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> Maybe the solution is as easy as giving workers a voice. Maybe you should give the guy you paid to paint your garage a voice in your management of your home

> Maybe the solution is as easy as giving workers a voice. Maybe you should give the guy you paid to paint your garage a voice in your management of your home.

skosch 9y ago
On the face of it, your reductio ad absurdum is perfectly reasonable. Employees do their job, get their money, end of story. Right? In continental Europe, nobody expects it to work like that. It's a different mindset. If you work in a large firm, the works council has a say (to some degree) in management decisions. It's not always perfect – politics are everywhere – but it is completely normal and expected by bosses and workers alike that employment is a relationship, not a transaction. And for the most part, it seems to be working. To someone who grew up in that culture, your wild-west thinking seems a bit, well, primitive? Or uncivilized?
- skookumchuck 9y ago
  > primitive? uncivilized? Nice dismissal with the logical fallacy of appeal to emotion!
- adventured 9y ago
  > In continental Europe, nobody expects it to work like that. ... To someone who grew up in that culture, your wild-west thinking seems a bit, well, primitive? Or uncivilized? One should challenge that setup by asking the question: has contintental Europe's policies resulted in high wages? France has far lower wages than the US, with 1/4 to 1/5 the wage growth rate of the US over the last two decades. Germany, Britain, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Austria, Belgium, all have considerably lower wages than the US. Continental Europe also includes dozens of nations that are dramatically poorer than the US, both in terms of median income and median household net worth. Wouldn't it be more primitive or uncivilized to be using the French approach, since it has resulted in dramatically lower wage growth for decades now? Wage growth in France averaged 0.5% annually the prior two decades. In the US, 2.5% wage growth is considered very slow, with 3.5% to 4% being average in the 1999-2009 time frame. If their system works so well, where's the wage growth (and we're talking about the last 20 years, not a blip of time)?
  - tensor 9y ago
    But digging deeper, Europe has a bigger middle class than the US, and the US has the largest lower class and upper class, the latter which pulls up the overall average. So is the average citizen is probably better off in Europe than in the US. Data: https://www.citylab.com/life/2017/04/euro-vs-american-middle-class/524193/ https://www.citylab.com/life/2017/04/euro-vs-american-middle... Also, Europe is catching up on the US average income too, which is really more relevant than what the past or current average is. It means that recent US policy is not working in favour of the average citizen.
    - adventured 9y ago
      > Europe is catching up on the US average income too ... It means that recent US policy is not working in favour of the average citizen. Western Europe isn't seeing faster wage growth than the US. Economically the US is pulling away from Germany, Britain, Italy and France. US income and GDP growth rates have been far higher the last 10 and 20 years than most of its peers. Economically speaking, Germany's GDP hasn't net expanded since 2007, when it was $3.44 trillion (it was $3.46 trillion for 2016). France and Britain are similar. French GDP was $2.66 trillion in 2007, it was $2.46 trillion in 2016. In that time, 2007 to 2016, the US added GDP larger than the entire German economy (about $4.5 trillion). It's practically impossible to generate broad wage gains if you don't grow the whole economic pie. That's why French wages have been so stagnant for so long, despite all the supposedly labor friendly approaches there. The US middle class has contracted because more people have moved up and out of the middle class and into the upper classes, than have moved down and out (that's true over 10, 20, 30 years of time): https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/is-the-middle-class-moving-up/2016/06/24/214dc04a-3a28-11e6-8f7c-d4c723a2becb_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/is-the-middle-class-... https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/06/21/sure-the-middle-class-is-shrinking-30-of-americans-are-too-rich-to-be-middle-class-now/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/06/21/sure-the... The formerly extremely poor 1/2 of Europe in the East has seen dramatic improvement since the end of the USSR. You can see that dramatic improvement in several countries like Czech, Slovakia, Romania (more recently), etc. Many are still doing very poorly at growing their economies, including Bulgaria, Moldova, Hungary, Belarus, Macedonia, Albania, Ukraine, Croatia, Bosnia. The median incomes of Latvia and Lithuania are still around 1/4 that of the US, Estonia is closer to 1/3 that of the US.
