notice that the above (like your entire post) is an unsubstantiated opinion with little relevance to the conversation. Yes, I agree, the free market (and god, and human kindness, and a zombie apocalypse) can come and solve all of our problems. Unfortunately the free market on paper doesn't take into account human nature. Government is the experiment which intends to bring the actual market somewhat closer to the IDEAL of a free market by mitigating the negative effects of human nature (like exploiting employees).
Whoa, whoa! Hold on there. I don't know ANY (legitimate) text book that espouses love for the free market. It's mostly YouTube videos and blogs.
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On June 03 2013 11:34 Jormundr wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2013 11:26 Ingsoc101 wrote:
Wow, you didn't even read my post. I can't respond to arguments I didn't actually make.
Being forced to work is the natural order, therefore slavery cannot be defined as such.
No, the free market cannot under any circumstances provide less choice than the absence of a free market. A free market is a series of voluntary opportunities. Again, if you want to blame something for that fact that many people have limited options due to poverty, you can only blame nature, which established poverty as the norm for all life on Earth. WARNING: WE HAVE A FREE MARKET BONER 8===========D FREE MARKET GOD IS COMING TO SAVE YOU FREE MARKET IS SO AWESOME I READ ABOUT IN MY TEXTBOOK IT'S AS AWESOME AS GANDHI, EINSTEIN, CHRIST, WASHINGTON, AND DIO COMBINED. Notice that the above (like your entire post) is an unsubstantiated opinion with little relevance to the conversation. Yes, I agree, the free market (and god, and human kindness, and a zombie apocalypse) can come and solve all of our problems. Unfortunately the free market on paper doesn't take into account human nature. Government is the experiment which intends to bring the actual market somewhat closer to the IDEAL of a free market by mitigating the negative effects of human nature (like exploiting employees).
Edit: Nevermind. Justice has been rendered.
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On June 03 2013 11:08 Ingsoc101 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2013 10:57 nttea wrote:On June 03 2013 10:40 Ingsoc101 wrote:
@Kwark
Yes, there is a significant difference between real slavery and so called "wage slavery." The difference is that one is created by the natural order of life, and the other is created by human institutions and laws. Humans can only be held responsible for the institutions they have created, not for the nature of nature.
Poverty is not a human construct, it is the natural order. None of us exit the womb with food, clothing, and a 401k. If you want to blame nature for the fact that you are forced to work in order to survive, go right ahead. Because that is true of every economic system in every country in the history of the world. It was true even in the time of cavemen. If cavemen didn't constantly work and struggle to survive, they would simply die. Who should the caveman blame for his condition? Who enslaved the caveman? Nature, not man. That is how the world works, it is the natural order.
Government sanctioned slavery, on the other hand, is completely different. We cannot change the natural order of existence, but we can change human institutions, laws, and so on. It is incredibly immoral to support a system where humans can own and abuse others with legal sanction.
"Wage slavery", on the other hand, is not abuse. And it is not abuse because in the absence of the job, the person would be even worse off. That is the missing point in the wage slavery argument. With a job, a person is always better off than without a job. Offering work to someone is helping someone, even if you don't like how much they are being helped. Even if you think they should be helped even more, it is still help. It is still mutual benefit. It is not the employer which has made the worker poor, it is the natural order of existence which has made him or her poor. Poverty is natural.
If you want to argue that we have a social right to help people survive now that we have the means to do so, that is fine. But that is completely different from blaming employers or capitalism itself for something that is a natural part of existence. And that is why comparing free markets with human slavery is not just stupid, it is offensive. Humans created the laws of property that states you can own something without using/being in possession of it, which is what leads to wage slavery, so nothing about it is natural. The world is an island, you can't just go somewhere else when everything is owned by someone. Any alternative will have it's issues but don't act like your opinions on how the world works/should work are obviously reasonable or just based on poor logic. Ok, let's break this down please. Let's go back to my example of cavemen/early humans. They were forced to work, or they would die. Tell me how human property laws were responsible for this reality. The answer is that they weren't. The answer is that poverty and so called "work to survive slavery" have nothing to do with humans or human laws. It is how nature works. Even animals are forced to work or they die. Do animals have property rights? Therefore, blaming low wages, or laws, or capitalism, for the fact that people are forced to work makes absolutely zero sense.
