Capitalism Is Starting to Be Replaced By Something Better

[What if...?]

Fairness is subjective nonsense. I consider keeping everything I earn and treating all transactions between people as individual from all others fair. You think that you deserve half of what I earn, and that if i get a better deal than you that it is unfair.

Not me. I take care of myself.

 

[JohnfrmClevelan]

If 20% are the entire tax base and the other 80% are supported by that tax base then explain how the 20% are not supplying far more than they get.

Everybody "supplies" something. Even though cops, firemen and teachers don't put any products on the shelves and contribute to GDP, they still supply a service.

So now the question becomes, how much should producers of items for sale be rewarded, and how much should workers that do other useful stuff be rewarded?

Let's say you are paid $30,000 for working 40 hours/week at producing 1000 widgets. Then, technological advancements make you 5x more productive over that same 40 hours, so you now produce 5000 widgets. (This is basically my 80%/20% scenario here.) Here is what is going to happen:

1) Ownership isn't going to give you a raise for being 5x more productive. You still work 40 hours/week, and you can be replaced.

2) If demand for widgets hasn't gone up, 4 of your co-workers are going to lose their jobs.

3) Ownership is going to pocket the $120,000 in saved labor costs.

Now 4 unemployed workers need something to do, yet there are no private sector jobs available. Technology is making labor more and more obsolete.

Nobody is looking to tax you more - you still only make $30,000. You aren't the bottleneck. It is ownership that would be expected to pay the new taxes, because they are the ones capturing all of the income that used to go to labor. And don't cry for ownership, because even if they are forced to hand over a lot of their profits, they are still coming out ahead. The money to be redistributed represents labor's lost income, which ownership has captured. In a labor-intensive $15 trillion economy, let's say 75% of that income might go to labor and 25% to ownership. Change that to a highly-automated economy, and the numbers might be 40% of $15 trillion go to labor and 60% go to ownership. The economy stays about the same size, but a few owners have pocketed a LOT of dollars that used to go to labor.

 

[Henrin]

Everybody "supplies" something. Even though cops, firemen and teachers don't put any products on the shelves and contribute to GDP, they still supply a service.

So now the question becomes, how much should producers of items for sale be rewarded, and how much should workers that do other useful stuff be rewarded?

The going rate of the work and what the owners of the property want to pay. :shrug: This has already been decided. Why are we reinventing the wheel again?

 

[JohnfrmClevelan]

I do want to say that I find it sad that instead of people coming up with a system where people keep the full fruits of the labor they are coming up with systems were people keep less of the fruits of the labor. If no one worked for anyone else then everyone would have the full fruit of the labor and not have to share it with anyone. That is a far superior idea than this collectivist nonsense.

Nobody is paid according to how much "fruit" they produce anyway. You are paid according to how much leverage you have, as labor, versus how much leverage ownership has, as ownership. Labor always loses that battle. The amount you produce is an absolute ceiling on what you can possibly earn if you work for somebody else, and it always comes out to be far less than that. So the only ones who would benefit in your system would be ownership, and they are already doing quite well without your help.

On the other hand, if we all worked for ourselves, we wouldn't be nearly as productive, as a whole, as we are today.

 

[JohnfrmClevelan]

The going rate of the work and what the owners of the property want to pay. :shrug: This has already been decided. Why are we reinventing the wheel again?

Because the old wheel depended on most people participating in private sector production, and also for labor having enough leverage to wrangle a decent wage out of ownership. The new wheel is going to have to account for an ever-decreasing need for labor.

 

[Henrin]

Nobody is paid according to how much "fruit" they produce anyway. You are paid according to how much leverage you have, as labor, versus how much leverage ownership has, as ownership. Labor always loses that battle. The amount you produce is an absolute ceiling on what you can possibly earn if you work for somebody else, and it always comes out to be far less than that. So the only ones who would benefit in your system would be ownership, and they are already doing quite well without your help.

On the other hand, if we all worked for ourselves, we wouldn't be nearly as productive, as a whole, as we are today.

