4 ms·

> we'll never be able to make it so that the delivery driver and the corporate executive have the same standard of living, unless that standard is consuming gr

• ricardobeat 7y ago
  > unless that standard is consuming gruel in a formless concrete cube somewhere. Why would that be? That’s a fallacy. We have the ability to produce far more than everyone would need to live a pretty abundant life.
  • kartan 7y ago
    > That’s a fallacy. I agree. Not my comment. I was just quoting.
  • core-questions 7y ago
    Maybe, but surely by now you can see that sustainability is a factor here. Produce how much, for how long? Is simply enabling unending consumerism until we run out of resources to be the highest calling of our species? Seems almost more depressing than the current dystopia to believe that we should keep it going for even longer just to ensure everyone gets an equal chance to consume their pile of fried meat.
  • malandrew 7y ago
    > We have the ability to produce far more than everyone would need to live a pretty abundant life. ... so long as that abundant life is location independent.
• core-questions 7y ago
  > Do you agree that "delivery drivers" should get a fair salary? What is "fair"? One variety of "fair" is "getting a reasonable cut of the profit made from their actions", where "reasonable" is based on what the market will bear - i.e. if your labour is undercut by someone else, then it's a race to the bottom. This is what guilds and then trade unions originally evolved to deal with. Another variety of "fair" that seems to be gaining mindshare is the idea that you deserve a "living wage" for literally any full-time job, which is a new idea unsubstantiated by economic reality. It belies the fact that there are jobs that do have some demand, but simply aren't worth enough to the people who'd pay for them that they can supply a "living wage". And what's living? Is mung beans, rice, and a shared room in a house "living" enough or does everyone need their full maximized-carbon-footprint atomized solo lifestyle in order to "live"?
  • elamje 7y ago
    The concept of "fair" is driving so much policy in the world right now, but there is no one definition. The concept that no one can settle on a definition for, is the concept that is, and will increasingly be, at the forefront of politics for the next century.
  • perl4ever 7y ago
    "And what's living?" Implicit in most discussions, but frequently left unstated, is the idea that a wage-earner should be able to support several dependents. Obviously how many makes a huge difference in what kind of pay is needed.
    • core-questions 7y ago
      Again, at what level of luxury? I know people making six figures that are utterly convinced they're not able to afford to have children. I know people making a third of that who have five kids and seem happy enough, though as harried and as cash-strapped as you'd expect.
      • perl4ever 7y ago
        Well, my point is that it's O(N), regardless of the constant factor.
  • briandear 7y ago
    Guilds didn’t evolve over protecting wages per se, but as a means to monopolize the supply of their labor by limiting those that could enter their trade. They were a monopoly of labor and similarly motivated by those that had monopolies of steel or the railroads. Guilds were about protecting their business by excluding or marginalizing competition and using their power to further protect their own bottom line from competition.
    • core-questions 7y ago
      Seems like a reasonable thing for a skilled labourer to do, and really not dissimilar from what unions are still doing at large scales.
• deleted 7y ago
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• malandrew 7y ago
  What's a fair salary? Pretty much all answers I've heard to this question will have to define the salary in relation to myriad cost inputs (housing, healthcare, transportation, food). The fact that the answer to this question is almost universally defined in terms of cost of life necessities means that the current salary could be fair if the cost inputs were cheaper. It also means that any salary that would be fair given current costs would suddenly become unfair again if the cost of those inputs grew proportionately (inflation). This suggests to me that we're better off focusing not on policies that raise salary but instead putting our efforts towards lowering the costs of only those cost inputs we deem as necessary inputs for living circumstances that are considered fair. Solving the cost of only basic necessities once permanently solves the fairness problem. Trying to solve the fairness problem by raising wages with no policies to protect against inflation of basic necessities means that you will only ever solve the fairness problem temporarily.
• jonhendry18 7y ago
  I'm not sure fair salary is enough, if their quality of life still sucks otherwise and they're still being ground up by the algorithm. Perhaps they'll be able to save up enough money for something and quit sooner than they could now. But perhaps the ideal should be a liveable wage and liveable job conditions.