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While prices are low, another aim of governments should be to keep wages high enough to maintain a standard of living. I think the fear around Amazon isn't that

While prices are low, another aim of governments should be to keep wages high enough to maintain a standard of living. I think the fear around Amazon isn't that it is going to all of a sudden raise the price of goods from Whole Foods, but that they will reverse the employee friendly aspects of the company. When prices are low but wages aren't high enough to guarantee that people can take advantage of those lower prices, inequality is exacerbated.

bottled_poe 9y ago
> another aim of governments should be to keep wages high enough to maintain a standard of living Disagree. The aim of government should be to enable the elimination of every single job while also enforcing a fair distribution of wealth. Wage regulation is a traditional capitalist approach to solving this problem. There are other approaches which might need to be tried in the coming decades..
- fennecfoxen 9y ago
  Wage regulation is capitalist? Sounds pretty central-planning to me.
  - amagumori 9y ago
    i agree! in fact, you know what would be a really efficient form of capitalism? what if we just eliminated wage regulation, and the marginal costs of workers to our business entirely, by making them slaves!
    - adventured 9y ago
      > what if we just eliminated wage regulation, and the marginal costs of workers to our business entirely, by making them slaves! Your premise is incorrect and historically ignorant. Slaves are net more costly and drastically less efficient than free employees. George Washington, among numerous other slave owners of the time, for example wrote about that fact indepth. The net cost of workers skyrockets and their productivity implodes, in the case of slavery. Washington made the economic point that with slaves, he became entirely responsible for the cost of their existence, in all regards (shelter, food, health, etc), and their work output was at best on par with or below that of free labor (which is exactly what one would expect). As a system, slavery was a failure morally and economically.
      - sharemywin 9y ago
        It's much more efficient to give them vc money and make them slaves to their own ambition.
      - icantdrive55 9y ago
        Why enslave someone when they will happily take your crappy job? Drive for for Uber, temp work driving your vechicle for Amazon, writing/posting for Facebook, and even here--on Hacker News? (Hasen't made money, but the goodwill/potential must be staggering?) Let's face it, unless you have a very high barrier to entry profession, like brain surgeon, actually bad choice--I know one that happened to be in the resturant business, or one did until her resturant burned down, without property insurance I add.), or have family money to take risk; life in America is not great. I don't want to argue. I know some of you in tech are very happy right now. Let see what happens when letitgo, and buystufffromagayman--yea, it exists; I thought it was a tv parody, goes bankrupt. I don't have any answers, but some of what Trump promised sounded good. We are in a crisis. We need to allow those that are looking at being homeless a safe place to pitch a tent. We need to lighten up on all municipal regulations/fees/fines, and tie all those regulations/fees/fines to annual income. It shouldn't be illegial to pitch a tent on county property. We need to reduce the supply of eager workers. (I don't know how anymore. There's to many people that will work for free, and pride themself's on it. And the big one----taxes on the wealthy? Let's put it this way, if you want to take the irritating parts of your Spaceship overseas; move yourself, and your family right along with the savings. Really--sell that mansion, pull the kids out of private school, and Move. I'll stop my rant.
    - ameister14 9y ago
      I don't understand - are you being sarcastic or do you actually believe that slavery is an efficient capitalist state?
- CuriouslyC 9y ago
  The goal shouldn't be to get rid of jobs - people need something to do since we made surviving so easy. The goal should be to improve the quality of people's jobs.
indigochill 9y ago
There is another side of that which I've noticed as an American expat. If one country or industry decides to keep wages high, there are at least two effects. 1. The minimum required experience is also increased. You see this in industries where it's very difficult for new blood to break into because the minimum required experience/skill level is above an "entry level" position because the pay expectations of the industry require a certain degree of skill and experience going in. 2. Companies outsource. They seek to maximize profits, which means reducing costs, which means paying those with low demands for work that's good enough. I actually moved out of the US for work because I found that I had better opportunities outside the US than in it. Not higher-paying (those would be in the US), but opportunities to build work experience from nothing, which I didn't see an option for in the US as a fresh college grad with a journalism degree looking to break into software engineering. I've been working outside the US for ~3 years now and although there have been challenges it's changed my life and career for the better. YMMV.
- gedrap 9y ago
  >> industries where it's very difficult for new blood to break into What are examples of such industries?
  - sharemywin 9y ago
    Technology is very hard to get into without experience(or even with the wrong kind of experience). Healthcare, anything with a license(usually requires some kind of apprenticeship).
  - daemin 9y ago
    The canonical example is in Medicine: Doctors, Surgeons, Dentists. All of these professions have strict professional bodies which limit the number of people that can enter them, therefore be it intentionally or not, the wages are kept high.
    - noobermin 9y ago
      I think when it comes to healthcare, it will always be the exception, give the inelasticity of the demand for healthcare.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> While prices are low, another aim of governments should be to keep wages high enough to maintain a standard of living. Incomes, maybe; wages are a lever on incomes, but not the only one (and a potentially problematic one because pushing too hard on them depresses employment while driving up wages for the still-continuing, worsening inequality), and should not be focused on as a primary goal.