Fruit of labor is an idiom that means the results of ones work. The point I was making is that the best thing we could do is get away from the idea of working for others and instead work for ourselves. That way all profits go to us and all the fruits of our labor comes directly to us. Working for others means you're splitting the fruits of your labor with others, and it is that problem that is causing this dispute to begin with.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

Why should only one person out of every five do the honest work of producing what all of society needs or wants, while the other four get to live off of the work of that one? Whatever “great things” you think that 80% could accomplish, you know that no matter what support system might be put in place, if they don't have to work to support themselves, they won't. You'll just have a large population of lazy, unproductive parasites, supported by a small population of honest workers.

So you think that being a cop is dishonest work? Firemen are stealing from you? Teachers don't work to support themselves?

Where are you getting this? Cops and firemen and teachers would be working, would be getting paid for their work; they would be in the 20%. Are you, for some reason, counting them among the 80%?

Here is the math: if 20% of the labor force is meeting all demand, then the other 80% HAVE NO CHOICE IN THE MATTER. There will be nobody buying what they produce. That is how capitalism works. If there is no demand for my work, I'm not going to get paid, and I can't just conjure up demand where it doesn't exist.

Everyone working more, and earning more money, beyond what they need just to survive, means that they are going to want to spend that money in order to secure a higher standard of living, a higher level of luxury. This means they'll be buying more stuff. Bigger houses, more and fancier cars, more boats and aircraft and sporting equipment and more of every kind of gadget you can imagine. That means there will be more labor needed to make all these things.

The political wrong has long tended to support “equality” in the sense of all people being able to enjoy an “equal” standard of living; but, as this thread demonstrates, not equality in the sense of everyone having to contribute equally to earn that standard of living.

In fact, this thread has painted an almost caricaturish picture of the wrong-wing fantasy in which a guy who sits around all day at home smoking dope and doing nothing whatsoever to contribute anything to society gets to enjoy the same standard of living as someone who puts in forty hours of hard work each week at an honest job; and in which there are four times as many of the former as there are of the latter.

You are just flat-out incorrect about this. Nobody is calling for complete equality. But a reduction in inequality would make the economy work better. These arguments aren't just about giving money to the poor so they can eat - they are also about maximizing aggregate demand by allowing everybody to earn a decent wage.

But you're not talking about everyone earning a decent wage. You're talking about 1.5 of the population earning a decent wage and being forced to share it with the remaining 4/5 who do nothing to earn their share of it. You're talking about a society in which a minority do all the work, and produce all the wealth, while the majority are useless parasites that only consume the majority of the wealth produced by the minority who actually earn it. There is no way around the fact that what you are lionizing here is an extreme parody of the ultimate far-wrong fantasy of a society in which a worthless and unproductive majority gets to sit around on their asses all day contributing nothing, while a small minority are forced to support them out of the wealth which they rightfully earn. What does this productive 20% need the parasitic 80% for? Why shouldn't the 20% get to keep all of what they rightfully earn, and let the 80% starve to death if they will do nothing to earn their keep?

 

[NGNM85]

But you're not talking about everyone earning a decent wage. You're talking about 1.5 of the population earning a decent wage and being forced to share it with the remaining 4/5 who do nothing to earn their share of it. You're talking about a society in which a minority do all the work, and produce all the wealth, while the majority are useless parasites that only consume the majority of the wealth produced by the minority who actually earn it. There is no way around the fact that what you are lionizing here is an extreme parody of the ultimate far-wrong fantasy of a society in which a worthless and unproductive majority gets to sit around on their asses all day contributing nothing, while a small minority are forced to support them out of the wealth which they rightfully earn. What does this productive 20% need the parasitic 80% for? Why shouldn't the 20% get to keep all of what they rightfully earn, and let the 80% starve to death if they will do nothing to earn their keep?

Arguments like this are a testament to capitalist propaganda. What you are completely oblivious to is that the capitalist class are the penultimate social parasites. They usurp massive quantities of the social product while performing little, to no socially useful function, whatsoever. They are a completely superfluous class. Conversely, under socialism, remuneration would be entirely a function of labor performed, and/or the complexity/difficulty of said labor. So, your worldview is nearly a complete inversion of reality.

