Wage Slavery - Applicable to [Nearly] Everybody?
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
Perhaps this abuse of the language should be called "verbal bestiality".
[Follow-up: On a serious note, I know that's an obnoxious reply, but I'm sick of conservatives who somehow believe the problem is that people are spending too much on unnecessary things. There is some of that, but most bankruptcies come from the big-ticket items-- housing, healthcare, and education-- which ought to be affordable.]
The state of the American proletariat is not quite slavery, but it's getting there. It's a state of diminishing leverage that, uncorrected, will lead to a slave economy. In first-world countries like the EU and Canada, it's unimaginable that someone would lose everything because of a health problem. Now, if you want to avoid (err, make less probable) this fate, you have to get a job that provides health insurance. (Don't even get me started on the terrorist attack we call the individual health insurance market.)
If you have the ability to find other jobs, go on holiday, join the army etc, you are by definition not a "wage slave," merely a wage laborer.
Certainly most of us on HN have the ability to work jobs where we earn enough to save money - whether we have the discipline to do so is, of course a different matter. Wage slaves were commonly paid wages such that there was absolutely no way for them to leave their job even for a few hours to try and do something else.
Today's economic systems, in the west, make wage slavery practically impossible.
That's a little misguided. For the uneducated, the mentally or physically disabled, or the financially burdened "wage slavery" can easily become the reality.
It takes being at a certain level in society to realize that you can create value in a way that is both competitive and creates a stronger bargaining position. It takes a level of understanding and confidence to do this that many people lack.
As a people, we have descended from serfs, slaves, and wage slaves. Wage slavery was a competing strategy for emerging industrialists, and a much more efficient one since they did not have to feed and house their wage slaves the way Chattel slave owners had to. ( Indeed, this was the argument the Southern slave owners used in favor of Slavery in the south. At least they took care of their property. The northern industrialists did not.)
So, we have descended from wage slaves. And the only reason we are much better off is because of the sacrifices made by other wage slaves who organized to fight for better working conditions.
Things like, you know.. the weekend, the 8 hour day, holidays.
There really isn't a way out of it. The first is isomorphic to what we have, the second utterly fails as an economic system.
The third alternative is to break wages, but as money is already essentially as powerful as it can be, all you can do is break its power down, and that's just "company scrip" again, which most people consider not so much a good thing.
TANSTAAFL.
Contract working isn't an out, either. Either we have the opportunity to do contracts already and some of us choose to work for wages, in which case we are not wage slaves because we have chosen it and you lose the right to complain about how we are wage slaves, or contract workers are themselves just disguised wage slaves. Either way, contracts can not be a solution to a problem we currently have; either we do not have the problem, or contracts are not the solution.
I certainly think it is extreme language and I certainly didn't mean to imply that, as well-paid professionals, the majority of people on HN would be in a situation comparable to those truly in terrible situations: both overt slavery and what really amounts to actual slavery. I see it as purposely strong language used for emphasis.
I'm thinking more of the relationship between the employer and employee; ultimately you rent your time in exchange for money, which arguably for the majority of people is just enough to live their lives with some greater or lesser luxury, but ultimately doing unpleasant work which, though of course to some degree is necessary and serves society, is largely in place to make rich owners richer. A large mass of population simply acts within a confined system as 'slave wages' servicing the needs of the rich while only subsiding at a certain living standard.
I am contrasting this with those of us (and ultimately this probably applies to far fewer HN'ers than the general public) who find a way out, i.e. find value in our work beyond that of its means to provide us with an income, or in fact become one of the rich ourselves.
This is not a criticism of capitalism either, especially since I personally believe capitalism is the best means of distributing wealth, assuming controls are in place to prevent abuses.
This here is the underlying problem. The free, competitive market does not have barriers to exit.
Capitalist economies with no welfare state (laissez faire) converge to an economy where people have to work to survive, which depresses wages, which can very easily (and reliably) bring about a vicious cycle. The end state of this is one where the lucky among the proletariat become servants (paid a pittance, but in a nice house and well-fed, enabling a very nice life in comparison to the alternative) while the unlucky and poorly-connected (who cannot even find employment as domestic servants) starve. This would be very damaging to minorities and Latinos, because the upper classes would demand (and be able to get, due to the collapsed economy) white, formerly middle-class, maids and nannies.
Minimum wage and welfare programs aren't good just for their direct beneficiaries, but for a lot of people, because they raise the bar across the board. If minimum wage is $8/hour, then skilled workers will expect $15 and entry-level white-collar will expect $20. Increase that to $10, and skilled workers are now asking for $18, and white collar is asking for $25. Although this causes "inflation", it's the good kind because it represents a wealth transfer away from legacy and in favor of labor.
On the other hand, if there is no minimum wage (which is similar to a basic income but contingent on working) then the reference point collapses and everyone gets poorer.
How horrible. If only we could get rid of that pesky market, everyone could lie about eating lotus flowers. Wait -- who is going to grow the lotus flowers for us?
it's the good kind because it represents a wealth transfer away from legacy and in favor of labor
First, why is taking away the fruits of one's labors to give it to another, less productive person, good?