Human property laws are responsible for people being forced to work for someone else to survive. Does seem pretty indistinguishable from slavery to me. They aren't responsible for people having to do work to survive, i assumed you were at least bright enough to realize i wasn't claiming that.
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On June 03 2013 11:37 aksfjh wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2013 11:34 Jormundr wrote:On June 03 2013 11:26 Ingsoc101 wrote:
Wow, you didn't even read my post. I can't respond to arguments I didn't actually make.
Being forced to work is the natural order, therefore slavery cannot be defined as such.
No, the free market cannot under any circumstances provide less choice than the absence of a free market. A free market is a series of voluntary opportunities. Again, if you want to blame something for that fact that many people have limited options due to poverty, you can only blame nature, which established poverty as the norm for all life on Earth. WARNING: WE HAVE A FREE MARKET BONER 8===========D FREE MARKET GOD IS COMING TO SAVE YOU FREE MARKET IS SO AWESOME I READ ABOUT IN MY TEXTBOOK IT'S AS AWESOME AS GANDHI, EINSTEIN, CHRIST, WASHINGTON, AND DIO COMBINED. Notice that the above (like your entire post) is an unsubstantiated opinion with little relevance to the conversation. Yes, I agree, the free market (and god, and human kindness, and a zombie apocalypse) can come and solve all of our problems. Unfortunately the free market on paper doesn't take into account human nature. Government is the experiment which intends to bring the actual market somewhat closer to the IDEAL of a free market by mitigating the negative effects of human nature (like exploiting employees). Whoa, whoa! Hold on there. I don't know ANY (legitimate) text book that espouses love for the free market. It's mostly YouTube videos and blogs.
The Road to Serfdom is a textbook, didn't ya know? Oh yeah, don't forget Man, Economy, and State! With a name like that, how can it not be a credible academic reference? 
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On June 03 2013 11:34 Jormundr wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2013 11:26 Ingsoc101 wrote:
Wow, you didn't even read my post. I can't respond to arguments I didn't actually make.
Being forced to work is the natural order, therefore slavery cannot be defined as such.
No, the free market cannot under any circumstances provide less choice than the absence of a free market. A free market is a series of voluntary opportunities. Again, if you want to blame something for that fact that many people have limited options due to poverty, you can only blame nature, which established poverty as the norm for all life on Earth. WARNING: WE HAVE A FREE MARKET BONER 8===========D FREE MARKET GOD IS COMING TO SAVE YOU FREE MARKET IS SO AWESOME I READ ABOUT IN MY TEXTBOOK IT'S AS AWESOME AS GANDHI, EINSTEIN, CHRIST, WASHINGTON, AND DIO COMBINED. Notice that the above (like your entire post) is an unsubstantiated opinion with little relevance to the conversation. Yes, I agree, the free market (and god, and human kindness, and a zombie apocalypse) can come and solve all of our problems. Unfortunately the free market on paper doesn't take into account human nature. Government is the experiment which intends to bring the actual market somewhat closer to the IDEAL of a free market by mitigating the negative effects of human nature (like exploiting employees).
What? lol. This is the first time I've ever heard someone say the free-market (voluntary action, choice, and non-proviso Lockean homesteading principles) involve not taking into account human nature. In fact, it does take into account human nature, because by the very fact of economic principals (human action) it establishes economic maxims (for instance, law of diminishing marginal utility).
Government everywhere is the parasitic class of people who exploit and steal from the un-privileged, or if it helps you understand more - the taxpayer (who's not a net receiver of Government privilege or tax-monies). Yes, Franz Oppenheimer, that raging libertarian. Lol.
