Everyone Gets What They Want by AnthonyT

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Everyone Gets What They Want

POSTED BY: ANTHONYT
UPDATED: Thursday, August 13, 2009 18:12
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Wednesday, August 12, 2009 6:59 PM

You mean, for example, these same people who played the stock and housing markets and the loan system and caused crashes? Then asked the government for money to give themselves raises? The people who practice ponzi schemes and cook their books and insider trading? We should see the salaries they give THEMSELVES (public doesn't exactly get to vote on how much to pay a CEO) as a completely legitimate result of some kind of capitalistic process?

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Wednesday, August 12, 2009 7:18 PM

UNABASHEDVIXEN

Quote:

I am against a minimum wage because it outlaws two people coming to mutually agreeable terms of employment if those terms fall outside a certain approved range.

There's an inherent flaw in that system though - the power balance is completely uneven. Someone who is desperate for a job will decide to work for less than they can live on - 'cause hey, it's better than nothing. That doesn't make it okay. A minimum wage is a very basic guarantee that people aren't overly exploited. Just because someone is complicit in their own exploitation doesn't negate it.

The other problem is that when two people negotiate directly, it doesn't stay just between them. It's keeping up with the Joneses, only in reverse - a race to the bottom, so to speak.

I have to say, I find your allegience to individual freedoms a bit puzzling, considering your signature. It would seem to favour collective rights. Just an observation.

I may have spelled allegience wrong. I generally have good spelling and grammar, but every once in a while I stumble over a word...

*
People before profits

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Wednesday, August 12, 2009 7:27 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
There's an inherent flaw in that system though - the power balance is completely uneven.

I've said this time and time again, but it's something that neither SargeX nor AnthonyT seem to 'get". Maybe coming from a new voice it'll have more impact.

AnthonyT- I was going to bring this up (again) in the "man with a shovel" discussion. Yes, there is a problem with two people negotiating over that shovel. It's only a negotiation when two people have roughly equivalent bargaining power. Other than that, it's coercion.

I've always thought there was a flaw in scifi writers, and the flaw is this: For all that they can imagine flat being living on a neutron star, or planets swinging between suns (Helliconia) they have RARELY imagined a society that was truly different. Those that do tend to be women.

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Wednesday, August 12, 2009 7:52 PM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

My signature was a response to U.S. troops torturing Iraqis at an Iraqi torture facility, to put it in context. It means that we can't preserve our freedoms by becoming monsters.

Now, I am a bit confused by this idea that if someone agrees to do X for Y compensation, that is NOT okay because they are being exploited. That they are still being exploited even if they WANT to enter into this arrangement. It boggles my mind that you want to tell other people what they are allowed to value themselves at.

It may surprise you that some jobs only exist at low wage levels, and that some people's only competitive advantage is the price they place on their work.

If my options lie between working for 4 dollars per hour or not working, try to guess where I'd like to be.

Some of you may be unfamiliar with this concept, but something turns out to be better than nothing, even when it's not all the something you hoped to receive.

When there aren't enough workers willing to do a job for 4 dollars, they will offer 5. If there aren't enough at 5, they will offer 6. They will keep raising the offer until they either get enough willing, qualified workers or they decide they can do without the job function. This is the reason why the entire nation isn't getting paid minimum wage even though it's legal to pay people that.

--Anthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

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Wednesday, August 12, 2009 7:55 PM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello Signy,

Heinlein tended to make a career out of imagining different societies.

--Anthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

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Wednesday, August 12, 2009 7:59 PM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello Byte,

Corporations can pay their CEO's whatever it is that the shareholders decide upon.

However, I am not an advocate of bailing out corporations, nor do I believe in the 'too big to fail' scenario. If you fail, you fail. Nature abhors a vacuum. Someone else will rise to fill your spot.

I'd have rather paid unemployment benefits than paid a single dime to a bloody corporation. And that's a Libertarian talking.

--Anthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

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Thursday, August 13, 2009 6:23 AM

BYTEMITE

All right.

I do still think there is WAY too much back-patting that goes on in corporate board rooms, to the extent that it is both detrimental to the corporation and to the public impacted by the actions of the corporation due to the economic power of corporations.