 

[ttwtt78640]

Everybody "supplies" something. Even though cops, firemen and teachers don't put any products on the shelves and contribute to GDP, they still supply a service.

So now the question becomes, how much should producers of items for sale be rewarded, and how much should workers that do other useful stuff be rewarded?

Let's say you are paid $30,000 for working 40 hours/week at producing 1000 widgets. Then, technological advancements make you 5x more productive over that same 40 hours, so you now produce 5000 widgets. (This is basically my 80%/20% scenario here.) Here is what is going to happen:

1) Ownership isn't going to give you a raise for being 5x more productive. You still work 40 hours/week, and you can be replaced.

2) If demand for widgets hasn't gone up, 4 of your co-workers are going to lose their jobs.

3) Ownership is going to pocket the $120,000 in saved labor costs.

Now 4 unemployed workers need something to do, yet there are no private sector jobs available. Technology is making labor more and more obsolete.

Nobody is looking to tax you more - you still only make $30,000. You aren't the bottleneck. It is ownership that would be expected to pay the new taxes, because they are the ones capturing all of the income that used to go to labor. And don't cry for ownership, because even if they are forced to hand over a lot of their profits, they are still coming out ahead. The money to be redistributed represents labor's lost income, which ownership has captured. In a labor-intensive $15 trillion economy, let's say 75% of that income might go to labor and 25% to ownership. Change that to a highly-automated economy, and the numbers might be 40% of $15 trillion go to labor and 60% go to ownership. The economy stays about the same size, but a few owners have pocketed a LOT of dollars that used to go to labor.

You assume that a) there is but one widget producer and b) the cost of a widget is not affected by its cost of production. Widget production workers are not paid based on how many widgets they produce; they are paid based on what it takes to attract and retain their labor. If the labor cost of widget production drops then the price of a widget will fall - assuming that competition is involved. You also assume that widget demand is constant, that regardless of what a widget costs the demand for widgets is unchanged. What we are seeing is that widget manufacturing is shifting to offshore locations more so than staying in the US and becoming automated.

We are seeing a decrease in US labor demand (and a corresponding drop in its price) but that is not only due to increased productivity it is also (more?) due to global competition (including uncontrollled immigration). If widgets can be produced for a lower cost in China then Chinese made widgets will be preferred by the US market. If US jobs are really as scarce as they are made out to be then how do we manage to "absorb" 12 to 20 million illegal aliens into that depleted US workforce? I maintain that is made possible largely by income redistribution, via "safety net"programs, allowing our cictzens to choose not to take jobs that are deemed to be "beneath" them.

Some advocate that a "liiving wage" (a higher minimum wage for unskilled labor) would help but that requires reduced profits and/or higher prices for US made widgets. It also requires making, and keeping, "safety net" assistance levels below that earnings rate (it is currently much higher). Rasing the pay of US unskilled labor also increases the demand for illegal labor that will work as hard (or harder) and under more unsafe/unsanitary conditions; a higher US wage will also increase the price differential of imported vs. US made widgets.

 

[Arbo]

Or maybe that's just a convenient myth you have invented because you can't beat the pragmatic argument without imagining the other side to be evil, dishonest, anti-Constitution, or some other crazy thing.

'pragmatice' much like 'fair share'… redefined or left undefined intentionally so it can be expanded in the future, or because those that use such terms really don't have any specifics.

 

[Arbo]

It's not a diversionary tactic.

If one says 'free markets' have 'failed', it is only logical to ask for an example of these free markets. For the term has a certain meaning, if that same person were to say 'heavily regulated free markets' have 'failed', it would be a totally different statement as we know that there have been heavily regulated free markets. But of course if that was said, then the person saying it would open the discussion to how much failure was attributable to capitalism and how much was attributable to the government regulation. Of course those that stand against capitalism do not want to blame any government regulation.

 

[Arbo]

The pure "free market" argument can be used for the pure "socialist/communist" argument. Neither have existed in a vaccuum.

