5 ms·

The problem is not convenience, the problem is the way capitalism treats labor: as just another commodity. Free markets drive the cost of all commodities down

by lisper 6y ago

The problem is not convenience, the problem is the way capitalism treats labor: as just another commodity. Free markets drive the cost of all commodities down to the marginal cost of production, and the marginal cost of keeping a human being alive is pretty low. Which is great if you buying, not so much if you're selling.

david927 6y ago
Beautifully said. What is to be done? (What then must we do?)
- lisper 6y ago
  > Beautifully said. Thanks. > What is to be done? (What then must we do?) Change the policy. Labor is a commodity because we as a society have decided to make it so. If we want to change it, there are lots of options available: More stringent labor laws. Higher minimum wage. Stronger unions. UBI. The challenge is not in figuring out what to do. That part is clear. The hard part is execution because, at least in the U.S., buyers of labor have much more political clout than sellers.
  - david927 6y ago
    I couldn't agree more. I was actually referencing a Tolstoy tract: http://arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/whatthenmustwedo.pdf http://arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/whatthenmustwedo.pdf
  - froggertoaster 6y ago
    > Change the policy. Labor is a commodity because we as a society have decided to make it so. If we want to change it, there are lots of options available: More stringent labor laws. Higher minimum wage. Stronger unions. UBI. What about the other side of some of these things, UBI in particular? How do you account for inflation and higher costs for goods? Example (and I know it's overly simplified): minimum wage goes up to $20/hour. People have more buying power, so they buy more (demand increases). Costs of goods go up. Buying power is reduced. Another call to increase minimum wage is issued. Cycle repeats. How do you reconcile these very real consequences? Can we really say that the benefits outweigh them? Answer is: they may very well have more benefits, but we can't know without doing them - and the consequences of getting it wrong could be permanently damaging.
    - EdwinLarkin 6y ago
      That's ridiculous.Inflation caused by raising minimum wage did not really happen. You dont really increase the cost of vegetables or bread because more people can buy it. If we are worried about inflation we can use the same economies of scale to give people that depend on minimum wage things they would not be able to afford. Housing,healthcare,education,food.
    - lisper 6y ago
      Inflation is a totally separate issue. The value of money is the value of the goods and services produced by the economy divided by the total money supply. That is completely independent of how that value is distributed. If you pay for UBI by borrowing, you will produce (some) inflation. If you pay for it with taxes, you won't. Again, this is purely political. When the government borrows, it indirectly taxes savings (by producing inflation), which people generally don't notice as much as an actual tax bill. > Can we really say that the benefits outweigh them? That's a judgement call. And there is more at play here than just inflation. The economy is a very complex dynamic system. My point is that these things are not consequences of the laws of physics which we are powerless to change. These things are consequences of decisions we make as a society. These decisions are not easy, but they are ours to make.
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        > If you pay for UBI by borrowing, you will produce (some) inflation. If you pay for it with taxes, you won't. Yes, you will (unless you do a flat capitation so thst everyone’s taxes are equal to their benefits, but what’s the point of that?) Downward redistribution is inflationary (in CPI terms) because of differences in the marginal propensity to spend, in the same way that upward concentration creates asset price inflation because of marginal propensity to invest.
        lisper 6y ago
        > in CPI terms Any economic policy that changes prices can be seen as inflationary if you pick the right index. The CPI is not what matters. What matters (to workers) is the ratio of the CPI to wages. It doesn't matter if the CPI rises (temporarily) as long as wages rise faster. As long as you are not actually just printing new money, the system will eventually reach a new equilibrium where workers have more bargaining power than they do today and capital holders have less. That is an attainable policy goal. The problem is that that the moment capital has all the bargaining power, and capital wants low wages, so that's what we have. As I pointed out earlier, this is great if you're buying, not if you're selling.
- birdyrooster 6y ago
  Build toilets into delivery trucks
nerdponx 6y ago
I never liked this socialist angle. Even a worker-owned collective is capable of the same abuses that a capitalist-owned corporation is capable of. Humans are fundamentally selfish and vile, and they will always oppress each other if given the opportunity and incentive.
- anoncake 6y ago
  > Even a worker-owned collective is capable of the same abuses that a capitalist-owned corporation is capable of. A worker-owned collective is not able to abuse its workers for the benefits of its owners. > Humans are fundamentally selfish and vile, and they will always oppress each other if given the opportunity and incentive. Speak for yourself.
  - mensetmanusman 6y ago
    Or summarize all human history including the concentration camps of today?
    - anoncake 6y ago
      "Humans are selfish and vile" != "There are humans that are selfish and vile".
      - lanstin 6y ago
        The parenting motto is “make it easy to be good”. For kids at least this starts with sufficient healthy foods, enough sleep, and some autonomy over ones own actions.
      - FooBarBizBazz 6y ago
        Some call this idea "The Fundamental Attribution Error".
      - mensetmanusman 6y ago
        It appears that when push comes to shove, humans on average return to selfish and vile behavior. There have been accounts of divers, for example, losing their oxygen source and then in survival mode killing their best friend trying to obtain life-giving breathe. This type of behavior seems to be the norm. There are also many horrific accounts during hurricane Katrina along these lines. Some of these were covered by NPR. It goes to show that if shit ever really hit the fan, you might have to be prepared for zombie-like behavior.
mcaravey 6y ago
I run a bakery and the incentives to keep our employees happy is high. The cost of employee turn over via lost tribal knowledge and the cost of finding new people far outweighs taking care of the employees. Yes, one side of the business requires me to plug employee capacity and capability into calculations of the cost of goods, but stopping at simply labor is short-sighted. I pay more than minimum wage not only for skill, but to grow loyalty. It is because of capitalism we don’t treat employees simply as labor.
- lisper 6y ago
  Things change radically when you go from ten employees to ten thousand. (And Amazon has over a million.)

