PDA

View Full Version : Warning: The First Minimum Wage Reduction



IMPress Polly
07-09-2017, 07:02 AM
A new Missouri law will require the city of St. Louis to reduce its minimum wage by 23%, from $10 an hour to the state's minimum wage of $7.70 in September (http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/07/us/st-louis-minimum-wage/index.html). (I've chosen CNN's article on the subject just to annoy our resident Trump fans.)

If you've not heard of a minimum wage reduction before, you're not alone: I believe this is the first one that has ever been implemented in this country. Take note, people! This is a warning sign of things to come. This will not be the last such measure. It is only the first. If an analogous policy were introduced nationwide, requiring that the whole country adhere to the federal minimum wage only, most U.S. states would have to reduce their minimum wages. And that, in turn, is but one small step away from reducing the federal minimum wage itself. Now that one state has established the precedent, others will follow, leading up to the aforementioned national policy unless this measure in Missouri is successfully fought and reversed. It is, if you will, one small step for a state, but one giant leap for exploitation.

The impact of the this reduction will be harsh. St. Louis ranks sixth in the nation in poverty rates among major cities: 28.5% of St. Louis residents already live below the poverty line. Many, in other words, will be affected by any reduction in the city's minimum wage.

This is a concentration of the moral level that American capitalism has sunk to. This is NOT just a Missouri thing. On the campaign trail, Donald Trump proposed repeatedly that the federal minimum wage was too high and needs to be reduced. (Example (https://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/11/11/donald-trump-insists-that-wages-are-too-high/).) This is the new Republicanism. And the new, post-Recession capitalism in which larger swaths of the U.S. economy depend on poverty-level pay rates; a fact that calls for a revolutionary reorganization of said economy.

While many a wealthy business executive argues that the Fight for 15 movement's calls for a $15 an hour national minimum wage is extreme and too high, in reality, had the federal minimum wage from the year 1968 kept pace with subsequent inflation and increases in worker productivity (and duly note that it did exactly that during the height of the American labor movement between 1947 and 1969, so as much is not a far-fetched idea), it would have reached $21.72 an hour by 2012 (http://cepr.net/documents/publications/min-wage1-2012-03.pdf) -- the start of the Fight for 15 movement. The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 an hour; just below Missouri's level of $7.70 an hour. I highlight this point out the degree to which the exploitation of American workers has increased in the last 50 years: sufficient that, for all intents and purposes, the poorest full-time American workers, taken as a group, have already received an effective pay cut of two-thirds in the interim relative to the amount of work that they do. For the new, post-Recession capitalism, however, that is not enough. Expect this opening salvo to yield a corresponding national movement among many of the country's richest and most powerful business corporations; especially retailers and fast food chains. And don't expect opposition from the president or his ruling party.

Ethereal
07-09-2017, 07:06 AM
And lowering the minimum wage couldn't possibly be a good idea. Probably anyone who wants to lower the minimum wage is a big selfish meany who hates poor people.

:smiley:

stjames1_53
07-09-2017, 07:06 AM
did Trump's name appear on the bill?

Common
07-09-2017, 07:29 AM
I personally believe 10.00 an hour should be the federal standard for minimum wage. If you work 40 hrs a week you gross 310.00 before any deductions. I dont think theres anywhere in the country you can just pay rent and buy food.

Its time for republicans to understand that if you want people to get up and go to work, you need to give them a raise in min wage. 10.00 an hour isnt putting McDonalds and Walmart out of business.

What exacerbates my belief in this is every year when the crooks and phonies sitting in washington Democrats and Republicans alike vote and pass a raise for themselves because aww the cost of living went up, really!!!!!!!!!!!

I disagree with this reduction in pay for the lowest wage earners.
I realize most of my conservative friends will disagree

stjames1_53
07-09-2017, 07:51 AM
I personally believe 10.00 an hour should be the federal standard for minimum wage. If you work 40 hrs a week you gross 310.00 before any deductions. I dont think theres anywhere in the country you can just pay rent and buy food.

Its time for republicans to understand that if you want people to get up and go to work, you need to give them a raise in min wage. 10.00 an hour isnt putting McDonalds and Walmart out of business.

What exacerbates my belief in this is every year when the crooks and phonies sitting in washington Democrats and Republicans alike vote and pass a raise for themselves because aww the cost of living went up, really!!!!!!!!!!!

I disagree with this reduction in pay for the lowest wage earners.
I realize most of my conservative friends will disagree

The consequences...Seattle tried this stuff. People quit their jobs because they were no longer eligible for free stuff.....
minimum wage at 10 dollars an hour increases tax liabilities which the worker pays for, but receives nothing in return. The more people you have working, the greater the tax collections. In many cases, a 10 dollar an hour job isn't sufficient. Take CA for example. you live in a hovel when you make 10/hour.
If a fellow goes from 8/hr to 10 or better, I too must get a rise from 20 to 25/hour.
Minimum wage is a carrot.......

Peter1469
07-09-2017, 08:06 AM
I don't know what the cost of living is in Missori, or the no-skill to low skill market is there. So I can't say whether this was helpful or not. I believe we posted an article showing what $15 min did to Seattle- harmed no-skill / low skill workers.

Ethereal
07-09-2017, 08:11 AM
Corporate America's race towards automation is being sped up significantly by minimum wage laws. A big reason why McDonald's is trying so hard to replace people with computers and machines is because minimum wage laws have been a perpetual thorn in their side.

Dr. Who
07-09-2017, 08:48 AM
A new Missouri law will require the city of St. Louis to reduce its minimum wage by 23%, from $10 an hour to the state's minimum wage of $7.70 in September (http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/07/us/st-louis-minimum-wage/index.html). (I've chosen CNN's article on the subject just to annoy our resident Trump fans.)

If you've not heard of a minimum wage reduction before, you're not alone: I believe this is the first one that has ever been implemented in this country. Take note, people! This is a warning sign of things to come. This will not be the last such measure. It is only the first. If an analogous policy were introduced nationwide, requiring that the whole country adhere to the federal minimum wage only, most U.S. states would have to reduce their minimum wages. And that, in turn, is but one small step away from reducing the federal minimum wage itself. Now that one state has established the precedent, others will follow, leading up to the aforementioned national policy unless this measure in Missouri is successfully fought and reversed. It is, if you will, one small step for a state, but one giant leap for exploitation.

The impact of the this reduction will be harsh. St. Louis ranks sixth in the nation in poverty rates among major cities: 28.5% of St. Louis residents already live below the poverty line. Many, in other words, will be affected by any reduction in the city's minimum wage.

This is a concentration of the moral level that American capitalism has sunk to. This is NOT just a Missouri thing. On the campaign trail, Donald Trump proposed repeatedly that the federal minimum wage was too high and needs to be reduced. (Example (https://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/11/11/donald-trump-insists-that-wages-are-too-high/).) This is the new Republicanism. And the new, post-Recession capitalism in which larger swaths of the U.S. economy depend on poverty-level pay rates; a fact that calls for a revolutionary reorganization of said economy.