I think that CEOs and the shareholders that give themselves these pay raises aren't practicing common sense. And I do think, for that reason, these corporations should fail.

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Thursday, August 13, 2009 6:25 AM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello Byte,

I think they should fail, too.

--Anthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

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Thursday, August 13, 2009 10:07 AM

PLAINJAYNE

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
"As far as the people sitting back on their asses collecting money for nothing, they can suck it."

Now here, I thought you were talking about the big wigs at Enron (remember Enron ?) and the tax-money bonuses that went to AIG, BofA et al.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

Same rules apply to them. They can all suck it as far as I'm concerned.

Day late an'a dollar short...Story of my ruttin' life!

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Thursday, August 13, 2009 10:41 AM

DREAMTROVE

Any chance we could twitter this?

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Thursday, August 13, 2009 12:20 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

AnthonyT

Since you seemed to skim by it, let me quote this for you to ponder:

SignyM: "... there is a problem with two people negotiating over that shovel. It's only a negotiation when two people have roughly equivalent bargaining power. Other than that, it's coercion."

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

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Thursday, August 13, 2009 1:38 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Heinlein tended to make a career out of imagining different societies.

That's why I said RARELY and not NEVER. I would include Frank Herbert in that mold.

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Thursday, August 13, 2009 2:07 PM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello Rue,

That's all fine and dandy, except it's not true. Coercion is not an inequality of need or desire. You can not maneuver every transaction between persons to assure that they both have exactly the same amount of need for a thing. The man who owns the shovel may have bought it some time ago for a project long since finished. His need for the shovel is now zero, or at best some nebulous potential future use. Now, it might be nice if he would lend out the shovel for free, but you can't obligate him to do so. It could be that anything he charges for the use of his shovel is 'taking advantage' of the other person, since he doesn't need the shovel himself. But if the other person needs the shovel and is willing to pay the fee for it, then it's not coercion.

Coercion is more like armed guards being sent in to tell these people what terms they are allowed to set for the use of the shovel. Coercion is price fixing. Coercion is setting wages. Coercion is taking away people's freedom to choose.

And while you may assume that such coercion is a good thing, it escapes you that the man with the shovel could just say, "You know what? Screw it. I don't NEED to lend you my shovel. You can't have it."

And then you're faced with the next terrible level of coercion. Your armed guards can STEAL that man's shovel and GIVE it to the farmer.

Nice and Fair. Except it isn't.

Something similar happened to my grandfather's house back in Cuba. He was renting it to a relative for a reasonable sum, since he wasn't using it any more. It wasn't a mansion, of course. The running water, for instance, was provided by a hand pump that sent water to a drum on the roof. Gravity fed the water through the plumbing. All of this was an upgrade my father installed. He was quite proud of it. Every morning he'd go out, lever the pump, and then enjoy running water for the rest of the day.

But he left Cuba and came to the states. A relative needed a place to stay, and gramps rented it out. An equitable arrangement. UNTIL.

Castro decided that renting was an evil Capitalist concept. He allowed anyone renting a domicile to apply to the government for ownership of said domicile. So the relative did so. The government transferred ownership to the relative, and of course those rent payments stopped coming.

A coup for the relative, until the government decided it didn't like the stuff growing in the back yard, and the house was too big for one person. So it got carved up and split up and distributed again.

That's coercion, folks. That's what coercion looks like.

--Anthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

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Thursday, August 13, 2009 2:43 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

"And while you may assume that such coercion is a good thing ..."

Actually, I assume it is not.

Here is another example of coercion:

I need to keep alive.

My options to providing my own survival are:
1) find a nice piece of land, plow and plant, hunt and gather, and make my own way. Except, there is no 'land for free', and this isn't an option.
2) Work for myself, which is a vanishingly small option.
3) Go to work for someone. Now, they are willing to pay me NOT ENOUGH to stay alive. Their position ? Take it or leave it. If you don't want it, someone else will. What is MY negotiation power in this situation ? THEY control my access to resources to stay live.

