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The war on drugs is reducing the amount of labor available. If we follow the principles of supply and demand-- if Business Owners wants to pay employees less, t

The war on drugs is reducing the amount of labor available. If we follow the principles of supply and demand-- if Business Owners wants to pay employees less, then they want _more_ people to be available to work, and they also want those people to have lower cost of living. Having people in prison and having people pay for their family member's drug addiction reduces labor supply and increase cost of living. I think you have a conspiracy narrative, and you are trying to fit evidence to support it.

tomjakubowski 10y ago
Prisoners in the US are available for certain kinds of work, and get peanut-scale wages for their labor.
M_Grey 10y ago
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/prison-labor-in-america/406177/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/prison-... Far from reducing labor, you just turn it into largely unpaid, forced labor. AKA "The way it's always been".
orclev 10y ago
The principle of supply and demand doesn't really work, it's too simplistic a view. In the small scale, in a controlled environment sure it works fine, but real markets are messy with lots of factors impacting them, so it tends to break down rapidly. This has always been the failing of those that hew to the freemarket capitalist ideal, this unfailing belief in supply and demand as a market driver. One (but certainly not the only) missing factor here is a discussion of skilled vs. unskilled labor. The market for skilled labor is relatively small compared to unskilled labor, but even in that market companies struggle sometimes to fill positions, that's one of the claims companies backing H1B programs make (even if it is a bit dubious). On the other hand, there's an almost unlimited supply of unskilled labor available, and that's growing all the time. Further complicating things is the fact that the demand for unskilled labor is directly driven by the size of the market, and they tend to scale together. People desperate for any work to offset their costs of living are more willing at accept lower pay if it means getting a job and that's exactly the situation we see evolving now. All of this so far has been predicated on the supply side of things being the driver, but there's also the question of demand. If people had options they could fall back on then the unskilled labor market would demand higher wages and refuse to work under the poverty line forcing employers to increase wages. The problem is of course that people are so desperate for anything at all that they're willing to work in jobs that can't keep them financially viable because it at least slows the collapse. Eventually they'll either move into a skilled position that gives them a better chance, get sick, die, or turn to crime or drugs to try to cope. Long term this is of course economically disastrous, the middle class has all but ceased to exist, and the economy is slowly grinding to a halt as more and more of the population finds themselves unable to take part meaningfully in it. However in the short term it means record breaking profits for corporations. It's pretty obvious to anyone who's watched the policies that corporations have pushed for the last 40 years exactly what choice they're going to make.
- badosu 10y ago
  Very lucid viewpoint
crdoconnor 10y ago
"The war on drugs is reducing the amount of labor available. If we follow the principles of supply and demand-- if Business Owners wants to pay employees less, then they want _more_ people to be available to work, and they also want those people to have lower cost of living." If you suddenly have a lower cost of living you have increased your negotiating leverage. This often leads to higher wages. Similarly, increasing people's desperation commensurately decreases their wages. Penal labor is, incidentally, big business: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_Stat...
erikpukinskis 10y ago
The war on drugs only reduces the labor pool by what... 2% max? The premium capital makes on labor is often 100% or more. The lost labor is worth it to them for the chilling effects. Regarding conspiracies.... There's no conspiracy. Like I said, I think most business owners realize they are making money off their employees. They just don't benefit from paying people a fair wage because they don't have the infrastructure to capture the additional value created by a growing human being. It makes sense when you think about it: The reason they are a capitalist and not labor is that they don't want to have to do repetitive work, or sometimes don't want to work at all. As your employees develop new skills and abilities, it takes work to restructure the business around them. It's repetitive. "Oh, another one of my tech support people wants to train to do product design. Great." Most capitalists find it easier to just structure the company to support one kind of labor and then try to prevent employees from growing out of it. Due to information technology, we're getting close to being able to scalably restructure organizations around a group of people with continuously progressing skills, but it's a hard problem. Only a handful of companies (with great management) are able to do it by hand today. So for now, labor is stuck in a low energy state, even though there is a stronger equilibrium at a higher, "fair" pay. Individual companies don't benefit from going against the norm, so there's a chicken and egg situation, which creates an opening for the afformebtioned disruptive technology.
- civilian 10y ago
  This is the quote from your original post that I find odd: > so they subconsciously collude in cultural movements which make work seem scarce, and life scary and chaotic. I agree that business owners will offer someone lower wages, because the job they're providing is very stable. (i.e. my friend had a choice between being an assistant manager at a chain sandwich shop, or being a manager of a new restaurant in a different city. He's taken the low-risk option.) I also agree that there are structures that exist that encourage the drug war to go on. The iron triangle between: Politicians passing drug laws and other harsh criminal laws, DAs who want perfect records, police & prison guards who want more overtime and toys, and the unions that represent police and prison guards and lobby for more laws. It's the business owner -> drug war link that I find tenuous. I know several business owners, of multi-million dollar companies. They aren't consciously thinking like you say they are, they are simply thinking "who do I need to hire to get this job done". Admittedly, maybe I need to be talking to the CEO of a company that primarily employs retail or blue-collar workers. You also make the claim that it's subconscious, so I don't even know how to collect evidence in regards to that... I don't think your theory is falsifiable. Because you're making conjecture about someone's subconscious, and about a small group, it's nearly impossible to prove or disprove. What kind of evidence would you need to change your mind? //edit and I have to give credit to the other replies--- the prison workforce is a great counter-example to why the drug war would be useful from an evil capitalist perspective. I feel embarrassed that I missed that :/

tomjakubowski 10y ago

Prisoners in the US are available for certain kinds of work, and get peanut-scale wages for their labor.

