5 ms·

This is the standard in the Scandinavian social democracies. They have no minimum wage laws (though unions supplement that greatly) and a competitive labor mark

This is the standard in the Scandinavian social democracies. They have no minimum wage laws (though unions supplement that greatly) and a competitive labor market pushes wages up. Much like housing, the best solution usually isn't government price controls. Better (if feasible) is abundance in the market.

deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
999900000999 2mo ago
They also have a much better safety net. Healthcare not being tied to employment is already massive. I think a flat tax + UBI is the only way to go. The dream of AI should be a society where maybe 10% of people have to work. The nightmare is if the other 90% still need work but can’t find it.
- andsoitis 2mo ago
  > the other 90% still need work but can’t find it. Where do all jobs come from? Ultimately they’re created by people, so I wouldn’t worry about there being a demand but no supply.
  - manlymuppet 2mo ago
    Jobs are created by desire, and the labor required to fulfill the market's desires. People won't ever stop wanting things. Our wants today are vastly different from our wants a hundred years ago, and thus the labor pool looks vastly different. We shouldn't make policy decisions based on the assumption that there is a limited lump of labor.
    - andsoitis 2mo ago
      > Jobs are created by desire This made me pause and think for a moment. Desire is not an external entity or being that manipulates us. Our biology generates desire, since it has been selected for by evolution through natural selection. People create jobs. But unlike the conventional picture people have in their head, it is a unidirectional creation process (i.e. by the "job giver"). The job is created through the dynamic of the "giver" and the "seeker".
      - manlymuppet 2mo ago
        Seeker and giver, and the ebb and flow between—-enlightening. Great perspective.
    - salawat 2mo ago
      >People won't ever stop wanting things. Citation required. I assure you, wanting vs. being able to realistically acquire is a very powerful force of want extinguishment. You cannot, in fact, get a thing, if the world around you is not conducive to enabling you to pull the requisite capital together to meet the prices set. Something that is getting markedly harder for various strata in the economy currently.
      - manlymuppet 2mo ago
        I don’t mean “wanting” in the traditional sense. In economics, “wanting” is more closely defined as a sort of always-on, unconscious self-interest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarcity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarcity Sorry to be so overly-intellectual. I probably should’ve been simpler.
- Retric 2mo ago
  Flat tax is only ever flat when you hold down deductions. That’s way harder than it seems. The corporate veil is extraordinarily valuable to the point where a minimum 10% tax on any money passing through options makes a lot of sense. However, the idea you can pass liability off for free is so pervasive you’d never get something like that to pass. Not because of how good or bad the idea is, but because of how effective voting blocks + donors are.
- manlymuppet 2mo ago
  Yes to a stronger welfare state, including untying healthcare and employment, and a UBI (more specifically a negative income tax). But I think the nightmare you imagine is not realistic. There isn't a lump of labor. We shouldn't make policy decisions based on the assumption that the labor pool will be limited.
  - genxy 2mo ago
    We have seen the labor pool shrink for construction, restaurant, cleaning, farming, etc greatly in the last couple years.
    - defrost 2mo ago
      To clarify, that's the demand for labour in farming has shrunk while crop yields per acre have increased. Three people doing the work required to seed, spray, harvest 4,000 Hectares for assorted barley, canola, etc is commonplace today in areas that once struggled to farm a few hundred hectares with four brothers and a father.