I have never seen anyone that says that socialist polices are bad suggest that socialism does. Whereas the opposite is evident in this thread.

But we can show that EVERY developed country in history has necessarily had to move away from a near "free market" form and into a more socialist system in order to thrive and to become a more humanitarian society.

So socialist policies are required for society to 'thrive'? Well that's an interesting claim. Of course the humanitarian part is expected, as it seem those that support more and more socialist policies are about appeals to emotion rather than rule of law.

 

[ttwtt78640]

Arguments like this are a testament to capitalist propaganda. What you are completely oblivious to is that the capitalist class are the penultimate social parasites. They usurp massive quantities of the social product while performing little, to no socially useful function, whatsoever. They are a completely superfluous class. Conversely, under socialism, remuneration would be entirely a function of labor performed, and/or the complexity/difficulty of said labor. So, your worldview is nearly a complete inversion of reality.

Nonsense. The ruling class, then the gov't alone, will always take a hefty cut for themselves. When one sees that gov't "industry" wages have increased despite no increase in productivity and they are still grossly biased to paying bosses more than workers. Monopolies, whether private or public, are still a bad deal for consumers - look at the cost of a K-12 education (especially the labor costs), whichg is very "socialized", relative to general inflation.

 - The Future of Children -

This One Is of the Charts | Cato @ Liberty

 

[imagep]

You assume that a) there is but one widget producer and b) the cost of a widget is not affected by its cost of production. Widget production workers are not paid based on how many widgets they produce; they are paid based on what it takes to attract and retain their labor. If the labor cost of widget production drops then the price of a widget will fall - assuming that competition is involved. You also assume that widget demand is constant, that regardless of what a widget costs the demand for widgets is unchanged. What we are seeing is that widget manufacturing is shifting to offshore locations more so than staying in the US and becoming automated.

We are seeing a decrease in US labor demand (and a corresponding drop in its price) but that is not only due to increased productivity it is also (more?) due to global competition (including uncontrollled immigration). If widgets can be produced for a lower cost in China then Chinese made widgets will be preferred by the US market. If US jobs are really as scarce as they are made out to be then how do we manage to "absorb" 12 to 20 million illegal aliens into that depleted US workforce? I maintain that is made possible largely by income redistribution, via "safety net"programs, allowing our cictzens to choose not to take jobs that are deemed to be "beneath" them.

Some advocate that a "liiving wage" (a higher minimum wage for unskilled labor) would help but that requires reduced profits and/or higher prices for US made widgets. It also requires making, and keeping, "safety net" assistance levels below that earnings rate (it is currently much higher). Rasing the pay of US unskilled labor also increases the demand for illegal labor that will work as hard (or harder) and under more unsafe/unsanitary conditions; a higher US wage will also increase the price differential of imported vs. US made widgets.

All of that is perfectly logical and legit, but just pointing it out, without advocating some changes (protectionism or closing of our borders) doesn't solve the problem.

Long term, I don't think that any of those things are really going to matter though. Ultimately, when technology is doing most of our production, then it won't matter how much the price of third world labor is, as technology will displace the need for that labor at any cost.

Foreign trade is probably going to be significantly reduced, with the exception of raw materials which are only available in certain places. In larger countries like the US, where we have basically all the raw materials that we need, we will have no need for foreign goods or labor at all. A machine can produce goods just as cheaply in one country as in any other country. Ultimately, most countries will become self sufficient.

Bill Gates recently predicted that in 20 years, there will be no more than a handful of poor countries in the world (those which are poor due to political issues). The guy has a pretty good track record for understanding what technology can do for us, so I will take his prediction as being an "expert" prediction, and the most likely future scenario.

If things go down this way, then we are still right back to the issue of what do we do about the masses of families who have people who desire to work and produce, but can't because we no longer need their labor.

 

[ttwtt78640]

All of that is perfectly logical and legit, but just pointing it out, without advocating some changes (protectionism or closing of our borders) doesn't solve the problem.

