6 ms·

Bernie is wrong, it's not up to employers to provide a guaranteed decent standard of living, that job can only be done by society.

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Sohcahtoa82 8y ago
Disagree entirely. If a company is paying so little that the government has to step in and give them extra money just so they can pay the rent and eat, then that effectively means my tax dollars are subsidizing their wage. This attitude allows Amazon to pay less than a living wage. The winner of SNAP isn't the person receiving SNAP, it's the person's employer which is allowed to pay their employees less. My tax dollars aren't subsidizing the employee, they're subsidizing Amazon.
- chibg10 8y ago
  This is misguided. Your tax dollars aren't subsidizing Amazon -- they're subsidizing everyone who pays Amazon's wages or lower. If the market value of labor has fallen below the threshold needed to live an acceptable (as judged by society) lifestyle, the burden of making up the difference should fall on society -- not arbitrarily on the companies which happen to do business in industries whose jobs require essentially no skills to perform. Hypothetically speaking, if Google automated away 50M tedious and repetitive "white collar" jobs and those 50M workers are now competing for warehouse jobs, why must warehouse operators' pay a living wage while Google pays nothing for putting 50M workers out on the street? The burden of caring for society's poor must fall on society. As it was society's technological innovation and policy decisions (i.e. globalization of labor markets) that has led to the destruction of unskilled labor's market value.
  - snarfybarfy 8y ago
    Which market value of labor are you speaking of? This seems to be a common fallacy, because people call it the 'labor market'. However I would claim that there is no labor market in the classical econ 101 sense. A market needs to be transparent, have low transaction costs, be voluntary and have a sufficient number of buyers and sellers. Otherwise you might still call it a market but it will not have any magical properties that the government shouldn't mess with.
    - paulddraper 8y ago
      Which of those isn't present in the labor market?
      - Sohcahtoa82 8y ago
        Being voluntary. For the most part, having a job is a requirement to have a place to live and eat.
  - cliffordthedog 8y ago
    The value of labour has fallen because of a systematic dismantling of any sort of apparatus for preserving it's value. Amazon can fire 1, 10, 50, 1000 workers. They can't fire a union of every FC worker in the country. The value is only low because the field is so tilted in favour of capital. > why must warehouse operators' pay a living wage because if they don't then their warehouses get shutdown and anyone they try to bring in faces large men with bats. and if you don't like that future, then start protecting unions before it turns into riots again.
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    It’s somewhat disconcerting when Amazon or its employees suggest the solution is regulation, when Amazon fights that very same regulation. It would lead me to believe that regulation might be a partial solution, but taking Amazon on directly is also necessary.
    - 8y ago
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cliffordthedog 8y ago
I think the socialist would agree, but that's impossible in a capitalist system. This is a bandaid to try and help against one particularly blatant form of exploitation by corporations.

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Sohcahtoa82 8y ago

Disagree entirely. If a company is paying so little that the government has to step in and give them extra money just so they can pay the rent and eat, then that effectively means my tax dollars are subsidizing their wage. This attitude allows Amazon to pay less than a living wage. The winner of SNAP isn't the person receiving SNAP, it's the person's employer which is allowed to pay their employees less. My tax dollars aren't subsidizing the employee, they're subsidizing Amazon.

chibg10 8y ago
This is misguided. Your tax dollars aren't subsidizing Amazon -- they're subsidizing everyone who pays Amazon's wages or lower. If the market value of labor has fallen below the threshold needed to live an acceptable (as judged by society) lifestyle, the burden of making up the difference should fall on society -- not arbitrarily on the companies which happen to do business in industries whose jobs require essentially no skills to perform. Hypothetically speaking, if Google automated away 50M tedious and repetitive "white collar" jobs and those 50M workers are now competing for warehouse jobs, why must warehouse operators' pay a living wage while Google pays nothing for putting 50M workers out on the street? The burden of caring for society's poor must fall on society. As it was society's technological innovation and policy decisions (i.e. globalization of labor markets) that has led to the destruction of unskilled labor's market value.
- snarfybarfy 8y ago
  Which market value of labor are you speaking of? This seems to be a common fallacy, because people call it the 'labor market'. However I would claim that there is no labor market in the classical econ 101 sense. A market needs to be transparent, have low transaction costs, be voluntary and have a sufficient number of buyers and sellers. Otherwise you might still call it a market but it will not have any magical properties that the government shouldn't mess with.
  - paulddraper 8y ago
    Which of those isn't present in the labor market?
    - Sohcahtoa82 8y ago
      Being voluntary. For the most part, having a job is a requirement to have a place to live and eat.
- cliffordthedog 8y ago
  The value of labour has fallen because of a systematic dismantling of any sort of apparatus for preserving it's value. Amazon can fire 1, 10, 50, 1000 workers. They can't fire a union of every FC worker in the country. The value is only low because the field is so tilted in favour of capital. > why must warehouse operators' pay a living wage because if they don't then their warehouses get shutdown and anyone they try to bring in faces large men with bats. and if you don't like that future, then start protecting unions before it turns into riots again.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  It’s somewhat disconcerting when Amazon or its employees suggest the solution is regulation, when Amazon fights that very same regulation. It would lead me to believe that regulation might be a partial solution, but taking Amazon on directly is also necessary.
  - 8y ago

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cliffordthedog 8y ago

I think the socialist would agree, but that's impossible in a capitalist system. This is a bandaid to try and help against one particularly blatant form of exploitation by corporations.