jollyroger's picture

    Minimum Wage? Hell, No! Maximum Wage

    By jollyroger on Sun, 01/05/2014 - 1:43am |

    The degrading squabble over the level at which a nation still retaining some small capacity for shame will say "Below this wage, by irrefutable presumption, labor is uncompensated, ergo (implicitly) slavery", serves only to distract the working class, the surplus value of whose labor is being stolen, from the fact of the theft;

    We need a maximum  ratio by which the most highly compensated may command the compensation of multiples of their fellow humans.

    Mondragon Co-op, the Basque industrial and commercial giant, sets 8.5 as the multiple that may separate the compensation of the highest executive and the lowest paid hourly employee.

    Believe it or not, this order of magnitude was once at least approached in the United States.

    That bastion of Calvinist Capitalism, Switzerland, regulates bankers wages.  

    "Since 2011, Egypt and France have each pursued fixed pay ratios for leaders of state-owned enterprises"

    Let's suppose that we tolerate three times Mondragon, and say that no income from an enterprise that has hourly employees may exceed, in all combined types of compensation (e.g. stock, low interest loans, what have you) 25X the compensation, without overtime, of the lowest hourly laborer in the company. You'd see the hourly rates rocket.

     

    CLASS WAR, Y'ALL

    Comments

    edited to add the crucial operative ratio "25X" without which post makes no sense.


    by jollyroger on Sun, 01/05/2014 - 2:06am

    one immediate benefit :  No more whining from the hypocrites "Well, why not 50/hour?  Why not 1000?"


    by jollyroger on Sun, 01/05/2014 - 2:34am

    I recently wrote an article about how an increase in the minimum wage rate increases unemployment. You can read it here: http://wp.me/p3N9zD-4e
     

    by Robert Boxer (not verified) on Sun, 01/05/2014 - 1:01pm

    Well, of coure, your major premise is subject to a great deal of controversy.  That said, can we put you down for a "yes" on the maximum wage?  Edit to add: Having now read all of your lengthy post, I can only say that you are as generous with conclusions as you are stingy with evidence.  Not a single study (and there are many) is cited, no empirical evidence, no historical examples.  

     

    It is more or less the unsupported intuitions of Chairman Boxer, to which we should attend because...?


    by jollyroger on Mon, 01/06/2014 - 9:35pm

      I myself doubt that imposing this ceiling on income would cause hourly wages to skyrocket; my guess is that it would cause the economic machine to stagnate.  At least that is what usually happens when states try to force the market to work the way they want it to.


    by Aaron Carine on Sun, 01/05/2014 - 7:18pm

    Really.

    How then to explain the success of Mondragon, and the continuing viability of Swiss Banking?

    Your kung-fu is weak, grasshopper.


    by jollyroger on Sun, 01/05/2014 - 8:03pm

      Master, the shoe 'tis on the other foot. The regulation of  Swiss banker's salaries hasn't even gone into effect yet, so we don't know how it will effect the banking industry. Anyway, the proposed measure is about giving shareholders control over salaries, which falls well short of  what Mondragon is doing.

    http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/Shareholders_unlikely_to_strike_dow...

    I'll concede that the Mondragon experience is encouraging for those who believe in collectivism but 1) it is worker owned, so we might not get the same results if we imposed a ceiling on salaries in capitalist-owned companies. 2) Mondragon is a single company, and attempts to run a whole economy on collectivist principles haven't worked out.


    by Aaron Carine on Sun, 01/05/2014 - 8:48pm

    I am struggling to deconstuct the harms that you propose would flow from the hypothetical regime. You seem to conflate political objections with inapposite negative consequences and leave me confused as to your point.


    by jollyroger on Sun, 01/05/2014 - 11:39pm

      My point is simply that I doubt that socialistic schemes of imposing limits on income will work.


    by Aaron Carine on Mon, 01/06/2014 - 7:36am

    Got the doubt.  Missed the reasoning.


    by jollyroger on Mon, 01/06/2014 - 10:37am

      Okay, the reasoning was 1) you can't say that regulating Swiss banker's wages will have no adverse effects when the freaking regulation hasn't started yet. Also, the proposed regulation doesn't involve the same thing as the Mondragon people limiting manager's wages to 5-8 times what the humblest worker makes. 2) We don't know how well the Mondragon model would work if everyone started doing it, although the fact that it works for them is encouraging(for people who favor limiting incomes).


    by Aaron Carine on Mon, 01/06/2014 - 3:23pm

    Let me try again.