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On June 03 2013 11:18 aksfjh wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2013 11:05 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On June 03 2013 07:54 Sermokala wrote:On June 03 2013 07:19 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On June 03 2013 05:32 farvacola wrote:On June 03 2013 05:29 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On June 03 2013 02:14 silynxer wrote:
What do you mean by "add value" exactly and how do you measure it in this case? I propose an experiment, let's fire all cashiers and see how little "value" they add. Just replace with automated checkouts. Problem solved. Hardly. Check out this article, it covers the topic nicely. The long and short of it is that customers like to see people working. Automated self-checkout is appearing in more and more retail stores, with Walmart this year installing 10,000 self-service kiosks in hundreds of stores. But self-checkout is a technology direction with risks -- and even as Walmart moves ahead with its plan, other companies are already abandoning it.
Retailer Albertsons LLC, for instance, has already pulled its self-checkout systems, as did Big Y, a New England grocer. Ikea is moving to do the same thing.
At the heart of these reversals: Customer rejection.
Even so, stores like Walmart say automated self-checkout kiosks can increase customer convenience and choice. But what does a checkout kiosk system actually fix?
Vendors argue that having more checkout options means shorter lanes and speedier customer transactions. But there are concerns about the impact on jobs, since stores that roll out the technology can steer customers to self-checkout systems -- and cut back on human cashiers.
That later issue is a flash point. Walmart, jobs and the rise of self-service checkout tech Yes customers generally prefer seeing people - but not at any price. There are limits to how much people will pay for things, cashiers included. Costco would like a word with you on that point. Insert drunk anti free trade argument based on that the countries beifitng from free trade are the ones with a free- protectionist economic policy resulting in their quality of life going up and ours going down. Tbh target is the anti union company wal mart is just big enough not to give a shit about the protests. Costco would like to say what? They don't pay their workers infinite money. They have limits too. Their limits are higher because their business model can sustain it. And no, their business model isn't copyable across all retailers. Walmart is one of the most technologically advanced and efficient retailers on the planet and they still don't have much room to raise wages. That should say something about the value of bottom end retailing right there. ~2 million employees and $15-16 billion in profit. They have room to raise wages/compensation by $6-8 an hour per employee (at least) before they red-line it. Not that it's necessarily the smartest business decision or that every employee deserves a raise, but they do have the room for it. Related: A (highly opinionated) piece on Wal-Mart vs Costco
It's not in the ream of realism to go with zero profits.
Regardless, the $6-8 figure seems high...
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On June 03 2013 11:35 Ingsoc101 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2013 11:30 OuchyDathurts wrote:On June 03 2013 11:28 Ingsoc101 wrote:On June 03 2013 11:24 OuchyDathurts wrote:On June 03 2013 10:55 Ingsoc101 wrote:On June 03 2013 10:45 OuchyDathurts wrote:On June 03 2013 10:04 coverpunch wrote:On June 03 2013 10:01 Shiori wrote:On June 03 2013 09:09 coverpunch wrote:On June 03 2013 08:30 KwarK wrote:
[quote]
I'm talking purely hypotheticals here, not about Wal-Mart. My point is that given no government distortions and a surplus of labour the competition for jobs will depress wages to the minimum that someone will work for or the level at which further reduction reduces the productivity of the labourer. The minimum that someone will voluntarily work for can be assumed to be basic survival, if given a choice between working and eating and not working and not eating people will choose the former. At this point they have lost all control over their labour, their only remaining exit is death, while the profits of their labour are kept by those who exploit them. The fact that they choose to work each day does not change the fact that it is slavery, they choose it because they wish to continue to live. Cotton pickers chose to pick cotton rather than to rise up, a human body will not do anything the mind does not wish it to, but we still characterise the slavery of blacks in America as slavery because there was no reasonable alternative to the exploitation of their labour.