moorhosj 9y ago
I am not incorporated as a business and the guy painting my garage is not my employee. Otherwise, a spot on analogy.
- skookumchuck 9y ago
  Most people consider their homes an investment, so it is (economically speaking) a business. You're paying the guy for his labor. Your distinctions between an investment and a business, a contractor and an employee, are arbitrary legal definitions. They aren't economic ones.
  - EthanHeilman 9y ago
    >Your distinctions between [...] a contractor and an employee, are arbitrary legal definitions. They aren't economic ones. I would argue that not only are these definitions not arbitrary but they meaningfully reflect the differences in the relationship across legal, ethical and economic spheres based on the length and type of the business relationship. For instance there are very meaningful legal, economic and ethical differences in responsibilities for the seller and the buyer when leasing a house (long term) vs booking of a hotel room (short term).
    - skookumchuck 9y ago
      Isn't it tautological to claim that legal definitions are not arbitrary because of legal spheres? As to ethics, people often invent ethics that coincidentally benefit themselves. I'm talking about economic definitions.
    - skookumchuck 9y ago
      I thought a bit more about your ethics argument. If you agree to provide X labor for Y $, and later say you are "ethically" entitled to Y*2, how is that ethical? Ethically, you should stick to what you agreed upon.
      - EthanHeilman 9y ago
baxtr 9y ago
Oh that’s a very different thing. You’re comparing a one-off job with a job where two parties have decided to share a decent amount of their life time together. That’s a whole different story, more like you’re consulting with your au pair on the children’s room paint color
- skookumchuck 9y ago
  Are you suggesting the au pair you hired has a voice in your decisions on how you raise your children?
  - baxtr 9y ago
    An au pair usually lives in your home and takes care of the children for 6-8 hours a day, for 6-12 months. Are you suggesting she shouldn’t have a voice?
    - skookumchuck 9y ago
      > Are you suggesting she shouldn’t have a voice? Yes. The parents can choose to listen to the au pair's opinions, or not, but the decisions are made by the parents.
      - pesmhey 9y ago
        Being able to voice an opinion and have it be heard, although not necessarily followed, is kind of the definition of "having a voice" in this context.
        skookumchuck 9y ago
        Being seated on the board was mentioned as "having a voice", and that is a powerful position.
      - echaozh 9y ago
        Yes, but the actual education is carried out by the au pair. Like it or not, if she doesn't like your decision, she may act otherwise. Execution is more important than decision.
HankB99 9y ago
>> Maybe the solution is as easy as giving workers a voice. >Maybe you should give the guy you paid to paint your garage a voice in your management of your home. Probably not. Managing my home far exceeds the responsibility to paint my garage. However it would be wise for me to give that guy a voice in how best to paint the garage. He is, after all, a professional and knows more about painting garages than me.
- skookumchuck 9y ago
  Asking someone's opinion is not at all the same thing as giving them a say.
nkrisc 9y ago
That doesn't make any sense because neither labor nor management live at work. The workplace is not a home.
csa 9y ago
I actually do this, but not in the dramatic fashion that you suggest. If I want my house painted (or a similar task), I go to a good professional. He asks me what I want. I usually give broad instructions like “I want it to look good” or “I want a good quality to price ratio” or something like that. Then I ask what he suggests and/or what he would do if he were in my shoes. I usually get a pretty damn good answer. At “worst”, I am presented with some trade offs, and I pick my poison. If I don’t trust the painter (or other specialist), then I probably have not done enough due diligence.
- skookumchuck 9y ago
  You're not giving him a say, though. You, and you alone, make the decisions.
majewsky 9y ago
The guy that I pay to paint my garage most certainly has a voice in how he is managed. If I want him to paint the garage on Sunday at 23:00, he will most certainly refuse to do so (or impose extra charges).