     

    You objected to the  proposal on the grounds that rather than cause workers' wages to rise (so that executives could continue to reap high wages) the result would be "economic stagnation" (rather a global harm).  As to that projection, I have seen no reasoning.

     

    You have alternated that sort of substantive objection with political ones-people won't go for it.

     

    The banker;'s example was adduced as a riposte to the political issue.  You might, but as far as I can see, do not, object on competitve grounds, ie, the best bank managers will shun Swiss banks where their incomes are constrained and take their talents elsewhere

     

    This microeconomic objection, as you yourself point out, seems obviated by the continued growth and success of Mondragon.

     

    I  can't even tell from your answers whether or not you think it's a good idea economically but impracticable politically, or an idea that will "cause economies to stagnate" rather a bad outcome, I submit.

     

    Reasoned discourse might begin with you making your positions on these issues clearer.


    by jollyroger on Mon, 01/06/2014 - 9:02pm

    Gee...Wages in the country has stagnated for labor since 1980.   When labor's wages stagnate the economic machine stagnates.  CEO's are paid too much in this country. The only part of the economy that is doing well is Wall Street and that is only one part.  The rest needs help and a boost from government also just like Wall Street got.  Wall Street would have collapsed had it not been for the bail out by the government. The greedy fools that was running Wall Street really didn't deserve the money they are paid.  Their pay didn't keep them from screwing things up. Putting a cap on their pay won't hurt the economy but only their wealth.  I don't know if you have noticed but the corporate geniuses in charge has not been creating any jobs in this country.  


    by trkingmomoe on Sun, 01/05/2014 - 8:24pm

      Actually, real wages were going up in the 90s. At least that's what the media said.


    by Aaron Carine on Mon, 01/06/2014 - 5:27pm

    Explain the mechanics of how that stagnation works a bit more...

    For example, I could see the money freed up being put to many good purposes, not just raising salaries some, but also investing in R&D, product development, and really many, many productive uses.

    There is a paradox that Galbraith pointed out many years ago that managers and CEOs are said to need higher and higher compensation in order to motivate them to do their best work. This is just human nature, they say.

    But then they posit a different human nature--one that works 180 degrees differently-- to folks who make much less. "Just giving" them more money will dull their appetite for work.


    by Peter Schwartz on Mon, 01/06/2014 - 8:47am

      I don't know about others, but I don't think paying people better makes them slothful.


    by Aaron Carine on Mon, 01/06/2014 - 3:24pm

    Nothing on the mechanics of how your stagnation would the work were top wages to be capped?


    by Peter Schwartz on Mon, 01/06/2014 - 7:22pm

      Well, I must confess that I'm too ignorant of economics to say much about the mechanics of  the market.   I've been going mainly by the experience of socialism, which suggests that taking away incentives screws things up. But I don't know, maybe

    a cap on salaries would work; I can't claim certitude on the matter. But I myself don't think it would be just to forbid people to get rich.


    by Aaron Carine on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 5:31pm

    The proposed cap would not prevent a CEO from becoming rich.  It would prevent him from becoming rich by keeping his employees poor.


    by jollyroger on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 9:31pm

      A ratio of 5:1 in salaries or income(which is what wikipedia says they have at Mondragon) would either prevent the CEOs from becoming rich or would require them to pay the lowest paid workers a six or seven figure salary. The latter option seems impossible.


    by Aaron Carine on Wed, 01/08/2014 - 1:37pm

    Richard Wolff in a long discussion of Mondragon says 8.5.  

     

    (Does your comment mean that you object to 5X but would sign onto 8.5X?  Welcome to the revolution!)

     


    by jollyroger on Wed, 01/08/2014 - 2:08pm

     No, my comment means that I was using wikipedia as a source--which many people would say I shouldn't, although it is always tempting.

     VA, my point was that in order for  CEOs to be rich AND for the income ratio to be no more than 5(or 8.5) to one, you would have to be paying factory workers, service workers, and secretaries  six  figure salaries or more, which I don't think is possible.  I also think it is probable, if not certain, that forbidding millionaires to make more than one or two million a year would remove incentives.  Business executives want to get very rich, not just somewhat rich.


    by Aaron Carine on Wed, 01/08/2014 - 4:23pm

    which I don't think is possible 

     

    I don't think you are doing the math.  If we take at face value Warren's numbers ($22 minimum wage based on productivity gains), and then apply the same math to , say, a current secretary's salary ($40k?) we arrive at 120k., so the greedy motherfuckers at the top can pocket their one million under a Mondragon regime, or 3 million under mine.

