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True, but you do have to be careful of companies taking advantage of the state - think Walmart in the US and how many of their employees still rely on public as

True, but you do have to be careful of companies taking advantage of the state - think Walmart in the US and how many of their employees still rely on public assistance. Zero minimum wage had the potential to set up a near zero cost workforce if the minimum wage isn't actually enough to be picky with employment.

rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
Walmart isn't known for being a great place to work. If people can live at minimum without having to work, Walmart can kiss its artificially cheap workforce goodbye.
- jeremyt 11y ago
  Known by whom? Several members of my family work at Walmart, and they really don't have anything bad to say about it.
- Tiktaalik 11y ago
  Yeah why work at a crappy McJob when you could instead do what you find interesting, making weird pottery and selling it on Etsy while relying on the minimum income to cover your rent and food? I think a significant result of these sort of minimum income ideas would be an explosion in the amount of people that opt for risky entrepreneurial ventures (eg. a startup) instead of working bad jobs for the basic necessities. I think many people would rather make art or pursue other risky, generally low income, creative careers than do low skill, uninteresting work. A result could be that companies offering low skill, minimum wage jobs could have to raise wages or improve their jobs in other ways in order to attract workers.
  - rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
    Most likely those jobs will be aggressively automated, with more investment that would be previously to make up for the higher cost of labor. Just as Uber openly wants to eventually get rid of their drivers, I don't see why fast food chains wouldn't want to have a fully automated drive through restaurant in 100 years. Either that or they will have to differentiate to produce more value by having a friendlier and higher quality staff, like one might see at Chick-fil-A
    - beat 11y ago
      People don't think nearly aggressively enough about what "automated" means. In the 18th century, farmers were 90% of the labor force. By the end of the 19th, they were less than 40%. Now, they're around 2%. Automation is not a new thing. Imagine if the people who built the pyramids had trucks.
      - rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
        I agree, but I am skeptical of the information age's ability to guarantee employment for a large proportion of the population relative to agriculture (when everyone had to work for there to be enough food) and industrialization (where industry required a large human labor force). There was a commenter on HN who said once: "When cars replaced carriages, did the horses get new jobs?"
fizzbatter 11y ago
I'm curious how low that workforce could be paid, though. I mean, lets pretend you get $400/w from the government, and you are okay living on that. Now lets assume you decide you want a new toy, or some general spending money. Your base government income has your rent and food paid for, but you want fun money. How much time is that fun money worth? Would you work a whole week for $50? What about $200? I also wonder if there's a bit of a mental incentive to push you to better yourself. If you're working a week for $200, maybe you consider it a waste of your time. So, you fight for a better job, maybe through training or education. Now you've got plenty of fun money, but you also start to raise your base lifestyle (and income requirements). I don't think any of these are absolutes of course, i'm just curious what would happen in these sort of environments. Everything i say here is a question, not an answer.
- beat 11y ago
  I believe most people want to do something valuable with their time. But valuable doesn't always translate 1:1 to fungible with money. Raising a child is work. Ministry is work. Volunteering is work. Art is mostly just hard work. There's this concept throughout American politics, and I don't think it's at all true, that most people are just lazy thieves, and would happily sit on their butts watching reruns all day if they could sponge off others to do it. Of course, no one putting this theory forth thinks it applies to them - they want to work hard for the sheer pride of it. I do, however, think there's a massive tradeoff of doing a dayjob that you hate to keep a roof over your head, versus doing something you love that won't really generate cash. I'd go farther and say many of the best-paying jobs pay well not because they're high-skilled, but rather because they're low-morality. If you're willing to do unethical things to people, you can make a lot of money, legally. At any rate, if people want a better than minimum standard of living, they'll get a job. If they have an alternative, they're more likely to do a job they love. And a lot of people would do stuff they love for no "job" at all, if it was a choice.
  - thaumasiotes 11y ago
    > There's this concept throughout American politics, and I don't think it's at all true, that most people are just lazy thieves, and would happily sit on their butts watching reruns all day if they could sponge off others to do it. Of course, no one putting this theory forth thinks it applies to them - they want to work hard for the sheer pride of it. What people will tell you about other people is much more reliable than what they'll tell you about themselves.
beat 11y ago
There's no inherent morality to the corporate bottom line (one of the biggest flaws in "free market" thinking is that if a theory is beautiful, it must also be moral). If corporations can get the government to help subsidize employment, they'll do so. The only solution to exploitation is to make "do nothing" a viable alternative. Right now, in America at least, welfare is a difficult and humiliating process. Employment is the only way to have any dignity at all, and employers exploit that - they underpay for awful jobs, and force employees to rely on welfare anyway. And this isn't even considering all those whom, for whatever reason, aren't really able to work. Physical or mental health, family needs, and more can all impair the ability to do a job even if one is available, and the government supported alternatives are, again, difficult and humiliating. If employers were forced to compete not against humiliation, but rather against choice, they'd have to make the jobs suck less and pay more. Even burger-flipping would need to start getting decent treatment, the kind those of us in high demand jobs have come to expect.
- phkahler 11y ago
  >> The only solution to exploitation is to make "do nothing" a viable alternative. Yes. I've been leaning toward that idea. Retired people need to be able to do nothing, and why not most people? If you want to live in a small house and grow your own food, why should that be prevented? Property taxes need to be zero for people, and cost of living needs to be as close to zero as possible. Then you don't need higher wages or welfare for people to get by. Instead we give tax breaks to companies and tax the heck out of people. Then wonder how to support those who can't work, or don't have in-demand skills. Speaking of skills, how about low cost education instead of government backed free for all in tuition costs?
- coldtea 11y ago
  >There's no inherent morality to the corporate bottom line (one of the biggest flaws in "free market" thinking is that if a theory is beautiful, it must also be moral) Actually they think something even more naive, that the individual immoralities and egoisms at play (maximizing individual profit) work out for the benefit of all in the end.
  - 11y ago

rm_-rf_slash 11y ago

Walmart isn't known for being a great place to work. If people can live at minimum without having to work, Walmart can kiss its artificially cheap workforce goodbye.