The free market could conceivably create a scenario in which workers lacked a reasonable alternative to the exploitation of their labour, the reason it does not is because of social improvements, government intervention and the threat of revolution. With competition between employers and the freedom to leave, a person should eventually get the equilibrium wage between what their productivity is worth. Is this before or after their malnourished corpse is exhumed? Does America have an obesity problem or not? You can do better than this. If people didn't have to eat garbage because their cripplingly low wages at Wal-mart forced them to work 2 or 3 terrible jobs maybe some of the obesity problem might go away? You expect people to eat well end exercise with no time or money? Also odds are if you're obese you're in-taking no actual nourishment. Just because you put matter into your face doesn't mean its nourishing at all. Again, here is the same fallacy that I hear repeated again and again. It just doesn't make sense. "I would drive a Ferrari if Bill Gates gave me a million dollars, but he doesn't, therefore Bill Gates stole my Ferrari." A logic that come only come from a pure entitlement mentality. wages that drive them to... Again, the wages don't drive them to anything. In the absence of employment, they would be even worse off. The wages are a gain, not a loss. So they should just apply to be doctors and make bank then huh? I mean they've got every option in the world for decent high paying jobs! The country is booming with them! You people can't have it both ways. You either pay people legitimate money so they aren't DRIVEN to completely insane activities like working multiple shit jobs. OR you have a massive welfare state that pays people legitimate money to sit on their ass. The choice is yours. What the fuck does "you people" mean? I don't give a fuck how much welfare you give people. Stop lumping me with straw men. My argument here is that you cannot blame capitalism for what is the natural order of life. And also that the concept of "wage slavery" is completely idiotic, for this reason among others.
You people, the right wingers and libertarians that espouse the free market, paying people slave wages and at the same time want to get rid of any societal safety nets.
"The natural order of life" went out the window when we formed civilized society. This shit isn't Darwinism anymore. The strong don't survive while the weak are left in the gutter to die.
"Wage slavery" is no more idiotic than the thought of true free market capitalism. It assumes so many things that given human nature can never actually be true. I've yet in all my years to hear a legitimate, well thought out argument for it that doesn't presuppose a million different things. Free market capitalism is akin to Thunderdome, I'm sorry, that shit doesn't fly in the real world in a civilized society. One that actually gives human life intrinsic value and dignity.
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On June 03 2013 11:40 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2013 11:18 aksfjh wrote:On June 03 2013 11:05 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On June 03 2013 07:54 Sermokala wrote:On June 03 2013 07:19 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On June 03 2013 05:32 farvacola wrote:On June 03 2013 05:29 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On June 03 2013 02:14 silynxer wrote:
What do you mean by "add value" exactly and how do you measure it in this case? I propose an experiment, let's fire all cashiers and see how little "value" they add. Just replace with automated checkouts. Problem solved. Hardly. Check out this article, it covers the topic nicely. The long and short of it is that customers like to see people working. Automated self-checkout is appearing in more and more retail stores, with Walmart this year installing 10,000 self-service kiosks in hundreds of stores. But self-checkout is a technology direction with risks -- and even as Walmart moves ahead with its plan, other companies are already abandoning it.
Retailer Albertsons LLC, for instance, has already pulled its self-checkout systems, as did Big Y, a New England grocer. Ikea is moving to do the same thing.
At the heart of these reversals: Customer rejection.
Even so, stores like Walmart say automated self-checkout kiosks can increase customer convenience and choice. But what does a checkout kiosk system actually fix?
Vendors argue that having more checkout options means shorter lanes and speedier customer transactions. But there are concerns about the impact on jobs, since stores that roll out the technology can steer customers to self-checkout systems -- and cut back on human cashiers.
