7 ms·

It is a problem that corrects itself. If people do not want the $12 an hour and can afford not working for those companies, there is no problem. If they need it

It is a problem that corrects itself. If people do not want the $12 an hour and can afford not working for those companies, there is no problem. If they need it, they will work for that $12. You can say the same thing for $250/hour developer jobs. Some might do it for $5 an hour (well or not can be debated), and some wouldn't touch it for $250/hour. Free market. There are many companies out there to choose from. If the person is qualified, they will find it. If they are not, they will need to get qualified to ask for more money.

solardev 4y ago
The availability of desirable jobs and wealth isn't distributed very effectively. It mostly just clumps together and benefits a tiny elite at the expense of our societies and species. The free market never works for very long before hoarders take most of it.
- curiousgeorgio 4y ago
  > The free market never works for very long before hoarders take most of it. I'm not sure you understand how a labor market works. There may be (and often are) local/temporary inefficiencies, but if "hoarders" are taking most of it, then why are there so many unfilled jobs across the country – including high-paying jobs? Similarly, if employers aren't compensating employees fairly (which may be the case while the market adjusts to inflation + recession), they can only do that for so long before the market effectively forces them to pay/treat employees more favorably (no government intervention necessary).
  - solardev 4y ago
    I don't think these are mutually exclusive. There can be a local deficit within an industry, and we might not be able to meet that demand with our labor pipeline. At the same time, there can be an overall deficit of meaningful work for decent enough wages at the societal level. The hoarders can selectively employ people who will make them richer, all while the rest of society continues to crumble around them. That's what's been happening in America for decades. Either you're in the upper class or things or actively getting worse.
    - curiousgeorgio 4y ago
      > The hoarders can selectively employ people who will make them richer, all while the rest of society continues to crumble around them. The magical device on which you're reading this comment would not have been possible without companies employing people they thought would help make the company richer. It's not a zero-sum game; we all benefit as a consequence of capitalism – from the richest of the rich to the poorest of the poor. Have you ever owned a business or hired someone? If so, did you deliberately select employees who would not help the company be successful, and if so, did that somehow help prevent societal collapse? I hear so many lies about the "evils" of capitalism (from all sources, not just here); I fear people are starting to believe them, as we're slowly being brainwashed into joining the next reboot of "let's see – again – how badly we can screw up the world with communism".
      - solardev 4y ago
        I don't think it's anywhere near that black and white. My specific complaint is with the free market being hindered by overconcentration and monopolists. There is a vast chasm between that and whatever you perceive communism to be. Technological progress doesn't depend on the world being controlled by Google and Apple. And even if it did, I'm not convinced the smartphone is a net positive for society. Shrug. Many shades of gray in our world, and economy too.
      - imtringued 4y ago
        Capitalism fails the moment there is prosperity. Have you ever wondered why people starved during depressions even though there was an abundance of food? People complain about central banks and low interest rates or about the decline of the west not because of a lack of prosperity, no the problem is that there is too much prosperity in the hands of the wrong people. During times of actual scarcity, people are busily and happily working to get rid of the scarcity which is why we constantly try to create more jobs and why we constantly induce artificial demand increases, to maintain the scarcity that capitalism demands. > fear people are starting to believe them, as we're slowly being brainwashed into joining the next reboot of "let's see – again – how badly we can screw up the world with communism". You can abolish capitalism by introducing an actual free market, not one in name.
  - lordnacho 4y ago
    I'm not sure the mechanism works as simply as you describe. Money is still cheap, so employers can hold out while waiting for conditions to return to normal, whereas employees generally don't have that option. It's not at all clear that the game simply resolves to employers paying more, locally or on average. Prices can be sticky in more than one way it seems, and that might make for some interesting economics.
8note 4y ago
This ignores power differences though? The market isn't particularly free when people need to eat It'd be much freer with guarantees for basic necessities
- curiousgeorgio 4y ago
  > The market isn't particularly free when people need to eat > It'd be much freer with guarantees for basic necessities You do know that would literally just make the problem worse, right? I mean, it sounds good to someone who can't work for legitimate reasons (small percentage of the population), but it also sounds good to everyone who has the capacity to earn their necessities, but would rather have it handed to them instead. It also sounds really good to politicians who seek (re)election by promising everything for free, knowing perfectly well that nothing is truly free. That kind of reasoning is what got us into this inflation mess. Also, the "free" in "free market" doesn't mean what you seem to think it does.
  - adrianN 4y ago
    I thought the current inflation is primarily driven by high energy prices and disrupted supply chains and those are primarily driven by war and the pandemic?
    - curiousgeorgio 4y ago
      > I thought the current inflation is primarily driven by high energy prices and disrupted supply chains and those are primarily driven by war and the pandemic? Nope. You'd be wrong. It's the trillions of dollars unnecessarily printed by the fed. A large part of that went to business owners who didn't actually need it, but took advantage of all the "free money" (and who could blame them when the gov't practically gave it away). That money was quickly invested into real estate and equities markets, leading the way for inflation in the rest of the market, albeit with some delay. And we're not even at the worst yet.
      - adrianN 4y ago
tchalla 4y ago
The free markets are not efficient. That’s the core reason why there are mismatches between price and value.
- chii 4y ago
  i'd say the free market is more efficient than a command economy. Even if it's not perfectly efficient, it's quite close.
  - sudosysgen 4y ago
    Well, in some cases. There are actually industries where command models outperform market models and industries where they are competitive. A mix of market and command is necessary. But this whole thing isn't really relevant because both markets and command systems have very wide variety in implementation.