bottled_poe 9y ago

> another aim of governments should be to keep wages high enough to maintain a standard of living Disagree. The aim of government should be to enable the elimination of every single job while also enforcing a fair distribution of wealth. Wage regulation is a traditional capitalist approach to solving this problem. There are other approaches which might need to be tried in the coming decades..

fennecfoxen 9y ago
Wage regulation is capitalist? Sounds pretty central-planning to me.
- amagumori 9y ago
  i agree! in fact, you know what would be a really efficient form of capitalism? what if we just eliminated wage regulation, and the marginal costs of workers to our business entirely, by making them slaves!
  - adventured 9y ago
    > what if we just eliminated wage regulation, and the marginal costs of workers to our business entirely, by making them slaves! Your premise is incorrect and historically ignorant. Slaves are net more costly and drastically less efficient than free employees. George Washington, among numerous other slave owners of the time, for example wrote about that fact indepth. The net cost of workers skyrockets and their productivity implodes, in the case of slavery. Washington made the economic point that with slaves, he became entirely responsible for the cost of their existence, in all regards (shelter, food, health, etc), and their work output was at best on par with or below that of free labor (which is exactly what one would expect). As a system, slavery was a failure morally and economically.
    - sharemywin 9y ago
      It's much more efficient to give them vc money and make them slaves to their own ambition.
    - icantdrive55 9y ago
      Why enslave someone when they will happily take your crappy job? Drive for for Uber, temp work driving your vechicle for Amazon, writing/posting for Facebook, and even here--on Hacker News? (Hasen't made money, but the goodwill/potential must be staggering?) Let's face it, unless you have a very high barrier to entry profession, like brain surgeon, actually bad choice--I know one that happened to be in the resturant business, or one did until her resturant burned down, without property insurance I add.), or have family money to take risk; life in America is not great. I don't want to argue. I know some of you in tech are very happy right now. Let see what happens when letitgo, and buystufffromagayman--yea, it exists; I thought it was a tv parody, goes bankrupt. I don't have any answers, but some of what Trump promised sounded good. We are in a crisis. We need to allow those that are looking at being homeless a safe place to pitch a tent. We need to lighten up on all municipal regulations/fees/fines, and tie all those regulations/fees/fines to annual income. It shouldn't be illegial to pitch a tent on county property. We need to reduce the supply of eager workers. (I don't know how anymore. There's to many people that will work for free, and pride themself's on it. And the big one----taxes on the wealthy? Let's put it this way, if you want to take the irritating parts of your Spaceship overseas; move yourself, and your family right along with the savings. Really--sell that mansion, pull the kids out of private school, and Move. I'll stop my rant.
  - ameister14 9y ago
    I don't understand - are you being sarcastic or do you actually believe that slavery is an efficient capitalist state?
CuriouslyC 9y ago
The goal shouldn't be to get rid of jobs - people need something to do since we made surviving so easy. The goal should be to improve the quality of people's jobs.

indigochill 9y ago

There is another side of that which I've noticed as an American expat. If one country or industry decides to keep wages high, there are at least two effects. 1. The minimum required experience is also increased. You see this in industries where it's very difficult for new blood to break into because the minimum required experience/skill level is above an "entry level" position because the pay expectations of the industry require a certain degree of skill and experience going in. 2. Companies outsource. They seek to maximize profits, which means reducing costs, which means paying those with low demands for work that's good enough. I actually moved out of the US for work because I found that I had better opportunities outside the US than in it. Not higher-paying (those would be in the US), but opportunities to build work experience from nothing, which I didn't see an option for in the US as a fresh college grad with a journalism degree looking to break into software engineering. I've been working outside the US for ~3 years now and although there have been challenges it's changed my life and career for the better. YMMV.

gedrap 9y ago
>> industries where it's very difficult for new blood to break into What are examples of such industries?
- sharemywin 9y ago
  Technology is very hard to get into without experience(or even with the wrong kind of experience). Healthcare, anything with a license(usually requires some kind of apprenticeship).
- daemin 9y ago
  The canonical example is in Medicine: Doctors, Surgeons, Dentists. All of these professions have strict professional bodies which limit the number of people that can enter them, therefore be it intentionally or not, the wages are kept high.
  - noobermin 9y ago
    I think when it comes to healthcare, it will always be the exception, give the inelasticity of the demand for healthcare.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> While prices are low, another aim of governments should be to keep wages high enough to maintain a standard of living. Incomes, maybe; wages are a lever on incomes, but not the only one (and a potentially problematic one because pushing too hard on them depresses employment while driving up wages for the still-continuing, worsening inequality), and should not be focused on as a primary goal.