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But the current labor issues didn’t start until after the pandemic, and until the massive government spending to ease the issue of business closures and people

But the current labor issues didn’t start until after the pandemic, and until the massive government spending to ease the issue of business closures and people losing jobs. It’s not a fair market when people are avoiding those jobs because they can get paid for not working. Once the government spending stops, things will change quickly. And in fact we actually have had the opposite, people willing to give up benefits for worse jobs, gig economy jobs that provide no stability nor benefits. The reason is because there’s not actually a labor shortage at all. So you might say that the pandemic reset people’s value assessment on the job market. That may be a good thing. But until government payouts stop we won’t see the actual market in a clear light. For instance here our dog daycare can’t hire enough employees. What’s been happening is people apply, in order to show applications, and then don’t follow up because they’re still able to receive extended unemployment benefits. So at the moment there is gaming of the system. And you are correct. Downvotes are not censorship. But they are a toxic method to communicate outrage and add little to positive discussions. As has been outlined both from other articles here, as well as recent coverage from the Wall Street Journal, social media companies are well aware these tactics result in increased outrage and mental health issues, but they choose to ignore them because it adds to their bottoms lines. > what I hear them saying that they think people have to be compelled into working under the threat of poverty and violence in order to keep the current system from collapsing. But this is ultimately the system of nature. If you don’t provide for yourself you starve. If you don’t provide for your shelter you freeze. If you don’t provide for your safety you are a victim of violence. Society has distributed those tasks, yes, and we can debate that distribution. But you can’t claim that you just shouldn’t have to work to prevent those things. If you assume you have free access to those things, they are being supplied by someone else. So why should they be free for that person and not the provider? Could we supply those things free for everyone? I and everyone else would love that utopia. But it’s not where the world is at the moment, even if it’s a worthy goal. We need to keep moving forward as a species. Parasitic behavior is a real issue in any area of life, and in nature things balance out via Nash equilibrium.

