For Those Who Put Faith in Big Business
- Sooner28posted 10 years ago
0http://abcnews.go.com/US/eleven-stores- … b9Q0vmUQ4p
This is what would happen without regulation of business (whether in an anarchist society by exile or completely shutting down something like this), or in a democracy (where the government steps in and regulates).
7-11 was able to run wild over their workers. 100 hours a week, less than minimum wage, fake identities. Situations like this are exactly what life was like for most workers before the government stepped in and stopped this kind of abuse. Those of who you want the government to "get out of the way" want to replace one master for another. It's not freedom to let an employer steal the majority of your time while getting rich off of your labor.I wonder how many of the managers exploiting illegal labour were amongst those bemoaning the negative impact that illegal labour might have on your country?
Well Big Business generally doesn't want to deport "illegal immigrants," because they are cheap labor. Bush pretty much said this outright, when he claimed they do the jobs Americans don't wanna do. He just left out the fact they are not paid well and there are no protections for them when it comes to dealing with these big businesses.
It would be interesting to know where the franchise owners come from. This seems to happen a lot in the UK but is normally associated within immigrant cultures.
This has been going on for years throughout the country. Remember the Swift meat packing raid that turned up to 1300 illegal workers in 2006? They just went about their business and hardly lost a day of production as more raids turned up more illegal workers with fake ID's. The hiring of these people drives down our standard of living for those who still try to make an honest living. Walmart makes billions of dollars by using overseas sweatshops to produce the products we demand to be low cost and by the way in many cases substandard.
To try and make the government crack down on these practices by big business there has to be a soul check by the American public. Are we satisfied in buying these products as long as we get what we want or are we so lacking in moral turpitude as to not even give it a passing thought?Its like being caged with a hungry leopard and believing that it won't 'scratch' you. Under Capitalism, between the pressures of technology and going abroad to obtain labor, the American worker is doomed.
The only thing keeping big business from running off with the store is government regulation as the needs of the big business and the needs of the employee(labor) have never been so far apart.
The conservatives spend a lot of energy resisting Obama's attempt to retool and retrain the American workforce to remain productive enough to overcome the disadvantage of having so many from other countries willing to work for less. If we are to survive longterm, short term thinking will not do, invest now in our people to prepare them for the kinds of jobs that need to be filled in the future.
Is it a revisit of slavery or perhaps feudalism?Just another of the billions of examples we have ranging from the industrial revolutions abuses of workers to the complete destruction of so many species and areas in the modern era that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that business cannot self regulate.
Interestingly, this is a common occurrence in labor unions. They hire illegals and the BA's cash the illegal's checks for a large cut of their wages.
Corruption exists everywhere, but let us not forget that these businesses and unions are taking advantage of CRIMINALS. No innocent folks getting conned here.
Arguing for less regulation on business is not an argument for slavery - stealing wages is involuntary servitude and does not represent free-enterprise in any way.
But a way to combat this is to open the borders and get rid of citizen-benefits. There will then be less people for anybody to exploit in this way.
Again, a problem with 'capitalism' that would be solved if government wasn't involved
I think capitalism is a utopian pipe dream. It hasn't worked out on paper the way the theoreticians had hoped. Sound familiar?
There is no mechanism to stop employee abuse. Before the government regulated wages and hours, people were forced to work 100 hours a week and paid barely enough to even survive. Children also would work, and many of them would even die.
As a serious question, how do you handle abuses like that without government, or a small community, to step in and stop it? The market doesn't provide an adequate mechanism because the market didn't prevent it in the past when there was no government regulation on wages and hours, so there is no reason to believe the market would do any better now, especially with globalism now integrated into our world.
The idea was tested, and failed.Good question, Sooner I am anxious to have an explanation provided on the question you pose. I still fail to see how anyone can believe that the invisible hand of the free market will correct all? That hand is slapping American labor across the face. We have the past as a example of how unregulated Capitalism can debase a society.
Why is the right telling me that the free market is any less ruthless today than it was before FDR?. This appears to be what they want to return to, too much Government regulation they say, but I say that there is still not enough in most areas of concern.
How do conservatives propose to solve the problems outside of handing Thurston Howell an even larger bag of our tax money, hoping that he will invest in the economy, instead of just lining his pockets?.
Let's face it, the Horatio Alger stuff from conservatives simply does not wash in todays economic climate. It is just more 19th century thinking....Free will is the mechanism that prevents employee abuse. In this situation, it is the US government violently preventing equality.