by lisper 6y ago

david927 6y ago

Beautifully said. What is to be done? (What then must we do?)

lisper 6y ago
> Beautifully said. Thanks. > What is to be done? (What then must we do?) Change the policy. Labor is a commodity because we as a society have decided to make it so. If we want to change it, there are lots of options available: More stringent labor laws. Higher minimum wage. Stronger unions. UBI. The challenge is not in figuring out what to do. That part is clear. The hard part is execution because, at least in the U.S., buyers of labor have much more political clout than sellers.
- david927 6y ago
  I couldn't agree more. I was actually referencing a Tolstoy tract: http://arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/whatthenmustwedo.pdf http://arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/whatthenmustwedo.pdf
- froggertoaster 6y ago
  > Change the policy. Labor is a commodity because we as a society have decided to make it so. If we want to change it, there are lots of options available: More stringent labor laws. Higher minimum wage. Stronger unions. UBI. What about the other side of some of these things, UBI in particular? How do you account for inflation and higher costs for goods? Example (and I know it's overly simplified): minimum wage goes up to $20/hour. People have more buying power, so they buy more (demand increases). Costs of goods go up. Buying power is reduced. Another call to increase minimum wage is issued. Cycle repeats. How do you reconcile these very real consequences? Can we really say that the benefits outweigh them? Answer is: they may very well have more benefits, but we can't know without doing them - and the consequences of getting it wrong could be permanently damaging.
  - EdwinLarkin 6y ago
    That's ridiculous.Inflation caused by raising minimum wage did not really happen. You dont really increase the cost of vegetables or bread because more people can buy it. If we are worried about inflation we can use the same economies of scale to give people that depend on minimum wage things they would not be able to afford. Housing,healthcare,education,food.
  - lisper 6y ago
    Inflation is a totally separate issue. The value of money is the value of the goods and services produced by the economy divided by the total money supply. That is completely independent of how that value is distributed. If you pay for UBI by borrowing, you will produce (some) inflation. If you pay for it with taxes, you won't. Again, this is purely political. When the government borrows, it indirectly taxes savings (by producing inflation), which people generally don't notice as much as an actual tax bill. > Can we really say that the benefits outweigh them? That's a judgement call. And there is more at play here than just inflation. The economy is a very complex dynamic system. My point is that these things are not consequences of the laws of physics which we are powerless to change. These things are consequences of decisions we make as a society. These decisions are not easy, but they are ours to make.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > If you pay for UBI by borrowing, you will produce (some) inflation. If you pay for it with taxes, you won't. Yes, you will (unless you do a flat capitation so thst everyone’s taxes are equal to their benefits, but what’s the point of that?) Downward redistribution is inflationary (in CPI terms) because of differences in the marginal propensity to spend, in the same way that upward concentration creates asset price inflation because of marginal propensity to invest.
      - lisper 6y ago
        > in CPI terms Any economic policy that changes prices can be seen as inflationary if you pick the right index. The CPI is not what matters. What matters (to workers) is the ratio of the CPI to wages. It doesn't matter if the CPI rises (temporarily) as long as wages rise faster. As long as you are not actually just printing new money, the system will eventually reach a new equilibrium where workers have more bargaining power than they do today and capital holders have less. That is an attainable policy goal. The problem is that that the moment capital has all the bargaining power, and capital wants low wages, so that's what we have. As I pointed out earlier, this is great if you're buying, not if you're selling.
birdyrooster 6y ago
Build toilets into delivery trucks

nerdponx 6y ago

I never liked this socialist angle. Even a worker-owned collective is capable of the same abuses that a capitalist-owned corporation is capable of. Humans are fundamentally selfish and vile, and they will always oppress each other if given the opportunity and incentive.

anoncake 6y ago
> Even a worker-owned collective is capable of the same abuses that a capitalist-owned corporation is capable of. A worker-owned collective is not able to abuse its workers for the benefits of its owners. > Humans are fundamentally selfish and vile, and they will always oppress each other if given the opportunity and incentive. Speak for yourself.
- mensetmanusman 6y ago
  Or summarize all human history including the concentration camps of today?
  - anoncake 6y ago
    "Humans are selfish and vile" != "There are humans that are selfish and vile".
    - lanstin 6y ago
      The parenting motto is “make it easy to be good”. For kids at least this starts with sufficient healthy foods, enough sleep, and some autonomy over ones own actions.
    - FooBarBizBazz 6y ago
      Some call this idea "The Fundamental Attribution Error".
    - mensetmanusman 6y ago
      It appears that when push comes to shove, humans on average return to selfish and vile behavior. There have been accounts of divers, for example, losing their oxygen source and then in survival mode killing their best friend trying to obtain life-giving breathe. This type of behavior seems to be the norm. There are also many horrific accounts during hurricane Katrina along these lines. Some of these were covered by NPR. It goes to show that if shit ever really hit the fan, you might have to be prepared for zombie-like behavior.

mcaravey 6y ago

I run a bakery and the incentives to keep our employees happy is high. The cost of employee turn over via lost tribal knowledge and the cost of finding new people far outweighs taking care of the employees. Yes, one side of the business requires me to plug employee capacity and capability into calculations of the cost of goods, but stopping at simply labor is short-sighted. I pay more than minimum wage not only for skill, but to grow loyalty. It is because of capitalism we don’t treat employees simply as labor.

lisper 6y ago
Things change radically when you go from ten employees to ten thousand. (And Amazon has over a million.)