6 ms·

Plenty of work for prison laborers.

by dumbo-octopus 2y ago

Retric 2y ago
Sure at 20-50 cents an hour, but that’s not really relevant here.
- dumbo-octopus 2y ago
  “Keep society functioning”? I’m not asking for them to man the electric grid, but there’s still a ton of work that is too inconsequential for any minimum wage job to be worth it, yet would still be a net benefit to society for somebody to do it. Things like picking trash up off the side of the highway.
  - dumbo-octopus 2y ago
    Ah, a ninja-edit. Cool. But tell me: why isn’t that relevant here?
    - Retric 2y ago
      > work that is too inconsequential for any minimum wage job to be worth it If it’s not worth minimum wage it’s been judged as not worth doing like that. You can automate picking up trash which is exactly the kinds of thing you avoid doing if labor is cheap enough. As such the wage floor is very much a benefit to society by opening a wedge for automation rather than having people do such tasks.
      - dumbo-octopus 2y ago
        No, it’s been judged as not worth doing like that by people who have freedom. If you’ve chosen to rescind your freedom, you by extension rescind your right to choose not to do work for less than minimum wage.
        dumbo-octopus 2y ago
        If the automation existed that’d be one thing. But as it stands we have trashed streets and jobless bums. Clearly the system isn’t working.
        Retric 2y ago
        You can set minimum wage to zero and you still get trashed streets because trashed streets aren’t considered worth fixing every week. Instead there’s an equilibrium where X money is used to maintain reasonably clean streets and people will just spend less if they already look ok.
        dumbo-octopus 2y ago
        Minimum wage isn’t the issue here. You said 30-50 cents an hour isn’t “relevant” yourself, but haven’t backed that up with anything. They could be paid 0 for all I care, the situation would be the same: folks who have stolen something from society (be it direct financial losses or more abstract things like health and safety and peaceful movement) being made to give retributions back to society for their crimes. There are easy wins here (trash), and more involved projects.
        Retric 2y ago
        > haven’t backed that up with anything It’s backed up by the finite supply of unemployed people willing and able to work below minimum wage. As to your obsession with clean streets, the government does spend money on it the general public doesn’t actually care enough to spend more on it. It doesn’t matter how cheap it is as long as nobody is willing to fund it.
        dumbo-octopus 2y ago
        Elaborate. As of yet you’ve said nothing to refute the idea that forcing people who aren’t working to start working would result in more work being completed.
      - Ferret7446 2y ago
        Reality doesn't care about cost fixing attempts like minimum wage. People will just go around that and restore equilibrium to supply and demand. So long as excess labor is available, labor costs will be driven down until equilibrium is reached. You might say "don't treat humans as commodities"; well, reality doesn't care specially about humans; we are just animals even if we like to think we aren't.
        Retric 2y ago
        You are proposing a model that doesn’t fit observed reality.
saghm 2y ago
"Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?" I never thought I'd see someone unironically epouse the ideas of Ebeneezer Scrooge, but here we are.
- dumbo-octopus 2y ago
  What’s your solution?
- roenxi 2y ago
  The rebuttal to Scrooge involved a heavy reliance on divine intervention, ghosts and threats of eternal damnation in hell wrapped in heavy chains. While rhetorically powerful, I'm disputing that Dickens' opinions are the most thoughtful approach to direct social policy. As a starting point to benefiting from society there is a reasonable expectation that people put a couple of hours a day into making life better for others. Prisoners can achieve that lofty goal. So can people travelling on the NY Metro without paying. There is a lot of room to haggle over the details, but argument from chubby ghost of Christmas present is not really the path to a good compromise.
- heavyset_go 2y ago
  Is this your first time visiting this site?
scotty79 2y ago
Slaves is such a nasty word. Prisoners with jobs.
- dumbo-octopus 2y ago
  The concern with slavery is the innocence of victim. When that’s removed, it’s no longer controversial. At least it shouldn’t be.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    The concern with prison labor is that it's profitable to pay below market wages and then whoever is getting the profits has the incentive to lobby for more prisoners.
    - dumbo-octopus 2y ago
      If the public at large is getting the profits (community service), and there are a high number of dangerous criminals who are not being prosecuted (there are), then… cool. We agree.
      - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
        Community service has a particular problem in the context you're trying to use it in though, doesn't it? Where community service works if for e.g. misbehaving kids with non-absentee parents. Because then the parents make sure the kid actually does the community service, and the kid is thereby deterred from doing it again. If you do the same thing for someone who is going to blow off the community service, then you'd need the police to make them do the community service, and police get six figures in salary and benefits, so that's a very expensive babysitter and you've eliminated any kind of net benefit.
        dumbo-octopus 2y ago
        No, because the people are already a net drain on society. They already require dedicated police force, they already require dedicated sanitation force, food stamps, etcetcetc. And that’s not to mention the health and psychological cost on society of not being able to walk freely without fear cracked out guy will assault you. I’m not proposing moving from these people providing $0.00 to taking whatever a person to monitor their work and provide institutional food costs, I’m proposing we move from these people costing a society a shitload, both financially and health/safety wise, to perhaps similar financially, but removing the health and safety burden and finally putting them on a path to success.
archagon 2y ago
So… your solution is slavery?
- dumbo-octopus 2y ago
  You think slaves were all criminals who were simply paying back society commensurate to their transgressions? Got anything to back that up? My impression was they were free men captured and forced into a lifetime of work.
EasyMark 2y ago
Are you proposing throwing people in prison for not paying a bus/train ticket?
- dumbo-octopus 2y ago
  If they didn’t pay, they should be made to pay. If they can’t pay and have no ability to pay in the near future, they should be helped into situation where they will be trained to develop capacity to work with guaranteed employment opportunities. Call it prison if you wish, but the cell isn’t the point, the job is.