While many a wealthy business executive argues that the Fight for 15 movement's calls for a $15 an hour national minimum wage is extreme and too high, in reality, had the federal minimum wage from the year 1968 kept pace with subsequent inflation and increases in worker productivity (and duly note that it did exactly that during the height of the American labor movement between 1947 and 1969, so as much is not a far-fetched idea), it would have reached $21.72 an hour by 2012 (http://cepr.net/documents/publications/min-wage1-2012-03.pdf) -- the start of the Fight for 15 movement. The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 an hour; just below Missouri's level of $7.70 an hour. I highlight this point out the degree to which the exploitation of American workers has increased in the last 50 years: sufficient that, for all intents and purposes, the poorest full-time American workers, taken as a group, have already received an effective pay cut of two-thirds in the interim relative to the amount of work that they do. For the new, post-Recession capitalism, however, that is not enough. Expect this opening salvo to yield a corresponding national movement among many of the country's richest and most powerful business corporations; especially retailers and fast food chains. And don't expect opposition from the president or his party.
Can you even hire a teen babysitter for $7.70 an hour? At $7.70 an hour people would find a reason to collect welfare.

Common
07-09-2017, 08:52 AM
I don't know what the cost of living is in Missori, or the no-skill to low skill market is there. So I can't say whether this was helpful or not. I believe we posted an article showing what $15 min did to Seattle- harmed no-skill / low skill workers.

15.00 is too high for a min wage job, but I believe 10.00 is reasonable and necessary

Common
07-09-2017, 08:54 AM
Corporate America's race towards automation is being sped up significantly by minimum wage laws. A big reason why McDonald's is trying so hard to replace people with computers and machines is because minimum wage laws have been a perpetual thorn in their side.

I believe strongly that nothing stands in the way of corporate america making more money. If the min wage stayed the same, corporations would still incorporate robotics and automation.

I dont think the min wage has a thing to do with it

Chris
07-09-2017, 09:21 AM
A new Missouri law will require the city of St. Louis to reduce its minimum wage by 23%, from $10 an hour to the state's minimum wage of $7.70 in September (http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/07/us/st-louis-minimum-wage/index.html). (I've chosen CNN's article on the subject just to annoy our resident Trump fans.)

If you've not heard of a minimum wage reduction before, you're not alone: I believe this is the first one that has ever been implemented in this country. Take note, people! This is a warning sign of things to come. This will not be the last such measure. It is only the first. If an analogous policy were introduced nationwide, requiring that the whole country adhere to the federal minimum wage only, most U.S. states would have to reduce their minimum wages. And that, in turn, is but one small step away from reducing the federal minimum wage itself. Now that one state has established the precedent, others will follow, leading up to the aforementioned national policy unless this measure in Missouri is successfully fought and reversed. It is, if you will, one small step for a state, but one giant leap for exploitation.

The impact of the this reduction will be harsh. St. Louis ranks sixth in the nation in poverty rates among major cities: 28.5% of St. Louis residents already live below the poverty line. Many, in other words, will be affected by any reduction in the city's minimum wage.

This is a concentration of the moral level that American capitalism has sunk to. This is NOT just a Missouri thing. On the campaign trail, Donald Trump proposed repeatedly that the federal minimum wage was too high and needs to be reduced. (Example (https://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/11/11/donald-trump-insists-that-wages-are-too-high/).) This is the new Republicanism. And the new, post-Recession capitalism in which larger swaths of the U.S. economy depend on poverty-level pay rates; a fact that calls for a revolutionary reorganization of said economy.

While many a wealthy business executive argues that the Fight for 15 movement's calls for a $15 an hour national minimum wage is extreme and too high, in reality, had the federal minimum wage from the year 1968 kept pace with subsequent inflation and increases in worker productivity (and duly note that it did exactly that during the height of the American labor movement between 1947 and 1969, so as much is not a far-fetched idea), it would have reached $21.72 an hour by 2012 (http://cepr.net/documents/publications/min-wage1-2012-03.pdf) -- the start of the Fight for 15 movement. The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 an hour; just below Missouri's level of $7.70 an hour. I highlight this point out the degree to which the exploitation of American workers has increased in the last 50 years: sufficient that, for all intents and purposes, the poorest full-time American workers, taken as a group, have already received an effective pay cut of two-thirds in the interim relative to the amount of work that they do. For the new, post-Recession capitalism, however, that is not enough. Expect this opening salvo to yield a corresponding national movement among many of the country's richest and most powerful business corporations; especially retailers and fast food chains. And don't expect opposition from the president or his ruling party.



I've chosen CNN's article on the subject just to annoy our resident Trump fans.

IOW, you're trolling.


If you've not heard of a minimum wage reduction before, you're not alone: I believe this is the first one that has ever been implemented in this country. Take note, people! This is a warning sign of things to come. This will not be the last such measure. It is only the first. If an analogous policy were introduced nationwide, requiring that the whole country adhere to the federal minimum wage only, most U.S. states would have to reduce their minimum wages. And that, in turn, is but one small step away from reducing the federal minimum wage itself. Now that one state has established the precedent, others will follow, leading up to the aforementioned national policy unless this measure in Missouri is successfully fought and reversed. It is, if you will, one small step for a state, but one giant leap for exploitation.

That would be a good thing. It would open the door to today's unskilled youth to find jobs where they cannot now.


The impact of the this reduction will be harsh. St. Louis ranks sixth in the nation in poverty rates among major cities: 28.5% of St. Louis residents already live below the poverty line. Many, in other words, will be affected by any reduction in the city's minimum wage.

Higher min wages laws lead to a loss over time in employeement. Hence, a lower min wage should have the opposite effect.


This is a concentration of the moral level that American capitalism has sunk to. This is NOT just a Missouri thing. On the campaign trail, Donald Trump proposed repeatedly that the federal minimum wage was too high and needs to be reduced. (Example.) This is the new Republicanism. And the new, post-Recession capitalism in which larger swaths of the U.S. economy depend on poverty-level pay rates; a fact that calls for a revolutionary reorganization of said economy.

You make a claim about capitalism but never substantiate it, instead drift off to whine about Trump.

How is this capitalism? It's the government setting wages.


While many a wealthy business executive argues that the Fight for 15 movement's calls for a $15 an hour national minimum wage is extreme and too high, in reality, had the federal minimum wage from the year 1968 kept pace with subsequent inflation and increases in worker productivity (and duly note that it did exactly that during the height of the American labor movement between 1947 and 1969, so as much is not a far-fetched idea), it would have reached $21.72 an hour by 2012 -- the start of the Fight for 15 movement. The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 an hour; just below Missouri's level of $7.70 an hour. I highlight this point out the degree to which the exploitation of American workers has increased in the last 50 years: sufficient that, for all intents and purposes, the poorest full-time American workers, taken as a group, have already received an effective pay cut of two-thirds in the interim relative to the amount of work that they do. For the new, post-Recession capitalism, however, that is not enough. Expect this opening salvo to yield a corresponding national movement among many of the country's richest and most powerful business corporations; especially retailers and fast food chains. And don't expect opposition from the president or his party.

You must've dug hard to find the 1% of economists who might agree with you.

And then you drift into Marxist exploitation.


On the whole I see a trolling, emotional diatribe with no facts to back you up. More like agenda looking to confirm bias.

Here's some facts...

Raising the Minimum Wage Won't Alleviate Poverty. Lowering it Might. (https://fee.org/articles/raising-the-minimum-wage-wont-alleviate-poverty-lowering-it-might/)


Politicians who want to raise the minimum wage argue that it will reduce poverty. But the minimum wage comes with a tradeoff—higher wages for some, but fewer jobs for others as employers cut back on hiring due to heftier labor costs.

