7 ms·

It's really silly to think of labor prices as just being a matter of "people knowing what they're worth." The example given was painting jobs. If you're someone

It's really silly to think of labor prices as just being a matter of "people knowing what they're worth." The example given was painting jobs. If you're someone that maybe could offer such a job, there's a price at which it makes more sense for you to do it yourself. That price is a hard limit to the amount you can offer for such a job. If someone demands more, then you can't satisfy them because then you're losing out on the deal. Only growing commercial concerns can afford to hire new employees. The world used to have a way of keeping people who would otherwise be economically impotent engaged, and that is cheap service work, but we've decided as a society that such things are not politically palatable. So instead we just place more and more expectations on the people that participate usefully in society, and less and less on those who can't. The older I get, the less sympathetic I get to this viewpoint, but I suppose that's a quite common moral journey so I won't belabor the point too much.

kalleboo 9y ago
> The world used to have a way of keeping people who would otherwise be economically impotent engaged, and that is cheap service work Service work is up over the decades. What we used to have was manual labor/manufacturing jobs. https://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/images/print-edition/20140118_FBC169.png https://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/images/... http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2015/01/waiters%20vs%20mfg%20workers.jpg http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/im...
- vinceguidry 9y ago
  Manufacturing and the Industrial Revolution is what destroyed cheap service work. Factories had such a big thirst for labor that they outbid families for the same labor that used to go into households and farms. Eventually it got stigmatized. Now most countries' labor laws prevent anything like what used to happen. Probably for good reason, some of these people toiled in horrid conditions, but I don't think re-allowing them is going to recreate those conditions.
  - maxerickson 9y ago
    What do you mean by re-allow? Do you mean cutting minimum wages so that people can hire staff for their homes? (Because lots of people are perfectly happy to hire part time staff at higher prices, cleaners that come once a week, lawn care, delivered/take out food, etc.)
    - vinceguidry 9y ago
      This is true. A lot of people are. But part time gigs do not make for stable employment situations for people that need them. I really don't know the answer. Nothing seems politically feasible at the moment. People need stable jobs. Would-be employers need to be able to afford to keep on 'the help'. Allowing full-time, below-minimum-wage service staff seems to give a lot of people economic viability that otherwise would be constantly teetering on ruin. Can we bring those days back? Or at least try it out? I don't know. Perhaps the real problem is employers' tendency to over-negotiate. So the only thing the new service class can really expect is to be oppressed by their bosses. Edwardian-period England was not a nice place for servants. Maybe new tech tools will give employees an advantage that pre-industrial servants didn't have.
      - maxerickson 9y ago
        Maybe spend $100 a day if you really want a servant?
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
        vinceguidry 9y ago
        It's not just about finding market-clearing rates, it's also about the regulatory environment. If you directly employ people to work in your home, then your home is a workplace with all that entails. This is the reason that even people who can hire full-time service staff, such as nannies, often don't, and instead rely on part time contract service. It's an arrangement that better suits employers than employees. I'm trying to think of ways we can offer people who aren't economically competitive in the workplace the ability to find stable employment. The current job market is just getting more and more hostile to the less-advantaged.

kalleboo 9y ago

> The world used to have a way of keeping people who would otherwise be economically impotent engaged, and that is cheap service work Service work is up over the decades. What we used to have was manual labor/manufacturing jobs. https://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/images/print-edition/20140118_FBC169.png https://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/images/... http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2015/01/waiters%20vs%20mfg%20workers.jpg http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/im...

vinceguidry 9y ago
Manufacturing and the Industrial Revolution is what destroyed cheap service work. Factories had such a big thirst for labor that they outbid families for the same labor that used to go into households and farms. Eventually it got stigmatized. Now most countries' labor laws prevent anything like what used to happen. Probably for good reason, some of these people toiled in horrid conditions, but I don't think re-allowing them is going to recreate those conditions.
- maxerickson 9y ago
  What do you mean by re-allow? Do you mean cutting minimum wages so that people can hire staff for their homes? (Because lots of people are perfectly happy to hire part time staff at higher prices, cleaners that come once a week, lawn care, delivered/take out food, etc.)
  - vinceguidry 9y ago
    This is true. A lot of people are. But part time gigs do not make for stable employment situations for people that need them. I really don't know the answer. Nothing seems politically feasible at the moment. People need stable jobs. Would-be employers need to be able to afford to keep on 'the help'. Allowing full-time, below-minimum-wage service staff seems to give a lot of people economic viability that otherwise would be constantly teetering on ruin. Can we bring those days back? Or at least try it out? I don't know. Perhaps the real problem is employers' tendency to over-negotiate. So the only thing the new service class can really expect is to be oppressed by their bosses. Edwardian-period England was not a nice place for servants. Maybe new tech tools will give employees an advantage that pre-industrial servants didn't have.
    - maxerickson 9y ago
      Maybe spend $100 a day if you really want a servant?
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - vinceguidry 9y ago
        It's not just about finding market-clearing rates, it's also about the regulatory environment. If you directly employ people to work in your home, then your home is a workplace with all that entails. This is the reason that even people who can hire full-time service staff, such as nannies, often don't, and instead rely on part time contract service. It's an arrangement that better suits employers than employees. I'm trying to think of ways we can offer people who aren't economically competitive in the workplace the ability to find stable employment. The current job market is just getting more and more hostile to the less-advantaged.