There needs to be competition for workers, and legislation that states that workers that reside in the US have to have a certain wage, have ID, etc. reduces the competition considerably. There is great incentive for businesses to try and hire illegals seeing as they cost less, and they are, on balance, more desperate for work and will accept lower wages. Particularly vindictive business owners will have no incentive against abusing them because the illegals have no choice but to accept it. If, on the other hand, immigrants were allowed to enter the country and associate with whom they wish, they would have a lot more choice. Businesses would then have to compete for the best labour rather than the most desperate.
Back during the industrial revolution, it was a cooperation between the unions and the entrepreneurs that reduced the number of hours work a week, because it was mutually beneficial. It turned out that it was actually beneficial to production and therefore profit, long-term, if the workers weren't completely shattered after a few weeks work. It is also beneficial to the business not to have poor working conditions, otherwise they would just leave. The accumulation of capital allowed for investment, and therefore more jobs, so this can only get better the longer it goes on. The proof is in the pudding: for example, deaths in the work-place were on a downward curve long before any large-scale regulatory program was put in. Average wage for most industries followed a similar curve.
How is this possible without regulation? What explanation can you give for this phenomena if you reject that it is in the market's interest to have it done?You're missing out on a major part of economic theory - the correlation between demand and supply.
Flood the labor market with illegals, providing far more supply of labor than can be used, and the price of labor goes down. Without the need to compete for labor (and that is necessary, just as you say), the wages being offered will not go up, but will inevitably go down.
We already see this in many parts of the country; those areas allowing large numbers of illegal aliens to work and live also see a large drop in wages being paid for any of the jobs being given to the illegals. It really is basic economics.This actually wouldn't be a problem if citizen workers weren't guaranteed a particular wage, job-seekers allowance and various other benefits. This, in effect, reduces the supply of workers and in turn increases the price. Without them, opening the borders would equalise the market, and then we can see the true wage level. The market would then take as much labour as it can handle, and the best.
If wages go down, they go down, but they would at least represent every worker's worth to the economy. The only reason businesses are taking the risk of hiring illegals is that hiring citizens is too expensive. So perhaps wages do need to go down - or at least get rid of minimum wage so that low-productivity labour can come back into the market.Yes lets all be like third world countries where people die young, where people don't have a proper roof over their head nor decent food in their belly.
I thought you were a libertarian, not a fascist.Did you know, we actually believe in the same things, except you believe that these things should be achieved through aggressive violence and I do not?
No, you believe that people should be paid what the employers think they are worth (what they can get away with)
In a sense. I believe people should be paid the market price for their labour. Any aggression against that is simply another form of price fixing, and can have as disastrous affects on the market as any other kind of price fixing.
And if the market price for labour was set at zero?
That's the market rate. Of course nobody would work for it and a lot of people would starve to death.
It was a hypothetical question.So as no one would work for Zero wouldn't business have to start the spiral of wages to entice workers?
OK, you tell me what the market rate for labour is if you don't agree that it is the least that employers think they can get away with?
The most the employee can get away with?
In general the two are one and the same...And yet...employers pay and employees get paid. The identical amount no less.
When that happens, how can they be worlds apart?Because generally the system does not work as a free market. Government intervention precludes that except in areas with no government set minimum wage and where wages are nowhere near what the employee might find acceptable.
No, generally (and that means more than half, not just a big number!) wage is set by mutual agreement between worker and employer. Minimum wage jobs are the minority, not the general case.
It is true that the tide swings one way, giving advantage to one side, but it always swings back, too. I've lived long enough, and so have you, to see it both ways; an employers market and an employees market where employees can ask nearly anything and get it.An employees market only existed when there was more jobs than there where people to do them. That state of affairs is unlikely to return.
Certainly n the UK jobs where the minimum rate applies are the majority of jobs where there is too much competition for the jobs.I expect it to return to the US. At least if we come to our senses and close the borders to illegals - every time the jobs open up so does the flood of illegal workers, depressing the price of those jobs.
Part of the reason I say that is that few jobs actually only pay minimum wage in the US. Even such traditional jobs as McDonalds are very often above that and as soon as you get above the non-skilled jobs the pay is slowly rising once more. I don't have numbers, but I would be very surprised if more than 10% of jobs pay only the minimum and a great deal of those are temporary. Farm work and such - very often filled by illegals because they don't pay enough for a citizen to live on and the country is increasingly limiting what even older children can do in the job market.You must remember though that the minimum wage in the US is equal to less than £5 and although the cost of living in the US is cheaper, it's not that much cheaper for the basics. Very few people could live on the minimum US wage.
