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Why is it considered a good thing when the government foists responsibility for the social safety net off on people's employers? Especially when it only applies

Why is it considered a good thing when the government foists responsibility for the social safety net off on people's employers? Especially when it only applies to sufficiently large employers?

bryanlarsen 13y ago
The existence of a skilled work force is the greatest resource that any country has. Companies exist to exploit this resource; are you saying that they should be able exploit this resource without being responsible for maintaining it?
- tbrownaw 13y ago
  The existence of a skilled work force is the greatest resource that any country has. Yes. Companies exist to exploit this resource; No. Companies exist to alleviate transaction costs. Companies also exist to exploit economies of scale. Your use of "exploit" is perjorative; companies don't exist to hold an advantage over the workforce, they exist to provide increased opportunities for the workforce. are you saying that they should be able exploit this resource without being responsible for maintaining it? Mandatory paid leave (for any reason) is not maintaining the workforce. The workforce does not need to be maintained. It is insulting and offensive to claim that the workforce is incapable of maintaining itself. Maintaining the skilled workforce would be helping people keep their skills up. That is, sending them to educational seminars, providing tuition assistance, providing time to experiment with interesting new things. This is nice to have, but not necessary. All that is necessary is that people have sufficient non-work hours to have time to learn on their own. People are naturally curious, and most remain at least somewhat curious even after being sent thru formal schooling. Employees do not (or should not) belong to specific employers. Employers are not (should not be) responsible for maintaining the education and well-being of their (current) employees. They are (should be) only responsible for not hindering said employees from looking after their own education and well-being. Any further responsibility (the "social safety net"; ensuring that personal disasters or sustained bad luck don't get people stuck at the bottom of the pile) belongs to society as a whole (either government or voluntary charities).
  - bryanlarsen 13y ago
    they exist to provide increased opportunities for the workforce. That's purely a side effect. Obviously companies hire as few employees as necessary. Companies exist to generate profits for their owners. They do this by utilizing resources, the primary of which is a skilled workforce. The existence of a skilled workforce is a typical common good, and the standard "tragedy of the commons" parable applies. Their are two standard responses to the tragedy of the commons: privatization or government action. So unless you can agree that employers can "own" their employees, government action and regulation is necessary to prevent tragedy of the commons type outcomes.
VLM 13y ago
Its a fair trade. The cost to society of a large dilbertian corporation is very high in terms of lowered quality of life. Yes some rich people get richer, but that doesn't mean quality of life isn't, on average for the society, reduced. So it seems perfectly fair that a tax or charge or bill be presented. The USA situation relates to only about 60% of the population having a job, so 40% don't need "leave" anyway, and the percentage of people having a job is in permanent multi decade decline. So if there's not enough jobs right now to keep two parents fully employed at their appropriate level, there seems little point in encouraging both to work. If the powers that be do not permit your social group to have a career then there seems little point in complaining about a minor detail standing in the way of a career, which you can't have anyway regardless of popping out kids or not. The USA situation for paternal leave is also screwed up for multicultural reasons and history of racism reasons. We have ethnic groups where the percentage of babies born to unwed mothers is way over majority, and uncle sam is the sugar "daddy". So allowing married fathers to take paid time off is going to make a huge mess where certain minorities are going to complain about their unmarried men not getting time off, but the white guys do get time off. I suppose you could demand a copy of the birth cert, so at least one baby couldn't result in ten guys claiming vacation time as father for each kid? Regardless of details and stats, there would be racial / socioeconomic friction in the USA about the whole topic that doesn't exist in a monocultural nation like, say, Japan. Some cultures are built around the idea of supporting that culture, whereas the USA is built around the idea of convincing everyone that its an optimum strategy for every subculture to screw over every subculture; of course that means everyone gets screwed over in the end, but as long as you can convince the idiots its scalable, it'll be a profitable scam to run. Divide and conqueor, baby!
- philwelch 13y ago
  Large corporations reduce quality of life? Bullshit. How do you figure that? At worst, maybe they don't improve quality of life as much as you think they should but if they actively reduced quality of life people wouldn't voluntarily choose to work for them or buy from them.
  - VLM 13y ago
dragonwriter 13y ago
> Why is it considered a good thing when the government foists responsibility for the social safety net off on people's employers? Countries that mandate paid maternity leave often don't; the pay often comes from public funds, the mandate on the employer is, in that case, not to provide the social safety net but to not punish the employee for using it.
- tbrownaw 13y ago
  That's good. It's nice to be reminded sometimes that the real world is almost never as screwed up as the Internet makes it sound. :)
- phamilton 13y ago
  Putting who pays for the leave aside, employees will always be punished to some degree when they take a leave of absence. Employers are disadvantaged (again, to some degree) by the missing employee. For example, they have to invest in training a temporary replacement only to let the go when the leave ends. That disadvantage will, intentionally or not, affect the employee.