    - manlymuppet 2mo ago
      And yet, within the last couple years, the unemployment rate has remained stable within its usual 3-5% healthy band, and the total amount of people employed has increased overall. Where labor has contracted in some places, it has grown elsewhere.
      - ab5tract 2mo ago
        That metric is so gamed it doesn’t even make sense. If you’ve been out of work for 6 months (or is it 12) you just fall off the metric. So the entire homeless population of the US is not counted as unemployed. That’s been baked into the metric for decades and they have only gotten more discriminatory as to who counts as unemployed since.
        forgotmypasswor 2mo ago
        Didn't we have negative unemployment rate sometime during or right after COVID? I remember people talking about how gamed and disconnected from reality these numbers were because (I think) a bunch of people stopped looking for work or filing for unemployment and were dropped from the labor force for official statistics. It really messed up the models being used.
- t-writescode 2mo ago
  Healthcare being tired to employment and related lacks of safety net are the only reason the most abusive companies (call centers, common retail experiences) have employees. We would do well to improve safety nets so that everyone benefits.
  - deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]
- sublinear 2mo ago
  I don't think I'll ever understand this perspective. To my ears, all the AI hype and profoundly ignorant economic fantasies sound exactly like the bidet hype of the 2010s. You can't have a revolution based entirely on not having to wipe your ass (except when you still do because bidets are garbage). Unless you are fresh out of college and working at some lame startup or coding sweatshop, mature white collar work has always been pretty damn close to "not having to work".
  - manlymuppet 2mo ago
    Haha I agree. Although my bidet is phenomenal, air conditioned white collar work has always felt like a lucky getaway from real work to me.
    - sublinear 2mo ago
      To be clear, I meant that there are no threats to what has always kept white collar workers employed. The past few years have been nothing but the most asinine arguments by truly pitiable people. You're easily replaceable early on when your only value is doing, but with more experience come more meetings and responsibilities. You become valuable for knowing, and knowing is not mere knowledge. Assuming that the years of experience have shaken out the chaff, the only source of stress for those who remain employed is what is already inseparable from life itself. Personal growth without work doesn't even make sense. That's why it doesn't feel like work. That's why the concept of "not having to work" is pathological and ridiculous. Anyone feeling this way about "work" needs to get help. I'm totally serious when I say that.
      - mlrtime 2mo ago
        Is this another way of saying "choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life"?
        sublinear 2mo ago
        With enough experience, it doesn't matter what you pick. Any job can become effortless. Choose a career that fucking pays at least.
- SkiFire13 2mo ago
  > flat tax FYI in some places flat taxes are technically unconstitutional
gradus_ad 2mo ago
When everyone is the same (genetics, background, culture, etc) there is very little structural inequality in a competitive market. In an empire like the US, so many groups exist in a hierarchy that government support is required. In such an environment bare competition simply reveals and highlights fundamental difference, which is not conducive to social cohesion or harmony.
- platevoltage 2mo ago
  What are some immutable differences in humans that are not conducive to social cohesion and harmony?
  - loa_in_ 2mo ago
    Humans are not a resource to be inventoried.
  - mlrtime 2mo ago
    [dead]
bitmasher9 2mo ago
Why are tech wages lower in Scandinavian countries than in the United States?
- a2ff6eeb0 2mo ago
  Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but it's always been puzzling to me why American tech wages were so high.