solardev 4y ago

The availability of desirable jobs and wealth isn't distributed very effectively. It mostly just clumps together and benefits a tiny elite at the expense of our societies and species. The free market never works for very long before hoarders take most of it.

curiousgeorgio 4y ago
> The free market never works for very long before hoarders take most of it. I'm not sure you understand how a labor market works. There may be (and often are) local/temporary inefficiencies, but if "hoarders" are taking most of it, then why are there so many unfilled jobs across the country – including high-paying jobs? Similarly, if employers aren't compensating employees fairly (which may be the case while the market adjusts to inflation + recession), they can only do that for so long before the market effectively forces them to pay/treat employees more favorably (no government intervention necessary).
- solardev 4y ago
  I don't think these are mutually exclusive. There can be a local deficit within an industry, and we might not be able to meet that demand with our labor pipeline. At the same time, there can be an overall deficit of meaningful work for decent enough wages at the societal level. The hoarders can selectively employ people who will make them richer, all while the rest of society continues to crumble around them. That's what's been happening in America for decades. Either you're in the upper class or things or actively getting worse.
  - curiousgeorgio 4y ago
    > The hoarders can selectively employ people who will make them richer, all while the rest of society continues to crumble around them. The magical device on which you're reading this comment would not have been possible without companies employing people they thought would help make the company richer. It's not a zero-sum game; we all benefit as a consequence of capitalism – from the richest of the rich to the poorest of the poor. Have you ever owned a business or hired someone? If so, did you deliberately select employees who would not help the company be successful, and if so, did that somehow help prevent societal collapse? I hear so many lies about the "evils" of capitalism (from all sources, not just here); I fear people are starting to believe them, as we're slowly being brainwashed into joining the next reboot of "let's see – again – how badly we can screw up the world with communism".
    - solardev 4y ago
      I don't think it's anywhere near that black and white. My specific complaint is with the free market being hindered by overconcentration and monopolists. There is a vast chasm between that and whatever you perceive communism to be. Technological progress doesn't depend on the world being controlled by Google and Apple. And even if it did, I'm not convinced the smartphone is a net positive for society. Shrug. Many shades of gray in our world, and economy too.
    - imtringued 4y ago
      Capitalism fails the moment there is prosperity. Have you ever wondered why people starved during depressions even though there was an abundance of food? People complain about central banks and low interest rates or about the decline of the west not because of a lack of prosperity, no the problem is that there is too much prosperity in the hands of the wrong people. During times of actual scarcity, people are busily and happily working to get rid of the scarcity which is why we constantly try to create more jobs and why we constantly induce artificial demand increases, to maintain the scarcity that capitalism demands. > fear people are starting to believe them, as we're slowly being brainwashed into joining the next reboot of "let's see – again – how badly we can screw up the world with communism". You can abolish capitalism by introducing an actual free market, not one in name.
- lordnacho 4y ago
  I'm not sure the mechanism works as simply as you describe. Money is still cheap, so employers can hold out while waiting for conditions to return to normal, whereas employees generally don't have that option. It's not at all clear that the game simply resolves to employers paying more, locally or on average. Prices can be sticky in more than one way it seems, and that might make for some interesting economics.

8note 4y ago

This ignores power differences though? The market isn't particularly free when people need to eat It'd be much freer with guarantees for basic necessities

curiousgeorgio 4y ago
> The market isn't particularly free when people need to eat > It'd be much freer with guarantees for basic necessities You do know that would literally just make the problem worse, right? I mean, it sounds good to someone who can't work for legitimate reasons (small percentage of the population), but it also sounds good to everyone who has the capacity to earn their necessities, but would rather have it handed to them instead. It also sounds really good to politicians who seek (re)election by promising everything for free, knowing perfectly well that nothing is truly free. That kind of reasoning is what got us into this inflation mess. Also, the "free" in "free market" doesn't mean what you seem to think it does.
- adrianN 4y ago
  I thought the current inflation is primarily driven by high energy prices and disrupted supply chains and those are primarily driven by war and the pandemic?
  - curiousgeorgio 4y ago
    > I thought the current inflation is primarily driven by high energy prices and disrupted supply chains and those are primarily driven by war and the pandemic? Nope. You'd be wrong. It's the trillions of dollars unnecessarily printed by the fed. A large part of that went to business owners who didn't actually need it, but took advantage of all the "free money" (and who could blame them when the gov't practically gave it away). That money was quickly invested into real estate and equities markets, leading the way for inflation in the rest of the market, albeit with some delay. And we're not even at the worst yet.
    - adrianN 4y ago

tchalla 4y ago

The free markets are not efficient. That’s the core reason why there are mismatches between price and value.

chii 4y ago
i'd say the free market is more efficient than a command economy. Even if it's not perfectly efficient, it's quite close.
- sudosysgen 4y ago
  Well, in some cases. There are actually industries where command models outperform market models and industries where they are competitive. A mix of market and command is necessary. But this whole thing isn't really relevant because both markets and command systems have very wide variety in implementation.