4 ms·

Businesses do not have an inherent right to exist. If you can't pay a living wage, comply with regulations, and be profitable, your business model is not valid

Businesses do not have an inherent right to exist. If you can't pay a living wage, comply with regulations, and be profitable, your business model is not valid and your business should fail and close. Predictions of dire consequences rarely pan out. Fast food employees in Seattle are earning $15-20/+ per hour and prices did not double - in fact they're not significantly higher than in neighboring counties with lower wages. It turns out that labor costs are only a small fraction of overall costs.

imgabe 3y ago
Employees also do not have a right to any particular career. That's nice that people have a dream to make anime for a living. I hope they get to realize it. But the world does not owe them a particular wage for what they want to do just because it's a job that they want. If you can't make enough money doing a certain job, maybe go get a different job then.
- Goronmon 3y ago
  I'm not convinced that workers shouldn't have any rights or protections. That sounds like a pretty extreme viewpoint. Or just one coming from an employer's perspective where I can see why you might desire no limits on treatments of workers.
  - ekianjo 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - wyre 3y ago
      GP says in comment to a post about regulations and paying a minimum wage to workers which I interpret they mean certain workers don’t have the right to worker protections because they work/want to work a sought-after job.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    It is quite common in highly capitalist societies, workers should be thankful they get a couple of pennies if at all. They should learn to be hard workers, saving all the penies they can, never be sick, and some day if they don't die before it, living the dream of being their own boss.
- kiba 3y ago
  Nobody has a right to a business to exist or any particular job exist and yet nonetheless there are the rules of the game that people must abide by to make society works.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  >But the world does not owe them a particular wage for what they want to do just because it's a job that they want Sure we do, we call it minimum wage. Of course the ceiling is unlimited but there are defined floors. There are just plenty of loopholes and a lot of off the clock overtime that complicates things. Not just in anime but most of the Japanese workforce. That's a whole other topic to discuss, though.
  - gruez 3y ago
    >>But the world does not owe them a particular wage for what they want to do just because it's a job that they want >Sure we do, we call it minimum wage. Of course the ceiling is unlimited but there are defined floors. A minimum wage doesn't guarantee "a particular wage". It only guarantees that if an exchange of money for labor occurs, that the price paid will meet the minimum. However, it doesn't guarantee that the transaction will occur, and if you're unemployed your "wage" is arguably $0.
- Brian_K_White 3y ago
  There is no job that is ok to pay nothing or as good as nothing. It doesn't matter what "career". If a job needs doing by a human at all, then that human does indeed deserve a reasonable baseline which allows them to exist and even do so with reasonable dignity. As time goes on and jobs are done by machines, and there are fewer and fewer jobs that require a human, then the output and ownership of those machines simply should one way or another be distributed enough to have the same effect. All they have to do to earn that is not be being a criminal right at that moment. And this extends to people who can't do anything obviously productive too. Even a sick old grandma doing nothing but telling stories to kids for one hour a week is productive, and we have no excuse not to provide for even the ones who can't even do that. Because even if "the Earth is a life boat", we don't exist in an environment of hardship with fixed and insufficient resources where there just isn't enough food and building material and energy to go around. There simply is no excuse for the way we treat some people. They didn't do anything wrong enough to deserve it, and it is not forced by physical limits. Talking about what value someone provides to earn their existence is just a way to rationalize taking advantage of others. None of this equates to "I will be forced to spend 20 years learning medicine to give my time away for free to bums!" But even if it did, why is that a bad thing exactly? Because it's what, like slavery? You mean, slavery is bad after all?
