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On being the right size (1928)

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Re: On being the right size (1928)

#91

Post by VLM »

LekkoscPiwa wrote: post #77
k__ wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what seems logical, but most of the time the second thing will happen, because there are many people who think every job is better than no job. There are lesser jobs than people, so the companies have the bigger lever.

Before there was minimum wage established in the US there was this job of pump attendant. Pump attendant was someone who would pump your gas into your car. These were jobs that paid next to nothing. These jobs disappeared almost immediately after the minimal wage law was enacted. Now, think about it. A 16-year old would come to the gas station after school and pump gas for (let's say) 2usd/hour. But he would also lea…

One problem with the bootstrap argument is it ignores the pyramid. So there's 5 pump attendants and one of them has the brains, motivation, luck, family connections, whatever to get promoted to be the next $7 car mechanic. Well that's just awesome for that one kid... and what is your proposal for the other four, let them eat cake? Wait for the local version of "arab spring", let the cops shoot them, hire the next batch, repeat? Soylent Green?

"It's illegal to hire him, pay him and let him grow to better position."

That's ridiculous. Managers take chances on noobs all the time, especially at the lower levels.

"Again, the unemployment rate among the young is the highest among all group ages"

Hello Arab Spring, coming soon to a failed state near you. Historically a graph with a y-axis of "desperate angry unemployed young men" tends to peak around revolutions and upheavals. The future is on a path that is aimed much more toward France in the 1790s than USA in the 1950s. There are probably startup implications to this trend toward inequality for awhile, then revolution.

Re: On being the right size (1928)

#92

Post by yaakov34 »

bcoates wrote: post #33
breakyerself wrote: post #13

This is really an argument against socialism as the communists tried to implement it. Where the state nationalizes every industry and all workers become employed by the state which plans everything centrally. Most socialists have moved beyond that model and would instead prefer to see a system of enterprise that uses co-op's instead of privately or publicly owned business. Some industries would probably be nationaliz…

> If the workers decided these things they would never vote to outsource their own jobs This implies they would be making the wrong decisions then, no? There needs to be some mechanism to decide who does what, or otherwise some goods and services will be produced in proportions well exceeding any possible demand. > The main idea is to make the enterprises benefit those who do the actual work and also make them accoun…

I agree, and you don't even need China in this analogy. Suppose that 5 of the best blacksmiths leave the blacksmith cooperative and start producing custom-made nails for less than the old blacksmith coop, which by the way is now missing their best people. What happens when they take over the market? Will the now-jobless blacksmiths be accepted as members of other cooperatives with full rights, or do they need to sell their labor in the market for whatever someone is willing to pay? The only way so far found to preserve socialist principles in this situation is with regulation which prevents free economic choice - the bootmakers don't get to choose whose nails they buy, you can't quit your job with five of your friends and start a competing concern, and you don't get control over who you let into your cooperative. But having removed this right to dispose of the results of one's own labor (I am not even talking about hired labor), we've created a state-run society in practice if not in theory.

Re: On being the right size (1928)

#93

Post by mrow84 »

philwelch wrote: post #54
guelo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny you mention Germany there at the end since it undermines your whole argument. German auto workers are all unionized and they earn double what American auto workers do.

German unions also own stock and sit on the board of their employers, which is the real difference. American unions are much more parasitic as they have zero vested interest in the hosts they infest.

Do the American unions eschew financial interests in their employers out of choice?

Re: On being the right size (1928)

#94

Post by drjesusphd »

gabemart wrote: post #64
breakyerself wrote: post #13

This is really an argument against socialism as the communists tried to implement it. Where the state nationalizes every industry and all workers become employed by the state which plans everything centrally. Most socialists have moved beyond that model and would instead prefer to see a system of enterprise that uses co-op's instead of privately or publicly owned business. Some industries would probably be nationaliz…

What's to stop the type of co-op based company you describe becoming popular in the current market system?

Depends on the particular market and how bloated it's gotten.

Note the recent surge in credit unions.

Re: On being the right size (1928)

#96

Post by LekkoscPiwa »

VLM wrote: post #91
LekkoscPiwa wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before there was minimum wage established in the US there was this job of pump attendant. Pump attendant was someone who would pump your gas into your car. These were jobs that paid next to nothing. These jobs disappeared almost immediately after the minimal wage law was enacted. Now, think about it. A 16-year old would come to the gas station after school and pump gas for (let's say) 2usd/hour. But he would also lea…

One problem with the bootstrap argument is it ignores the pyramid. So there's 5 pump attendants and one of them has the brains, motivation, luck, family connections, whatever to get promoted to be the next $7 car mechanic. Well that's just awesome for that one kid... and what is your proposal for the other four, let them eat cake? Wait for the local version of "arab spring", let the cops shoot them, hire the next bat…

> So there's 5 pump attendants and one of them has the brains, motivation, luck, family connections, whatever to get promoted to be the next $7 car mechanic.