Long term, I don't think that any of those things are really going to matter though. Ultimately, when technology is doing most of our production, then it won't matter how much the price of third world labor is, as technology will displace the need for that labor at any cost.

Foreign trade is probably going to be significantly reduced, with the exception of raw materials which are only available in certain places. In larger countries like the US, where we have basically all the raw materials that we need, we will have no need for foreign goods or labor at all. A machine can produce goods just as cheaply in one country as in any other country. Ultimately, most countries will become self sufficient.

Bill Gates recently predicted that in 20 years, there will be no more than a handful of poor countries in the world (those which are poor due to political issues). The guy has a pretty good track record for understanding what technology can do for us, so I will take his prediction as being an "expert" prediction, and the most likely future scenario.

If things go down this way, then we are still right back to the issue of what do we do about the masses of families who have people who desire to work and produce, but can't because we no longer need their labor.

Look at the goods for sale in US retail outlets (or those that you already bought) - many (if not most) are not made here. Free trade is not free at all, we are seeing that it has a cost.

 

[imagep]

Look at the goods for sale in US retail outlets (or those that you already bought) - many (if not most) are not made here. Free trade is not free at all, we are seeing that it has a cost.

Again, I agree. Free trade isn't free, unless it is fair. When we purchase cheaper goods from countries that don't have similar worker and environmental protections, then we are incentivizing world wide low wages and for polution.

As a temporary measure, I would support the concept of having tarriffs which would offset the externalities caused by purchasing goods from such countries/companies. But ultimately, I think that technology is going to remove the need for such protectionist actions.

 

[ttwtt78640]

Again, I agree. Free trade isn't free, unless it is fair. When we purchase cheaper goods from countries that don't have similar worker and environmental protections, then we are incentivizing world wide low wages and for polution.

As a temporary measure, I would support the concept of having tarriffs which would offset the externalities caused by purchasing goods from such countries/companies. But ultimately, I think that technology is going to remove the need for such protectionist actions.

You have yet to address illegal immigration, another big cause of US wage depression.

 

[JohnfrmClevelan]

Fruit of labor is an idiom that means the results of ones work. The point I was making is that the best thing we could do is get away from the idea of working for others and instead work for ourselves. That way all profits go to us and all the fruits of our labor comes directly to us. Working for others means you're splitting the fruits of your labor with others, and it is that problem that is causing this dispute to begin with.

I don't know how to build cars, houses, or grow food. Things work better for everybody with a division of labor. The distribution problem can be solved, and it can still incorporate a capitalist engine to make stuff for sale, but people have to let go of some of their old ideas first.

 

[What if...?]

I just cannot see that as a likely problem.

If one can earn a comfortable standard of living for one's self and one's family by working only eight hours a week, then I cannot imagine that more than a tiny handful will care to work very much more than that. We're envisioning an economy under which working fifteen to twenty hours a week would be able to earn anyone a standard of living far above what most of us now enjoy; and I certainly think that by the time we reach this point, it will be a very rare individual who thinks he needs to spend even more time than that, earning even more, rather than spending the remaining time enjoying what he has earned.


Ultimately, more people being willing and inclined to work more than they need to, can only be good for the economy as a whole, as it would create even more wealth. If, under the envisioned conditions, there really is a significant population that wants to work, but cannot find jobs, then we can start talking about taxing those who are working to support those who are not; but I really do not see this is a likely problem, unless government intervenes in such a manner as to create that problem. A truly healthy economy will find ways to make good use of whatever resources are made available to it, including a surplus of willing labor.

The vast majority of money amassed by the hyperacquisitive is purely "scorekeeping". All their basic needs are usually met for life. Its base primate dominance/submission bull****, at the end of the day. The only such residual animal behavior that is encouraged in modern society afaik.

 

[JohnfrmClevelan]

Where are you getting this? Cops and firemen and teachers would be working, would be getting paid for their work; they would be in the 20%. Are you, for some reason, counting them among the 80%?

Of course I am. They are part of the public sector. The private sector sells goods and services. The public sector is paid for out of taxes and deficit spending, and does not come up with its own funding by providing goods for sale.

