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Minimum wage doesn't help in a system that is designed to produce fewer jobs than people that want to work. If you have 20 dogs and 19 bones, then one dog is al

Minimum wage doesn't help in a system that is designed to produce fewer jobs than people that want to work. If you have 20 dogs and 19 bones, then one dog is always going to have to go without no matter what happens. We don't need a minimum wage. We need a minimum job - the ability to sell your labour hours for a given price.

mschuster91 5y ago
> We don't need a minimum wage. We need a minimum job - the ability to sell your labour hours for a given price. Alternatively, we could look at what our ancestors dreamed of: utilizing automation to reduce the individual workload for everyone and spread it over more people. A future that is not 5x9-5 is possible. 4 workdays of 6h each with a 30min break at halftime would be a starter. We would however first need to re-define our culture that derives much of our sense of "self worth" from our employment status, and we would need to think about which jobs we actually want as society... IMO we could cut out a large part of the plague that is advertising, most of the insurance industry (very easy: forcibly fuse all kinds of insurance provider into a single non-profit government entity - added benefit, rates could get massively lower due to less overhead) and likely all of far-distance truck transportation by expanding rail coverage and capacity.
- squiggleblaz 5y ago
  > > We don't need a minimum wage. We need a minimum job - the ability to sell your labour hours for a given price. > Alternatively, we could look at what our ancestors dreamed of: utilizing automation to reduce the individual workload for everyone and spread it over more people. A future that is not 5x9-5 is possible. 4 workdays of 6h each with a 30min break at halftime would be a starter. This won't solve the initial problem. The amount of work which gets done defines the amount of activity in the economy, but unemployment is compatible with a range of amounts of activity. If the goal is to keep about 3% of those who want jobs and could work unemployed, then you will achieve that whether people are working 20 hour weeks or 40 hour weeks. (Actually, the target unemployment is a lot higher than that, because there's plenty of people who want jobs and could work, but who the labor market prefers to redefine as "can't work" or "doesn't want to work". If two people can do the same job, but one person can only do it at half the pace, then we often exclude them from the market.)
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    > This won't solve the initial problem. The amount of work which gets done defines the amount of activity in the economy, but unemployment is compatible with a range of amounts of activity. Right now we have a lot of people that are not working at all even if they wanted... in many households, women stay home for childcare, there are people who don't even register for unemployment because of all sorts of (sometimes willful!) bureaucratic impediments. By reducing the expected per-person workload to 20 hours a week, society would enable all these people to contribute.
- ratsforhorses 5y ago
  How about..a salary based on the ressources you need/want to survive...so that those who work less (indirectly contributing more to society by sharing their job, childcare, volunteering or just being mentally healthy enough to think of the"next big thing" and directly by ecologically diminishing consumption) get paid more ...? Tax the higher earners and subsidise the "work less" ...then suddenly wages and automation go up as businesses have to compete for a diminishing work pool... I personally have moved out of the 1st world to avoid the work plague, I help my kids grow up and dig a beautiful garden...my conscience cringes at the "work ethic" which I perceive as government propaganda to help milk peoples time and keep them politically silent... the easiest solution to global warming is to work less, we saw it with covid (at least a whispering) but maybe politicians are avoiding doing anything realistic because...power corrupts...
- neilwilson 5y ago
  "utilizing automation to reduce the individual workload for everyone and spread it over more people." Which is a fallacy of composition - unless you believe you can turn a dumpster diver into a brain surgeon just by applying some amount of training. It's known as the appeal to fungibility and it doesn't stack up. Jobs are becoming more skilled, not less, which means that we all have to deploy our hours in solidarity with the skilled who we want to work a full week. Otherwise they will just stop on Tuesday, once they have made enough for themselves, and have the rest of the week off.
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    > Which is a fallacy of composition - unless you believe you can turn a dumpster diver into a brain surgeon just by applying some amount of training. So... take the workload of one brain surgeon, and hire two brain surgeons with 20 hours a week each? Of course society would need to (drastically) expand training capacity, but it would be better off in the end.
    - neilwilson 5y ago
      That's precisely my point. There aren't enough people who are capable of being brain surgeons. The majority of us cannot become one. We're just not good enough. That was always the failure of the 'socially necessary labour time' idea. It assumes complete fungibility amongst people, and that isn't the case.

