5 ms·

For all the criticism of how wages have stalled in the west, in the world as whole capitalism does pretty well :) But the toxicity of capitalism often stems fr

by jopsen 8y ago

For all the criticism of how wages have stalled in the west, in the world as whole capitalism does pretty well :) But the toxicity of capitalism often stems from the polarized debate, I don't actually think many wants capitalism without regulation, or communism without free property rights... but it's hard to argue for the sane middle ground when you're attacked from both sides.

simonh 8y ago
Personally I think wage stagnation has largely been due to huge reserves of labour in the developing world coming into the market. The worst thing you can say about capitalism in that regard is that it's Capitalism that has enabled those people to raise themselves out of poverty and contribute and participate in the global economy. How terrible! However those reserves of labour are largely getting tapped out. Wages for factory workers in China have been rising dramatically for a while now. There are other challenges coming , such as increased automation, but again that's not really directly the fault of capitalism. Meanwhile while wage growth has slowed, we've all benefited hugely from the cheap goods and services enabled by these changes. I really think it's much more about technological and demographic changes rather than capitalism per se. If anything, we've suffered from too much economic development, technological advances and global growth.
- r_smart 8y ago
  One of the things people often seem to overlook in the US is that at about the time the wage stagnation started, we also began the process of roughly doubling the workforce by removing barriers against women entering the labor market. Then, as you say, another labor surplus was generated as the developing world has come into the market. It's rarely as simple as supply and demand, but there seems to me to be a correlation between stagnant wages and large increases in the labor pool.
  - simonh 8y ago
    And house prices as well, particularly here in the UK. Households increased their earning power through female employment, then used that capital to bid up house prices against each other.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  >Capitalism that has enabled those people to raise themselves out of poverty and contribute and participate in the global economy.// Huh, without non-capitalist moves (socialist, communistic) then we'd still have mills that pay in their own currency, that you can only spend in the shop that the rich owner also owns; we'd still have voting as a reserved right for rich landowners. That's capitalism. All the good bits seem to be there only because of past riots and uprisings and only measured to subdue the population enough to keep us in our place. Capitalism is assigning the resources of a 100,000 people to just one person because that person already has more than enough. How can you say that's a functional system? It's certainly not moral. "Oh, but fascist dictatorships are worse"; well great. Eat your dogshit sandwich like a good prole because cat-shit tastes worse ... smh
  - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
    > Huh, without non-capitalist moves (socialist, communistic) then we'd still have mills that pay in their own currency, that you can only spend in the shop that the rich owner also owns... The non-capitalist moves that stopped that nonsense were union moves, not socialistic or communistic. > ... we'd still have voting as a reserved right for rich landowners. That's capitalism. That's feudalism, not capitalism. It was democracy that undid that nonsense, not socialism or communism. The rest of your rant shows that you are very bitter, but it does nothing to either enlighten or persuade.
    - simonh 8y ago
      Indeed, fundamentally capitalism is about individual economic freedoms to own and invest capital. A private shop owner is just as much a capitalist as a corporate CEO. Also capitalism is in no way in opposition to other individual freedoms such as unionism, liberal democracy, etc. You can have capitalism without them, just look at China, but I would argue that as a freedom, capitalism is most naturally aligned with other such personal freedoms. As you point out rubber baron and oligarchic systems are based on suppressing freedoms, including often individual rights over capital. Corporate scrip isn’t capital, so clearly it’s iuse is actually anti-capitalist by restricting individual rights over capital.
    - 8y ago
- gwright 8y ago
  It is important to consider total compensation and not just cash wages. I'm assuming when you say "wage stagnation" you are referring to cash wages. Here is some data that includes total compensation: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-... According to BLS-generated compensation cost indices, total benefit costs for all civilian workers have risen an inflation-adjusted 22.5% since 2001 (when the data series began), versus 5.3% for wage and salary costs.
thelasthuman 8y ago
People can own property under communism, it's capital that cannot. Who owns the property where we do business? The workers, not the state (which IMO shouldn't even exist under communism).

by jopsen 8y ago

simonh 8y ago

Personally I think wage stagnation has largely been due to huge reserves of labour in the developing world coming into the market. The worst thing you can say about capitalism in that regard is that it's Capitalism that has enabled those people to raise themselves out of poverty and contribute and participate in the global economy. How terrible! However those reserves of labour are largely getting tapped out. Wages for factory workers in China have been rising dramatically for a while now. There are other challenges coming , such as increased automation, but again that's not really directly the fault of capitalism. Meanwhile while wage growth has slowed, we've all benefited hugely from the cheap goods and services enabled by these changes. I really think it's much more about technological and demographic changes rather than capitalism per se. If anything, we've suffered from too much economic development, technological advances and global growth.

r_smart 8y ago
One of the things people often seem to overlook in the US is that at about the time the wage stagnation started, we also began the process of roughly doubling the workforce by removing barriers against women entering the labor market. Then, as you say, another labor surplus was generated as the developing world has come into the market. It's rarely as simple as supply and demand, but there seems to me to be a correlation between stagnant wages and large increases in the labor pool.
- simonh 8y ago
  And house prices as well, particularly here in the UK. Households increased their earning power through female employment, then used that capital to bid up house prices against each other.
pbhjpbhj 8y ago
>Capitalism that has enabled those people to raise themselves out of poverty and contribute and participate in the global economy.// Huh, without non-capitalist moves (socialist, communistic) then we'd still have mills that pay in their own currency, that you can only spend in the shop that the rich owner also owns; we'd still have voting as a reserved right for rich landowners. That's capitalism. All the good bits seem to be there only because of past riots and uprisings and only measured to subdue the population enough to keep us in our place. Capitalism is assigning the resources of a 100,000 people to just one person because that person already has more than enough. How can you say that's a functional system? It's certainly not moral. "Oh, but fascist dictatorships are worse"; well great. Eat your dogshit sandwich like a good prole because cat-shit tastes worse ... smh
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  > Huh, without non-capitalist moves (socialist, communistic) then we'd still have mills that pay in their own currency, that you can only spend in the shop that the rich owner also owns... The non-capitalist moves that stopped that nonsense were union moves, not socialistic or communistic. > ... we'd still have voting as a reserved right for rich landowners. That's capitalism. That's feudalism, not capitalism. It was democracy that undid that nonsense, not socialism or communism. The rest of your rant shows that you are very bitter, but it does nothing to either enlighten or persuade.
  - simonh 8y ago
    Indeed, fundamentally capitalism is about individual economic freedoms to own and invest capital. A private shop owner is just as much a capitalist as a corporate CEO. Also capitalism is in no way in opposition to other individual freedoms such as unionism, liberal democracy, etc. You can have capitalism without them, just look at China, but I would argue that as a freedom, capitalism is most naturally aligned with other such personal freedoms. As you point out rubber baron and oligarchic systems are based on suppressing freedoms, including often individual rights over capital. Corporate scrip isn’t capital, so clearly it’s iuse is actually anti-capitalist by restricting individual rights over capital.
  - 8y ago
gwright 8y ago
It is important to consider total compensation and not just cash wages. I'm assuming when you say "wage stagnation" you are referring to cash wages. Here is some data that includes total compensation: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-... According to BLS-generated compensation cost indices, total benefit costs for all civilian workers have risen an inflation-adjusted 22.5% since 2001 (when the data series began), versus 5.3% for wage and salary costs.

thelasthuman 8y ago

People can own property under communism, it's capital that cannot. Who owns the property where we do business? The workers, not the state (which IMO shouldn't even exist under communism).