  - eru 2mo ago
    The standard answer is agglomeration effects, I think.
  - lightedman 2mo ago
    Well, for a while, the USA was probably THE premier country for electronics and IT. As a natural result, companies offer top dollar for top talent. Now days, companies offer top dollar for Junior-level AI talent. And you see where that's going.
  - YZF 2mo ago
    The US has had many very successful tech companies. Those attract talented engineers that want to work there. Partly this is about supply and demand but the other part is that engineers who work for the successful companies see their compensation go way up due to stock options or RSUs (which are/were offered to attract said top talent and motivate them to work hard). If you have a new AI startup (for example) and you want to hire top talent away from Google or Microsoft or Apple of nVidia you're going to need to offer a competitive pay. So competition over a limited talent pool in combination with a vibrant economy and many successful companies that make a lot of money. At least historically. High salaries isn't limited to tech. Bankers, lawyers, doctors e.g. tend to earn more in the US. Another aspect is that you get paid more but you potentially have higher expenses. So some of the delta is related to cost of living. But not all.
  - carlosjobim 2mo ago
    Americans are individualists and value their own career higher than any "loyalty" to an employer. So employers in fast moving sectors have to compete for talent with the money they offer.
cortesoft 2mo ago
We don't need a minimum wage if your minimum needs are met.
bcrosby95 2mo ago
You mention unions, but what you're leaving out is they have a huge advantage in those countries compared to the US. One big one is that, Union A can boycott a Company B over a dispute with Union C. That is illegal in the US, and it's a very powerful thumbscrew against the powerful. It's one thing to fight your baristas, it's another to fight your baristas, bean supplier, mail delivery, and freight movers all at once.
data-ottawa 2mo ago
I always wonder if minimum wage does more harm than good. This conversation usually derails, so to be clear no, I don’t think people should work for poverty wages, a viable business should include happy non-subsidized employees. My question is whether a global price floor psychologically depresses wages by establishing a global price anchor. Price anchoring is well known to influence the price people will accept. For jobs like cashier that are fungible just blanket get minimum wage, would they pay more without one when the employer can’t just point to the anchor price and say take it or leave it? Would they be faster to localize wages to local costs?
- deinonychus 2mo ago
  This was fun to entertain but I don't think we live in that world. You think it's possible that the true wage the grocery store wants to pay its employees is actually higher than the price floor? But for some reason they can't think of any other numbers to write down on the paycheck? And without the price floor they'd be forced to think for themselves and reconsider their morals and the market conditions and their balance sheet and pay $20 an hour instead of $15? I think it's much more likely the minimum wage can be interpreted as "we would pay you even less than this if it weren't illegal." See the tipped wage. They would pay you $0 if they could.
distances 2mo ago
This is true, and the collective agreements set lower bounds for almost all jobs. On the flip side, employers often treat collective agreements as the only salary option they're willing to offer for blue-collar positions, and the only wage increases may be the percentage bumps negotiated by the unions. In this case the only way to meaningfully increase your salary is to advance in your career. Doing the same work with double the efficiency will not be reflected in the pay. Mind you, this does not apply to white-collar positions like IT in the same manner. The salary bands are still quite strict -- 6 figures is still a rarity -- but you do negotiate them and can get meaningful raises.