If the goal is poverty alleviation, the tradeoff inherent in raising the minimum wage is not worth it. Antipoverty policy should focus on helping the nine-tenths of working age people in poverty who do not work 40 hours a week and year round. Raising the minimum wage would aid just a small share of those in poverty—while creating even higher barriers to entering the workforce for everyone else.

Policymakers should instead focus on breaking down barriers to employment, as 97 percent of full-time, year-round workers are not in poverty. One promising reform is the youth minimum wage, or a lower minimum wage rate applicable only to workers under the age of 20. While the United States has a youth minimum wage, it is too limited in scope to have much effect.

Expanding the youth minimum wage, however, could have a snowball effect. My own research suggests it could create up to 456,000 jobs immediately after expansion, but could yield even larger benefits in the long term. Encouraging employers to hire young people would provide those new employees with skills and professional experience that will benefit their careers far into the future. Not only would the youth minimum wage create jobs today, but a better-skilled workforce would raise wages in the years to come.



I'm curious why, polly, you advocate an athoritarian government to dictate what wages I can freely choose to accept.

katzgar
07-09-2017, 09:21 AM
Missouri is using Mexicos business model.

Ethereal
07-09-2017, 09:23 AM
I believe strongly that nothing stands in the way of corporate america making more money.

If it's that easy for corporations in America to make money, then why doesn't everyone just start a business corporation?


If the min wage stayed the same, corporations would still incorporate robotics and automation.

That's true. But they wouldn't be doing it nearly as fast. Workers would have a longer time to adjust to such changes.


I dont think the min wage has a thing to do with it

It definitely does though.

Ethereal
07-09-2017, 09:25 AM
Missouri is using Mexicos business model.

Actually, they're just returning to classical western business models based on free market economics. Minimum wage laws price workers out of the labor market by economic definition. They are feel good policies that hurt the very people they're intended to help.

gamewell45
07-09-2017, 09:39 AM
A new Missouri law will require the city of St. Louis to reduce its minimum wage by 23%, from $10 an hour to the state's minimum wage of $7.70 in September (http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/07/us/st-louis-minimum-wage/index.html). (I've chosen CNN's article on the subject just to annoy our resident Trump fans.)

If you've not heard of a minimum wage reduction before, you're not alone: I believe this is the first one that has ever been implemented in this country. Take note, people! This is a warning sign of things to come. This will not be the last such measure. It is only the first. If an analogous policy were introduced nationwide, requiring that the whole country adhere to the federal minimum wage only, most U.S. states would have to reduce their minimum wages. And that, in turn, is but one small step away from reducing the federal minimum wage itself. Now that one state has established the precedent, others will follow, leading up to the aforementioned national policy unless this measure in Missouri is successfully fought and reversed. It is, if you will, one small step for a state, but one giant leap for exploitation.

The impact of the this reduction will be harsh. St. Louis ranks sixth in the nation in poverty rates among major cities: 28.5% of St. Louis residents already live below the poverty line. Many, in other words, will be affected by any reduction in the city's minimum wage.

This is a concentration of the moral level that American capitalism has sunk to. This is NOT just a Missouri thing. On the campaign trail, Donald Trump proposed repeatedly that the federal minimum wage was too high and needs to be reduced. (Example (https://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/11/11/donald-trump-insists-that-wages-are-too-high/).) This is the new Republicanism. And the new, post-Recession capitalism in which larger swaths of the U.S. economy depend on poverty-level pay rates; a fact that calls for a revolutionary reorganization of said economy.

While many a wealthy business executive argues that the Fight for 15 movement's calls for a $15 an hour national minimum wage is extreme and too high, in reality, had the federal minimum wage from the year 1968 kept pace with subsequent inflation and increases in worker productivity (and duly note that it did exactly that during the height of the American labor movement between 1947 and 1969, so as much is not a far-fetched idea), it would have reached $21.72 an hour by 2012 (http://cepr.net/documents/publications/min-wage1-2012-03.pdf) -- the start of the Fight for 15 movement. The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 an hour; just below Missouri's level of $7.70 an hour. I highlight this point out the degree to which the exploitation of American workers has increased in the last 50 years: sufficient that, for all intents and purposes, the poorest full-time American workers, taken as a group, have already received an effective pay cut of two-thirds in the interim relative to the amount of work that they do. For the new, post-Recession capitalism, however, that is not enough. Expect this opening salvo to yield a corresponding national movement among many of the country's richest and most powerful business corporations; especially retailers and fast food chains. And don't expect opposition from the president or his ruling party.
It's quite possible that this might just spur increased union organizing by workers affected by this new law. Furthermore it is reasonable to assume that due to decreased ability to pay bills and be able to put food on the table, they will seek assistance from the government which means taxpayers will be paying for this ridiculous piece of legislature. I think its a big mistake on the part of the state.

Chris
07-09-2017, 11:18 AM
It's quite possible that this might just spur increased union organizing by workers affected by this new law. Furthermore it is reasonable to assume that due to decreased ability to pay bills and be able to put food on the table, they will seek assistance from the government which means taxpayers will be paying for this ridiculous piece of legislature. I think its a big mistake on the part of the state.

I don't know that that does stand to reason. If you see this as businesses suddenly reducing the wages of their employees, then maybe, but that is highly unlikely to happen, as employees would just quit to work where they can make the same wages. And even if businesses lower wages, they could then return to increased hours--the OP link says "The study from University of Washington researchers showed that the Seattle wage hike may be hurting low-wage workers. They ultimately made $125 less each month on average, as their hours dropped, the report found." What is likely is businesses would hire more low skill workers that the min wage hike excluded from the work force. Increased hours and more unskilled workers would result in less dependence on welfare.

Chris
07-09-2017, 11:28 AM
Also, Kentucky beat Missouri by about 2 years: That's The Way To Do It: Kentucky Lowers The Minimum Wage (https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/12/24/thats-the-way-to-do-it-kentucky-lowers-the-minimum-wage/#4e0a1dce1a68)


...Kentucky's cut back to $7.25:



In another executive order this week, Bevin reversed former Gov. Beshear’s move to raise the state’s minimum wage for government workers and contractors to $10.10 an hour, bringing it back down to $7.25 an hour. About 800 state workers who have already gotten raises will be able to keep them, but new hires will now have to start at the lower pay rate. In the order, Bevin hinted that he would prefer the state have no minimum wage at all: “Wage rates ideally would be established by the demands of the labor market instead of being set by the government,” he said.


I agree entirely with that statement, indeed would go further. For wages are entirely set by the market: those who don't produce enough to be worth $10.10. or $7.15, end up getting nothing as they have no job at all.



“The minimum wage stifles job creation and disproportionately impacts lower skilled workers seeking entry-level jobs,” Bevin wrote in his executive order.


...I still think, along with the vintage New York Times, that the correct minimum wage rate to be set by law is $0....

IMPress Polly
07-09-2017, 11:43 AM
Thanks for that info in your latest post, Chris! I hadn't realized that Kentucky already set the precedent! :shocked: That is even more worrisome to me.

Chris
07-09-2017, 11:50 AM
Thanks for that info in your latest post, Chris! I hadn't realized that Kentucky already set the precedent! :shocked: That is even more worrisome to me.

It's a good thing. MIn wage hikes should be worrisome.