jeremyt 11y ago
Known by whom? Several members of my family work at Walmart, and they really don't have anything bad to say about it.
Tiktaalik 11y ago
Yeah why work at a crappy McJob when you could instead do what you find interesting, making weird pottery and selling it on Etsy while relying on the minimum income to cover your rent and food? I think a significant result of these sort of minimum income ideas would be an explosion in the amount of people that opt for risky entrepreneurial ventures (eg. a startup) instead of working bad jobs for the basic necessities. I think many people would rather make art or pursue other risky, generally low income, creative careers than do low skill, uninteresting work. A result could be that companies offering low skill, minimum wage jobs could have to raise wages or improve their jobs in other ways in order to attract workers.
- rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
  Most likely those jobs will be aggressively automated, with more investment that would be previously to make up for the higher cost of labor. Just as Uber openly wants to eventually get rid of their drivers, I don't see why fast food chains wouldn't want to have a fully automated drive through restaurant in 100 years. Either that or they will have to differentiate to produce more value by having a friendlier and higher quality staff, like one might see at Chick-fil-A
  - beat 11y ago
    People don't think nearly aggressively enough about what "automated" means. In the 18th century, farmers were 90% of the labor force. By the end of the 19th, they were less than 40%. Now, they're around 2%. Automation is not a new thing. Imagine if the people who built the pyramids had trucks.
    - rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
      I agree, but I am skeptical of the information age's ability to guarantee employment for a large proportion of the population relative to agriculture (when everyone had to work for there to be enough food) and industrialization (where industry required a large human labor force). There was a commenter on HN who said once: "When cars replaced carriages, did the horses get new jobs?"

fizzbatter 11y ago

I'm curious how low that workforce could be paid, though. I mean, lets pretend you get $400/w from the government, and you are okay living on that. Now lets assume you decide you want a new toy, or some general spending money. Your base government income has your rent and food paid for, but you want fun money. How much time is that fun money worth? Would you work a whole week for $50? What about $200? I also wonder if there's a bit of a mental incentive to push you to better yourself. If you're working a week for $200, maybe you consider it a waste of your time. So, you fight for a better job, maybe through training or education. Now you've got plenty of fun money, but you also start to raise your base lifestyle (and income requirements). I don't think any of these are absolutes of course, i'm just curious what would happen in these sort of environments. Everything i say here is a question, not an answer.

beat 11y ago
I believe most people want to do something valuable with their time. But valuable doesn't always translate 1:1 to fungible with money. Raising a child is work. Ministry is work. Volunteering is work. Art is mostly just hard work. There's this concept throughout American politics, and I don't think it's at all true, that most people are just lazy thieves, and would happily sit on their butts watching reruns all day if they could sponge off others to do it. Of course, no one putting this theory forth thinks it applies to them - they want to work hard for the sheer pride of it. I do, however, think there's a massive tradeoff of doing a dayjob that you hate to keep a roof over your head, versus doing something you love that won't really generate cash. I'd go farther and say many of the best-paying jobs pay well not because they're high-skilled, but rather because they're low-morality. If you're willing to do unethical things to people, you can make a lot of money, legally. At any rate, if people want a better than minimum standard of living, they'll get a job. If they have an alternative, they're more likely to do a job they love. And a lot of people would do stuff they love for no "job" at all, if it was a choice.
- thaumasiotes 11y ago
  > There's this concept throughout American politics, and I don't think it's at all true, that most people are just lazy thieves, and would happily sit on their butts watching reruns all day if they could sponge off others to do it. Of course, no one putting this theory forth thinks it applies to them - they want to work hard for the sheer pride of it. What people will tell you about other people is much more reliable than what they'll tell you about themselves.

beat 11y ago

There's no inherent morality to the corporate bottom line (one of the biggest flaws in "free market" thinking is that if a theory is beautiful, it must also be moral). If corporations can get the government to help subsidize employment, they'll do so. The only solution to exploitation is to make "do nothing" a viable alternative. Right now, in America at least, welfare is a difficult and humiliating process. Employment is the only way to have any dignity at all, and employers exploit that - they underpay for awful jobs, and force employees to rely on welfare anyway. And this isn't even considering all those whom, for whatever reason, aren't really able to work. Physical or mental health, family needs, and more can all impair the ability to do a job even if one is available, and the government supported alternatives are, again, difficult and humiliating. If employers were forced to compete not against humiliation, but rather against choice, they'd have to make the jobs suck less and pay more. Even burger-flipping would need to start getting decent treatment, the kind those of us in high demand jobs have come to expect.

phkahler 11y ago
>> The only solution to exploitation is to make "do nothing" a viable alternative. Yes. I've been leaning toward that idea. Retired people need to be able to do nothing, and why not most people? If you want to live in a small house and grow your own food, why should that be prevented? Property taxes need to be zero for people, and cost of living needs to be as close to zero as possible. Then you don't need higher wages or welfare for people to get by. Instead we give tax breaks to companies and tax the heck out of people. Then wonder how to support those who can't work, or don't have in-demand skills. Speaking of skills, how about low cost education instead of government backed free for all in tuition costs?
coldtea 11y ago
>There's no inherent morality to the corporate bottom line (one of the biggest flaws in "free market" thinking is that if a theory is beautiful, it must also be moral) Actually they think something even more naive, that the individual immoralities and egoisms at play (maximizing individual profit) work out for the benefit of all in the end.
- 11y ago