M_Grey 10y ago

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/prison-labor-in-america/406177/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/prison-... Far from reducing labor, you just turn it into largely unpaid, forced labor. AKA "The way it's always been".

orclev 10y ago

The principle of supply and demand doesn't really work, it's too simplistic a view. In the small scale, in a controlled environment sure it works fine, but real markets are messy with lots of factors impacting them, so it tends to break down rapidly. This has always been the failing of those that hew to the freemarket capitalist ideal, this unfailing belief in supply and demand as a market driver. One (but certainly not the only) missing factor here is a discussion of skilled vs. unskilled labor. The market for skilled labor is relatively small compared to unskilled labor, but even in that market companies struggle sometimes to fill positions, that's one of the claims companies backing H1B programs make (even if it is a bit dubious). On the other hand, there's an almost unlimited supply of unskilled labor available, and that's growing all the time. Further complicating things is the fact that the demand for unskilled labor is directly driven by the size of the market, and they tend to scale together. People desperate for any work to offset their costs of living are more willing at accept lower pay if it means getting a job and that's exactly the situation we see evolving now. All of this so far has been predicated on the supply side of things being the driver, but there's also the question of demand. If people had options they could fall back on then the unskilled labor market would demand higher wages and refuse to work under the poverty line forcing employers to increase wages. The problem is of course that people are so desperate for anything at all that they're willing to work in jobs that can't keep them financially viable because it at least slows the collapse. Eventually they'll either move into a skilled position that gives them a better chance, get sick, die, or turn to crime or drugs to try to cope. Long term this is of course economically disastrous, the middle class has all but ceased to exist, and the economy is slowly grinding to a halt as more and more of the population finds themselves unable to take part meaningfully in it. However in the short term it means record breaking profits for corporations. It's pretty obvious to anyone who's watched the policies that corporations have pushed for the last 40 years exactly what choice they're going to make.

badosu 10y ago
Very lucid viewpoint

crdoconnor 10y ago

"The war on drugs is reducing the amount of labor available. If we follow the principles of supply and demand-- if Business Owners wants to pay employees less, then they want _more_ people to be available to work, and they also want those people to have lower cost of living." If you suddenly have a lower cost of living you have increased your negotiating leverage. This often leads to higher wages. Similarly, increasing people's desperation commensurately decreases their wages. Penal labor is, incidentally, big business: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_Stat...

erikpukinskis 10y ago

The war on drugs only reduces the labor pool by what... 2% max? The premium capital makes on labor is often 100% or more. The lost labor is worth it to them for the chilling effects. Regarding conspiracies.... There's no conspiracy. Like I said, I think most business owners realize they are making money off their employees. They just don't benefit from paying people a fair wage because they don't have the infrastructure to capture the additional value created by a growing human being. It makes sense when you think about it: The reason they are a capitalist and not labor is that they don't want to have to do repetitive work, or sometimes don't want to work at all. As your employees develop new skills and abilities, it takes work to restructure the business around them. It's repetitive. "Oh, another one of my tech support people wants to train to do product design. Great." Most capitalists find it easier to just structure the company to support one kind of labor and then try to prevent employees from growing out of it. Due to information technology, we're getting close to being able to scalably restructure organizations around a group of people with continuously progressing skills, but it's a hard problem. Only a handful of companies (with great management) are able to do it by hand today. So for now, labor is stuck in a low energy state, even though there is a stronger equilibrium at a higher, "fair" pay. Individual companies don't benefit from going against the norm, so there's a chicken and egg situation, which creates an opening for the afformebtioned disruptive technology.

civilian 10y ago
This is the quote from your original post that I find odd: > so they subconsciously collude in cultural movements which make work seem scarce, and life scary and chaotic. I agree that business owners will offer someone lower wages, because the job they're providing is very stable. (i.e. my friend had a choice between being an assistant manager at a chain sandwich shop, or being a manager of a new restaurant in a different city. He's taken the low-risk option.) I also agree that there are structures that exist that encourage the drug war to go on. The iron triangle between: Politicians passing drug laws and other harsh criminal laws, DAs who want perfect records, police & prison guards who want more overtime and toys, and the unions that represent police and prison guards and lobby for more laws. It's the business owner -> drug war link that I find tenuous. I know several business owners, of multi-million dollar companies. They aren't consciously thinking like you say they are, they are simply thinking "who do I need to hire to get this job done". Admittedly, maybe I need to be talking to the CEO of a company that primarily employs retail or blue-collar workers. You also make the claim that it's subconscious, so I don't even know how to collect evidence in regards to that... I don't think your theory is falsifiable. Because you're making conjecture about someone's subconscious, and about a small group, it's nearly impossible to prove or disprove. What kind of evidence would you need to change your mind? //edit and I have to give credit to the other replies--- the prison workforce is a great counter-example to why the drug war would be useful from an evil capitalist perspective. I feel embarrassed that I missed that :/