That later issue is a flash point. Walmart, jobs and the rise of self-service checkout tech Yes customers generally prefer seeing people - but not at any price. There are limits to how much people will pay for things, cashiers included. Costco would like a word with you on that point. Insert drunk anti free trade argument based on that the countries beifitng from free trade are the ones with a free- protectionist economic policy resulting in their quality of life going up and ours going down. Tbh target is the anti union company wal mart is just big enough not to give a shit about the protests. Costco would like to say what? They don't pay their workers infinite money. They have limits too. Their limits are higher because their business model can sustain it. And no, their business model isn't copyable across all retailers. Walmart is one of the most technologically advanced and efficient retailers on the planet and they still don't have much room to raise wages. That should say something about the value of bottom end retailing right there. ~2 million employees and $15-16 billion in profit. They have room to raise wages/compensation by $6-8 an hour per employee (at least) before they red-line it. Not that it's necessarily the smartest business decision or that every employee deserves a raise, but they do have the room for it. Related: A (highly opinionated) piece on Wal-Mart vs Costco It's not in the ream of realism to go with zero profits. Regardless, the $6-8 figure seems high...
$6-$8 seems high because his numbers are way off. Costco's profit is just over a billion dollars. He's probably confusing profit with revenue, or something...
On June 03 2013 11:41 OuchyDathurts wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2013 11:35 Ingsoc101 wrote:On June 03 2013 11:30 OuchyDathurts wrote:On June 03 2013 11:28 Ingsoc101 wrote:On June 03 2013 11:24 OuchyDathurts wrote:On June 03 2013 10:55 Ingsoc101 wrote:On June 03 2013 10:45 OuchyDathurts wrote:On June 03 2013 10:04 coverpunch wrote:On June 03 2013 10:01 Shiori wrote:On June 03 2013 09:09 coverpunch wrote:
[quote]
With competition between employers and the freedom to leave, a person should eventually get the equilibrium wage between what their productivity is worth. Is this before or after their malnourished corpse is exhumed? Does America have an obesity problem or not? You can do better than this. If people didn't have to eat garbage because their cripplingly low wages at Wal-mart forced them to work 2 or 3 terrible jobs maybe some of the obesity problem might go away? You expect people to eat well end exercise with no time or money? Also odds are if you're obese you're in-taking no actual nourishment. Just because you put matter into your face doesn't mean its nourishing at all. Again, here is the same fallacy that I hear repeated again and again. It just doesn't make sense. "I would drive a Ferrari if Bill Gates gave me a million dollars, but he doesn't, therefore Bill Gates stole my Ferrari." A logic that come only come from a pure entitlement mentality. wages that drive them to... Again, the wages don't drive them to anything. In the absence of employment, they would be even worse off. The wages are a gain, not a loss. So they should just apply to be doctors and make bank then huh? I mean they've got every option in the world for decent high paying jobs! The country is booming with them! You people can't have it both ways. You either pay people legitimate money so they aren't DRIVEN to completely insane activities like working multiple shit jobs. OR you have a massive welfare state that pays people legitimate money to sit on their ass. The choice is yours. What the fuck does "you people" mean? I don't give a fuck how much welfare you give people. Stop lumping me with straw men. My argument here is that you cannot blame capitalism for what is the natural order of life. And also that the concept of "wage slavery" is completely idiotic, for this reason among others. You people, the right wingers and libertarians that espouse the free market, paying people slave wages and at the same time want to get rid of any societal safety nets. "The natural order of life" went out the window when we formed civilized society. This shit isn't Darwinism anymore. The strong don't survive while the weak are left in the gutter to die. "Wage slavery" is no more idiotic than the thought of true free market capitalism. It assumes so many things that given human nature can never actually be true. I've yet in all my years to hear a legitimate, well thought out argument for it that doesn't presuppose a million different things. Free market capitalism is akin to Thunderdome, I'm sorry, that shit doesn't fly in the real world in a civilized society. One that actually gives human life intrinsic value and dignity.
