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The core underlying problem is traditional society benefits have been pushed onto employers in the US. This is absurd and hurts everyone. Employers don't have

The core underlying problem is traditional society benefits have been pushed onto employers in the US. This is absurd and hurts everyone. Employers don't have the same societal incentives, are less efficient at delivering them, it isn't part of their business anyway, and puts them in a position of power. Workers have a choice of not much of a safety net, or having to pick the least worst employers. If those benefits were moved back to being provided by society then it would raise the bar for all employers. For example if paternity/maternity leave and income were society provided, then an employer could only be more generous. Even if they do nothing and fire the employees, at least those employees would get the leave and some income certainty. The same principle applies to healthcare, wages (compete with minimum wages/basic incomes etc) etc. I think that instead of making more and more laws (each of which has more and more unintended consequences, loopholes, expenditures etc), go ahead and simplify. Treat everyone in society well, and make that treatment come from society, and not some idiotic stick poking at employers who have completely different incentives and competencies.

crpatino 12y ago
The problem is that businesses want to both not pay direct benefits for their workers and not pay taxes to fund government controlled benefits. How about having unions, guilds and professional organizations provide the social safety net you cherish so much in the abstract. I am sure there would be many problems but at least there would be no doubt where the funding would come. "You deal with one of us, you deal with all of us. And if you play dirty we will make sure you don't get the service we provide at ANY price on this side of bankruptcy"
- fennecfoxen 12y ago
  > The problem is that businesses want to both not pay direct benefits for their workers and not pay taxes to fund government controlled benefits. That's not necessarily a problem. One could cut the corporate tax rate and fund benefits through income/dividend/capital-gains/sales/VAT taxes.
  - crpatino 12y ago
    Yes agreed, someone has to pay at the end of day. The original model we have for what we currently call "benefits" are workers associations pooling resources to hedge against catastrophic worst cases. And to be fair no one wants to pay any more taxes than strictly needed, not just businesses. One big problem I see with this is that of corporate personhood. If you cut corporate taxes and raise taxes on dividends and capital gains, you are basically promoting investors to not leave their money inside the corporation. Once this happen, you have to ask the question of what corporations are for? If they do not provide benefits for their employees, and not provide dividends for their legitimate owners, and yet not provide tax revenue for the government (and indirectly, to overall society) under which they operate, then exactly why do they do what they do?
    - derefr 12y ago
      Presumably, they're generating utility for whoever gave them all the money they declare as revenue. Insofar as those people are citizens of your country, a company helps citizens. (Oddly, though, this means that it's in every government's best interests to encourage globalization, and then get their citizens to consume all their products from foreign companies, while not having to deal with having any local companies consuming local resources. Presumably, local employees would also be employed remotely by foreign companies, or by local foreign-owned corporate subsidiaries.)
      - crpatino 12y ago
        Amusing. Of course all the superpowers did raise to global hegemony by outsourcing their economies to foreign allies!!!
- rogerbinns 12y ago
  Businesses desire predictably in the future for things out of their control (eg tax rates won't have huge random swings, laws won't randomly hugely change, competitors won't suddenly be favoured by legislators, employees cost a predictable amount). It is also to everyone's benefit that things are equal and fair (eg their competitors have to play by the same rules). Virtually everywhere employers pay additional taxes on their employees to provide government controlled benefits - eg in the US your employer also pays social security, medicare, unemployment insurance and similar taxes as you do, and often a similar amount. Paying them is just the cost of paying an employee, and their competitors have the same rules. Social safety nets were funded and provided by churches and similar organisations for quite a while. The problem with using unions, guilds and professional organisations is that different professions pay different amounts. For example fast food workers, teachers and developers are in very different brackets hence can pay different amounts into the system. Why should a fast food worker get less maternity leave than a developer? I have no problem with disparate groups providing services, but do strongly believe that a fair and just society requires centralisation of the funding.

crpatino 12y ago

The problem is that businesses want to both not pay direct benefits for their workers and not pay taxes to fund government controlled benefits. How about having unions, guilds and professional organizations provide the social safety net you cherish so much in the abstract. I am sure there would be many problems but at least there would be no doubt where the funding would come. "You deal with one of us, you deal with all of us. And if you play dirty we will make sure you don't get the service we provide at ANY price on this side of bankruptcy"

fennecfoxen 12y ago
> The problem is that businesses want to both not pay direct benefits for their workers and not pay taxes to fund government controlled benefits. That's not necessarily a problem. One could cut the corporate tax rate and fund benefits through income/dividend/capital-gains/sales/VAT taxes.
- crpatino 12y ago
  Yes agreed, someone has to pay at the end of day. The original model we have for what we currently call "benefits" are workers associations pooling resources to hedge against catastrophic worst cases. And to be fair no one wants to pay any more taxes than strictly needed, not just businesses. One big problem I see with this is that of corporate personhood. If you cut corporate taxes and raise taxes on dividends and capital gains, you are basically promoting investors to not leave their money inside the corporation. Once this happen, you have to ask the question of what corporations are for? If they do not provide benefits for their employees, and not provide dividends for their legitimate owners, and yet not provide tax revenue for the government (and indirectly, to overall society) under which they operate, then exactly why do they do what they do?
  - derefr 12y ago
    Presumably, they're generating utility for whoever gave them all the money they declare as revenue. Insofar as those people are citizens of your country, a company helps citizens. (Oddly, though, this means that it's in every government's best interests to encourage globalization, and then get their citizens to consume all their products from foreign companies, while not having to deal with having any local companies consuming local resources. Presumably, local employees would also be employed remotely by foreign companies, or by local foreign-owned corporate subsidiaries.)
    - crpatino 12y ago
      Amusing. Of course all the superpowers did raise to global hegemony by outsourcing their economies to foreign allies!!!
rogerbinns 12y ago
Businesses desire predictably in the future for things out of their control (eg tax rates won't have huge random swings, laws won't randomly hugely change, competitors won't suddenly be favoured by legislators, employees cost a predictable amount). It is also to everyone's benefit that things are equal and fair (eg their competitors have to play by the same rules). Virtually everywhere employers pay additional taxes on their employees to provide government controlled benefits - eg in the US your employer also pays social security, medicare, unemployment insurance and similar taxes as you do, and often a similar amount. Paying them is just the cost of paying an employee, and their competitors have the same rules. Social safety nets were funded and provided by churches and similar organisations for quite a while. The problem with using unions, guilds and professional organisations is that different professions pay different amounts. For example fast food workers, teachers and developers are in very different brackets hence can pay different amounts into the system. Why should a fast food worker get less maternity leave than a developer? I have no problem with disparate groups providing services, but do strongly believe that a fair and just society requires centralisation of the funding.