Why is it considered a good thing when the government foists responsibility for the social safety net off on people's employers? Especially when it only applies to sufficiently large employers?

bryanlarsen 13y ago

The existence of a skilled work force is the greatest resource that any country has. Companies exist to exploit this resource; are you saying that they should be able exploit this resource without being responsible for maintaining it?

tbrownaw 13y ago
The existence of a skilled work force is the greatest resource that any country has. Yes. Companies exist to exploit this resource; No. Companies exist to alleviate transaction costs. Companies also exist to exploit economies of scale. Your use of "exploit" is perjorative; companies don't exist to hold an advantage over the workforce, they exist to provide increased opportunities for the workforce. are you saying that they should be able exploit this resource without being responsible for maintaining it? Mandatory paid leave (for any reason) is not maintaining the workforce. The workforce does not need to be maintained. It is insulting and offensive to claim that the workforce is incapable of maintaining itself. Maintaining the skilled workforce would be helping people keep their skills up. That is, sending them to educational seminars, providing tuition assistance, providing time to experiment with interesting new things. This is nice to have, but not necessary. All that is necessary is that people have sufficient non-work hours to have time to learn on their own. People are naturally curious, and most remain at least somewhat curious even after being sent thru formal schooling. Employees do not (or should not) belong to specific employers. Employers are not (should not be) responsible for maintaining the education and well-being of their (current) employees. They are (should be) only responsible for not hindering said employees from looking after their own education and well-being. Any further responsibility (the "social safety net"; ensuring that personal disasters or sustained bad luck don't get people stuck at the bottom of the pile) belongs to society as a whole (either government or voluntary charities).
- bryanlarsen 13y ago
  they exist to provide increased opportunities for the workforce. That's purely a side effect. Obviously companies hire as few employees as necessary. Companies exist to generate profits for their owners. They do this by utilizing resources, the primary of which is a skilled workforce. The existence of a skilled workforce is a typical common good, and the standard "tragedy of the commons" parable applies. Their are two standard responses to the tragedy of the commons: privatization or government action. So unless you can agree that employers can "own" their employees, government action and regulation is necessary to prevent tragedy of the commons type outcomes.

VLM 13y ago

Its a fair trade. The cost to society of a large dilbertian corporation is very high in terms of lowered quality of life. Yes some rich people get richer, but that doesn't mean quality of life isn't, on average for the society, reduced. So it seems perfectly fair that a tax or charge or bill be presented. The USA situation relates to only about 60% of the population having a job, so 40% don't need "leave" anyway, and the percentage of people having a job is in permanent multi decade decline. So if there's not enough jobs right now to keep two parents fully employed at their appropriate level, there seems little point in encouraging both to work. If the powers that be do not permit your social group to have a career then there seems little point in complaining about a minor detail standing in the way of a career, which you can't have anyway regardless of popping out kids or not. The USA situation for paternal leave is also screwed up for multicultural reasons and history of racism reasons. We have ethnic groups where the percentage of babies born to unwed mothers is way over majority, and uncle sam is the sugar "daddy". So allowing married fathers to take paid time off is going to make a huge mess where certain minorities are going to complain about their unmarried men not getting time off, but the white guys do get time off. I suppose you could demand a copy of the birth cert, so at least one baby couldn't result in ten guys claiming vacation time as father for each kid? Regardless of details and stats, there would be racial / socioeconomic friction in the USA about the whole topic that doesn't exist in a monocultural nation like, say, Japan. Some cultures are built around the idea of supporting that culture, whereas the USA is built around the idea of convincing everyone that its an optimum strategy for every subculture to screw over every subculture; of course that means everyone gets screwed over in the end, but as long as you can convince the idiots its scalable, it'll be a profitable scam to run. Divide and conqueor, baby!

philwelch 13y ago
Large corporations reduce quality of life? Bullshit. How do you figure that? At worst, maybe they don't improve quality of life as much as you think they should but if they actively reduced quality of life people wouldn't voluntarily choose to work for them or buy from them.
- VLM 13y ago

dragonwriter 13y ago

> Why is it considered a good thing when the government foists responsibility for the social safety net off on people's employers? Countries that mandate paid maternity leave often don't; the pay often comes from public funds, the mandate on the employer is, in that case, not to provide the social safety net but to not punish the employee for using it.

tbrownaw 13y ago
That's good. It's nice to be reminded sometimes that the real world is almost never as screwed up as the Internet makes it sound. :)
phamilton 13y ago
Putting who pays for the leave aside, employees will always be punished to some degree when they take a leave of absence. Employers are disadvantaged (again, to some degree) by the missing employee. For example, they have to invest in training a temporary replacement only to let the go when the leave ends. That disadvantage will, intentionally or not, affect the employee.