IMPress Polly
07-09-2017, 11:59 AM
Have you ever had to actually live on the minimum wage before, Chris?

katzgar
07-09-2017, 12:02 PM
Actually, they're just returning to classical western business models based on free market economics. Minimum wage laws price workers out of the labor market by economic definition. They are feel good policies that hurt the very people they're intended to help.

we abandoned that idea when child labor was banned and 2.8 children as young as 6 lost jobs in factories and had to go to school instead.

MisterVeritis
07-09-2017, 12:05 PM
I support the end to government-mandated minimum wage laws. If you want to earn more be worth more.

Chris
07-09-2017, 12:10 PM
we abandoned that idea when child labor was banned and 2.8 children as young as 6 lost jobs in factories and had to go to school instead.

Automation put children out of work long before reformers pass child labor laws.

katzgar
07-09-2017, 12:13 PM
Automation put children out of work long before reformers pass child labor laws.

let me review what I said for you. 2.8 million children were unemployed when child labor was banned.

Chris
07-09-2017, 12:13 PM
Have you ever had to actually live on the minimum wage before, Chris?

Yes, polly, have you?

Question to you: How can wages be oppressive? Or, how can businesses that pay you to be oppressive? They don't force you to work, life does that.

Chris
07-09-2017, 12:14 PM
let me review what I said for you. 2.8 million children were unemployed when child labor was banned.

Let me review for you what I said: That happened long before as automation developed in the factory.

Peter1469
07-09-2017, 12:15 PM
15.00 is too high for a min wage job, but I believe 10.00 is reasonable and necessary

It depends on what part of the country you are in. In northern Mississippi, $10 may be high. In NYC $15 is too low. The market can figure this stuff out.

katzgar
07-09-2017, 12:17 PM
Let me review for you what I said: That happened long before as automation developed in the factory.

so your saying 2.8 million children were watching robots do their work. Holy crap!

Peter1469
07-09-2017, 12:21 PM
Have you ever had to actually live on the minimum wage before, Chris?

I did when I worked for McDonalds. I worked there for 1.5 years and got a 5 cent raise every 6 months. Then when I graduated high school I joined the Army- back then a private made less than minimum wage, but I lived in the barracks and could eat at a mess hall - my only real bill was my car insurance (I bought an old crappy sports car for $2500 and fixed it up myself).After I got out of the army the first time, all of my jobs paid well over minimum wage, because I was no longer an unskilled worker.

IMPress Polly
07-09-2017, 12:22 PM
Chris wrote:
Yes, polly, have you?

For a substantial chunk of my life, yes I certainly have.

Chris
07-09-2017, 12:32 PM
so your saying 2.8 million children were watching robots do their work. Holy crap!

Not what I posted at all. I said, for the third time, automation put children out of work. The simple work children did was easily automated by machines. Also, running the machines required more skilled and educated labor that children could provide. Child labor was already on the way out when reformers came into the picture.

Chris
07-09-2017, 12:34 PM
For a substantial chunk of my life, yes I certainly have.

You must've missed the second question: "Question to you: How can wages be oppressive? Or, how can businesses that pay you to be oppressive? They don't force you to work, life does that."

I know when I worked min wage jobs, it was because I choose to, no one forced me, the business did not oppress me. And I doubt you experienced anything different.

katzgar
07-09-2017, 12:52 PM
Not what I posted at all. I said, for the third time, automation put children out of work. The simple work children did was easily automated by machines. Also, running the machines required more skilled and educated labor that children could provide. Child labor was already on the way out when reformers came into the picture.

you are making up a pretend world, 2.8 million children out of work was account of child labor laws you seem unwilling to wrap your head around that number and hell bent on creating a fake reality. https://www.continuetolearn.uiowa.edu/laborctr/child_labor/about/us_history.html

Adelaide
07-09-2017, 01:15 PM
There is a "just right" spot on the scale for minimum wage; too low, and you'll have problems but too high and you'll also have problems.

It is unfortunate that families can't survive realistically if one or both adults are making minimum wage. They could work two jobs and still not make enough to realistically cover expenses. There is also the issue that their kids are going to be much more likely to participate in violence, have drug or alcohol problems, perform poorly in school, have a teenage pregnancy, be illiterate, never get post-secondary education, and so forth. It is not just about affording to buy food or clothing or whatever.

But jacking it up to $15/hour is just stupid. I am not sure how that is not obvious.

IMPress Polly
07-09-2017, 01:22 PM
In as far as a living wage may be antithetical to economic growth and/or job expansion, that reflects the fact that workers do not manage their own workplaces. I have long proposed that they should. Hence my critique of capitalism in the OP and call for a structural reorganization of the economy.

The Xl
07-09-2017, 01:25 PM
Corporatism, excessive entitlements, and insane inflation are bigger problems than the minimum wage. It's akin to putting a band aid on a mortal wound.

gamewell45
07-09-2017, 01:26 PM
I don't know that that does stand to reason. If you see this as businesses suddenly reducing the wages of their employees, then maybe, but that is highly unlikely to happen, as employees would just quit to work where they can make the same wages. And even if businesses lower wages, they could then return to increased hours--the OP link says "The study from University of Washington researchers showed that the Seattle wage hike may be hurting low-wage workers. They ultimately made $125 less each month on average, as their hours dropped, the report found." What is likely is businesses would hire more low skill workers that the min wage hike excluded from the work force. Increased hours and more unskilled workers would result in less dependence on welfare.

It could go either way I suppose, but while some might be able to find gainful employment that pays more, others might not be in a position to quit for whatever the reason and as such look for ways to improve their salary structure.

If their hours were to increase they would actually be working more for less and while making more money, they'd realize that working non-union might not be in their best interests since with a negotiated labor contract they know when and how much of a raise they'll get in addition to having other quality of life issues addressed.

In the Seattle wage hike, while they might have made less each month on the average, it would afford them the opportunity to find a second job which would still pay $15 per hour and they'd at least be on equal footing with potential earnings.

MisterVeritis
07-09-2017, 01:27 PM
In as far as a living wage may be antithetical to economic growth and/or job expansion, that reflects the fact that workers do not manage their own workplaces. I have long proposed that they should. Hence my critique of capitalism in the OP and call for a structural reorganization of the economy.
If you want to run a business find a problem, develop a solution and start a business.

IMPress Polly
07-09-2017, 01:32 PM
MisterVeritus wrote:
If you want to run a business find a problem, develop a solution and start a business.

Many workers have done just that, and there is currently a lively and growing worker-cooperative movement going on in this country to that end; one which is supported by large swaths of the labor movement. But these entities naturally have difficulty competing against their giant, multinational rivals. That's a concentration of why you ultimately need a POLICY solution to address the macro-level problem, not JUST micro-level responses. It would help, for example, if the government subsidized worker co-ops to level the competitive playing field. Or just required that all businesses with say more than 50 or 100 employees must turn the managerial duties over to their workers.

Peter1469
07-09-2017, 01:38 PM
Many workers have done just that, and there is currently a lively and growing worker-cooperative movement going on in this country to that end; one which is supported by large swaths of the labor movement. But these entities naturally have difficulty competing against their giant, multinational rivals. That's a concentration of why you ultimately need a POLICY solution to address the macro-level problem, not JUST micro-level responses. It would help, for example, if the government subsidized worker co-ops to level the competitive playing field. Or just required that all businesses with say more than 50 or 100 employees must turn the managerial duties over to their workers.


