7 ms·

Why do you think that model is ethically wrong? If every link in the chains is compensated fairly (no one is coerced) and value is added, it seems like an inevi

by lolsal 9y ago

Why do you think that model is ethically wrong? If every link in the chains is compensated fairly (no one is coerced) and value is added, it seems like an inevitability that one end of the chain would be magnitudes larger in compensation.

Firadeoclus 9y ago
Why should it not be possible that every link gets compensated similarly? Is value added at the end of the chain necessarily much larger than that at the start of the chain?
- lolsal 9y ago
  Because value is not added equally along the chain.
  - Firadeoclus 9y ago
    There will naturally be variation, but why is it inevitable that there are order-of-magnitude differences?
    - lolsal 9y ago
      It's not inevitable. It's just likely. If we're talking about a supply chain of "2" (banana example), it's not very likely. If we're talking about a supply chain with hundreds or thousands of actors (for example, smartphones), it's more likely.
tachyoff 9y ago
There are a billion assumptions wrapped up in those statements. I will address some of them. 1. Every link is NOT compensated fairly. Wages have been stagnant for decades; meanwhile, the cost of everything else (especially housing) continues to rise, sometimes astronomically. $7.25 is the federal minimum wage, and it is impossible to live on. 2. Plenty of people are coerced into enduring terrible employment simply because they need to survive. I get it, Walmart needs employees too, but they should be in a union. It shouldn’t be possible to fire something and hire them back to start them back at the lowest pay grade (yes, this is a real thing they actually do). 3. Capitalism doesn’t exist in a vacuum; nothing does. The Randian “well, everyone’s trading value for value” falls apart the minute you look at a $10,000 MRI bill, or a $7.25 minimum wage, or an entire city that’s been destroyed because production moved overseas. It doesn’t particularly matter how much stocking shelves “is worth”; if you are alive, you don’t deserve to live in squalor and poverty in the richest country in the world.
- lolsal 9y ago
  > 1. Every link is NOT compensated fairly. Wages have been stagnant for decades; meanwhile, the cost of everything else (especially housing) continues to rise, sometimes astronomically. $7.25 is the federal minimum wage, and it is impossible to live on. If I offer you $1 for your banana, and you agree and then we exchange the $1 and the banana, is that not fair? > 2. Plenty of people are coerced into enduring terrible employment simply because they need to survive. Are you arguing that 'providing for yourself' counts as coercion? What actor is doing the coercion? > I get it, Walmart needs employees too, but they should be in a union. It shouldn’t be possible to fire something and hire them back to start them back at the lowest pay grade (yes, this is a real thing they actually do). Are they agreeing to be re-hired? > 3. Capitalism doesn’t exist in a vacuum; nothing does. The Randian “well, everyone’s trading value for value” falls apart the minute you look at a $10,000 MRI bill, or a $7.25 minimum wage, or an entire city that’s been destroyed because production moved overseas. Why? MRIs provide a lot of value! Minimum wage effort provides low value. > It doesn’t particularly matter how much stocking shelves “is worth”; if you are alive, you don’t deserve to live in squalor and poverty in the richest country in the world. Why? You're implying that being born in one place or another changes what you 'deserve' as a human being. That's an interesting, but scary line of thought!
  - throwaway_1asdf 9y ago
    I'll hop in. Net value-add across the entire chain doesn't imply local value-add. And it's deeply short-sighted to be fine with certain sectors of people collapsing so long as the GDP has a net increase. Two individual actors agreeing to a price doesn't make the price fair, and it ignores the larger economic/political arena that surrounds them. Following the MRI example: nobody in this thread is suggesting that those don't provide value. One poster is suggesting that such expensive operations should be subsidized through other mechanisms that take the larger economic/political arena into account (living, capable workers provide more value than sick/dead ones). The other poster is suggesting that a low-wage laborer doesn't deserve to have an MRI because they can't individually afford it. The latter is a weak argument intellectually (let's not even _try_ to develop new mechanisms that include more people), morally, and economically (assumes that markets are free, efficient, and devoid of history).
semi-extrinsic 9y ago
Why is that an inevitability? What is unnatural about a supply chain where someone makes item A for $10, takes $2 profit, wholesales person B takes another $2 profit, final salesperson C takes $2 profit? For products that are actually made and sold in the same country that's not far from reality today. It's just that for most things, they are made in Asia, and income/wealth disparity means the US/Europe end of the chain "has to" take much more of the profits to survive. That doesn't mean its fair, or just, or ethical.