I doubt if full employment will ever return.I disagree. A single person (and minimum wage jobs were never intended for a family) can live reasonably on minimum wage...IF housing costs are kept low. A rented room in someone's home, perhaps, or an apartment or house with several roommates. There won't be much, if anything, in the way of luxuries - a junker car, no smart phone, no big screen TV with satellite reception, etc. but it can be done.
And I don't have a problem with this. It's an entry level wage, sufficient to survive on plus a small amount more - what an entry level worker should expect. If they want more, gain some skills, pick up more work, whatever it takes.
The problem is when a family earner is forced into that position, and the recession has caused that in far, far too many cases. Those people are in real trouble and need real help - help that is all too often going to illegals, going to buying cell phones for people too lazy to work, going to food stamps and rent assistance for people that don't truly need them.
So there is nothing wrong with a minimum wage job, but there is an awful lot wrong with the US welfare system. Which, I know, is another topic entirely.Lots of UK families where the main breadwinner is on minimum wage.
And as for people too "lazy" to work, well think of the problems if they wanted to work? Wages would be even lower.
But as you say, welfare is another topic entirely - and one of the worst elements of capitalism.Welfare is purely a socialist idea John and you know it.
In this country our social security and NHS is run an a socialist basis.
But as you say welfare is another issue all together, just like immigration and its affect on wages and benefits.No, no, no, unemployment benefit especially and welfare generally is not a socialist idea - with true socialism none would be needed. With socialism everybody works unless they are unable to.
Do a little research into the foundations of unemployment benefits in this country and then explain to me why, if it was socialist idea, the socialist fought tooth and nail against it, only very grudgingly agreeing to support it at the eleventh hour.It was brought in by Lloyd George, probably the most socialist prime minister the country has ever had despite being a Liberal MP..
I would love to know how socialism would give us full employment?A liberal, the most socialist!
You jest.
Simply put, socialism would provide full employment by sharing out the work - not having one man work an 80 hour week and another do nothing.Assuming that business is not so stupid as to drive their costs up by hiring more people, that it is cheaper to work people overtime than it is to hire additional people, who pays the extra cost? Society as a whole via higher product prices?
What happens when the cost is driven higher than people are willing to pay? Just shut down that business and create more unemployment? Or pretend it won't happen 'cause we don't want it to? Hope that government will subsidize as necessary from the tax base?Stop thinking like a capitalist!
Only a capitalist business would drive their costs up by hiring more people and we are talking socialism, not capitalism.As usual, I failed in producing a clear post.
There are times, fairly frequent, where it is cheaper to pay overtime wages than to hire additional people. If socialism demands the extra people anyway, in order to "spread the wealth" of having a job, the product cost goes up. Who pays that cost?Stop thinking like a capitalist.
The product cost only goes up to maintain profits, take profit out of the equation and there is no "extra cost" to pay.Not so. Whether there is X profit built into the price or not, increasing costs by hiring additional unneeded people won't change that. If it is built in, it is still built in. If it is not, the price must still go up to cover costs. Unless govt. is going to subsidize it somehow.
Socialist, capitalist, communist - it doesn't matter what the basic system, when costs go up price goes up as well whether paid by the consumer, government or other entity.Stop thinking like a capitalist.
Prices are a product of a capitalist system.
And anyway, who was talking about hiring unneeded people any way? It's purely capitalism that labels people as unneeded.No, prices are not a function of a capitalist system. Prices, whether charged or subsidized, are a function of the cost of production. You can try to hide real prices by having tax receipts cover the cost, but actual price is still there and is a direct result of costs.
If 5 people can make a car but 10 are used, with no increase in productivity, then 5 are unneeded to produce the car. You can't change the results of physics, John, only the politics of economics. While it could be advantageous to pay the extra 5 people to produce nothing (doubtful, but possible in a political world) that has nothing to do with need from a production standpoint.The cost of production is capitalist!
If five people can make a car in 100 hours then so can ten people make a car in one hundred hours, it just means that the five will have to work for 20 hours whilst the ten will only have to work for ten hours!Absolutely true. And the car can be exchanged for the fruits of 100 hours of labor in producing food. Food sufficient for 5 to eat on - what do the other 5 eat?
Which is better for society as a whole - low productivity rates or high? Which one produces a higher standard of living? Is society better off when everyone works half time, or will everyone have more when the vast majority works full time?Stop thinking like a capitalist.
Who says that the labour input into the car can only be exchanged for a similar input of labour in producing food?
With capitalism the vast majority will never work full time again!
With socialism all those who are capable of work will work, no people laid off to keep wages low or to keep inflation down - both products of the capitalist system.
But what is full time? Is it every waking hour, or long enough to cover needs and a few wants?But I like thinking like a capitalist - it's the best system for producing the most goods for the most people.