Yes large companies lobby congress for tough regulations that crush their small competitors. Raising the minumum wage is one of those.

A couple of times here, I suggested splitting large and small companies and having two separate regulatory bodies / laws. Then the collusion of the large businesses won't hurt the small businesses.

MisterVeritis
07-09-2017, 01:39 PM
Many workers have done just that, and there is currently a lively and growing worker-cooperative movement going on in this country to that end; one which is supported by large swaths of the labor movement. But these entities naturally have difficulty competing against their giant, multinational rivals. That's a concentration of why you ultimately need a POLICY solution to address the macro-level problem, not JUST micro-level responses. It would help, for example, if the government subsidized worker co-ops to level the competitive playing field. Or just required that all businesses with say more than 50 or 100 employees must turn the managerial duties over to their workers.
Why am I not surprised you turned to Marxism for your solution?

Start a business. Compete. You will learn something.

IMPress Polly
07-09-2017, 01:59 PM
MisterVeritus wrote:
Why am I not surprised you turned to Marxism for your solution?

Well actually I consider myself to be a communist anarchist, not a Marxist. But yes, definitely on the communist left for sure. Just had to correct though because I didn't want to be confused with those who advocate for totalitarian systems.

Chris
07-09-2017, 02:08 PM
In as far as a living wage may be antithetical to economic growth and/or job expansion, that reflects the fact that workers do not manage their own workplaces. I have long proposed that they should. Hence my critique of capitalism in the OP and call for a structural reorganization of the economy.

Workers tend to have too high a time preference.

Chris
07-09-2017, 02:10 PM
It could go either way I suppose, but while some might be able to find gainful employment that pays more, others might not be in a position to quit for whatever the reason and as such look for ways to improve their salary structure.

If their hours were to increase they would actually be working more for less and while making more money, they'd realize that working non-union might not be in their best interests since with a negotiated labor contract they know when and how much of a raise they'll get in addition to having other quality of life issues addressed.

In the Seattle wage hike, while they might have made less each month on the average, it would afford them the opportunity to find a second job which would still pay $15 per hour and they'd at least be on equal footing with potential earnings.

Business aren't going to reduce what they already pay people. Lower min wage will be applied to new workers.

If their hours increase they will make more even at a lower wage.

The Seatle min wage rise reduced not just the hours worked but the new jobs available.

Chris
07-09-2017, 02:12 PM
Well actually I consider myself to be a communist anarchist, not a Marxist. But yes, definitely on the communist left for sure. Just had to correct though because I didn't want to be confused with those who advocate for totalitarian systems.

Communism has failed everywhere tried. It cannot solve the economic calculation problem.

Mister D
07-09-2017, 02:22 PM
Communism has failed everywhere tried. It cannot solve the economic calculation problem.
The salient historical reality of communism is systematic mass murder and terrorism not the failure of communists to solve the economic calculation problem.

Chris
07-09-2017, 02:30 PM
The salient historical reality of communism is systematic mass murder and terrorism not the failure of communists to solve the economic calculation problem.

Yes, there's the horrors of it, but those can be side-stepped by claiming they weren't true communism. The very idea of communism suffers from being unable to solve the economic calculation problem. --It doesn't matter, polly will never address any of this economically.

Green Arrow
07-09-2017, 02:30 PM
Let me review for you what I said: That happened long before as automation developed in the factory.
It wasn't automation that killed child labor. It was an influx of immigrants (mostly Irish initially) and a market crash that led public opinion to favor adults getting jobs over children taking up those jobs. Around 20% of American laborers (by official figures, it was likely higher) were under the age of 15-16 in 1900, when efforts to restrict and even ban child labor were underway.

Green Arrow
07-09-2017, 02:31 PM
It depends on what part of the country you are in. In northern Mississippi, $10 may be high. In NYC $15 is too low. The market can figure this stuff out.
When has it?

Chris
07-09-2017, 02:34 PM
It wasn't automation that killed child labor. It was an influx of immigrants (mostly Irish initially) and a market crash that led public opinion to favor adults getting jobs over children taking up those jobs. Around 20% of American laborers (by official figures, it was likely higher) were under the age of 15-16 in 1900, when efforts to restrict and even ban child labor were underway.

Certainly there were other factors, but automation was a major factor. My point is labor laws came after.

We need to remember prior to industrialization, when the world depended on agriculture, everyone in the family worked, ma, pa and the kids, sunup to sunset. Nobody seems to care about that. But, naturally, when, at the beginning of the industrial age, when families moved to cities, the whole family was put to work.

resister
07-09-2017, 02:36 PM
Well actually I consider myself to be a communist anarchist, not a Marxist. But yes, definitely on the communist left for sure. Just had to correct though because I didn't want to be confused with those who advocate for totalitarian systems.:spacecraft:an enemy of freedom and the American way. If communism is so great, you should move to communist country and enjoy it first hand.

Peter1469
07-09-2017, 02:36 PM
When has it?

For most of US history. Before we started meddling with minimum wage laws.

Green Arrow
07-09-2017, 02:36 PM
Higher min wages laws lead to a loss over time in employeement. Hence, a lower min wage should have the opposite effect.
Might? Meaning, you don't actually know it will?

Green Arrow
07-09-2017, 02:38 PM
For most of US history. Before we started meddling with minimum wage laws.

You mean when Americans that didn't own land lived in squalor because they didn't make enough money? Come on, now, Peter. Let's not romanticize the past.

Green Arrow
07-09-2017, 02:41 PM
Certainly there were other factors, but automation was a major factor. My point is labor laws came after.
They came during. 20% of workers were kids, Chris, when reformers sought to ban the practice. That's a full fifth of the working population.

We need to remember prior to industrialization, when the world depended on agriculture, everyone in the family worked, ma, pa and the kids, sunup to sunset. Nobody seems to care about that. But, naturally, when, at the beginning of the industrial age, when families moved to cities, the whole family was put to work.

Because working on the farm, you still had time for an education and your chances of dying on the job or catching a deadly disease/being badly injured were much lower. Kids didn't get black lung or cancer from tending corn.

MisterVeritis
07-09-2017, 02:44 PM
Well actually I consider myself to be a communist anarchist, not a Marxist. But yes, definitely on the communist left for sure. Just had to correct though because I didn't want to be confused with those who advocate for totalitarian systems.
Marxism covers the economic viewpoint although fascism covers your solution just as well. Communism covers the political aspects. Of course, your solution is wholly authoritarian, statist, and tyrannical. Your solution has no place in a free country.

Peter1469
07-09-2017, 02:45 PM
You mean when Americans that didn't own land lived in squalor because they didn't make enough money? Come on, now, Peter. Let's not romanticize the past.

When you focus on living wage you totally miss the point.

If the minimum wage is above the value of the work, the job disappears.

MisterVeritis
07-09-2017, 02:45 PM
:spacecraft:an enemy of freedom and the American way. If communism is so great, you should move to communist country and enjoy it first hand.
Her solution only works in theory.

MisterVeritis
07-09-2017, 02:48 PM
When has it?
The market figures it out every time someone is offered and accepts a wage.

Chris
07-09-2017, 02:49 PM
They came during. 20% of workers were kids, Chris, when reformers sought to ban the practice. That's a full fifth of the working population.