Second, you're wrong. minimum wages cause unemployment in the very lowest ranks. Thus, minimum wage laws are a transfer of money from the very poorest people to the next rank above them.
What there is less evidence for is the entire thesis of the grandparent post.
If we raise the minimum wage to $20/hr, fast food will no longer be cheap. Some McDonalds will turn into nice restaurants, but as the minimum price of going out rises, more people will seek alternatives such as cooking at home (likely paying themselves a lot less than $20/hr, ironically). The net effect is to destroy an industry.
You can pity someone working for $4/hr doing hard agricultural work. But if you apply minimum wage to the situation, you don't raise his wage, you destroy his job. He likely needs the money; that doesn't help!
Hence, I have come to regard minimum wage as an act of oppression, and unmitigatedly evil. It should be abolished.
Umm.. the exact same people that grew them under communism, mercantilism, feudalism and non laissez faire capitalism. "The market" is a way to allocate 'capital': money, labor, and general stuff. It's not the only possible way. Further, an attack on laissez faire capitalism is not the same thing as an calling for the abolition of capitalism as a whole.
My point was that somebody MUST work if we all want to eat. There is no solution to the problem that does not force people to work for their survival.
Here's how to do basic income. Starting with 2010 GDP as a base, 50% of all GDP after that goes into a basic income fund that's distributed to everyone. It starts out small and eventually grows to a point where no one has less than a 1/2*N share. For example, let's say GDP/capita is $40000 in 2010. If it rises 2% to $40800, then $400 goes into the basic income fund.
If the result of the basic income is that people become lazy and don't work, the basic income falls or is phased out and we call the experiment a failure.
The ideal society is one in which no one has to work but everybody does. A basic income grant (which everyone, working or not, gets) would get us pretty close to this, because most people would still work for reasons of pride and the desire for a better lifestyle than what's available if they don't. Those who would use the grant as an excuse to slack off are the least productive members of society anyway, so we'd not be losing much if they stopped working.
Minimum wage has its problems, because it's a very clumsy implementation of basic income that falls hardest on those who are trying to employ low-end workers. Better would be to give everyone enough basic income to live at a reasonable standard, and let a free market decide what's a fair wage. If that's 75 cents per hour, that's fine because work isn't the person's only source of income.
By the same definition, a person who is hiring because he must also will not get a fair wage. He needs to get the job done, so the laborer can charge him an unfairly high price.
Of course, it doesn't work that way. While a person needs to work, he doesn't necessarily need to work at your job. And while an employer needs a job done, he doesn't necessarily need you to do it.
Wages are fair in a free market because workers hunt around to find the highest employers will offer, and employers hunt around to find the lowest laborers will settle for. The result is a nice compromise between the lowest people will work for and the highest people will pay.
Do you have a better definition of what would make a wage fair?
The free market naturally raises the standard of living and wages because it allows people to act in their own self interest and try things that might go really well or fail. The notion that minimum wage laws helps anyone outside of unions is laughable. It effectively puts a floor on wages and makes marginal work illegal. This means the young and unskilled don't get jobs while those who belong to unions do. This hurts the poor at the expense of the middle class. Countries in Africa that are quite poor often have very high minimum wages because they made the mistake you're making. High wages don't lead to prosperity. Prosperity leads to higher wages.
Heck the US during and after WWII was centrally planned, and it caused the largest economic growth the world has ever seen, until China's in the 1990s to now. Actually, one needn't look any further than the Marshall Plan to see that government intervention and fiscal stimulus can propel countries to prosperity worldwide.
Without a larger central body taking a macroeconomic view and actually being the "invisible hand" that Adam Smith relegated to the self-regulating market, Europe probably would have never recovered from either of the world wars and the US possibly wouldn't have seen the growth it did post-WWII.
At least 95 percent of them are going to achieve upper-middle-class status but not great wealth or connections. They'll have decent jobs and nice lives, but they won't be dick-swinging robber barons. They won't be on the short list for garden parties thrown by Sequoia partners. When this fate befalls them, they'll swing hard to the left.
I believe in free markets because I think they are best for everyone, not because they are a situation I expect to take advantage of. I don't know whether or not I will be wealthy some day. I haven't even decided if the attempt is how I want to spend my life. While a freer market would make it easier if I did try, that is not why I favor it. I favor it because it would make such an attempt easier for anyone who wanted to try. Because I believe it fundamentally just for individuals to own what they create, to profit from their labors however they can, to be able to spend their money freely on anything anyone else is willing to provide at whatever price they find mutually agreeable.
I think it is the fairest way to distribute wealth--those who create it keep whatever they make--and the surest road to prosperity.
Now, you can disagree with me about that opinion. I could well be wrong about whether markets work, or whether they're fair, or whether they make everybody prosperous. Hackers are famously conoisseurs of ideas, and I am no exception. I like new ones.
What I resent is false analysis of my motivations, the prediction that I'll change my opinion if I cannot realize selfish, unlikely dreams. Please give your opponents the benefit of the doubt; we are all decent people trying to make the world a better place for everyone, we just have different ideas on how to do it.
Have the courtesy to address my opinions, and not my person.