     

    You need to get your arms around the phenomenal productivity increase that hs been TOTALLY arrogated by the ruling class. 

     

    Have you not noticed the proliferation of BILLIONaires? 

     


    by jollyroger on Wed, 01/08/2014 - 5:16pm

    Just to play devil's advocate...

    Have the workers become that much more productive...or have the machines become that much more productive?

    It's even possible that the more sophisticated and productive the machine, the less skilled the worker has to be.

    Machine-fueled productivity gains are going to go to the owners of the machines, which brings me back to employee ownership.


    by Peter Schwartz on Wed, 01/08/2014 - 7:54pm

    In this instance, the details are with the devil...

    That said, the outcome of hyper productivity could be higher hourly pay but fewer working hours and longver vacations (European Social Dem model) or bloated executive compensation and widespread unemployment coupled with stagnant wages for the fewer workers now needed.

     

    And, yes, the answer is worker owned co-ops, which actually can be promoted by fairly trivial, even subtle, tax and procurement policies if a sympathetic government wanted to do so.

     

    Eg, if the federal government gave a preference in purchasing goods and services to worker owned co-ops, or a corporate tax discount to them (there are some ESOP tax policies which, unencumbered by any actual research, I believe go some way down this road) it is easy to imagine a flourishing portion of the private sector going in this direction.


    by jollyroger on Wed, 01/08/2014 - 8:24pm

    It's even possible that the more sophisticated and productive the machine, the less skilled the worker has to be.

     

    EG, the touchscreen gui at McDonald's where the "associate" doesn't need to read or write to handle the transaction.  I bet the productivity at Micky D's is hugely  IT goosed (parenthetically, I heard somewhere on the radio that McDonald's is considered the best managed company in the world--jus' sayin')


    by jollyroger on Wed, 01/08/2014 - 8:27pm

       But I don't think forbidding people to make more than three million a year is going to work. I'm going mainly by our experience of socialism, which eliminated incentives and competition. I also don't think it's just to impose these limits on income. I have a lot of company, or at least I did in the 90s, when the AP said that only nine percent of Americans supported such limits.


    by Aaron Carine on Thu, 01/09/2014 - 8:17am

      Also, I don't think it is feasible to pay factory workers and cashiers 200K a year. Can corporations pay everyone that much and still turn a profit?


    by Aaron Carine on Thu, 01/09/2014 - 10:04am

    Suppose you actually examine the economies of Europe where social democratic principles apply, instead of leaping straight to "*socialism" of which, con respetto, your comments would indicate a limited understanding.  

     

    For your guidance, be specific, bring facts, reason, if you will, from the adduced evidence step by step to your proposed conclusion.

     

    Thank you in advance for your efforts in this regard.

     

    *Socialism as generally understood, is an economic system where private ownership of he means of production does not obtain.  No one, (except you as a straw man), has raised socialism as the solution to economic inequality in the United States.


    by jollyroger on Thu, 01/09/2014 - 2:22pm

      Of course you are advocating socialism, Roger. You said you want workers to own the means of production("worker owned co-ops"). That is socialism, dude. My dictionary says you have socialism when the means of production are owned by "the community". Ownership by workers is ownership by the community, I think. Chomsky says nothing but worker ownership counts as socialism.

      Mondragon is encouraging for people who want workers to own the means of production, but it is still just one company. Attempts to collectivize all or most of the economy haven't worked out, and they didn't involve workers owning the means of production. But there is the example of Mondragon, which may indicate that the "third way" is possible.

      


    by Aaron Carine on Thu, 01/09/2014 - 3:03pm

    a private worker owned co-op competing in a marketplace were private entities (as opposed to the state) own the various means of production is not socialism.

     

    Re-read your definition.  Ownership by "the community" is a centrally owned and centrally planned economy.

     

    Within a mixed economy, separate productive units may be owned in part or in full by the workers who are there employed, but that does not mean a socialist economy.