Because working on the farm, you still had time for an education and your chances of dying on the job or catching a deadly disease/being badly injured were much lower. Kids didn't get black lung or cancer from tending corn.


OK, and by the time the reformers actually changed the law, automation had removed the need to use children. As I posted above, running the machines required more than that the unskilled labor of children.

Working on the farm was just as dangerous.

No one is arguing child labor was easy.

Who exactly was it forced children to work in factories? The factory owner, no, the family did.

Chris
07-09-2017, 02:50 PM
Her solution only works in theory.

Except it doesn't even work in theory. There are two types of theory, one is descriptive, like Adam Smith's Wealth, and the other is prescriptive, like Marx. You can't prescribe an emergent market.

IMPress Polly
07-09-2017, 02:51 PM
Anarchist societies usually either endure or get destroyed from without. (Most often the latter, unfortunately.) That is because these systems (which are generally socialist or communistic) do not have fundamental structural problems, as shown by the fact that, unlike other social systems, they do not get overthrown from within. They may not produce a lot of economic growth, but frankly that doesn't seem to matter to the people who participate in such projects so much as having a say in the crafting of public policy and feeling more genuinely equal to those around them. People really don't need a lot of economic expansion to be happy. The need to feel like they are cared for and included.

katzgar
07-09-2017, 02:51 PM
Business aren't going to reduce what they already pay people. Lower min wage will be applied to new workers.

If their hours increase they will make more even at a lower wage.

The Seatle min wage rise reduced not just the hours worked but the new jobs available.

there are competing studies on that, you just picked your feel good study. The unemployment rate in Seattle is 3.1. When you live in an economy largely based on consumption like ours is the more disposable income the better the economy.

MisterVeritis
07-09-2017, 02:51 PM
Except it doesn't even work in theory. There are two types of theory, one is descriptive, like Adam Smith's Wealth, and the other is prescriptive, like Marx. You can't prescribe an emergent market.
Okay. I was being generous.

The Xl
07-09-2017, 02:52 PM
OK, and by the time the reformers actually changed the law, automation had removed the need to use children. As I posted above, running the machines required more than that the unskilled labor of children.

Working on the farm was just as dangerous.

No one is arguing child labor was easy.

Who exactly was it forced children to work in factories? The factory owner, no, the family did.

Conditions forced children to work, they didn't have a choice. Being for something is great, but becoming so inflexible that one becomes an ideologue is not. Without some base level of minimum wage and labor laws, especially child labor laws, people will be beyond exploited. Big government is a horrible thing, but it isn't exactly preferable when big government turns into unchecked corporate rule.

Chris
07-09-2017, 02:52 PM
Might? Meaning, you don't actually know it will?

It follows from the law of supply and demand. Simple as that. Raise the wage, there will be less demand from business, lower it, and there will be more demand.

MisterVeritis
07-09-2017, 02:52 PM
Anarchist societies usually either endure or get destroyed from without. (Most often the latter, unfortunately.) That is because these systems (which are generally socialist or communistic) do not have fundamental structural problems, as shown by the fact that, unlike other social systems, they do not get overthrown from within. They may not produce a lot of economic growth, but frankly that doesn't seem to matter to the people who participate in such projects so much as having a say in the crafting of public policy and feeling genuinely equal to those around you. People really don't need a lot of economic expansion to be happy. The need to feel like they are cared for and included.
So the state is your father, your mother, and your big brother.

IMPress Polly
07-09-2017, 02:56 PM
katzgar wrote:
there are competing studies on that, you just picked your feel good study. The unemployment rate in Seattle is 3.1. When you live in an economy largely based on consumption like ours is the more disposable income the better the economy.

Exactly! I wouldn't call that a disastrous unemployment rate, but rather below the national average of 4.4%. I don't believe that a crisis has been created in Seattle.

Chris
07-09-2017, 02:58 PM
Conditions forced children to work, they didn't have a choice. Being for something is great, but becoming so inflexible that one becomes an ideologue is not. Without some base level of minimum wage and labor laws, especially child labor laws, people will be beyond exploited. Big government is a horrible thing, but it isn't exactly preferable when big government turns into unchecked corporate rule.

OK, so let's say "conditions" required it. The "conditions" weren't created by industry, by capitalism. Industry, capitalism changed those conditions to the better for all.

Read above, higher min wages cause job loss, lower will cause more employment. Simple supply and demand. It's nice, sure, that some small set of workers will make a few dollars an hour more, while others can't find work, and those still working have their hours reduced.

Corporations "rule" by rent seeking government favors. Government has a monoply on coercive power.

Green Arrow
07-09-2017, 03:00 PM
OK, and by the time the reformers actually changed the law, automation had removed the need to use children. As I posted above, running the machines required more than that the unskilled labor of children.

Automation reduced all labor, Chris. So naturally it reduced child labor, because of how many child laborers there were. It certainly didn't target child labor and no, automation did not kill child labor before the reformers. More than half of U.S. states (28 to be precise) regulated child labor by 1899, and in 1900 still 20% of the labor force was a child under 15.

Working on the farm was just as dangerous.
No, it wasn't. Have you ever worked on a farm or in a factory? You can't get black lung on the farm, Chris. There's virtually no disease you can catch from farm work, plenty that you could catch from factory work back then. It's not even close to equal.


Who exactly was it forced children to work in factories? The factory owner, no, the family did.
Who said otherwise? The point is the factories exploited that need by forcing children to work 70 hours a week, six days a week, for one dollar. A glass factory in Massachusetts had such bad conditions they had to put barbed wire on their fences to keep the kids there, because 12 year olds were carrying huge loads of hot glass for .40 cents a night.

Did the family force them to pay ridiculously low and force bad conditions?

MisterVeritis
07-09-2017, 03:01 PM
Exactly! I wouldn't call that a disastrous unemployment rate, but rather below the national average of 4.4%. I don't believe that a crisis has been created in Seattle.
The effects will be felt throughout the lifetimes of its victims. What happens when a person does not get that first job?

Chris
07-09-2017, 03:01 PM
Exactly! I wouldn't call that a disastrous unemployment rate, but rather below the national average of 4.4%. I don't believe that a crisis has been created in Seattle.

Nobody claimed anything of the sort. The claim was, and it is backed by empirical evidence, raising the min wage results in reduced hours and reduction in jobs. Keep in mind too that the set of workers who get a wage increase is minuscule. Small gains are erased by few hours worked. And the job markt shrinks. Overall, a loss.

Let's not judge solutions by intentions but actual empirical results.

katzgar
07-09-2017, 03:04 PM
OK, so let's say "conditions" required it. The "conditions" weren't created by industry, by capitalism. Industry, capitalism changed those conditions to the better for all.

Read above, higher min wages cause job loss, lower will cause more employment. Simple supply and demand. It's nice, sure, that some small set of workers will make a few dollars an hour more, while others can't find work, and those still working have their hours reduced.

Corporations "rule" by rent seeking government favors. Government has a monoply on coercive power.

You are incorrect... http://www.nelp.org/publication/raise-wages-kill-jobs-no-correlation-minimum-wage-increases-employment-levels/

Green Arrow
07-09-2017, 03:04 PM
It follows from the law of supply and demand. Simple as that. Raise the wage, there will be less demand from business, lower it, and there will be more demand.