by lolsal 9y ago

Firadeoclus 9y ago

Why should it not be possible that every link gets compensated similarly? Is value added at the end of the chain necessarily much larger than that at the start of the chain?

lolsal 9y ago
Because value is not added equally along the chain.
- Firadeoclus 9y ago
  There will naturally be variation, but why is it inevitable that there are order-of-magnitude differences?
  - lolsal 9y ago
    It's not inevitable. It's just likely. If we're talking about a supply chain of "2" (banana example), it's not very likely. If we're talking about a supply chain with hundreds or thousands of actors (for example, smartphones), it's more likely.

tachyoff 9y ago

There are a billion assumptions wrapped up in those statements. I will address some of them. 1. Every link is NOT compensated fairly. Wages have been stagnant for decades; meanwhile, the cost of everything else (especially housing) continues to rise, sometimes astronomically. $7.25 is the federal minimum wage, and it is impossible to live on. 2. Plenty of people are coerced into enduring terrible employment simply because they need to survive. I get it, Walmart needs employees too, but they should be in a union. It shouldn’t be possible to fire something and hire them back to start them back at the lowest pay grade (yes, this is a real thing they actually do). 3. Capitalism doesn’t exist in a vacuum; nothing does. The Randian “well, everyone’s trading value for value” falls apart the minute you look at a $10,000 MRI bill, or a $7.25 minimum wage, or an entire city that’s been destroyed because production moved overseas. It doesn’t particularly matter how much stocking shelves “is worth”; if you are alive, you don’t deserve to live in squalor and poverty in the richest country in the world.

lolsal 9y ago
> 1. Every link is NOT compensated fairly. Wages have been stagnant for decades; meanwhile, the cost of everything else (especially housing) continues to rise, sometimes astronomically. $7.25 is the federal minimum wage, and it is impossible to live on. If I offer you $1 for your banana, and you agree and then we exchange the $1 and the banana, is that not fair? > 2. Plenty of people are coerced into enduring terrible employment simply because they need to survive. Are you arguing that 'providing for yourself' counts as coercion? What actor is doing the coercion? > I get it, Walmart needs employees too, but they should be in a union. It shouldn’t be possible to fire something and hire them back to start them back at the lowest pay grade (yes, this is a real thing they actually do). Are they agreeing to be re-hired? > 3. Capitalism doesn’t exist in a vacuum; nothing does. The Randian “well, everyone’s trading value for value” falls apart the minute you look at a $10,000 MRI bill, or a $7.25 minimum wage, or an entire city that’s been destroyed because production moved overseas. Why? MRIs provide a lot of value! Minimum wage effort provides low value. > It doesn’t particularly matter how much stocking shelves “is worth”; if you are alive, you don’t deserve to live in squalor and poverty in the richest country in the world. Why? You're implying that being born in one place or another changes what you 'deserve' as a human being. That's an interesting, but scary line of thought!
- throwaway_1asdf 9y ago
  I'll hop in. Net value-add across the entire chain doesn't imply local value-add. And it's deeply short-sighted to be fine with certain sectors of people collapsing so long as the GDP has a net increase. Two individual actors agreeing to a price doesn't make the price fair, and it ignores the larger economic/political arena that surrounds them. Following the MRI example: nobody in this thread is suggesting that those don't provide value. One poster is suggesting that such expensive operations should be subsidized through other mechanisms that take the larger economic/political arena into account (living, capable workers provide more value than sick/dead ones). The other poster is suggesting that a low-wage laborer doesn't deserve to have an MRI because they can't individually afford it. The latter is a weak argument intellectually (let's not even _try_ to develop new mechanisms that include more people), morally, and economically (assumes that markets are free, efficient, and devoid of history).

semi-extrinsic 9y ago

Why is that an inevitability? What is unnatural about a supply chain where someone makes item A for $10, takes $2 profit, wholesales person B takes another $2 profit, final salesperson C takes $2 profit? For products that are actually made and sold in the same country that's not far from reality today. It's just that for most things, they are made in Asia, and income/wealth disparity means the US/Europe end of the chain "has to" take much more of the profits to survive. That doesn't mean its fair, or just, or ethical.