danShumway 5y ago
> It’s not a fair market Well, "fair" is whatever the market is willing to pay and whatever the environment is that it finds itself inside. And the market doesn't get to shape the entire world outside of the market to suite it. The market exists inside of a society. Sometimes society meets needs that the market would otherwise provide. In those cases it's just kind of tough luck, if you don't like it go find another market. Is it "fair" that Open Source has made certain segments of software impossible to monetize using traditional means? I don't know, but it's reality. Is it "fair" that we as a society are unwilling to let people starve, and that gives them a sense of confidence about selecting jobs? Well, it's reality. People voluntarily decide to form communities and societies. When businesses enter those communities and enter those societies, they consent to play by the democratic rules of those societies. If society decides that it wants a minimum wage or unemployment benefits, businesses are free to move elsewhere. In fact, they're much more free to move elsewhere than their workers. The average American citizen can not afford to move to another country, that takes money. So I disagree quite strongly with the notion that giving those people who don't have the funds or ability to move more agency over whether they want to work is some kind of restriction of the market. Amazon could pull out of the US if it really needed to, Bezos is living here by choice. Most of its workers couldn't, most of its workers don't have the ability to consent to the system they find themselves in. > So why should the be free for that person and not the provider? Because businesses consented to living in a democratic society with rules, including social safety nets and standards based on whether the society at large is willing to let its citizens live in poverty. In a lot of ways, the ultimate system of nature for humans is collectivism and government, there has never been a human society that hasn't eventually ended up setting up some system of standards for how far we're willing to let people fall and how much poverty we're willing to subject people to, and that collectivism and shared standard of living is no small part of why we are the dominant creatures on the planet. I disagree that it is "natural" for people who are out of work to starve to death, I think it's very natural for human beings to set up formal structures that prevent that from happening, it's one of the really big things that we do as a species. ---- I also want to point out that it's very selective to argue that "fairness" in nature means people having no leverage over whether or not to participate in a market. Even more than that, it's also very... questionable... to correlate "natural" with "fair." Even in a situation where a business didn't the create the problem, even in a situation where a business isn't holding a gun to your head and forcing you to work with threats of violence, a coerced contract is still coerced, and appealing to the natural state of that coercion doesn't really make it better. If I find you bleeding to death and sell you a single bandage for a million dollars, you can argue that it's not my fault you're in that position. But that doesn't mean the sale isn't happening under duress, it doesn't mean it's suddenly a free transaction. Duress and coercion does not need to be actively created by the party that benefits from it.
maxsilver 5y ago
>It’s not a fair market when people are avoiding those jobs because they can get paid for not working This is not a real thing, this is a fake assertion you have invented in your mind. No one is getting paid to "not work". And no, workers who have lost their job, collecting their unemployment they earned during past labour, never counts as getting "paid to not work". >Once the government spending stops, things will change quickly. In most places, the paltry, tiny financial aid for workers ended months ago, and nothing has changed at all. > For instance here our dog daycare can’t hire enough employees They should consider paying wages. If they paid money for labor, they'd get labour. It's really that simple. What most "employers" actually want is nearly slave labour, volunteers, like they had pre pandemic. Employers swear up and down that no one wants to work, and then you find out they pay just $15/hr or some other insultingly low slave-like wage (a wage so low that no human could feasibly live alone off of it, much less advance in any way in their life). A single adult with no debt, and no dependents, in Michigan, "making" $15/hr doesn't even take home enough money to rent a modest 1-bed apartment in the city, much less eat or do anything else with their life. At this wage, the adult is literally poorer every day they show up to work, they are literally donating their labour to a for-profit company. And most people are not "perfect ideal adults", they have children, or student loans, or elderly parents, or a tricky medical condition, or any other totally-normal totally-reasonable life complication that they need money to help cover, so they can show up to do good work for you. I don't know your local market, but I guarantee if your dog daycare was in Michigan and it started paying $25/hr, they'd fill those positions in just a few days. Their employee "shortage" is a fake problem they have intentionally created for themselves, not some sort of indicator of people's willingness to work. --- Everyone wants to work right now. No one is hiring at a liveable wage. Most reasonable people are not going to get out of bed and go to work all day, just to end the day poorer then they started. That would be insane. But that insanity is what every company seems to demand of labour these days.
- specialist 5y ago
  > At this wage, the adult is literally poorer every day they show up to work, they are literally donating their labour to a for-profit company. Yes and: With gig work like Uber and DoorDash, the labor is also providing capital (car, phone, etc) with the hope of making it back in tips. The equivalent of usury, sharecropping, and pyramid scheme, all in one.
odessacubbage 5y ago
>gig economy jobs that provide no stability nor benefits. part of this probably has to do with the fact that many benefits like pto and workman's comp are so heavily gated by bureaucrats that rather than fighting to squeeze blood from the stone, many people simply find they are more rewarded by a flexible schedule and cold hard cash.' as a point of comparison, i can earn upwards of 90 dollars a day doing 'in home dog-sitting' which basically amounts to playing videogames and sleeping at some rich person's house. i get to choose the dogs & clients i work with, i get to choose when i want to work. i never get yelled at for taking dogs on walks that are 'too long' or threatened for using my vacation time to go to a funeral.

