31–40 of 67 posts
Further research into the wetness of water needed, but I'm sure these crack researchers can handle it.
> Self-employed adults tend to have the lowest scores That kind of surprised me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Certainly not with the baggage that words like "exploiting" and "extracting" carry. Capitalism is rooted in the idea of comparative advantage and gains from trade: I give you this, you give me that, and we're both better off than if we hadn't done it. Of course, that's the lofty, textbook ideal. Plenty of capital owners actually do want to extract and exploit. To me, that's not the intent of capitalism, but rather a…
What does "exploit" mean in this context? Are we just referring to pay market price for labor as "exploit" or is this about abusive bosses?
- Baiting a prospective employee with lies about the earning/advancement potential [illegal]
- Pressuring an employee to perform work off the clock (this is often done by setting performance standards that are unattainable without overtime work, while simultaneously "forbidding" overtime) [illegal]
- Using information you know about an employee (such as their inability to switch jobs because of personal circumstances) to low-ball their pay [not illegal, just sleazy]
- Manipulating the circumstances around incentive-based pay so that the employee performs the incentivized work but doesn't end up qualifying for the bonus [illegal, depending]
- Interfering with an employee's career growth/marketability so they won't be able to command higher pay [not illegal, just sleazy]
Edit: I suppose the theme here is seeking to capture more of the value of someone's labor in ways that undermine their ability to negotiate the best deal for themselves. It undermines the whole idea of people freely negotiating for a mutually beneficial relationship.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is that not presumed by capitalists as well? It appears to me the difference between the two lies in the expectations (Marxist: bad outcome; capitalist: good outcome) and the degree to which moral judgements adhere (ironically, the putative "scientific" Marxists seem more moralist than the capitalists).
Certainly not with the baggage that words like "exploiting" and "extracting" carry. Capitalism is rooted in the idea of comparative advantage and gains from trade: I give you this, you give me that, and we're both better off than if we hadn't done it. Of course, that's the lofty, textbook ideal. Plenty of capital owners actually do want to extract and exploit. To me, that's not the intent of capitalism, but rather a…
A fair deal is when both are better off by the same amount, which is not a typical situation with wage labor in capitalism. And a deal that isn't fair is an exploitative one.
Capitalism doesn't really have an "intent". It's just an economic system with unbounded private ownership of capital, hence the name. However, there are certain things that inherently follow from that notion, to wit: because the ability to extract economic rent is proportional to the amount of capital owned, all else being equal, past a certain amount of rent extracted there is a positive feedback loop. Or, simply put, large businesses - and their ultimate form, monopolies - are the natural outcome of capitalism. And since larger businesses have a higher imbalance of power wrt both their employees and their customers, it results in deals (for both products and labor) that are less and less fair - and thus more and more exploitative. Thus, capitalism is also inherently exploitative.
And you can certainly counter that by things like strong trade unions and rigorously enforced anti-trust legislation, but it's kinda like putting a motor on a boat that's rowing upstream - it helps, but why are you going in that direction in the first place?
Tempting to deduce that employing people will make you happier and wealthier: it wont. It will just kill your business faster and reduce the chance you show up in a Gallup poll as a business owner at all. People who have employees and haven’t yet gone out of business are likely to have a good product and business model. Having a good business model is likely to make you wealthier than not having yet found a good busi…
(Those bananas do exist)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could also fail completely if employed some people. Adding employees doesn’t necessarily equate with adding revenue, but 100% equates with adding cost. As a fellow solo business owner for 19 years (hi!) I’m sure you understand this, but few posters on this topic seem to to think that additional employee is a guaranteered profit. It’s especially dangerous when bad times come and you’re reluctant to lay off people.
Absolutely. My main product is an event seating planner (PerfectTablePlan) and my sales basically went to zero during the pandemic. So glad I didn't have any staff to pay/fire.