They all move on. Not necessarily to become car mechanics. The other one could be helping at the cash register at times, yet another one help to put merchandise on the shelves. Yet another one hand-wash cars. The fallacy of socialism is pointed out by you exactly: you think that 80% of people (4 out of 5) are idiots who can't do better in life and need the Government protection. Then Government comes along introduces a law that makes 80% of them unemployed, hence the proof that more Government in needed!

> "It's illegal to hire him, pay him and let him grow to better position." > That's ridiculous. Managers take chances on noobs all the time, especially at the lower levels.

It gets better than that. There are free internships. You can get them for free - 0usd per hour, you can get them for 7usd/hr. But to give them employment at market price? Illegal! Genius!

>"Again, the unemployment rate among the young is the highest among all group ages" >Hello Arab Spring, coming soon to a failed state near you.

Like Spain. Or Greece. Or some other place where socialists Governed for the past 50 years. Like... failed arabian states. Learn your history. They all have been socialist. That's why failing. From Saddam to Mubarak.

>Historically a graph with a y-axis of "desperate angry unemployed young men" tends to peak around revolutions and upheavals. The future is on a path that is aimed much more toward France in the 1790s than USA in the 1950s. There are probably startup implications to this trend toward inequality for awhile, then revolution.

Well, yeah. Guess what. If you forbid people to work, and kill businesses (places where they go to work), all you will end up with is violence.

Re: On being the right size (1928)

#97

Post by VLM »

gnarbarian wrote: post #72
lmm wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Now, foreign companies produce many of their cars in the united states with union free labor and american companies have started producing cars in mexico so they can pay the pensions for all the retired union employees. Toyota's plants are UAW who makes the same demands as they do to GM. It's management that failed the US car industry, not the unions.

ehh, I can't find anything about this other than the following article from last year: "While the UAW continues to represent Detroit’s Big Three manufacturers, it has all but completely failed to gain representation rights for the so-called transplant lines now run by virtually all the major foreign-owned automakers, from BMW to Toyota to Volkswagen. " http://www.nbcnews.com/business/foreign-automakers-stubbornl...

He's probably thinking of the JAW Japanese auto workers union or the internal-ish toyota union TMWUI or whatever its called in English. Lets think about it, the Japanese unions bargain with a healthier company therefore get a better deal than the UAW gets from the failing companies in Detroit, and Japanese management as a class is superior to American management as a class (just look at the financials?), therefore they keep the unions out in their transplant plants by offering a deal roughly as good as the union deals in Japan. The transplant workers know they'll get a better deal by piggy backing on the JAW workers offer and the transplant management knows keeping the workers slightly better off than they could possibly get under the UAW will keep a lot of hassle out of the plant. So pretty much everyone wins except the JAW and Toyota MotorWorkers Union (or whatever they're called) because everyone in the USA is piggy backing on their bargaining skills.

So there's two forbidden topics that can't be discussed in contemporary American culture which make it really weird when Americans try to talk about the topic, one that management is simply superior at Toyota (It is a much more successful company... wonder why? Hint its not the nuclear radiation, and management holds final responsibility always) and secondly the UAW is failing their members because the JAW can get a better deal (admittedly its easier to get a better deal when the company is successful, not failing). If you censor the forbidden topics from the discussion in the mass media, you get really weird, illogical stories and discussion.

One really weird thing you see is intentionally mixing apples and oranges to get a political outcome. So the UAW has bargained away salaries such that starting is now like $14/hr at a UAW plant, you can do better at a Toyota transplant which averages in the upper 20s. However if you carefully compare faked up total compensation of $73/hr counting all benefits and retiree amortized expenses and taxes and everything, then it looks like Toyota employees are only getting about 1/3 the pay of a UAW employee. Of course the takehome pay on a paycheck for a new Toyota employee is WAY higher than the takehome pay of a new UAW employee and will remain at that ratio, more or less, for the rest of that noobs career (or until GM finally goes out of business or gets bought out)

Re: On being the right size (1928)

#98

Post by forkandwait »

The Hutterites have been living communally for about 400 years (I think), and have evolved an ideal size for a "colony" of about 90 people. At about 110 they start getting ready to "hive off". Colonies have been very successful, often pissing off the less organized (and less successful) locals.

http://www.hutterites.org/day-to-day/structure/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutterite

While similar in ways to Amish, Hutterites rather like new technology and put it to good use on their farms.

Re: On being the right size (1928)

#99

Post by pron »

forkandwait wrote: post #98

The Hutterites have been living communally for about 400 years (I think), and have evolved an ideal size for a "colony" of about 90 people. At about 110 they start getting ready to "hive off". Colonies have been very successful, often pissing off the less organized (and less successful) locals. http://www.hutterites.org/day-to-day/structure/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutterite While similar in ways to Amish, Hutte…

Another interesting read is the rise and fall of the Kibbutz, possibly the most famous form of a commune.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz

Re: On being the right size (1928)

#100

Post by Flenser »

cstross wrote: post #74

There seems to be a chunk missing in the third paragraph: Or it can compress its body and stretch out its [???] these two beasts because they happen to belong to the same order as the gazelle

" legs obliquely to gain stability, like the giraffe. I mention "

https://www.marxists.org/archive/haldane/works/1920s/right-s...

There are no other differences with that version.

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