> Maybe the solution is as easy as giving workers a voice. Maybe you should give the guy you paid to paint your garage a voice in your management of your home.

skosch 9y ago

On the face of it, your reductio ad absurdum is perfectly reasonable. Employees do their job, get their money, end of story. Right? In continental Europe, nobody expects it to work like that. It's a different mindset. If you work in a large firm, the works council has a say (to some degree) in management decisions. It's not always perfect – politics are everywhere – but it is completely normal and expected by bosses and workers alike that employment is a relationship, not a transaction. And for the most part, it seems to be working. To someone who grew up in that culture, your wild-west thinking seems a bit, well, primitive? Or uncivilized?

skookumchuck 9y ago
> primitive? uncivilized? Nice dismissal with the logical fallacy of appeal to emotion!
adventured 9y ago
> In continental Europe, nobody expects it to work like that. ... To someone who grew up in that culture, your wild-west thinking seems a bit, well, primitive? Or uncivilized? One should challenge that setup by asking the question: has contintental Europe's policies resulted in high wages? France has far lower wages than the US, with 1/4 to 1/5 the wage growth rate of the US over the last two decades. Germany, Britain, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Austria, Belgium, all have considerably lower wages than the US. Continental Europe also includes dozens of nations that are dramatically poorer than the US, both in terms of median income and median household net worth. Wouldn't it be more primitive or uncivilized to be using the French approach, since it has resulted in dramatically lower wage growth for decades now? Wage growth in France averaged 0.5% annually the prior two decades. In the US, 2.5% wage growth is considered very slow, with 3.5% to 4% being average in the 1999-2009 time frame. If their system works so well, where's the wage growth (and we're talking about the last 20 years, not a blip of time)?
- tensor 9y ago
  But digging deeper, Europe has a bigger middle class than the US, and the US has the largest lower class and upper class, the latter which pulls up the overall average. So is the average citizen is probably better off in Europe than in the US. Data: https://www.citylab.com/life/2017/04/euro-vs-american-middle-class/524193/ https://www.citylab.com/life/2017/04/euro-vs-american-middle... Also, Europe is catching up on the US average income too, which is really more relevant than what the past or current average is. It means that recent US policy is not working in favour of the average citizen.
  - adventured 9y ago
    > Europe is catching up on the US average income too ... It means that recent US policy is not working in favour of the average citizen. Western Europe isn't seeing faster wage growth than the US. Economically the US is pulling away from Germany, Britain, Italy and France. US income and GDP growth rates have been far higher the last 10 and 20 years than most of its peers. Economically speaking, Germany's GDP hasn't net expanded since 2007, when it was $3.44 trillion (it was $3.46 trillion for 2016). France and Britain are similar. French GDP was $2.66 trillion in 2007, it was $2.46 trillion in 2016. In that time, 2007 to 2016, the US added GDP larger than the entire German economy (about $4.5 trillion). It's practically impossible to generate broad wage gains if you don't grow the whole economic pie. That's why French wages have been so stagnant for so long, despite all the supposedly labor friendly approaches there. The US middle class has contracted because more people have moved up and out of the middle class and into the upper classes, than have moved down and out (that's true over 10, 20, 30 years of time): https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/is-the-middle-class-moving-up/2016/06/24/214dc04a-3a28-11e6-8f7c-d4c723a2becb_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/is-the-middle-class-... https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/06/21/sure-the-middle-class-is-shrinking-30-of-americans-are-too-rich-to-be-middle-class-now/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/06/21/sure-the... The formerly extremely poor 1/2 of Europe in the East has seen dramatic improvement since the end of the USSR. You can see that dramatic improvement in several countries like Czech, Slovakia, Romania (more recently), etc. Many are still doing very poorly at growing their economies, including Bulgaria, Moldova, Hungary, Belarus, Macedonia, Albania, Ukraine, Croatia, Bosnia. The median incomes of Latvia and Lithuania are still around 1/4 that of the US, Estonia is closer to 1/3 that of the US.