     

    United Airlines by virtue of their labor problems is partially owned by the workers.   Google "ESOP", for instance.  There are also consumer owned co-ops that operate quite happily in the U.S., otherwise a bastion of tooth-and-claw capitalism.


    by jollyroger on Thu, 01/09/2014 - 3:25pm

      Actually, you're describing "market socialism", which is still considered socialism.

    ww.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Market_socialism.html

      But I'll concede that a bunch of worker owned cooperatives wouldn't be community ownership.


    by Aaron Carine (not verified) on Thu, 01/09/2014 - 5:31pm

    Progress!


    by jollyroger on Thu, 01/09/2014 - 5:40pm

    If you don't think you could get rich on a seven figure salary (i.e., over a million dollars per annum), then we have very different definitions of rich.


    by Verified Atheist on Wed, 01/08/2014 - 2:44pm

    As far as I can tell, you don't get rich with a 7 figure salary, you instantly are rich...it ain't like you have to save up for 20 years before you make the cut...(Perhaps this shows my age--I can remember when $200/wk was a middle class income...but, of course,  a slice of pizza was 15 cents.)


    by jollyroger on Wed, 01/08/2014 - 2:51pm

    Well, I wouldn't go that far. A million dollars doesn't last like it used to. After taxes, that's probably only about $600k (or less), and that would not be enough money to live off the interest comfortably, which is where I draw the line at rich.


    by Verified Atheist on Wed, 01/08/2014 - 2:58pm

    As thus defined, ie, independently wealthy, point well taken.  Funny thing is that back when that slice was fifteen cents, muni bonds were paying enough tax free that you almost could annuitize one million to last a hella long time.  


    by jollyroger on Wed, 01/08/2014 - 3:04pm

    I've got nothing against the idea per se, but I suspect there are many loop-holes that will present themselves. Some thoughts:

    1. What about LLCs (I happen to be employed by a very generous one) where the owners allow the company to collect profit, which then goes into their pockets? Note that this would easily be classified as "not compensation", I suspect.
    2. What about cases where the dividends of past, privately owned stock (this is similar to the LLC argument) are allowed to balloon?

    These notions stem from the idea of, what are the options available to a company that can't pay its top earners more than a set limit but that (for whatever reason) don't want to pay their bottom earners that much? It seems that they can either have the company earn more profit (see points above), they can sell their items for less, or they can pay more for the goods that go into their products. I think there might also be a way to cheat the system with that last one.


    by Verified Atheist on Sun, 01/05/2014 - 8:59pm

    I was advisedly vague about how executive compensation would be defined, precisely because of the sort of issues you raise (let alone the spectre of an auto factory with three 8 hour shifts of 2000 "independent contractors",

     

    It does, as you say, turn on how the advances in productivity will be divided , as between customers, workers and owners.  We all know that on the numbers profit has usufructed far and away the bulk of the exponential productivity bump from the IT revolution.

     

    At least in the hypothetical regime, there would be a constituency for the execs and the workers carving up a piece of productivity where both levels would make out.   Remember, we are positing a fairly effective multiplier.  You could pay a worker 100 k and it would mean 2.5 million exec. income, not too shabby.


    by jollyroger on Sun, 01/05/2014 - 11:35pm

    Sam Pizzigati at Inequality.org article from yesterday:

    http://inequality.org/2014-year-pay-ratio-era/

    In Germany, France, and Spain, activists are now working on their own versions of pay-ratio income caps, and the ratio cap spirit has even spread to the United States, home to the world’s most generous CEO paychecks. 

    The federal Securities and Exchange Commission, after four years of delay, will likely release this year new regulations that require America’s top corporations to annually reveal the ratio between their CEO and median worker compensation, a disclosure that the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act mandates. 

    The new SEC ratio disclosure regs will kick in for the next corporate fiscal year. But activists aren’t waiting for the new pay ratio numbers to start emerging. They’re already mobilizing to build compensation ratios into the fabric of America’s economic life. 

     


    by trkingmomoe on Mon, 01/06/2014 - 5:47am

    First I'd like to say that I do like people ruminating on how to solve the problem of the crazy CEO compensation competition. But I see a problem here:

    all combined types of compensation (e.g. stock

    affecting the current new American dream. Where the kidz have a startup of 25 peeps and they give everybody stock including the receptionist so they all work for near zilch 24/7, and then they hit it big like Twitter of Facebook. Are the 25 originals 'sposed to pay every new employee they need to expand an amount equal to 1/8 of their new riches, which are still mostly paper only?

    Only pointing it out cause I think a lot of kidz these days hope such things will happen to them and might not look kindly on proposed laws that suggest negating such dreaming.

    Granted it's not likely to happen but this kind of thing is what motivates people to do stuff like get into solar energy....

    Likewise, the immigrant small business owner who finally moves on up often is known for expecting the newbies to work for a minimum like he/she did....