Everyone working more, and earning more money, beyond what they need just to survive, means that they are going to want to spend that money in order to secure a higher standard of living, a higher level of luxury. This means they'll be buying more stuff. Bigger houses, more and fancier cars, more boats and aircraft and sporting equipment and more of every kind of gadget you can imagine. That means there will be more labor needed to make all these things.

That used to be true. But you can only consume so much, and when people are highly productive, as they are today, there comes a point at which they will be able to produce more than they can consume. I like to use the example of farmers - it used to be that it took most people working on farms just so everybody would have enough to eat. Now, we produce a surplus of food with 2% of our labor force. Considering that our labor force is about half of our population, this means that every farmer in America produces enough food for 100 people.

We can only eat so much food, drive so many cars, and watch so much TV during a day. Consumption has limits. And there is no reason to produce more than we can consume.

But you're not talking about everyone earning a decent wage. You're talking about 1.5 of the population earning a decent wage and being forced to share it with the remaining 4/5 who do nothing to earn their share of it. You're talking about a society in which a minority do all the work, and produce all the wealth, while the majority are useless parasites that only consume the majority of the wealth produced by the minority who actually earn it. There is no way around the fact that what you are lionizing here is an extreme parody of the ultimate far-wrong fantasy of a society in which a worthless and unproductive majority gets to sit around on their asses all day contributing nothing, while a small minority are forced to support them out of the wealth which they rightfully earn. What does this productive 20% need the parasitic 80% for? Why shouldn't the 20% get to keep all of what they rightfully earn, and let the 80% starve to death if they will do nothing to earn their keep?

No, I'm talking about a society where 20% of the people work in the private sector, making goods and services for sale. The other 80% would work in the public sector, teaching, doing research, etc. - stuff that is useful and valuable, but not for sale.

 

[What if...?]

I just cannot see that as a likely problem.

If one can earn a comfortable standard of living for one's self and one's family by working only eight hours a week, then I cannot imagine that more than a tiny handful will care to work very much more than that. We're envisioning an economy under which working fifteen to twenty hours a week would be able to earn anyone a standard of living far above what most of us now enjoy; and I certainly think that by the time we reach this point, it will be a very rare individual who thinks he needs to spend even more time than that, earning even more, rather than spending the remaining time enjoying what he has earned.


Ultimately, more people being willing and inclined to work more than they need to, can only be good for the economy as a whole, as it would create even more wealth. If, under the envisioned conditions, there really is a significant population that wants to work, but cannot find jobs, then we can start talking about taxing those who are working to support those who are not; but I really do not see this is a likely problem, unless government intervenes in such a manner as to create that problem. A truly healthy economy will find ways to make good use of whatever resources are made available to it, including a surplus of willing labor.

People like jobs and gates built technological empires to create a new infrastructure to bring their visions to reality.

For them and most of the greats whose contributions made the world what it is it was making their dreams reality that drove them, not dreams of piles of money and the power that goes with it.

Imagine how many wonders we would see if the infrastructure to make dreams reality was available to all instead of just those who own that infrastructure and only use it for those projects which will generate the most short term profit. The former is the Star Trek model, which is dependent on technology effectively eliminating scarcity but is an illustration of a form of technological socialism. And it is possible for technology to reduce scarcity to a point that we could go in that direction.

But huge swathes of our population consider minimum wage increases anathema. So how does one get those who enjoy their current status to allow the adoption of a system that effectively eliminates the concept of status based on money? A society where what one actually contributes or accomplishes are what matters as opposed to how big your money pile is?

LSS, since wealth is a byproduct rather than the goal of so many of our greats the idea that without fiscal incentive nothing will get done simply doesn't stand. Kind of like the idea that salaried scientists wouldn't continue to search for new drugs if some corporate entity didn't stand to make a fortune from it.