danShumway 5y ago

> It’s not a fair market Well, "fair" is whatever the market is willing to pay and whatever the environment is that it finds itself inside. And the market doesn't get to shape the entire world outside of the market to suite it. The market exists inside of a society. Sometimes society meets needs that the market would otherwise provide. In those cases it's just kind of tough luck, if you don't like it go find another market. Is it "fair" that Open Source has made certain segments of software impossible to monetize using traditional means? I don't know, but it's reality. Is it "fair" that we as a society are unwilling to let people starve, and that gives them a sense of confidence about selecting jobs? Well, it's reality. People voluntarily decide to form communities and societies. When businesses enter those communities and enter those societies, they consent to play by the democratic rules of those societies. If society decides that it wants a minimum wage or unemployment benefits, businesses are free to move elsewhere. In fact, they're much more free to move elsewhere than their workers. The average American citizen can not afford to move to another country, that takes money. So I disagree quite strongly with the notion that giving those people who don't have the funds or ability to move more agency over whether they want to work is some kind of restriction of the market. Amazon could pull out of the US if it really needed to, Bezos is living here by choice. Most of its workers couldn't, most of its workers don't have the ability to consent to the system they find themselves in. > So why should the be free for that person and not the provider? Because businesses consented to living in a democratic society with rules, including social safety nets and standards based on whether the society at large is willing to let its citizens live in poverty. In a lot of ways, the ultimate system of nature for humans is collectivism and government, there has never been a human society that hasn't eventually ended up setting up some system of standards for how far we're willing to let people fall and how much poverty we're willing to subject people to, and that collectivism and shared standard of living is no small part of why we are the dominant creatures on the planet. I disagree that it is "natural" for people who are out of work to starve to death, I think it's very natural for human beings to set up formal structures that prevent that from happening, it's one of the really big things that we do as a species. ---- I also want to point out that it's very selective to argue that "fairness" in nature means people having no leverage over whether or not to participate in a market. Even more than that, it's also very... questionable... to correlate "natural" with "fair." Even in a situation where a business didn't the create the problem, even in a situation where a business isn't holding a gun to your head and forcing you to work with threats of violence, a coerced contract is still coerced, and appealing to the natural state of that coercion doesn't really make it better. If I find you bleeding to death and sell you a single bandage for a million dollars, you can argue that it's not my fault you're in that position. But that doesn't mean the sale isn't happening under duress, it doesn't mean it's suddenly a free transaction. Duress and coercion does not need to be actively created by the party that benefits from it.

maxsilver 5y ago

>It’s not a fair market when people are avoiding those jobs because they can get paid for not working This is not a real thing, this is a fake assertion you have invented in your mind. No one is getting paid to "not work". And no, workers who have lost their job, collecting their unemployment they earned during past labour, never counts as getting "paid to not work". >Once the government spending stops, things will change quickly. In most places, the paltry, tiny financial aid for workers ended months ago, and nothing has changed at all. > For instance here our dog daycare can’t hire enough employees They should consider paying wages. If they paid money for labor, they'd get labour. It's really that simple. What most "employers" actually want is nearly slave labour, volunteers, like they had pre pandemic. Employers swear up and down that no one wants to work, and then you find out they pay just $15/hr or some other insultingly low slave-like wage (a wage so low that no human could feasibly live alone off of it, much less advance in any way in their life). A single adult with no debt, and no dependents, in Michigan, "making" $15/hr doesn't even take home enough money to rent a modest 1-bed apartment in the city, much less eat or do anything else with their life. At this wage, the adult is literally poorer every day they show up to work, they are literally donating their labour to a for-profit company. And most people are not "perfect ideal adults", they have children, or student loans, or elderly parents, or a tricky medical condition, or any other totally-normal totally-reasonable life complication that they need money to help cover, so they can show up to do good work for you. I don't know your local market, but I guarantee if your dog daycare was in Michigan and it started paying $25/hr, they'd fill those positions in just a few days. Their employee "shortage" is a fake problem they have intentionally created for themselves, not some sort of indicator of people's willingness to work. --- Everyone wants to work right now. No one is hiring at a liveable wage. Most reasonable people are not going to get out of bed and go to work all day, just to end the day poorer then they started. That would be insane. But that insanity is what every company seems to demand of labour these days.

specialist 5y ago
> At this wage, the adult is literally poorer every day they show up to work, they are literally donating their labour to a for-profit company. Yes and: With gig work like Uber and DoorDash, the labor is also providing capital (car, phone, etc) with the hope of making it back in tips. The equivalent of usury, sharecropping, and pyramid scheme, all in one.

odessacubbage 5y ago

>gig economy jobs that provide no stability nor benefits. part of this probably has to do with the fact that many benefits like pto and workman's comp are so heavily gated by bureaucrats that rather than fighting to squeeze blood from the stone, many people simply find they are more rewarded by a flexible schedule and cold hard cash.' as a point of comparison, i can earn upwards of 90 dollars a day doing 'in home dog-sitting' which basically amounts to playing videogames and sleeping at some rich person's house. i get to choose the dogs & clients i work with, i get to choose when i want to work. i never get yelled at for taking dogs on walks that are 'too long' or threatened for using my vacation time to go to a funeral.