deleted 2mo ago

[deleted]

999900000999 2mo ago

They also have a much better safety net. Healthcare not being tied to employment is already massive. I think a flat tax + UBI is the only way to go. The dream of AI should be a society where maybe 10% of people have to work. The nightmare is if the other 90% still need work but can’t find it.

andsoitis 2mo ago
> the other 90% still need work but can’t find it. Where do all jobs come from? Ultimately they’re created by people, so I wouldn’t worry about there being a demand but no supply.
- manlymuppet 2mo ago
  Jobs are created by desire, and the labor required to fulfill the market's desires. People won't ever stop wanting things. Our wants today are vastly different from our wants a hundred years ago, and thus the labor pool looks vastly different. We shouldn't make policy decisions based on the assumption that there is a limited lump of labor.
  - andsoitis 2mo ago
    > Jobs are created by desire This made me pause and think for a moment. Desire is not an external entity or being that manipulates us. Our biology generates desire, since it has been selected for by evolution through natural selection. People create jobs. But unlike the conventional picture people have in their head, it is a unidirectional creation process (i.e. by the "job giver"). The job is created through the dynamic of the "giver" and the "seeker".
    - manlymuppet 2mo ago
      Seeker and giver, and the ebb and flow between—-enlightening. Great perspective.
  - salawat 2mo ago
    >People won't ever stop wanting things. Citation required. I assure you, wanting vs. being able to realistically acquire is a very powerful force of want extinguishment. You cannot, in fact, get a thing, if the world around you is not conducive to enabling you to pull the requisite capital together to meet the prices set. Something that is getting markedly harder for various strata in the economy currently.
    - manlymuppet 2mo ago
      I don’t mean “wanting” in the traditional sense. In economics, “wanting” is more closely defined as a sort of always-on, unconscious self-interest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarcity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarcity Sorry to be so overly-intellectual. I probably should’ve been simpler.
Retric 2mo ago
Flat tax is only ever flat when you hold down deductions. That’s way harder than it seems. The corporate veil is extraordinarily valuable to the point where a minimum 10% tax on any money passing through options makes a lot of sense. However, the idea you can pass liability off for free is so pervasive you’d never get something like that to pass. Not because of how good or bad the idea is, but because of how effective voting blocks + donors are.
manlymuppet 2mo ago
Yes to a stronger welfare state, including untying healthcare and employment, and a UBI (more specifically a negative income tax). But I think the nightmare you imagine is not realistic. There isn't a lump of labor. We shouldn't make policy decisions based on the assumption that the labor pool will be limited.
- genxy 2mo ago
  We have seen the labor pool shrink for construction, restaurant, cleaning, farming, etc greatly in the last couple years.
  - defrost 2mo ago
    To clarify, that's the demand for labour in farming has shrunk while crop yields per acre have increased. Three people doing the work required to seed, spray, harvest 4,000 Hectares for assorted barley, canola, etc is commonplace today in areas that once struggled to farm a few hundred hectares with four brothers and a father.
  - manlymuppet 2mo ago
    And yet, within the last couple years, the unemployment rate has remained stable within its usual 3-5% healthy band, and the total amount of people employed has increased overall. Where labor has contracted in some places, it has grown elsewhere.
    - ab5tract 2mo ago
      That metric is so gamed it doesn’t even make sense. If you’ve been out of work for 6 months (or is it 12) you just fall off the metric. So the entire homeless population of the US is not counted as unemployed. That’s been baked into the metric for decades and they have only gotten more discriminatory as to who counts as unemployed since.
      - forgotmypasswor 2mo ago
        Didn't we have negative unemployment rate sometime during or right after COVID? I remember people talking about how gamed and disconnected from reality these numbers were because (I think) a bunch of people stopped looking for work or filing for unemployment and were dropped from the labor force for official statistics. It really messed up the models being used.
t-writescode 2mo ago
Healthcare being tired to employment and related lacks of safety net are the only reason the most abusive companies (call centers, common retail experiences) have employees. We would do well to improve safety nets so that everyone benefits.
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
sublinear 2mo ago
I don't think I'll ever understand this perspective. To my ears, all the AI hype and profoundly ignorant economic fantasies sound exactly like the bidet hype of the 2010s. You can't have a revolution based entirely on not having to wipe your ass (except when you still do because bidets are garbage). Unless you are fresh out of college and working at some lame startup or coding sweatshop, mature white collar work has always been pretty damn close to "not having to work".
- manlymuppet 2mo ago
  Haha I agree. Although my bidet is phenomenal, air conditioned white collar work has always felt like a lucky getaway from real work to me.
  - sublinear 2mo ago
    To be clear, I meant that there are no threats to what has always kept white collar workers employed. The past few years have been nothing but the most asinine arguments by truly pitiable people. You're easily replaceable early on when your only value is doing, but with more experience come more meetings and responsibilities. You become valuable for knowing, and knowing is not mere knowledge. Assuming that the years of experience have shaken out the chaff, the only source of stress for those who remain employed is what is already inseparable from life itself. Personal growth without work doesn't even make sense. That's why it doesn't feel like work. That's why the concept of "not having to work" is pathological and ridiculous. Anyone feeling this way about "work" needs to get help. I'm totally serious when I say that.
    - mlrtime 2mo ago
      Is this another way of saying "choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life"?
      - sublinear 2mo ago
        With enough experience, it doesn't matter what you pick. Any job can become effortless. Choose a career that fucking pays at least.
SkiFire13 2mo ago
> flat tax FYI in some places flat taxes are technically unconstitutional

gradus_ad 2mo ago

When everyone is the same (genetics, background, culture, etc) there is very little structural inequality in a competitive market. In an empire like the US, so many groups exist in a hierarchy that government support is required. In such an environment bare competition simply reveals and highlights fundamental difference, which is not conducive to social cohesion or harmony.

