4 ms·

Unfortunately, the wages for a vast majority of workers are set by the owning class. I believe some beardy German bloke wrote a couple of volumes all about the

by jwmcq 4y ago

Unfortunately, the wages for a vast majority of workers are set by the owning class. I believe some beardy German bloke wrote a couple of volumes all about the consequences of this over a century ago.

camgunz 4y ago
I do bristle at the whole "1970s inflation spiral was caused by inflation-pegged wage increases demanded by unions" argument. The logical end of that argument is that when inflation happens, wages should suffer. Meanwhile we have oodles of subsidies and tax/legal carve outs for big business and variously protectionist trade policies. Why isn't it "when inflation increases capital gains tax also increases", hmm? It's also an odd argument for a supply-failure-induced inflation spike. Fiat currencies just have a hard time dealing with that kind of thing--such situations come dangerously close to making people realize the currency is literally worthless because all you have is this weird paper when you want gasoline. The bug isn't a bug, it's the system working as conceptualized (printed money = the stuff/services you can buy with it). The question is: why aren't wages also thought of this way? I don't really care that I make N dollars. I care that I can buy N gallons of gas. Unions sought to make that a reality in the 70s, perfectly reasonably, and we've let conservative economists make that the boogie man. I think a fair counter argument here is "if there's less stuff, we can't guarantee that your wages will always let you get N% of it", but my rejoinder here is why are wages the first thing on the chopping block? It seems like we have a lot of other areas to trim first, but our immediate reaction is "lower wage power by not pegging them to CPI, and raise unemployment by raising interest rates", both of which workers bear the brunt of. That strikes me as pretty unfair.
shard 4y ago
I'm sure I'll recognize the name of the books once you mention it, but could you clarify who the beardy German bloke is and what books he wrote?
- camgunz 4y ago
  I think they mean Marx haha.

by jwmcq 4y ago

camgunz 4y ago

I do bristle at the whole "1970s inflation spiral was caused by inflation-pegged wage increases demanded by unions" argument. The logical end of that argument is that when inflation happens, wages should suffer. Meanwhile we have oodles of subsidies and tax/legal carve outs for big business and variously protectionist trade policies. Why isn't it "when inflation increases capital gains tax also increases", hmm? It's also an odd argument for a supply-failure-induced inflation spike. Fiat currencies just have a hard time dealing with that kind of thing--such situations come dangerously close to making people realize the currency is literally worthless because all you have is this weird paper when you want gasoline. The bug isn't a bug, it's the system working as conceptualized (printed money = the stuff/services you can buy with it). The question is: why aren't wages also thought of this way? I don't really care that I make N dollars. I care that I can buy N gallons of gas. Unions sought to make that a reality in the 70s, perfectly reasonably, and we've let conservative economists make that the boogie man. I think a fair counter argument here is "if there's less stuff, we can't guarantee that your wages will always let you get N% of it", but my rejoinder here is why are wages the first thing on the chopping block? It seems like we have a lot of other areas to trim first, but our immediate reaction is "lower wage power by not pegging them to CPI, and raise unemployment by raising interest rates", both of which workers bear the brunt of. That strikes me as pretty unfair.

shard 4y ago

I'm sure I'll recognize the name of the books once you mention it, but could you clarify who the beardy German bloke is and what books he wrote?

camgunz 4y ago
I think they mean Marx haha.