    I think that's a hard sell, including stock. And the big companies just always find a way around whatever you do on that front. More at the heart of that problem is that since everyone's retirement money got into the stock market, stock is traded not for earnings but for market value. And CEO's are hired to increase stock value and then paid in the stock whose value they increase. That's where the CEO compensation competition started. Rather than being rewarded for efficiency or product or service or profit, it's about increasing stock value....

    Admit that I don't know a hell of a lot about that which I am ruminating, just throwing some things out there...


    by artappraiser on Mon, 01/06/2014 - 9:23pm

    There's no doubt that defining the compensation that is subject to the limiting ratio is not straightforward, and not every business model at varying points of maturity ought properly to be governed the same way.

     

    Interestingly, at Mondragon, the basic organization is a worker owned cooperative--so all the equity reposes with the workers, who hire managers who may not be equty holders.

     

    And that's without the difficulty of policing the loopholes that arise in some many regualtory regimes by the designation of employees as independent contractors,

     

    But, in principle, the idea of a cap  I believe has merit  .


    by jollyroger on Mon, 01/06/2014 - 9:41pm

    Interestingly, at Mondragon, the basic organization is a worker owned cooperative...

    This probably needs to be a feature of the system, not just an add-on. Once workers are owners, the whole situation changes.

    The reason may be that you're not "just" capping someone's salary; you're also giving him a share in the profits. The better the company does, the more he makes. So you have the greed gland working for everyone who owns the company.

    Theoretically, at least.

    In America, at least, it is very hard to say, "You can only make this much and no more." It's antithetical to something deep inside us. Or at the very least, you have to keep giving people something else they find worthwhile to shoot for. It may not have to be remuneration per se.

    Reagan (paraphrasing): "I don't want to live in a country where someone can't become a millionaire."

    Napoleon: "It is with baubles men are led."


    by Peter Schwartz on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 8:13pm

    I'll see your Reagan and Napoleon, and raise you one scruffy Jew "Gather ye not up treasures on earth, but rather in heaven"


    by jollyroger on Wed, 01/08/2014 - 5:09pm

    Amen


    by Resistance on Wed, 01/08/2014 - 6:28pm

    And I'll raise you: "Why wait for death, when you can enjoy heaven here on Earth!"


    by Peter Schwartz on Thu, 01/09/2014 - 6:18pm

    Closing the circle, the businessman's trip...heaven on earth indeed


    by jollyroger on Thu, 01/09/2014 - 6:37pm

    Good points, and the prior stock you mention was part of what I was alluding to above.

    As for the immigrant small business owner, however, that shouldn't be a problem unless the owner wants more than 25x minimum wage, or $181.25/hr. I suspect most of them would be quite happy with those wages.


    by Verified Atheist on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 11:17am

    I didn't feel that a 25x multiplier threatened to send the ruling class scrambling to clip grocery  coupons

     

    Indeed, prior to the calculated destruction of the countervailing power of the unions, the gap was 40x, ie. of the same order of magnitude.  Today it is north of 400,


    by jollyroger on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 12:36pm

    …and I'm just now seeing a loophole that one could fly a battleplate through — restructuring.

    Basically, the idea goes something like this: you put all of your least paid employees into "shell" corporations such that the CEO of those corporations makes no more than $377k (25 * $7.25/hr * 40 hr/week * 52 week/yr). The output of those corporations is then consumed by the "parent" corporation which has much better paid "least paid employees" so that their CEOs can still get paid exorbitantly. I put "shell" and "parent" in quotes here because I feel that even if you legislated against this exact plan, a similar one would crop up using the same concept but with different legalese. Maybe I'm missing something, but this seems pretty bulletproof.

    Thus, in order for this to work, it would have to be on a national scale, and I could just imagine the howls that would take place then. (Not that it would be a bad thing.)


    by Verified Atheist on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 2:31pm

    Well, I am perfectly prepared to concede that without a national standard, we have the usual race to the bottom dynamics that have characterized the oddly named "right to work (for less)" movement.

     

    That said, in the arena of worker owned cooperatives (eg Mondragon) the principle may be applied in good faith, with apparently positive results.


    by jollyroger on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 5:01pm

    Courtesy of Liz Warren, had the minimum wage reflected productivity gains, it would now be a very livable $22.00/hr.

