121–130 of 210 posts
The initial response was some grumbling about unionization of the doctor-class. But now they're just kinda going along with it while also complaining loudly. Profit Über alles.
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This was the Luddites’ position. Organised labour should one again take up this principled position. Join a trade union!
Do you really want a return to the days when "women's work" was spending every free moment spinning and weaving cloth by hand? When cloth was so valuable there was a profession called "rag pickers"? Where new clothes were rare, hand me downs were the usual, and people wore clothes until they disintegrated? And poor people made clothes out of flour sacks?
What if you don't and they stay?
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That’s not what the Luddites wanted. They praised the technology itself and recognised it would save a lot of time. But they also recognised that they the workers wouldn’t reap any of those benefits, they’d just lose their jobs. Do you really think capitalists would choose to shorten the working day with no loss of pay as productivity increases? If so, you are incredibly naive.
The workers did reap the benefits. The Law of Supply and Demand ensures it. 1.1% of the US labor force works at minimum wage jobs. When wages are raised by the government, job losses happen. 16,000 to 36,000 people lost their jobs when California raised the minimum wage for fast food workers. > Do you really think capitalists would choose to shorten the working day with no loss of pay as productivity increases? Durin…
This hasn't been true for at least two decades. Employee compensation severely lags productivity increases, and the capital class captures the entirety of the benefit of that lag.
The more productive a worker is, the more they get paid, as such workers are more in demand.
No. If that were true CEOs and VCs would get paid pennies, and most software programmers would get paid close to minimum wage today (programs are slower and buggier than they were 20 years ago despite having 100x or more increase in hardware resources and offering the same or reduced functionality).
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Now include profit (surplus) in your analysis. Wage grow has not kept pace with corporate profitability. Why?
Because the correct comparison would be with total compensation, of which wages are only a portion. Total compensation is the costs to an employer to hire some one. It includes: 1. contributions to retirement plans 2. so-called "employer paid" social security contributions 3. sick and paid vacation days 4. employer paid health insurance 5. stock plans 6. 401k plans 7. other payroll taxes Last time I checked, these of…
It's like saying, a CEO gets a housing allowance and travel allowance and can expense most of their meals, so the entry level worker is doing okay.
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There are _other options_! You're argument is that the only two alternatives are that the ruling class and owning class be separate groups of people, or the same group of people. And either way the labor class if F'ed. You're right that having the ruling class and the owning class being the _same people_ is terrible. That's what we're living in right now! But what about the labor class being the owning class? What if…
> But what about the labor class being the owning class? What if Amazon was owned by the people who work at Amazon? Instead of Bezos? I wonder how many people who repeat things like this know that Bezos owns less than 10% of Amazon. About 2/3rds of Amazon is owned by institutional investors, much of which is in turn owned by individuals in their 401ks and other retirement plans. So "the people" own more of Amazon tha…
If warehouse workers want better conditions they have to solve a national coordination problem without getting crushed. If Bezos wants their working conditions to be more efficient he has to write a memo.
Edit: to connect this back to ownership. This disparity is directly responsible for determining whether profits pay fair wages or got to Bezos and the other owners.
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With all due respect, and I mean that sincerely as you've accomplished far more than I have, you aren't here for debate. Your viewpoint is stuck in the cold war mentality where Soviet communism was a failure (it did, but that doesn't mean that everything they touched was bad) and America and its brand of Free Market capitalism is perfect (it isn't) and responding to your comments is like talking to a brick wall for a…
All attempts at communism failed. Did you know that there have historically been 20,000 communes founded in the US? I wonder what happened to them! I never said American free markets were perfect. They certainly aren't. But they are very successful. > responding to your comments is like talking to a brick wall I could say the same of the people I respond to! I don't expect to change anyone's mind here. The average st…
Communism as a pure failure is literally propaganda, but I don't have time to cover the full comparative history of economic development under capitalism and socialism in a comment. All human projects have flaws and it's hard to compare them if you don't get into the nitty-gritty of both the successes and failures.
What if we train them and they leave? What if you don't and they stay?
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But startups are worker-owned, insofar as the founders are able to profit from it.
Some startups are worker-owned through stock grants, but those grants are rarely evenly distributed. The founders hold the majority as long as they can. It is a good practice for companies to include stock as part of the pay package. It encourages alignment of the company with the employees. Very, very successful companies follow this model, such as Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google, etc.
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I lived through the gas shortages. I remember the day the gas lines ended. They never returned in the 45 years since, despite all sorts of wars and global crises and exploding oil refineries and Hooties shooting at tankers. All gone literally overnight with the stroke of Reagan's pen. The gas shortages never existed before Nixon imposed price and allocation controls on gas, either. (Except during WW2, where gas short…
Well first, we have this: > The Jimmy Carter administration began a phased deregulation of oil prices on April 5, 1979, when the average price of crude oil was US$15.85 per barrel ($100/m3). So, the process wasn't really an instant wave of a wand, or stroke of a pen. We also have this: > Starting with the Iranian revolution, the price of crude oil rose to $39.50 per barrel ($248/m3) over the next 12 months (its all-t…
From "The U.S. Petroleum Crisis of 1979", PHILIP K. VERLEGER, JR. Here are some examples of problems that were identified:
>...On February 28, 1979, DOE published the following notice in the Federal Register: "It is essential that refiners enter the spring driving season with adequate gasoline stocks to meet seasonal demand requirements. We recognize that gasoline stocks are currently at adequate levels for this time of year, which is usually a period of low demand. Recent industry data indicate that total stocks are now in excess of 265 million barrels, which is less than last year's record high levels during the same period but above the average levels of previous years. Our concern is that these stocks not be drawn down precipitously as soon as the impacts of the Iranian shortfall are felt by refiners. Refiners are urged to keep stocks high enough to meet expected demand during the 1979 summer driving season, even if it is necessary to restrict somewhat the amount of surplus gasoline that is made available to purchasers currently" The implementation of these instructions had the effect of restricting the volume of gasoline available to service stations to between 80 and 90 percent of 1978 levels. This reduction was greater than the reduction in total gasoline supplies.
>...In April 1979, DOE ordered the fifteen largest refiners to sell 7.8 million barrels of crude oil to smaller firms that were unable to obtain supplies on the world market at competitive prices. …These transfers probably reduced the volume of gasoline produced in the second quarter because the refineries that purchased the crude oil had only a limited capacity to produce gasoline, while the refineries that sold it could have produced more. ...In addition to reducing the supply of gasoline, the buy/sell program appears to have affected the geographic distribution of crude oil and gasoline. This is because the primary recipients of the crude oil were refineries in the Midwest and the gulf coast areas, while the sellers were companies that were marketing throughout the nation.
>...…In April, DOE turned its attention to the low stock of distillate fuel oil … Two impacts were observed on domestic markets. First, excessive stocks of heating oil were accumulated. Second, companies may have been influenced to increase gasoline stocks in anticipation of the mandator yield controls that DOE threatened to impose.
>...Price controls on gasoline may have also created an incentive to withhold gasoline from the market when the prices of crude oil were rising rapidly. …In summary, the refiners had the capacity and the knowledge to take advantage of this opportunity. Ironically, the instructions from DOE to the companies were to do precisely what was most profitable.
>...In addition to encouraging the buildup of stocks, DOE may have added to the shortages by creating an incentive to reduce the output of crude oil. Although it is difficult to estimate what domestic supplies of crude oil might have been in the absence of any restriction, a DOE announcement in November that control levels of the base period were to be reviewed may have constrained production in the first half of 1979.