You are arguing against shit I've never even said. I don't have to be a right winger or a libertarian to understand what a free market actually is, and it cannot be defined as slavery by any stretch of the imagination, unless you are willing to admit that nearly all life on Earth is born into natural slavery. Which renders the argument idiotic.
I get that you want people to never have to worry about survival again. So support welfare. You can support welfare or redistribution without making idiotic arguments like "wage slavery."
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United States41938 Posts
On June 03 2013 11:26 Ingsoc101 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2013 11:20 KwarK wrote:On June 03 2013 10:40 Ingsoc101 wrote:
@Kwark
Yes, there is a significant difference between real slavery and so called "wage slavery." The difference is that one is created by the natural order of life, and the other is created by human institutions and laws. Humans can only be held responsible for the institutions they have created, not for the nature of nature.
Poverty is not a human construct, it is the natural order. None of us exit the womb with food, clothing, and a 401k. If you want to blame nature for the fact that you are forced to work in order to survive, go right ahead. Because that is true of every economic system in every country in the history of the world. It was true even in the time of cavemen. If cavemen didn't constantly work and struggle to survive, they would simply die. Who should the caveman blame for his condition? Who enslaved the caveman? Nature, not man. That is how the world works, it is the natural order.
Government sanctioned slavery, on the other hand, is completely different. We cannot change the natural order of existence, but we can change human institutions, laws, and so on. It is incredibly immoral to support a system where humans can own and abuse others with legal sanction.
"Wage slavery", on the other hand, is not abuse. And it is not abuse because in the absence of the job, the person would be even worse off. That is the missing point in the wage slavery argument. With a job, a person is always better off than without a job. Offering work to someone is helping someone, even if you don't like how much they are being helped. Even if you think they should be helped even more, it is still help. It is still mutual benefit. It is not the employer which has made the worker poor, it is the natural order of existence which has made him or her poor. Poverty is natural.
If you want to argue that we have a social right to help people survive now that we have the means to do so, that is fine. But that is completely different from blaming employers or capitalism itself for something that is a natural part of existence. And that is why comparing free markets with human slavery is not just stupid, it is offensive. What utter nonsense. Your argument goes as follows: 1) All humans are born naked and with no food on their plates and therefore that is their natural state 2) Hypothetical wage slavery will give them sufficient clothing and food to work 3) It is therefore beneficial and not slavery Actual slavery involved people who were born naked getting fed and clothed. Actual slavery, if you assume that without it blacks would be naked and hungry, is beneficial. Food and clothes do not define slavery, choice does. The free market could, under the right conditions if lacking safeguards, create an exploitative lack of choice comparable to slavery. Also to the others weighing in about obesity or Wal-Mart, my point is about unrestrained free markets in a world where private property is held as sacred (so stealing, looting, rioting doesn't happen when the population are exploited). Wow, you didn't even read my post. I can't respond to arguments I didn't actually make. Being forced to work is the natural order, therefore slavery cannot be defined as such. No, the free market cannot under any circumstances provide less choice than the absence of a free market. A free market is a series of voluntary opportunities. Again, if you want to blame something for that fact that many people have limited options due to poverty, you can only blame nature, which established poverty as the norm for all life on Earth.
A distorted market with minimum wages and safeguards within it can offer a labourer free time for education, money to save, the ability to better himself with his children, mobility to look for jobs, ultimately the option to look for the right job and not go hungry until he finds it. This provides an artificial safeguard for worker choice and that grants them protection from exploitation. Without government intervention a surplus of workers, such as that you would find in a city dependent upon an industry that went under, without skills or with skills that were no longer relevant would be left to starve. If at this point an employer offered to provide them with just enough food to survive and housed them in barracks in exchange for their labour that would be both a mutually beneficial trade and slavery. The choice of the workers to work under those conditions is not a meaningful choice when the alternative is starvation, they are forced by necessity to work for the profit of another in exchange for food and housing with their only escape route being death.