platevoltage 2mo ago
What are some immutable differences in humans that are not conducive to social cohesion and harmony?
- loa_in_ 2mo ago
  Humans are not a resource to be inventoried.
- mlrtime 2mo ago
  [dead]

bitmasher9 2mo ago

Why are tech wages lower in Scandinavian countries than in the United States?

a2ff6eeb0 2mo ago
Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but it's always been puzzling to me why American tech wages were so high.
- eru 2mo ago
  The standard answer is agglomeration effects, I think.
- lightedman 2mo ago
  Well, for a while, the USA was probably THE premier country for electronics and IT. As a natural result, companies offer top dollar for top talent. Now days, companies offer top dollar for Junior-level AI talent. And you see where that's going.
- YZF 2mo ago
  The US has had many very successful tech companies. Those attract talented engineers that want to work there. Partly this is about supply and demand but the other part is that engineers who work for the successful companies see their compensation go way up due to stock options or RSUs (which are/were offered to attract said top talent and motivate them to work hard). If you have a new AI startup (for example) and you want to hire top talent away from Google or Microsoft or Apple of nVidia you're going to need to offer a competitive pay. So competition over a limited talent pool in combination with a vibrant economy and many successful companies that make a lot of money. At least historically. High salaries isn't limited to tech. Bankers, lawyers, doctors e.g. tend to earn more in the US. Another aspect is that you get paid more but you potentially have higher expenses. So some of the delta is related to cost of living. But not all.
- carlosjobim 2mo ago
  Americans are individualists and value their own career higher than any "loyalty" to an employer. So employers in fast moving sectors have to compete for talent with the money they offer.

cortesoft 2mo ago

We don't need a minimum wage if your minimum needs are met.

bcrosby95 2mo ago

You mention unions, but what you're leaving out is they have a huge advantage in those countries compared to the US. One big one is that, Union A can boycott a Company B over a dispute with Union C. That is illegal in the US, and it's a very powerful thumbscrew against the powerful. It's one thing to fight your baristas, it's another to fight your baristas, bean supplier, mail delivery, and freight movers all at once.

data-ottawa 2mo ago

I always wonder if minimum wage does more harm than good. This conversation usually derails, so to be clear no, I don’t think people should work for poverty wages, a viable business should include happy non-subsidized employees. My question is whether a global price floor psychologically depresses wages by establishing a global price anchor. Price anchoring is well known to influence the price people will accept. For jobs like cashier that are fungible just blanket get minimum wage, would they pay more without one when the employer can’t just point to the anchor price and say take it or leave it? Would they be faster to localize wages to local costs?

deinonychus 2mo ago
This was fun to entertain but I don't think we live in that world. You think it's possible that the true wage the grocery store wants to pay its employees is actually higher than the price floor? But for some reason they can't think of any other numbers to write down on the paycheck? And without the price floor they'd be forced to think for themselves and reconsider their morals and the market conditions and their balance sheet and pay $20 an hour instead of $15? I think it's much more likely the minimum wage can be interpreted as "we would pay you even less than this if it weren't illegal." See the tipped wage. They would pay you $0 if they could.

distances 2mo ago

This is true, and the collective agreements set lower bounds for almost all jobs. On the flip side, employers often treat collective agreements as the only salary option they're willing to offer for blue-collar positions, and the only wage increases may be the percentage bumps negotiated by the unions. In this case the only way to meaningfully increase your salary is to advance in your career. Doing the same work with double the efficiency will not be reflected in the pay. Mind you, this does not apply to white-collar positions like IT in the same manner. The salary bands are still quite strict -- 6 figures is still a rarity -- but you do negotiate them and can get meaningful raises.