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So you don't think there is a market for labor? You don't think that wages, benefits and workplace conditions (heath & safety), have any effect on where people
by mikhailfranco 3y ago
So you don't think there is a market for labor? You don't think that wages, benefits and workplace conditions (heath & safety), have any effect on where people work? Do you think there are fixed wages for certain categories of jobs, like some soviet economy? Do you think that most jobs are long-term-fixed contracts at some low penalty rate, like indentured servitude? Do you think there are still company towns where people have to work for a monopsonist employer at their terms? Do you think that people can move location?
Wage-based employment in the western world is certainly an economy. It is affected by laws, taxes, regulations, wage transparency, negotiating power, unionization, social welfare benefits, etc. But it is approximately a market, and wages are affected by the supply of labor (with skills/without; with education/without; with an artisan skill/or not; prepared to do dull, repetitive, smelly, disgusting job/or not).
How is labor not a market?
And do you know workers with profit sharing, or performance-related bonuses, or share options? Well they are essentially capitalists in their own employer, with some (small, perhaps insignificant) share of the returns to the business.
Do you know anyone who is self-employed? They are solo capitalists, self-started, owners of their shop or tools, and a capitalist of one.
Do you have a pension that owns equities? You are also a capitalist.
You may hate your manager, or envy them, because they earn more than you, and get to boss people around. They are not capitalists. Managers are not capitalists. Don't confuse your hatreds. They are only capitalists to the extent that they also get share ownership and options. Choose your targets carefully, and be explicit in your class-warfare hatreds.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y agoAs I outlined, markets != capitalism. It seems you've wandered far away from my whole point. Free markets, entrepeneurialism are a part of contemporary US capitalism, but they can also exist in systems that are not capitalist. For a system to be capitalist, it requires additional features, and the most significant of these is the way the rewards of human ventures are distributed (i.e. primarily towards those who invest capital rather than labor or IP in the venture).
- mikhailfranco 3y agoYou can define capitalism however you like, but nobody can define away the thriving labor market that obviously exists in the western world - even with all the distortions and regulations. The labor market affects how rewards are shared between capital and labor. Nobody has to agree with your unique and special definition.