Plenty of work for prison laborers.

Retric 2y ago

Sure at 20-50 cents an hour, but that’s not really relevant here.

dumbo-octopus 2y ago
“Keep society functioning”? I’m not asking for them to man the electric grid, but there’s still a ton of work that is too inconsequential for any minimum wage job to be worth it, yet would still be a net benefit to society for somebody to do it. Things like picking trash up off the side of the highway.
- dumbo-octopus 2y ago
  Ah, a ninja-edit. Cool. But tell me: why isn’t that relevant here?
  - Retric 2y ago
    > work that is too inconsequential for any minimum wage job to be worth it If it’s not worth minimum wage it’s been judged as not worth doing like that. You can automate picking up trash which is exactly the kinds of thing you avoid doing if labor is cheap enough. As such the wage floor is very much a benefit to society by opening a wedge for automation rather than having people do such tasks.
    - dumbo-octopus 2y ago
      No, it’s been judged as not worth doing like that by people who have freedom. If you’ve chosen to rescind your freedom, you by extension rescind your right to choose not to do work for less than minimum wage.
      - dumbo-octopus 2y ago
        If the automation existed that’d be one thing. But as it stands we have trashed streets and jobless bums. Clearly the system isn’t working.
        Retric 2y ago
        You can set minimum wage to zero and you still get trashed streets because trashed streets aren’t considered worth fixing every week. Instead there’s an equilibrium where X money is used to maintain reasonably clean streets and people will just spend less if they already look ok.
        dumbo-octopus 2y ago
        Minimum wage isn’t the issue here. You said 30-50 cents an hour isn’t “relevant” yourself, but haven’t backed that up with anything. They could be paid 0 for all I care, the situation would be the same: folks who have stolen something from society (be it direct financial losses or more abstract things like health and safety and peaceful movement) being made to give retributions back to society for their crimes. There are easy wins here (trash), and more involved projects.
        Retric 2y ago
        > haven’t backed that up with anything It’s backed up by the finite supply of unemployed people willing and able to work below minimum wage. As to your obsession with clean streets, the government does spend money on it the general public doesn’t actually care enough to spend more on it. It doesn’t matter how cheap it is as long as nobody is willing to fund it.
        dumbo-octopus 2y ago
        Elaborate. As of yet you’ve said nothing to refute the idea that forcing people who aren’t working to start working would result in more work being completed.
    - Ferret7446 2y ago
      Reality doesn't care about cost fixing attempts like minimum wage. People will just go around that and restore equilibrium to supply and demand. So long as excess labor is available, labor costs will be driven down until equilibrium is reached. You might say "don't treat humans as commodities"; well, reality doesn't care specially about humans; we are just animals even if we like to think we aren't.
      - Retric 2y ago
        You are proposing a model that doesn’t fit observed reality.

saghm 2y ago

"Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?" I never thought I'd see someone unironically epouse the ideas of Ebeneezer Scrooge, but here we are.

dumbo-octopus 2y ago
What’s your solution?
roenxi 2y ago
The rebuttal to Scrooge involved a heavy reliance on divine intervention, ghosts and threats of eternal damnation in hell wrapped in heavy chains. While rhetorically powerful, I'm disputing that Dickens' opinions are the most thoughtful approach to direct social policy. As a starting point to benefiting from society there is a reasonable expectation that people put a couple of hours a day into making life better for others. Prisoners can achieve that lofty goal. So can people travelling on the NY Metro without paying. There is a lot of room to haggle over the details, but argument from chubby ghost of Christmas present is not really the path to a good compromise.
heavyset_go 2y ago
Is this your first time visiting this site?

scotty79 2y ago

Slaves is such a nasty word. Prisoners with jobs.

dumbo-octopus 2y ago
The concern with slavery is the innocence of victim. When that’s removed, it’s no longer controversial. At least it shouldn’t be.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  The concern with prison labor is that it's profitable to pay below market wages and then whoever is getting the profits has the incentive to lobby for more prisoners.
  - dumbo-octopus 2y ago
    If the public at large is getting the profits (community service), and there are a high number of dangerous criminals who are not being prosecuted (there are), then… cool. We agree.
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      Community service has a particular problem in the context you're trying to use it in though, doesn't it? Where community service works if for e.g. misbehaving kids with non-absentee parents. Because then the parents make sure the kid actually does the community service, and the kid is thereby deterred from doing it again. If you do the same thing for someone who is going to blow off the community service, then you'd need the police to make them do the community service, and police get six figures in salary and benefits, so that's a very expensive babysitter and you've eliminated any kind of net benefit.
      - dumbo-octopus 2y ago
        No, because the people are already a net drain on society. They already require dedicated police force, they already require dedicated sanitation force, food stamps, etcetcetc. And that’s not to mention the health and psychological cost on society of not being able to walk freely without fear cracked out guy will assault you. I’m not proposing moving from these people providing $0.00 to taking whatever a person to monitor their work and provide institutional food costs, I’m proposing we move from these people costing a society a shitload, both financially and health/safety wise, to perhaps similar financially, but removing the health and safety burden and finally putting them on a path to success.

archagon 2y ago

So… your solution is slavery?

dumbo-octopus 2y ago
You think slaves were all criminals who were simply paying back society commensurate to their transgressions? Got anything to back that up? My impression was they were free men captured and forced into a lifetime of work.

EasyMark 2y ago

Are you proposing throwing people in prison for not paying a bus/train ticket?

dumbo-octopus 2y ago
If they didn’t pay, they should be made to pay. If they can’t pay and have no ability to pay in the near future, they should be helped into situation where they will be trained to develop capacity to work with guaranteed employment opportunities. Call it prison if you wish, but the cell isn’t the point, the job is.