     

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/18/elizabeth-warren-minimum-wage_n_2900984.html


    by jollyroger on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 12:42pm

    Let's suppose that we tolerate three times Mondragon, and say that no income from an enterprise that has hourly employees may exceed, in all combined types of compensation (e.g. stock, low interest loans, what have you) 25X the compensation, without overtime, of the lowest hourly laborer in the company. You'd see the hourly rates rocket.

    I think the more likely scenario is that you would see subcontracting skyrocket.  I can hire a janitor or i can hire a company to hire that janitor, which do you think would be the prefered solution at Google?


    by mofo. (not verified) on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 3:39pm

    Glad to see you're hanging around. At some point you might as well register an account. smiley


    by Verified Atheist on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 3:50pm

    Ditto: please feel encouraged to continue to hang around, mofo.

    Some of main benefits of registering even if you don't plan to write blog entries: you can include links in your comments without the spam filter stopping them, and you can easily track and check the threads you've been on to see if anyone's added to them (and you can also do the latter for any registered user.)


    by artappraiser on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 3:57pm

    Thanks, i might just do that!


    by mofo. who is wa... (not verified) on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 5:32pm

    Subcontracting, of course, was strictly verboten under the ancien regime, for precisely the reasons underlying your comment.

    I confess to a certain ignorance about exactly when organized labor surrendered on this previously do-or-die issue, but they surrendered, and then died.

     

    On December 15, 1904, 19 clothing cutters at Montgomery Ward went on strike to protest the company's use of nonunion subcontractors. Montgomery Ward vice president Robert J. Thorne locked the remaining workers out. Sympathy strikes by tailors' and other unions quickly broke out. By April, 5,000 workers were on the picket line in front of the 26 local companies represented by the National Tailors' Association (an employer group).[21][22] The Teamsters engaged in a sympathy strike on April 6, 1905, adding another 10,000 members to the picket lines.[20][21][22][23]

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1905_Chicago_Teamsters%27_strike


    by jollyroger on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 4:53pm

    In my opinion, economic transactions are only sustainable so long as both parties are happy with the transaction.  Otherwise, its only a matter of time before one of the parties figures out a way out. 

    Striking was, and is a short term solution where by one side forces another to accept a solution it would normally not agree to.  The results are totally predictable, the losing side directs its energy toward figuring out a way to get around the thing that was forced upon them.  

    I, too, am ignorant as to the history of subcontracting, but my guess is the Unions gave up fighting it due to the endless number of ways it can be employed.


    by mofo. who is wa... (not verified) on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 5:28pm

    I think the denoument was more nuanced--there used to be a concept called "solidarity", pursuant to which the picket lines of a striking local union would be respected by other unions, with devastating results for the struck employer.  

    I no longer see that principle honored, at least not to the extent it once was,  As strikes have become less effective, their usefulness as a means of imposing discipline upon subcontracting employers hs been eroded.


    by jollyroger on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 6:40pm

    Yea, thats my point, if i were to do something to you which had "devastating results", isnt it reasonable to expect that you would work to avoid those results? Why would you expect that business owners would do otherwise?


    by mofo. who is wa... (not verified) on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 8:36pm

    Well, certainly, in a war it is only proper to expect the adversary to do his best against you.  I wasn't proposing that we give the ruling class a vote, (well, not more than one person one vote)


    by jollyroger on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 8:55pm

    If you view the employee employer relationship as a war, you shouldnt be suprised if one side looks for a way out, a way to stop the war.  Think of it in reverse, if you were employed at a place where your employer viewed you as the enemy, to be forced into and beaten down to positions you did not want to take, and someone offered you a job where that was not the case, i.e. where you employment was not considered a contest but a mutually beneficial relationship, wouldnt you take it?  You seem incensed that employers might choose subcontractors over employees, but freely describe the employee employer relationship as a 'war'.  Why wouldnt employers look to change that?  Wouldnt you?


    by mofo. on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 10:15pm

    What you describe in the halcyon alternative to class war is capitalism leavened by vigorous labor unionization.  I have been an employer with a unioinized workforce and without one, and I can tell you that the union made me a better boss, and a better manager.

     

    That said, and since the country, intoxicated with the fantasies generated by that Alzheimers patient who became president in 1980, has destroyed the countervailing power of labor unions, I opt for worker owned co ops and Chomskyite syndicalist anarchism.

     

    You will note that the horrors you reference are obviated by the simple expedient of having the labor force own the particular means of production at which they labor.