 

[JohnfrmClevelan]

You assume that a) there is but one widget producer and b) the cost of a widget is not affected by its cost of production. Widget production workers are not paid based on how many widgets they produce; they are paid based on what it takes to attract and retain their labor. If the labor cost of widget production drops then the price of a widget will fall - assuming that competition is involved. You also assume that widget demand is constant, that regardless of what a widget costs the demand for widgets is unchanged. What we are seeing is that widget manufacturing is shifting to offshore locations more so than staying in the US and becoming automated.

No, my point still holds. Prices are determined by what people are willing to pay for an item - they don't care how much it cost to produce it. Prices don't fall just because the price of labor falls. Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't. Anyway, my scenario has been playing out over the past 30+ years - the economy keeps growing, but the demand for labor is such that labor hasn't had the leverage to demand a share of the increased profits, and ownership has captured the difference. I'm sure you have seen the same graphs I have that illustrate this phenomenon - it's the same stuff that Piketty and Saez have been saying. There's no denying that ownership is winning this battle. It doesn't matter if its due to increased productivity, cheap foreign labor, or automation - the cost of labor is going down, and that's why income disparity is increasing.

We are seeing a decrease in US labor demand (and a corresponding drop in its price) but that is not only due to increased productivity it is also (more?) due to global competition (including uncontrollled immigration). If widgets can be produced for a lower cost in China then Chinese made widgets will be preferred by the US market. If US jobs are really as scarce as they are made out to be then how do we manage to "absorb" 12 to 20 million illegal aliens into that depleted US workforce? I maintain that is made possible largely by income redistribution, via "safety net"programs, allowing our cictzens to choose not to take jobs that are deemed to be "beneath" them.

If you consider yourself an advanced economy, as we are, there are some jobs that are beneath our citizens. Your solution to this problem would be to drop our labor down to the lowest level, so that they could "compete" with the lowest levels of labor in the poorest countries. And for what? So ownership could gain that much more? Why not let the Chinese build the cheap stuff? We still produce enough to keep everybody fed and sheltered. My solution would be to put them to work doing something useful in the public sector, allowing them to earn a decent wage and participate in the economy by buying stuff like everybody else does. What good would they do the economy if we allowed them to work for pennies a day, like foreign labor?

Some advocate that a "liiving wage" (a higher minimum wage for unskilled labor) would help but that requires reduced profits and/or higher prices for US made widgets. It also requires making, and keeping, "safety net" assistance levels below that earnings rate (it is currently much higher). Rasing the pay of US unskilled labor also increases the demand for illegal labor that will work as hard (or harder) and under more unsafe/unsanitary conditions; a higher US wage will also increase the price differential of imported vs. US made widgets.

You make the assumption that higher wages automatically equal higher prices, but that is not true. Again - buyers don't care how much a product costs to produce, that's not how people make buying decisions. Prices are going to be what prices are going to be. Higher wages would simply result in lower profit margins - but the product would still be profitable to produce. Owners were making plenty of profits back in the 1950-1970's era, when labor was earning a lot more.

 

[What if...?]

Fairness is subjective nonsense. I consider keeping everything I earn and treating all transactions between people as individual from all others fair. You think that you deserve half of what I earn, and that if i get a better deal than you that it is unfair.

By the time you paid everybody to cross their land and use their roads I imagine it would cost you more than 50% just to get to and from work.

Retail is always more than wholesale.

 

[JohnfrmClevelan]

'pragmatice' much like 'fair share'… redefined or left undefined intentionally so it can be expanded in the future, or because those that use such terms really don't have any specifics.

I have provided far more specifics than you have provided. I'm still waiting for your first specific.

 

[JohnfrmClevelan]

If one says 'free markets' have 'failed', it is only logical to ask for an example of these free markets. For the term has a certain meaning, if that same person were to say 'heavily regulated free markets' have 'failed', it would be a totally different statement as we know that there have been heavily regulated free markets. But of course if that was said, then the person saying it would open the discussion to how much failure was attributable to capitalism and how much was attributable to the government regulation. Of course those that stand against capitalism do not want to blame any government regulation.

Fine, let's say I have no idea what a free market really is, and I was mistaken.

Now - with that out of the way, will you finally describe what a "free market" would look like? Just to move the debate forward.