What is MY ability to negotiate a better offer ? ZERO. THAT is coercion.

And just remember - most families are two paychecks from being on the street.

So, READ SOME AMERICAN HISTORY. Specifically look up 'company towns' and 'company script' and 'company goons'. OK ?

BTW - a similar thing happened to a co-worker. Except it was in Argentina. And it was a relative, who greased the palm of a local official, who took over the property. The real owner's recourse ? Go to the same official who helped jack the house in the first place. No Castro involved there.

Shit happens.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.

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Thursday, August 13, 2009 2:46 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Quote:
Coercion is more like armed guards being sent in to tell these people what terms they are allowed to set for the use of the shovel. Coercion is price fixing. Coercion is setting wages. Coercion is taking away people's freedom to choose.

Industries regularly set wages, "price fixing" their employees, as it were. Are they guilty of coercion? Are they taking away peoples' freedom to choose?

Often in history, workers have gone on strike, hoping to "coerce" the companies into better pay and conditions for work. And almost as often, the government has sent its armed "negotiators" in to break up those strikes and "coerce" the people into taking whatever they're given. Should those types of "coercion" be outlawed, on both sides? Or are they just negotiations over the price of the shovel?

Mike

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Thursday, August 13, 2009 2:53 PM

KWICKO

Quote:

Castro decided that renting was an evil Capitalist concept. He allowed anyone renting a domicile to apply to the government for ownership of said domicile. So the relative did so. The government transferred ownership to the relative, and of course those rent payments stopped coming.

The same thing happens here, only it's usually a home's OWNER that gets screwed, and they usually call it "eminent domain". Grease the right palms, and you too can have an urgent societal need to own that person's home and land - as long as you have friends in the right places and on the right committees.

Mike

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Thursday, August 13, 2009 3:28 PM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

Yeah, Shit happens. But sometimes shit is official government policy. And that's where I disagree. When the government gets involved and screws someone out of their freedom. When the government steals, when the government dictates, when the government sets wages and prices. It removes from the people who own the resource from determining its worth.

If you have a resource, it should be entirely up to you what to do with that resource. Period.

Now, Mike brought up strikes. That is a VERY GOOD example of the Free Market at work.

He also brought up government intervention in Strikes. And you heard me advocate government intervention... Where? Government only exists to preserve everyone's freedoms. So the only time the government should get involved in a strike is when somebody attacks or steals from someone else. So if the Strikers accost people coming to work, the strikers would get arrested. If the Factory owner attacks the strikers, the Factory owner would get arrested.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Scenario 1:

I own a factory, and I need workers for my factory. I offer jobs at X wages.

I am, apparently, the only dude in the whole of local creation with a job to offer.

There are Y workers in town. They own the capacity to do work.

X wages is insufficient for survival. No one takes the jobs (because if it's REALLY not sufficient for survival, they'll die.) If anyone does take the job, they die from starvation.

I own a factory, and all my workers have starved to death. I go out of business.

Everyone in this scenario behaved in a suicidal fashion.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Scenario 2:

I own a factory, and I need workers for my factory. I offer jobs at X wages.

I am, apparently, the only dude in the whole of local creation with a job to offer.

There are Y workers in town. They own the capacity to do work.

X wages is insufficient for survival. Either no one will take the jobs, because they'll die, or they'll take the jobs and die while working. I increase wages to X+1, not wanting to lose all my workers to starvation. X+1 is a subsistence wage.

Now, since I am the only employer in the whole of local creation, any workers I don't employ starve to death.

The workers decide they aren't getting ahead, and want more wages. I refuse to give them raises. They strike.

I don't budge. The workers starve to death. I go out of business.

The factory owner in this scenario behaved in a suicidal fashion.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Scenario 3:

I own a factory, and I need workers for my factory. I offer jobs at X wages.

I am, apparently, the only dude in the whole of local creation with a job to offer.

There are Y workers in town. They own the capacity to do work.

X wages is insufficient for survival. Either no one will take the jobs, because they'll die, or they'll take the jobs and die while working. I increase wages to X+1, not wanting to lose all my workers to starvation. X+1 is a subsistence wage.