You think, right? Maybe?

katzgar
07-09-2017, 03:05 PM
Nobody claimed anything of the sort. The claim was, and it is backed by empirical evidence, raising the min wage results in reduced hours and reduction in jobs. Keep in mind too that the set of workers who get a wage increase is minuscule. Small gains are erased by few hours worked. And the job markt shrinks. Overall, a loss.

you are making claims that have no basis in reality
Let's not judge solutions by intentions but actual empirical results.

Green Arrow
07-09-2017, 03:05 PM
OK, so let's say "conditions" required it. The "conditions" weren't created by industry, by capitalism. Industry, capitalism changed those conditions to the better for all.



Demonstrate that by history. Because so far the historical record finds that claim laughable.

The Xl
07-09-2017, 03:07 PM
OK, so let's say "conditions" required it. The "conditions" weren't created by industry, by capitalism. Industry, capitalism changed those conditions to the better for all.

Read above, higher min wages cause job loss, lower will cause more employment. Simple supply and demand. It's nice, sure, that some small set of workers will make a few dollars an hour more, while others can't find work, and those still working have their hours reduced.

Corporations "rule" by rent seeking government favors. Government has a monoply on coercive power.

If their were nothing outlawing any of these practices, people who weren't extremely high on the skill food chain would be working 100 hours a week for nothing, this is just reality. A good chunk of people with power are assholes, be it government or business. The only counter to that is an informed and engaged general public, which we unfortunately do not have.

Chris
07-09-2017, 03:08 PM
Automation reduced all labor, Chris. So naturally it reduced child labor, because of how many child laborers there were. It certainly didn't target child labor and no, automation did not kill child labor before the reformers. More than half of U.S. states (28 to be precise) regulated child labor by 1899, and in 1900 still 20% of the labor force was a child under 15.

No, it wasn't. Have you ever worked on a farm or in a factory? You can't get black lung on the farm, Chris. There's virtually no disease you can catch from farm work, plenty that you could catch from factory work back then. It's not even close to equal.


Who said otherwise? The point is the factories exploited that need by forcing children to work 70 hours a week, six days a week, for one dollar. A glass factory in Massachusetts had such bad conditions they had to put barbed wire on their fences to keep the kids there, because 12 year olds were carrying huge loads of hot glass for .40 cents a night.

Did the family force them to pay ridiculously low and force bad conditions?


It reduced child labor the most because the machines required adults to run them. You seem to ignore that.

Automation doesn't "target" anything, other than to raise efficiency and/or productivity. Reducing child labor was a side effect.

Yes, I was born and raised on a farm. It was dangerous work. People die. Of course not from blank lung disease.

Can't catch disease on a farm? Huh? Here's a list: https://www.cdc.gov/healthypets/pets/farm-animals.html


Did the factories force people to work for them? No.

Marxist exploitation theorising is tiresome.

Kalkin
07-09-2017, 03:10 PM
A new Missouri law will require the city of St. Louis to reduce its minimum wage by 23%, from $10 an hour to the state's minimum wage of $7.70 in September (http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/07/us/st-louis-minimum-wage/index.html). (I've chosen CNN's article on the subject just to annoy our resident Trump fans.)

If you've not heard of a minimum wage reduction before, you're not alone: I believe this is the first one that has ever been implemented in this country. Take note, people! This is a warning sign of things to come. This will not be the last such measure. It is only the first. If an analogous policy were introduced nationwide, requiring that the whole country adhere to the federal minimum wage only, most U.S. states would have to reduce their minimum wages. And that, in turn, is but one small step away from reducing the federal minimum wage itself. Now that one state has established the precedent, others will follow, leading up to the aforementioned national policy unless this measure in Missouri is successfully fought and reversed. It is, if you will, one small step for a state, but one giant leap for exploitation.

The impact of the this reduction will be harsh. St. Louis ranks sixth in the nation in poverty rates among major cities: 28.5% of St. Louis residents already live below the poverty line. Many, in other words, will be affected by any reduction in the city's minimum wage.

This is a concentration of the moral level that American capitalism has sunk to. This is NOT just a Missouri thing. On the campaign trail, Donald Trump proposed repeatedly that the federal minimum wage was too high and needs to be reduced. (Example (https://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/11/11/donald-trump-insists-that-wages-are-too-high/).) This is the new Republicanism. And the new, post-Recession capitalism in which larger swaths of the U.S. economy depend on poverty-level pay rates; a fact that calls for a revolutionary reorganization of said economy.

While many a wealthy business executive argues that the Fight for 15 movement's calls for a $15 an hour national minimum wage is extreme and too high, in reality, had the federal minimum wage from the year 1968 kept pace with subsequent inflation and increases in worker productivity (and duly note that it did exactly that during the height of the American labor movement between 1947 and 1969, so as much is not a far-fetched idea), it would have reached $21.72 an hour by 2012 (http://cepr.net/documents/publications/min-wage1-2012-03.pdf) -- the start of the Fight for 15 movement. The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 an hour; just below Missouri's level of $7.70 an hour. I highlight this point out the degree to which the exploitation of American workers has increased in the last 50 years: sufficient that, for all intents and purposes, the poorest full-time American workers, taken as a group, have already received an effective pay cut of two-thirds in the interim relative to the amount of work that they do. For the new, post-Recession capitalism, however, that is not enough. Expect this opening salvo to yield a corresponding national movement among many of the country's richest and most powerful business corporations; especially retailers and fast food chains. And don't expect opposition from the president or his ruling party.
Minimum wage laws should no more exist than maximum wage laws. It's not the government's purview to insert itself between free individuals making agreements regarding labor value.

Chris
07-09-2017, 03:10 PM
If their were nothing outlawing any of these practices, people who weren't extremely high on the skill food chain would be working 100 hours a week for nothing, this is just reality. A good chunk of people with power are assholes, be it government or business. The only counter to that is an informed and engaged general public, which we unfortunately do not have.

Where does a business get this power? A business can't force people to work there. A business simply values work at a certain wage and offers jobs to those who will take them. Same with workers who value their time and agree to the offer or not. If no one takes the offer, then the business needs to re-evalue the offer.

Wages are subjective.

MisterVeritis
07-09-2017, 03:17 PM
If their were nothing outlawing any of these practices, people who weren't extremely high on the skill food chain would be working 100 hours a week for nothing, this is just reality. A good chunk of people with power are assholes, be it government or business. The only counter to that is an informed and engaged general public, which we unfortunately do not have.
Hmmm. Do you believe we are all interchangeable? Why do wages for workers ever rise? Businesses compete for workers with the skills the businesses need to make a profit. We can end immigration tomorrow and low wage workers will see a rise in their pay as businesses compete for labor.

Chris
07-09-2017, 03:21 PM
https://i.snag.gy/aWeM14.jpg

The above chart is true for income, health, longevity, and so many other things in life. It's all documented in Gregory Clark's A Farewell to Alms.

What was the cause of this rise out of the poverty of the Malthusian Trap? It wasn't socialism, it was capitalism. It wasn't emotionalism but science, technology, industry, automation.

Chris
07-09-2017, 03:36 PM
Anarchist societies usually either endure or get destroyed from without. (Most often the latter, unfortunately.) That is because these systems (which are generally socialist or communistic) do not have fundamental structural problems, as shown by the fact that, unlike other social systems, they do not get overthrown from within. They may not produce a lot of economic growth, but frankly that doesn't seem to matter to the people who participate in such projects so much as having a say in the crafting of public policy and feeling more genuinely equal to those around them. People really don't need a lot of economic expansion to be happy. The need to feel like they are cared for and included.


