Minimum Wage Debate A Failure Of Common Sense

[FederalRepublic]

one where you have the option to, where it's possible, but not necessary, and I'm talking aggrigate markets, capitalism doesn't JUST mean loosing some markets and adding some, it means growing the WHOLE market in total. about 3% each year.

So lets say you loose a market which shrinks the economy by 1%, you need to add markets that will grow it by 4%, that's unsustainable.

Whose option? Individuals? The collective? Politicians? You, personally? I can't tell where you stop complaining about capitalism and start giving us your preferences. How do you propose to have the whole market grow by 3% without having individual markets adjusting accordingly?

 

[RGacky3]

Whose option? Individuals? The collective? Politicians? You, personally? I can't tell where you stop complaining about capitalism and start giving us your preferences. How do you propose to have the whole market grow by 3% without having individual markets adjusting accordingly?

The economy has that option, which means individuals who make the decisions.

Dude I'm not saying I WANT 3% compound growth each year, I'm saying thats what capitalism requires just to continue.

 

[FederalRepublic]

The economy has that option, which means individuals who make the decisions.

Dude I'm not saying I WANT 3% compound growth each year, I'm saying thats what capitalism requires just to continue.

So it is possible to have progress without growth? How would you define progress?

 

[imagep]

So it is possible to have progress without growth? How would you define progress?

Probably.

Having a society where the typical employed worker has more leisure time is progress, assuming that the total goods and services that we manufacture doesn't drop. After all, one of the things that we demand is leisure time. Maybe having jobs that are less physically demanding is progress also.

Or having more goods and services that cost less and consume less labor and materials could be progress without growth. The invention of the smartphone most likely didn't cause any growth, because what was gained in smartphone sales was lost in landline sales, calculator sales, GPS system sales, beeper sales, flashlight sales, computer sales, printer sales, printing sales, and a host of other industries that were harmed by smartphones. However, I would think that the smartphone still represents progress, if not growth.

Eliminating illness could be progress without growth. Automating a plant that used to employ 2000 people may be progress without growth.

 

[Mach]

No I'm not suggesting that.
I'm suggesting that have a system that progresses, but where EVERYONE benefits from the progress, and doesn't depend on always growing markets.
But nowerdays, the growth is'nt conveniences, it's mostly financial and debt related, it's mostly speculation and dispossession, or privitizing of the commons.

But be serious, you appear to have an issue with one industry in the entire market. Finance. And there are some peculiarities associate with our finance industry, no doubt, I mean, that's not entirely out of left-field (no pun). Is that all you really want, reform of the financial industry?

 

[RGacky3]

So it is possible to have progress without growth? How would you define progress?

People overall having better lives ... if one produces the same amount, but we have more time to enjoy it, that's progress, if people have more autonomy that's progress, less unemployment, that's progress, less poverty, progress, and so on.

 

[RGacky3]

But be serious, you appear to have an issue with one industry in the entire market. Finance. And there are some peculiarities associate with our finance industry, no doubt, I mean, that's not entirely out of left-field (no pun). Is that all you really want, reform of the financial industry?

I focus on the financial industry since they are basically the kings and emperors in modern Capitalism.

I want to reform everything, make everything better, but I think we need to focus first on the financial industry, since the financial industry has the most power and can do some of the most damage.

 

[FederalRepublic]

People overall having better lives ... if one produces the same amount, but we have more time to enjoy it, that's progress, if people have more autonomy that's progress, less unemployment, that's progress, less poverty, progress, and so on.

And if one is no longer needed to produce a particular thing?

 

[RGacky3]

And if one is no longer needed to produce a particular thing?

Then in a rational system, you'd be able to do something else, if the type of thing your doing is just needed less so, then you can work less.

 

[cpwill]

With a $25/hr minimum wage, then surely you must have 50% unemployment in Norway, and a Big Mac must cost $15.

:shrug: being a small homogenous nation with a relatively oversized oil boom does indeed have its benefits.

 

[FederalRepublic]

Then in a rational system, you'd be able to do something else, if the type of thing your doing is just needed less so, then you can work less.

So you can work less, I'm assuming for the same pay, if the demand for the thing you produce has fallen? How do you rationalize that for the rest of the people whose product hasn't decreased in demand? Does the other guy get to go home while they finish out the work day?

 

[RGacky3]

So you can work less, I'm assuming for the same pay, if the demand for the thing you produce has fallen? How do you rationalize that for the rest of the people whose product hasn't decreased in demand?

Do you know how cooperatives work?

 

[FederalRepublic]

Do you know how cooperatives work?

I do. I'm a member of one. Are you suggesting one giant national cooperative?

 

[RGacky3]

I do. I'm a member of one. Are you suggesting one giant national cooperative?

Or a system of cooperatives, mondragon, a mix of cooperative and public industry, and private. If the majority of the economy is not beholdant to profit, you get rid of a lot of the internal problems of capitalism.

 

[FederalRepublic]

Or a system of cooperatives, mondragon, a mix of cooperative and public industry, and private. If the majority of the economy is not beholdant to profit, you get rid of a lot of the internal problems of capitalism.

You mean like what we have now?

 

[RGacky3]

You mean like what we have now?

No right now we live in a corporatist system, where the economy is run by a few giant corporations.

 

[Diogenes]

:shrug: being a small homogenous nation with a relatively oversized oil boom does indeed have its benefits.

Agreed, if you can avoid the trap of becoming a banana republic (like Venezuela). I once read an argument that when a natural resource accounts for enough of GDP (28% maybe?) that a bandit class emerges to take it over and control of the resource leads to political control of the society. This generally does not work well for the middle class.