Now, since I am the only employer in the whole of local creation, any workers I don't employ starve to death.

The workers decide they aren't getting ahead, and want more wages. I refuse to give them raises. They strike.

I don't want to go out of business. I increase wages to X+2.

Everyone in this scenario behaved in a logical fashion. The person who owned the factory set the wage for the jobs. The people who controlled the capacity to do work set the price for their resource. Eventually both people came to a mutually agreeable arrangement on the exchange rates.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Scenario 4:

I own a factory, and I need workers for my factory. I offer jobs at X wages.

I am, apparently, the only dude in the whole of local creation with a job to offer.

There are Y workers in town. They own the capacity to do work.

X wages is insufficient for survival. Either no one will take the jobs, because they'll die, or they'll take the jobs and die while working. I increase wages to X+1, not wanting to lose all my workers to starvation. X+1 is a subsistence wage.

Now, since I am the only employer in the whole of local creation, any workers I don't employ starve to death.

The workers decide they aren't getting ahead, and want more wages. I refuse to give them raises. They strike.

The government arrives and beats up the workers until they agree to work.

The government in this scenario behaved in a coercive fashion. It interfered with the Free Market, and removed from the workers their ability to value their resource.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Scenario 5:

I own a factory, and I need workers for my factory. The government forces me to offer wages of X+3.

I am, apparently, the only dude in the whole of local creation with a job to offer.

There are Y workers in town. They own the capacity to do work.

X+3 is a good wage, but I can't afford to pay everyone that. I hire fewer workers than I'd have liked.

Now, since I am the only employer in the whole of local creation, any workers I don't employ starve to death. This number is significantly higher than in the previous scenarios.

The government in this scenario behaved in a coercive fashion. It interfered with the Free Market, and removed from the employer his ability to set a wage, and from the worker their ability to value their resources. Because of government interference, more workers starved to death, and the remainder got good money.

--Anthony

P.S. Rue, it's condescending to say things like, "Go read American History." I'm familiar with company towns, unions, strikes, and government intervention. Government usually intervenes on the side of industry. Go figure. So when I advocate less government intervention, you oughta be happy and applaud my very fine understanding of history.

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

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Thursday, August 13, 2009 3:40 PM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

Of course, there are various fallacies in the imaginary scenario. Fallacies introduced by the artificial premises:

The workers could not go elsewhere,

And

Only one guy in the whole of local creation was offering jobs.

In real life, the workers can go elsewhere. I am in Arizona now instead of Florida because I couldn't get what I deemed to be a good job in Florida.

In real life, each major area has multiple companies or industries or businesses. They compete for the same worker pool.

But again, if you don't like what's here, you can always go there. Workers migrate like hunter-gatherers, moving towards the best opportunities.

--Anthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

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Thursday, August 13, 2009 4:55 PM

FREMDFIRMA

You know, I was *going* to make an argument here, but Mikey and Anthony stole it right out from under me, lock, stock and barrel.

That's ok, though, cause Anthony in particular did one hell of a better job of it than I did, and since I consider the whole property of "owning" an idea to be complete bunk, and his 'product' was superior to mine based on the same resources.

-F

PS. His "customer service" is prolly better too, given what mine usually consists of!

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Thursday, August 13, 2009 6:09 PM

KWICKO

Anthony:

So you're against a minimum wage, but FOR unionization and collective bargaining? I can get behind that, if you tie those things together. In other words, if your company doesn't pay a minimum wage, it MUST allow union representation if the workers decide on that. I would think that unionized workers would generally end up with somewhat more than minimum wage. And it's not "coercion" - it's workers putting a valuation on their labor and worth, according to local values. After all, if the company doesn't like it, it's free to move to another part of the country to look for cheaper labor, right?

Mike

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Thursday, August 13, 2009 6:12 PM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

Exactly. The workers can do what they want, they can value themselves however they want, and they can choose to collectively agree on their value.

The company can do what it wants, move elsewhere, pay more, cry in their soup. Whatever.

No one is coerced. Everyone is just deciding what their resources are worth, and what they are willing to buy.

--Anthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

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