     

     


    by jollyroger on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 10:39pm

    Maybe not necessarily "happy"...but they make a calculation that agreeing is better (for them) than the alternative. "Your money or your life!" Forking over his money did not make Jack Benny "happy," but it was better than death.

    Same for those offers you can't refuse...

    That people will keeping looking for a workaround that suits them better is a foregone conclusion. However, this is so even when people are "happy" because happiness is a fleeting feeling.

    For example, someone could be happy with X, but soon sees he would be happier with Y. Suddenly, X doesn't make him so happy. He focuses on X's drawbacks. Once again, he is on the move for something that will make him...happy.


    by Peter Schwartz on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 9:03pm

    Maybe not necessarily "happy"...but they make a calculation that agreeing is better (for them) than the alternative. "Your money or your life!" Forking over his money did not make Jack Benny "happy," but it was better than death.

    Same for those offers you can't refuse...

    That works right up until the point where a better offer comes along, then refusal becomes inevitable.  In case you were wondering why so many union jobs stampeeded to Mexico.....


    by mofo. on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 10:17pm

    They stampeded to Mexico in an absolute explosion of labor racketeering enabled by NAFTA

     

    http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/96wgp6xp9780252034923.html


    by jollyroger on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 10:44pm

    This is sort of my point.

    All so-called happy arrangements are ephemeral...happy only until something better comes along.

    IOW, the distinction between "happy" and "forced" is only a matter of degree.

    Why do workers strike? Because they are being "forced" into an unhappy deal. The post-strike deal moves the needle a bit toward them and away from management. Management accepts it because it's better than a workforce on strike (and other things). Now management is less happy than before the strike, but happier than during the strike. And the workers haven't gotten everything they wanted (probably) so they are happier, but not entirely happy.

    In short, the entirely mutual happiness you seem to be positing as a goal doesn't exist in my view. We are always impinging on each other. We are always accepting things that make us less than perfectly happy...and even very unhappy in some regards...because the alternative at the moment is worse and will make us even more unhappy.

    There's a great Sufi parable about this in which a whole string of things happens to a man that bring him both happiness and unhappiness.

    I'll paraphrase from memory: The man's daughter gets married, which makes him happy, but not so happy because he goes broke throwing the wedding, but not so unhappy because at the wedding he meets a new client which grows his revenue by 50%, which, in turn, brings on new unhappiness because now he has to hire a second accountant to handle his books, which brings new happiness into his life because this accountant's son falls in love with the man's second daughter, the ugly, unmarriagable one, and proposes to her, which fills him with untold joy until he meets the boys parents who...and so on.


    by Peter Schwartz on Wed, 01/08/2014 - 10:10am

    "Below this wage, by irrefutable presumption, labor is uncompensated, ergo (implicitly) slavery"

    Wages arent the only way someone might be compensated.  Do you pull a salary for writing for this blog or do you get compensation via some other mechanism (like satisfaction, for instance)?


    by mofo. (not verified) on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 3:41pm

    Personally I favor a guaranteed national income (Pace, Tricky Dicky) which would rather obviate the minimum wage question, since it would implicitly compete with compensated employment as a floor below which no one in his right mind would flip burgers.

     

    I am handsomely compensated by the blog owners, who reap large dollars from the positioning on the site of lucrative Google ads...wait, what? No ads? No dollars? No handsome compensation.?

     I am a putz!


    by jollyroger on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 4:58pm

    Personally I favor a guaranteed national income (Pace, Tricky Dicky) which would rather obviate the minimum wage question, since it would implicitly compete with compensated employment as a floor below which no one in his right mind would flip burgers.

    Sounds great so long as you dont mind not having burgers flipped. 

     I am a putz!

    You are neither a slave nor a putz (at least not in this regard), you are merely someone who has made his own choice as to what his (or her) time is worth.  Personally, i think everyone should be allowed to make that choice on their own.


    by mofo. who is wa... (not verified) on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 5:32pm

    Personally, i think everyone should be allowed to make that choice on their own.