  - imgabe 3y ago
    These are not slaves. They are free to leave. Nobody is forcing them to work at this job for so little pay. There are plenty of other jobs that pay better. They should go get one of those if they want more money. If enough of them did, the supply of animators would fall and pay would increase.
    - Brian_K_White 3y ago
      It doesn't matter if "they are free to leave". There is still no excuse for the employer to pay less than a livable amount for whatever work they get. If it's 500 freelancers competing for the equivalent of 2 1-day jobs, the employer still has to pay something reasonable for a days work to 2 of them, and nothing to the rest. Or the granularity can be smaller like per hour, but the per hour rate is still some minimum that actually works. It doesn't matter what the powerless individual worker is ostensibly "free" to do.
ekianjo 3y ago
Are you inherently saying that the Japanese anime industry is not following regulations? Because they are, and they have been surviving this way for decades and have no problem finding people who want to work there.
- Arainach 3y ago
  You skipped over the first clause of the sentence: "If you can't pay a living wage"
  - ekianjo 3y ago
    japanese animators are not living in the streets, homeless and starving so I am not sure what this "if" is about
    - pjmlp 3y ago
      I bet they aren't living great either, when compared with western consumers with bookshelfs full of anime.
      - mlrtime 3y ago
        You just moved the goalposts.
        pjmlp 3y ago
        Not at all, they deserve the same quality life of their bosses, getting rich from western money while exploring passionate slaves, in modern feudalism.
        gruez 3y ago
        >Not at all, they deserve the same quality life of their bosses That can't happen by definition unless you get rid of inequality altogether, or engage in shenanigans like defining them as "contractors".
tesmar2 3y ago
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AniseAbyss 3y ago
[dead]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
oatmeal1 3y ago
> If you can't pay a living wage, comply with regulations, and be profitable, your business model is not valid and your business should fail and close. The required amount of money to earn a "living wage" is extremely high because of government interference in the economy! And whether you personally find a business model morally "valid" is not a good reason to make economic changes. People deserve a cost-benefit analysis before their livelihood is taken away. The economic consequences of increasing the minimum wage will be just the same as previous attempts. More automation, less customer service, more unemployment among low-skilled workers.
- sangnoir 3y ago
  > The required amount of money to earn a "living wage" is extremely high because of government interference in the economy! Where the line that separates goodwill custody of the commons like roads, public education, enforcing contracts and laws and "interference"?
  - lobocinza 3y ago
    That's a good question but presently it's fair to say that governments are way past that line. It would be a great start with governments committed to not spending more than they earn and printing money to cover the deficit. At least this would stop the hidden tax of inflation. Every time politicians decide to do good somewhere they do bad everywhere. It's not that bureaucrats are evil and incompetent (although many are) is just that free markets are the ultimate resource allocation tool and government intervention is necessarily inefficient and make us poorer.
    - sangnoir 3y ago
      > free markets are the ultimate resource allocation tool and government intervention is necessarily inefficient and make us poorer. I'm fascinated - does this hold under all conditions? Can we depend on free markets to efficiently allocate resource during an all-out war vs government commandeering industry, war-bonds and rationing goods? > It would be a great start with governments committed to not spending more than they earn and printing money to cover the deficit Do you think government should be in charge of setting a monetary policy? If not, should anyone have that role among private entities? Or should industry just duke it out with against occasionally adversarial nation-states

