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Because of the "there would be nobody left doing low-skilled work" part. Once there is a scarcity of people who are willing to do this work, the price will aut

Because of the "there would be nobody left doing low-skilled work" part. Once there is a scarcity of people who are willing to do this work, the price will automatically rise. When it does, people will either be highly paid to do these unpleasant tasks, or (more righteously IMHO) these tasks will be done by robots. The problem is that anyone can clean toilets. Its unpleasant, hard work, but requires no training. There is a glut of people who can do only this type of work so there is a race to the bottom of the price ladder back-stopped only by minimum wage laws at this point. We need to lift as many people out of this through education and personal betterment as we can as quickly as possible. For those we cannot, basic minimum income or something like it will fill the gaps.

danbruc 10y ago
Once there is a scarcity of people who are willing to do this work, the price will automatically rise. This presupposes that there is enough high-skilled work available and that all low-skilled workers are capable of obtaining higher qualifications. The later one is certainly not true and the former one seems at least questionable. And every time the demand in a high-skilled professions drops, those workers end up in the lower-skilled worker pools, at least temporary until they requalify for a different high-skilled professions. The problem is that anyone can clean toilets. Its unpleasant, hard work, but requires no training. That is my point, I want workers to be paid for the work they do, not for the training it required. Besides, as mentioned in the initial comment, to compensate for the the additional training time. We need to lift as many people out of this through education and personal betterment as we can as quickly as possible. Empirically this does not seem to work, otherwise we would see a narrowing gap, not a widening one. Also there are certainly people that are happy with the low-skilled work they are doing, besides the wage maybe, why do we have to force them out of it?
- noonespecial 10y ago
  >That is my point, I want workers to be paid for the work they do, not for the training it required. Unfortunately, supply and demand confounds this with alacrity. Things that are plentiful are cheap, even if we wish otherwise. We can make rules to "fix" it but it's so difficult and expensive I'm not even sure it's a break even proposition. It does feel good to try. >Empirically this does not seem to work, otherwise we would see a narrowing gap... The gap is irrelevant. It's the lifting that counts. The gap only becomes a problem when the top doesn't get farther ahead by moving up, they get farther ahead by pushing others down (often while their absolute material wealth actually declines).
  - danbruc 10y ago
    The gap is irrelevant. It's the lifting that counts. The gap only becomes a problem when the top doesn't get farther ahead by moving up, they get farther ahead by pushing others down (often while their absolute material wealth actually declines). This is a point of view I do not share. It is a common argument, capitalism made everyone better of. But I would argue the gap matters even if the lower is better of. The CEO making 10 million Dollar a year did not create that value, the 10,000 workers on the factory floor did this. That are only 1000 Dollar per worker and it might not matter that much to each one of them whether they earn 1000 Dollar more or less. But he fact that the workers are the ones actually producing the value while the CEO is the one disproportionally profiting from that, that seems to me unfair and at least psychological more relevant than 1000 Dollars more or less. I fully agree with all the arguments about taking risks when founding a company and so on and getting some compensation for this, but that should not be excessive. Taking a bit of money from many to become disproportionally wealthy is something I am not okay with. And I make no distinction how it is done, whether you take it from your employees, or from your customers depositing money in your bank, or by investing your existing wealth and collecting dividends. Taking some money from many is no better then taking much money from a few.

danbruc 10y ago

Once there is a scarcity of people who are willing to do this work, the price will automatically rise. This presupposes that there is enough high-skilled work available and that all low-skilled workers are capable of obtaining higher qualifications. The later one is certainly not true and the former one seems at least questionable. And every time the demand in a high-skilled professions drops, those workers end up in the lower-skilled worker pools, at least temporary until they requalify for a different high-skilled professions. The problem is that anyone can clean toilets. Its unpleasant, hard work, but requires no training. That is my point, I want workers to be paid for the work they do, not for the training it required. Besides, as mentioned in the initial comment, to compensate for the the additional training time. We need to lift as many people out of this through education and personal betterment as we can as quickly as possible. Empirically this does not seem to work, otherwise we would see a narrowing gap, not a widening one. Also there are certainly people that are happy with the low-skilled work they are doing, besides the wage maybe, why do we have to force them out of it?

noonespecial 10y ago
>That is my point, I want workers to be paid for the work they do, not for the training it required. Unfortunately, supply and demand confounds this with alacrity. Things that are plentiful are cheap, even if we wish otherwise. We can make rules to "fix" it but it's so difficult and expensive I'm not even sure it's a break even proposition. It does feel good to try. >Empirically this does not seem to work, otherwise we would see a narrowing gap... The gap is irrelevant. It's the lifting that counts. The gap only becomes a problem when the top doesn't get farther ahead by moving up, they get farther ahead by pushing others down (often while their absolute material wealth actually declines).
- danbruc 10y ago
  The gap is irrelevant. It's the lifting that counts. The gap only becomes a problem when the top doesn't get farther ahead by moving up, they get farther ahead by pushing others down (often while their absolute material wealth actually declines). This is a point of view I do not share. It is a common argument, capitalism made everyone better of. But I would argue the gap matters even if the lower is better of. The CEO making 10 million Dollar a year did not create that value, the 10,000 workers on the factory floor did this. That are only 1000 Dollar per worker and it might not matter that much to each one of them whether they earn 1000 Dollar more or less. But he fact that the workers are the ones actually producing the value while the CEO is the one disproportionally profiting from that, that seems to me unfair and at least psychological more relevant than 1000 Dollars more or less. I fully agree with all the arguments about taking risks when founding a company and so on and getting some compensation for this, but that should not be excessive. Taking a bit of money from many to become disproportionally wealthy is something I am not okay with. And I make no distinction how it is done, whether you take it from your employees, or from your customers depositing money in your bank, or by investing your existing wealth and collecting dividends. Taking some money from many is no better then taking much money from a few.