mschuster91 5y ago

> We don't need a minimum wage. We need a minimum job - the ability to sell your labour hours for a given price. Alternatively, we could look at what our ancestors dreamed of: utilizing automation to reduce the individual workload for everyone and spread it over more people. A future that is not 5x9-5 is possible. 4 workdays of 6h each with a 30min break at halftime would be a starter. We would however first need to re-define our culture that derives much of our sense of "self worth" from our employment status, and we would need to think about which jobs we actually want as society... IMO we could cut out a large part of the plague that is advertising, most of the insurance industry (very easy: forcibly fuse all kinds of insurance provider into a single non-profit government entity - added benefit, rates could get massively lower due to less overhead) and likely all of far-distance truck transportation by expanding rail coverage and capacity.

squiggleblaz 5y ago
> > We don't need a minimum wage. We need a minimum job - the ability to sell your labour hours for a given price. > Alternatively, we could look at what our ancestors dreamed of: utilizing automation to reduce the individual workload for everyone and spread it over more people. A future that is not 5x9-5 is possible. 4 workdays of 6h each with a 30min break at halftime would be a starter. This won't solve the initial problem. The amount of work which gets done defines the amount of activity in the economy, but unemployment is compatible with a range of amounts of activity. If the goal is to keep about 3% of those who want jobs and could work unemployed, then you will achieve that whether people are working 20 hour weeks or 40 hour weeks. (Actually, the target unemployment is a lot higher than that, because there's plenty of people who want jobs and could work, but who the labor market prefers to redefine as "can't work" or "doesn't want to work". If two people can do the same job, but one person can only do it at half the pace, then we often exclude them from the market.)
- mschuster91 5y ago
  > This won't solve the initial problem. The amount of work which gets done defines the amount of activity in the economy, but unemployment is compatible with a range of amounts of activity. Right now we have a lot of people that are not working at all even if they wanted... in many households, women stay home for childcare, there are people who don't even register for unemployment because of all sorts of (sometimes willful!) bureaucratic impediments. By reducing the expected per-person workload to 20 hours a week, society would enable all these people to contribute.
ratsforhorses 5y ago
How about..a salary based on the ressources you need/want to survive...so that those who work less (indirectly contributing more to society by sharing their job, childcare, volunteering or just being mentally healthy enough to think of the"next big thing" and directly by ecologically diminishing consumption) get paid more ...? Tax the higher earners and subsidise the "work less" ...then suddenly wages and automation go up as businesses have to compete for a diminishing work pool... I personally have moved out of the 1st world to avoid the work plague, I help my kids grow up and dig a beautiful garden...my conscience cringes at the "work ethic" which I perceive as government propaganda to help milk peoples time and keep them politically silent... the easiest solution to global warming is to work less, we saw it with covid (at least a whispering) but maybe politicians are avoiding doing anything realistic because...power corrupts...
neilwilson 5y ago
"utilizing automation to reduce the individual workload for everyone and spread it over more people." Which is a fallacy of composition - unless you believe you can turn a dumpster diver into a brain surgeon just by applying some amount of training. It's known as the appeal to fungibility and it doesn't stack up. Jobs are becoming more skilled, not less, which means that we all have to deploy our hours in solidarity with the skilled who we want to work a full week. Otherwise they will just stop on Tuesday, once they have made enough for themselves, and have the rest of the week off.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  > Which is a fallacy of composition - unless you believe you can turn a dumpster diver into a brain surgeon just by applying some amount of training. So... take the workload of one brain surgeon, and hire two brain surgeons with 20 hours a week each? Of course society would need to (drastically) expand training capacity, but it would be better off in the end.
  - neilwilson 5y ago
    That's precisely my point. There aren't enough people who are capable of being brain surgeons. The majority of us cannot become one. We're just not good enough. That was always the failure of the 'socially necessary labour time' idea. It assumes complete fungibility amongst people, and that isn't the case.