imgabe 3y ago

Employees also do not have a right to any particular career. That's nice that people have a dream to make anime for a living. I hope they get to realize it. But the world does not owe them a particular wage for what they want to do just because it's a job that they want. If you can't make enough money doing a certain job, maybe go get a different job then.

Goronmon 3y ago
I'm not convinced that workers shouldn't have any rights or protections. That sounds like a pretty extreme viewpoint. Or just one coming from an employer's perspective where I can see why you might desire no limits on treatments of workers.
- ekianjo 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - wyre 3y ago
    GP says in comment to a post about regulations and paying a minimum wage to workers which I interpret they mean certain workers don’t have the right to worker protections because they work/want to work a sought-after job.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  It is quite common in highly capitalist societies, workers should be thankful they get a couple of pennies if at all. They should learn to be hard workers, saving all the penies they can, never be sick, and some day if they don't die before it, living the dream of being their own boss.
kiba 3y ago
Nobody has a right to a business to exist or any particular job exist and yet nonetheless there are the rules of the game that people must abide by to make society works.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
>But the world does not owe them a particular wage for what they want to do just because it's a job that they want Sure we do, we call it minimum wage. Of course the ceiling is unlimited but there are defined floors. There are just plenty of loopholes and a lot of off the clock overtime that complicates things. Not just in anime but most of the Japanese workforce. That's a whole other topic to discuss, though.
- gruez 3y ago
  >>But the world does not owe them a particular wage for what they want to do just because it's a job that they want >Sure we do, we call it minimum wage. Of course the ceiling is unlimited but there are defined floors. A minimum wage doesn't guarantee "a particular wage". It only guarantees that if an exchange of money for labor occurs, that the price paid will meet the minimum. However, it doesn't guarantee that the transaction will occur, and if you're unemployed your "wage" is arguably $0.
Brian_K_White 3y ago
There is no job that is ok to pay nothing or as good as nothing. It doesn't matter what "career". If a job needs doing by a human at all, then that human does indeed deserve a reasonable baseline which allows them to exist and even do so with reasonable dignity. As time goes on and jobs are done by machines, and there are fewer and fewer jobs that require a human, then the output and ownership of those machines simply should one way or another be distributed enough to have the same effect. All they have to do to earn that is not be being a criminal right at that moment. And this extends to people who can't do anything obviously productive too. Even a sick old grandma doing nothing but telling stories to kids for one hour a week is productive, and we have no excuse not to provide for even the ones who can't even do that. Because even if "the Earth is a life boat", we don't exist in an environment of hardship with fixed and insufficient resources where there just isn't enough food and building material and energy to go around. There simply is no excuse for the way we treat some people. They didn't do anything wrong enough to deserve it, and it is not forced by physical limits. Talking about what value someone provides to earn their existence is just a way to rationalize taking advantage of others. None of this equates to "I will be forced to spend 20 years learning medicine to give my time away for free to bums!" But even if it did, why is that a bad thing exactly? Because it's what, like slavery? You mean, slavery is bad after all?
- imgabe 3y ago
  These are not slaves. They are free to leave. Nobody is forcing them to work at this job for so little pay. There are plenty of other jobs that pay better. They should go get one of those if they want more money. If enough of them did, the supply of animators would fall and pay would increase.
  - Brian_K_White 3y ago
    It doesn't matter if "they are free to leave". There is still no excuse for the employer to pay less than a livable amount for whatever work they get. If it's 500 freelancers competing for the equivalent of 2 1-day jobs, the employer still has to pay something reasonable for a days work to 2 of them, and nothing to the rest. Or the granularity can be smaller like per hour, but the per hour rate is still some minimum that actually works. It doesn't matter what the powerless individual worker is ostensibly "free" to do.

ekianjo 3y ago

Are you inherently saying that the Japanese anime industry is not following regulations? Because they are, and they have been surviving this way for decades and have no problem finding people who want to work there.

Arainach 3y ago
You skipped over the first clause of the sentence: "If you can't pay a living wage"
- ekianjo 3y ago
  japanese animators are not living in the streets, homeless and starving so I am not sure what this "if" is about
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    I bet they aren't living great either, when compared with western consumers with bookshelfs full of anime.
    - mlrtime 3y ago
      You just moved the goalposts.
      - pjmlp 3y ago
        Not at all, they deserve the same quality life of their bosses, getting rich from western money while exploring passionate slaves, in modern feudalism.
        gruez 3y ago
        >Not at all, they deserve the same quality life of their bosses That can't happen by definition unless you get rid of inequality altogether, or engage in shenanigans like defining them as "contractors".

tesmar2 3y ago

[dead]

AniseAbyss 3y ago

[dead]

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

oatmeal1 3y ago

> If you can't pay a living wage, comply with regulations, and be profitable, your business model is not valid and your business should fail and close. The required amount of money to earn a "living wage" is extremely high because of government interference in the economy! And whether you personally find a business model morally "valid" is not a good reason to make economic changes. People deserve a cost-benefit analysis before their livelihood is taken away. The economic consequences of increasing the minimum wage will be just the same as previous attempts. More automation, less customer service, more unemployment among low-skilled workers.

sangnoir 3y ago
> The required amount of money to earn a "living wage" is extremely high because of government interference in the economy! Where the line that separates goodwill custody of the commons like roads, public education, enforcing contracts and laws and "interference"?
- lobocinza 3y ago
  That's a good question but presently it's fair to say that governments are way past that line. It would be a great start with governments committed to not spending more than they earn and printing money to cover the deficit. At least this would stop the hidden tax of inflation. Every time politicians decide to do good somewhere they do bad everywhere. It's not that bureaucrats are evil and incompetent (although many are) is just that free markets are the ultimate resource allocation tool and government intervention is necessarily inefficient and make us poorer.
  - sangnoir 3y ago
    > free markets are the ultimate resource allocation tool and government intervention is necessarily inefficient and make us poorer. I'm fascinated - does this hold under all conditions? Can we depend on free markets to efficiently allocate resource during an all-out war vs government commandeering industry, war-bonds and rationing goods? > It would be a great start with governments committed to not spending more than they earn and printing money to cover the deficit Do you think government should be in charge of setting a monetary policy? If not, should anyone have that role among private entities? Or should industry just duke it out with against occasionally adversarial nation-states