moorhosj 9y ago

I am not incorporated as a business and the guy painting my garage is not my employee. Otherwise, a spot on analogy.

skookumchuck 9y ago
Most people consider their homes an investment, so it is (economically speaking) a business. You're paying the guy for his labor. Your distinctions between an investment and a business, a contractor and an employee, are arbitrary legal definitions. They aren't economic ones.
- EthanHeilman 9y ago
  >Your distinctions between [...] a contractor and an employee, are arbitrary legal definitions. They aren't economic ones. I would argue that not only are these definitions not arbitrary but they meaningfully reflect the differences in the relationship across legal, ethical and economic spheres based on the length and type of the business relationship. For instance there are very meaningful legal, economic and ethical differences in responsibilities for the seller and the buyer when leasing a house (long term) vs booking of a hotel room (short term).
  - skookumchuck 9y ago
    Isn't it tautological to claim that legal definitions are not arbitrary because of legal spheres? As to ethics, people often invent ethics that coincidentally benefit themselves. I'm talking about economic definitions.
  - skookumchuck 9y ago
    I thought a bit more about your ethics argument. If you agree to provide X labor for Y $, and later say you are "ethically" entitled to Y*2, how is that ethical? Ethically, you should stick to what you agreed upon.
    - EthanHeilman 9y ago

baxtr 9y ago

Oh that’s a very different thing. You’re comparing a one-off job with a job where two parties have decided to share a decent amount of their life time together. That’s a whole different story, more like you’re consulting with your au pair on the children’s room paint color

skookumchuck 9y ago
Are you suggesting the au pair you hired has a voice in your decisions on how you raise your children?
- baxtr 9y ago
  An au pair usually lives in your home and takes care of the children for 6-8 hours a day, for 6-12 months. Are you suggesting she shouldn’t have a voice?
  - skookumchuck 9y ago
    > Are you suggesting she shouldn’t have a voice? Yes. The parents can choose to listen to the au pair's opinions, or not, but the decisions are made by the parents.
    - pesmhey 9y ago
      Being able to voice an opinion and have it be heard, although not necessarily followed, is kind of the definition of "having a voice" in this context.
      - skookumchuck 9y ago
        Being seated on the board was mentioned as "having a voice", and that is a powerful position.
    - echaozh 9y ago
      Yes, but the actual education is carried out by the au pair. Like it or not, if she doesn't like your decision, she may act otherwise. Execution is more important than decision.

HankB99 9y ago

>> Maybe the solution is as easy as giving workers a voice. >Maybe you should give the guy you paid to paint your garage a voice in your management of your home. Probably not. Managing my home far exceeds the responsibility to paint my garage. However it would be wise for me to give that guy a voice in how best to paint the garage. He is, after all, a professional and knows more about painting garages than me.

skookumchuck 9y ago
Asking someone's opinion is not at all the same thing as giving them a say.

nkrisc 9y ago

That doesn't make any sense because neither labor nor management live at work. The workplace is not a home.

csa 9y ago

I actually do this, but not in the dramatic fashion that you suggest. If I want my house painted (or a similar task), I go to a good professional. He asks me what I want. I usually give broad instructions like “I want it to look good” or “I want a good quality to price ratio” or something like that. Then I ask what he suggests and/or what he would do if he were in my shoes. I usually get a pretty damn good answer. At “worst”, I am presented with some trade offs, and I pick my poison. If I don’t trust the painter (or other specialist), then I probably have not done enough due diligence.

skookumchuck 9y ago
You're not giving him a say, though. You, and you alone, make the decisions.

majewsky 9y ago

The guy that I pay to paint my garage most certainly has a voice in how he is managed. If I want him to paint the garage on Sunday at 23:00, he will most certainly refuse to do so (or impose extra charges).