If you don't want to exchange your car for food, pick something else. 5 cell phones, maybe. It doesn't matter in the least - the point I'm making is quite clear. When 10 people are utilized to produce goods that 5 can do, society suffers. Including all 10 people doing the production.
Ignoring those few that can't work or that are intentionally between jobs, capitalism does a better job of producing at higher rates than any other system in the world. It's human nature - be compensated for your labor or don't work as hard. It also produces more per person, too, rather negating the idea that we should hire more people that aren't needed to do the job.
Full time - I took your numbers as I'm happy with them. 40 hours per week. Some time off for holidays, vacations, etc. I understand that the number is lower in socialistic countries, and that's fine for societies that don't want as much. I prefer to work more and have more - in general that means the longer weeks.How does it benefit society to have five people overworking and five people not working and getting up to no good when you could share the work out more fairly?
And how much of this excess produced by capitalism just goes straight to waste? We hear about grain mountains in almost the same breath that we hear about starvation. And do families really need more cars than they have people to drive them?
Capitalism no longer offers full employment and hasn't done for many years now and that is allowing for those unable to work or between jobs.
And it's fine for you who wants to work more to have more, what about those who don't have that choice, work all the time they can and still have insufficient?Because the extra, unneeded 5 workers never get into the car factory and therefore go make cell phones. Now you have both cell phones AND cars; as many as if all 10 people were doing only one job.
Some indeed goes to waste. Every time govt. sticks its stupid nose into the equation and tries to regulate free enterprise. For the grain; it would only happen one year without govt. subsidies; the second year the granary that stockpiled it would be out of business and so would the farmer growing the grain. No more surplus.
No country in the world offers 100% employment except maybe pure communism. Personally, I expect some unemployment and am OK with it; it's how the free market corrects "mistakes" like overproduction or poor business practices such as hiring too many people in the first place.
Capitalism isn't about the individual; it's about the society as a whole. Which is why society has more per capita than socialism; it is a more efficient system on the whole. Individuals suffer (which is why we have welfare) but the standard of living is higher on the whole.Why not use that surplus grain for feeding the hungry rather than stockpiling it to inflate the price for the shareholders benefit?
Can't see that it increases the income of shareholders at all; either way the govt. buys it. Whether they let it sit and rot or give it away to someone that can't buy any at any price doesn't matter to a shareholder. You'll have to ask the politicians that caused the problem in the first place for an answer to that one.
There is probably some small justification in using it to stabilize the price so the farmer isn't rich one year and broke the next, but in reality I strongly suspect that is not truly behind the practice. It makes a good excuse for the gullible, but that's about it.Of course artificially restricting the supply of grain benefits the shareholders (or commodity brokers) why else do they do it? And government involvement is just more private profit and public loss.
And giving it away to somebody who can't buy it at any price is another example of capitalism.
Do you think the capitalist politicians would give me straight answer?
Only because of capitalism would you have the situation where a farmer was rich one year and broke the next.Politicians produce surplus, you just have to look at the EU CAP to see that .
As for car production take a look at the old communist countries, the Trabant was a huge success wasn't it.
Socialism is more about control than capitalism ever was.No, farmers produce surpluses, commodity brokers produce mountains. Politician just play around the edges looking after their own.
The communist countries weren't socialist, they were capitalist, only instead of private profits they engendered profit for the state.
Capitalism is all about control by the few, socialism is about control by everybody.Please explain how socialism is controlled by everybody?
Surely the whole world would have to be socialist?Quite simply, you don't have an elite telling the rest how to behave. With your anti EU stance I thought that would rather appeal to you.
It would be better if the whole world were socialist but by no means necessary.Very naive of you John to think there wouldn't be a socialist elite.
If there was an elite then it wouldn't be a socialist system.
So nobody would be in charge then. Chaos ensues...............
So chaos still ensues then..................
So hang on, it sounds to me like you've started to support the EU! After all they are big central and distant from the people, and you reckon small and local would result in chaos!
The EU is full of bureaucrats fed on socialist principles. (sounds like we are back where we started John)
I am all in favour of democratically elected representative but that's not what we have is it.Don't fall into the trap beloved of our US friends of labelling everything they disagree with as socialist.
i didn't but i will call a socialist a socialist even if they call themselves something else.
I didn't disagree with joining the EEC but the EU isn't that any more is it?Have you ever considered that the reason they don't call themselves socialists is because they aren't socialists?
The party of European socialists hold 217 seats with other leftist parties holding another 31 seats.
Even barroso was a communist until it wasn't lucrative enough for him.217 out of 766 and you reckon that makes the EU socialist!