    Excellent!  I see that you, too, favor the guaranteed national income, by virtue of which the self actualization you praise can unfold free of the need to scuffle for sustenance.


    by jollyroger on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 6:43pm

    I dont see how you get to that from either the OP or the comments that followed.


    by mofo. on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 8:43pm

    What, you didn't get your Obama 2008 bumper sticker?


    by Michael Wolraich on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 6:19pm

    Oh, sure, pass out the decrepit relics of hopey-changey...


    by jollyroger on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 6:35pm

    Current fair market value: $1.99 to $3.75. Depending upon whether it still has that original hopey changey patina, maybe? I'm not sure, haven't kept up with the idiosyncracies of the bumper sticker market. Do know that Shepard Fairey has proved to be no Banksy on the staying power.


    by artappraiser on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 6:53pm

    It'll be on Antiques Hovercraft Show in 2114 "I'd insure this for $10,000 if you hadn't cleaned it...as it is, even with the specks of paint removed from the back, perhaps $200."


    by jollyroger on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 8:53pm

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ntyNwW0Phg

     


    by Donal on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 6:24pm

    I love the jackets, which I recognize from the extras in "Dirty Dancing"


    by jollyroger on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 9:33pm

    http://www.centerforneweconomics.org/newsletters


    by A Guy Called LULU on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 8:34pm

    Small is beautiful...


    by jollyroger on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 9:34pm

    Economics as if People Mattered


    by A Guy Called LULU on Tue, 01/07/2014 - 10:20pm

    Great work they are doing.  Lets hope it flourishes.

    Thanks for sharing this, I will spread the information to others. 


    by Resistance on Wed, 01/08/2014 - 12:31am

    I just got done watching "Inequality For All," Robert Reich's documentary.  He explains just how we got to the place we are now at.  It is very well done and is an honest look at our economy and the roll wages play in it. I hope all of you get a chance to see it.  Maybe it will win an award.  It is better then anything that Michael More has done. 

    He ends it with explaining history is on our side and don't despair or give up.  


    by trkingmomoe on Wed, 01/08/2014 - 4:42pm

    history is on our side 

     

    Not to be unkind, each year more Repugnants than Democrats leave the electorate...well, strictly speaking, I suppose they may be said to relocate their registration to a "better place"...


    by jollyroger on Wed, 01/08/2014 - 5:06pm

    Nice way to put it is, they age out. 


    by trkingmomoe on Thu, 01/09/2014 - 11:31am

    Yes, that's what I was trying to say..couldn't remember the term of art.


    by jollyroger on Thu, 01/09/2014 - 2:12pm

    Among  the interesting  points made by this video is that a 20x wealth disparity is what the American people think should  be the disparity between top and bottom...the reality is orders of magnitude differnt.  Watch the video

     

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/06/this-viral-video-is-right-we-need-to-worry-about-wealth-inequality/


    by jollyroger on Wed, 01/08/2014 - 11:54pm

    OK, this is the crux of it all:

    JollyRoger is 100% right

    Aaron is 100% wrong

     

    Someone who makes more money than he spends is not going to pour more money into the economy no matter how much extra he gets. He is NOT going to be  a "job creator" as the republicans love to say. He is going to sit on it and figure out ways to avoid taxes on that same amount of money. 

     

    Someone who is just making ends meet who gets more money will spend it...on extra groceries, clothing, and other discretionary purchases. This will increase demand for these items and will drive the economy in a positive way. 

     

    The "trickle down " bullshit has been disproven. The foundation of this country has to be strong, and that comes from the majority. The majority of people has been usurped by the majority of wealth-owners and it is an unhealthy and top-heavy mess that is ready to collapse on itself. 

     

     The he very sad thing is this:  the Jolly- Rogers won't win.  Ultimately the Aaron's will lose too, because our country will fail, but the Aaron's will not care, because it will be their progeny who will be jumping out of Wall Street windows and the Aaron's will have had a good run, which is all that matters. 


    by CVille Dem on Thu, 01/09/2014 - 9:23pm

    the Jolly- Rogers won't win.

     

     

    Hey, they got the guns, but we got the numbers...


    by jollyroger on Thu, 01/09/2014 - 10:25pm

      Okay, but if you think that I'm affluent, you're mistaken. I'm poor. It isn't just the upper classes who doubt the feasibility of collectivism or limits on income.


    by Aaron Carine (not verified) on Fri, 01/10/2014 - 8:04am

      Also, I haven't been advocating trickle down economics.


    by Aaron Carine (not verified) on Fri, 01/10/2014 - 8:08am

    Or at least $22/hr, henceforth indexed to inflation.


    by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 01/09/2014 - 10:58pm

    Is holocracy one piece of the puzzle? In watching this, though, I wondered whether someONE(S) didn't have to set the initial direction. But an interesting experiment.

    http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/live-news/2014/1/zappos-to-adopt-bosslessmanagementstructure.html


    by Peter Schwartz on Fri, 01/10/2014 - 8:26am

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