Again, back in old American slavery the slaves still had the choice to pick cotton or not. It's just that it was not a reasonable choice when one of them resulted in their death. The thing that amuses me the most about the free market religions demonisation of government is not that they all envision themselves on the top of their imagined pyramid, it's that without the government distorting the market the exploited masses will rise up and burn them in their mansions.
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Anyways, to begin with my point was that some jobs are shit. The government should be focused on helping to create better jobs via infrastructure, education, or whatever. I don't think that the government should be trying to turn shit jobs into gold via legislative alchemy.
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On June 03 2013 11:43 Ingsoc101 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2013 11:40 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On June 03 2013 11:18 aksfjh wrote:On June 03 2013 11:05 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On June 03 2013 07:54 Sermokala wrote:On June 03 2013 07:19 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On June 03 2013 05:32 farvacola wrote:On June 03 2013 05:29 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On June 03 2013 02:14 silynxer wrote:
What do you mean by "add value" exactly and how do you measure it in this case? I propose an experiment, let's fire all cashiers and see how little "value" they add. Just replace with automated checkouts. Problem solved. Hardly. Check out this article, it covers the topic nicely. The long and short of it is that customers like to see people working. Automated self-checkout is appearing in more and more retail stores, with Walmart this year installing 10,000 self-service kiosks in hundreds of stores. But self-checkout is a technology direction with risks -- and even as Walmart moves ahead with its plan, other companies are already abandoning it.
Retailer Albertsons LLC, for instance, has already pulled its self-checkout systems, as did Big Y, a New England grocer. Ikea is moving to do the same thing.
At the heart of these reversals: Customer rejection.
Even so, stores like Walmart say automated self-checkout kiosks can increase customer convenience and choice. But what does a checkout kiosk system actually fix?
Vendors argue that having more checkout options means shorter lanes and speedier customer transactions. But there are concerns about the impact on jobs, since stores that roll out the technology can steer customers to self-checkout systems -- and cut back on human cashiers.
That later issue is a flash point. Walmart, jobs and the rise of self-service checkout tech Yes customers generally prefer seeing people - but not at any price. There are limits to how much people will pay for things, cashiers included. Costco would like a word with you on that point. Insert drunk anti free trade argument based on that the countries beifitng from free trade are the ones with a free- protectionist economic policy resulting in their quality of life going up and ours going down. Tbh target is the anti union company wal mart is just big enough not to give a shit about the protests. Costco would like to say what? They don't pay their workers infinite money. They have limits too. Their limits are higher because their business model can sustain it. And no, their business model isn't copyable across all retailers. Walmart is one of the most technologically advanced and efficient retailers on the planet and they still don't have much room to raise wages. That should say something about the value of bottom end retailing right there. ~2 million employees and $15-16 billion in profit. They have room to raise wages/compensation by $6-8 an hour per employee (at least) before they red-line it. Not that it's necessarily the smartest business decision or that every employee deserves a raise, but they do have the room for it. Related: A (highly opinionated) piece on Wal-Mart vs Costco It's not in the ream of realism to go with zero profits. Regardless, the $6-8 figure seems high... $6-$8 seems high because his numbers are way off. Costco's profit is just over a billion dollars. He's probably confusing profit with revenue, or something...
I think he was using Walmart numbers. Though i could be wrong. I spent much of the day at a very liberal commencement ceremony so my brain is rather mush
Edit: Anyone else serve time at that lovely MSPP shindig?
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On June 03 2013 11:47 KwarK wrote:
The choice of the workers to work under those conditions is not a meaningful choice when the alternative is starvation
Focus on this statement very carefully, because this is where the fallacy lay.
In the absence of a market or their employer, what would their options be? It would still be work or starvation.
In other words, you are criticizing the market for something that is inherent and inevitable in existence. You cannot call wages slavery unless you are willing to admit that all life is born into slavery, rendering it useless as an argument against capitalism or free markets in particular.
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EPT