The USSR, the greatest example of a communist system, collapsed from within economically. They tried to solve the economical calculation problem by relying on Western prices. That too failed. Why? Because it's not a top-dwn problem for central planning to solve. It's a bottom-up, emergent solution.

That is a fundamental structual problem.

Being overthrow from within or without has nothing to do with it.

The economic griwth produced by the USSR couldn't feed its own people.


"The need to feel like they are cared for and included" by a distant, impersonal, authoritarian government because the individual is isolated from everything from family to culture.

Chris
07-09-2017, 03:48 PM
there are competing studies on that, you just picked your feel good study. The unemployment rate in Seattle is 3.1. When you live in an economy largely based on consumption like ours is the more disposable income the better the economy.

Competing is questionable. There are some few new studies of late that changed the methodology of analyzing data that have said at best higher min wage has little effect. Mainstream, mainline economists find otherwise, as I have reported.

What is the significance of a single number, 3.1?

More disposable income in any economy is better.

Consumerism, now there's something to argue:

https://snag.gy/1UrC8x.jpg

Consumers should run those officials out of town.

katzgar
07-09-2017, 03:50 PM
Competing is questionable. There are some few new studies of late that changed the methodology of analyzing data that have said at best higher min wage has little effect. Mainstream, mainline economists find otherwise, as I have reported.

What is the significance of a single number, 3.1?

More disposable income in any economy is better.

Consumerism, now there's something to argue:

https://snag.gy/1UrC8x.jpg

Consumers should run those officials out of town.


you arent after an honest discussion that is clear. you just want us to be like Mexico. reread my post as the 3.1 number was explained

Newpublius
07-09-2017, 04:10 PM
The unemployment rate in Seattle is 3.1.

And in good times and bad, we only predict that one thing will happen. No matter the total unemployment rate; it could be 3% or 5% or 10%, and in good times and bad, the minimum wage will primarily, not exclusively, manifest itself as excess youth unemployment where the wedge between the two rates is driven by the difference between the minimum wage and the average prevailing wage. This is why, in Puerto Rico, where the minimum wage is a larger percentage of the average wage, the minimum wage has a much larger impact.

You will pay $5 for ten dollar bills all day long, you will never pay $10 for a five dollar bill. You will not pay $30k for a Toyota Yaris. Yes, there are people who are currently incapable of commanding 30,000 per year in the labor force and if you labor all year and there's a "Toyota Yaris" to show for it, you will not be paid $30k for it.

With respect to Seattle where you refer to a 3% total unemployment rate, do we see excess youth unemployment:

http://murray.seattle.gov/youthjobs/

Yes, we do.

'Many young people miss out on the chance to work during their teen years, especially low-income youth. This can result in academic disengagement, lack of career awareness and planning, and poor preparedness for available careers. While citywide unemployment is at a low 3%, youth unemployment remains near 13%. It’s more than double that rate for African American youth in Seattle: 28%."

Of course this was 2015 when the minimum wage was lower, though I wonder how employers were acting in anticipation of $15/hr coming in 2017.


When you live in an economy largely based on consumption like ours is the more disposable income the better the economy.

And minimum wages make a society poorer, less prosperous with less income. It is a price floor, it will cause a 'deadweight loss' to society.

Chris
07-09-2017, 04:13 PM
you arent after an honest discussion that is clear. you just want us to be like Mexico. reread my post as the 3.1 number was explained

So you have nothing to say in return but to ad hom my honesty?


I was returning to post an economist on your claim of "competing studies". He's Russ Roberts at Geoergetown.

The Empirical Literature on the Minimum Wage (http://cafehayek.com/2007/01/the_empirical_l.html)


There have been dozens of articles in the academic literature on the impact of the minimum wage on employment, particularly on the employment of low-skilled workers. Virtually every one of these articles finds that an increase in the minimum wage reduces employment....

...Economists have done an immense amount of work trying to measure these effects and the overall impact on the poor. The overwhelming consensus has been that minimum wages serve the poor very poorly. The standard finding is that a 10% increase in the minimum wage reduces employment among low-skilled workers from 1% to 3%.

This consensus was challenged in 1993 in a series of papers by Card and Krueger. Using a very different methodology from previous research, they found virtually no effect on employment and some evidence that an increase in the minimum wage might increase employment among low-skilled workers. Card and Krueger’s work generated a critical response questioning the reliability of their findings.

I do not find the Card and Krueger findings compelling. Some do.

So much from your competing studies.

Chris
07-09-2017, 04:16 PM
Roberts, in the link above, goes on to say this:


A few more thoughts. Politicians like the minimum wage because the cost of financing it is paid by three groups—the workers (in the form of lower employment), employers (in the form of lower profits) and consumers (in the form of higher prices). Missing from that list is taxpayers—so for politicians, if the negative effects are hidden from most voters, the minimum wage is close to a free lunch. So it is preferred by politicians to the earned income tax credit (EITC) which costs tax dollars. Most (all?) economists argue that the EITC is a much better way to help the poor. The other benefit of the minimum wage for politicians is that it makes low-skilled labor more expensive and boosts the demand for close substitutes, often union workers.

Ethereal
07-09-2017, 04:22 PM
we abandoned that idea when child labor was banned and 2.8 children as young as 6 lost jobs in factories and had to go to school instead.
Child labor was made unnecessary by the material prosperity produced by markets and technological progress, not government intervention. If material conditions still necessitated such labor, then no amount of government intervention would be able to stop it.

Ethereal
07-09-2017, 04:25 PM
In as far as a living wage may be antithetical to economic growth and/or job expansion, that reflects the fact that workers do not manage their own workplaces. I have long proposed that they should. Hence my critique of capitalism in the OP and call for a structural reorganization of the economy.
Business owners and entrepreneurs are not workers? Someone should tell my dad that. He's been busting his ass for nothing apparently.

Ethereal
07-09-2017, 04:28 PM
Many workers have done just that, and there is currently a lively and growing worker-cooperative movement going on in this country to that end; one which is supported by large swaths of the labor movement. But these entities naturally have difficulty competing against their giant, multinational rivals. That's a concentration of why you ultimately need a POLICY solution to address the macro-level problem, not JUST micro-level responses. It would help, for example, if the government subsidized worker co-ops to level the competitive playing field. Or just required that all businesses with say more than 50 or 100 employees must turn the managerial duties over to their workers.

Well, if these business models need the government to subsidize them in order to remain competitive with more traditional business models, then that seems a pretty clear indication they're not good business models. And, by the way, managers ARE workers.

Ethereal
07-09-2017, 04:30 PM
Well actually I consider myself to be a communist anarchist, not a Marxist. But yes, definitely on the communist left for sure. Just had to correct though because I didn't want to be confused with those who advocate for totalitarian systems.

So forcing society to subsidize certain business models is not totalitarian? Forcing a business owner to give up management of their business to janitors and lever-pullers is not totalitarian?

Ethereal
07-09-2017, 04:31 PM
The salient historical reality of communism is systematic mass murder and terrorism not the failure of communists to solve the economic calculation problem.

The murder and terrorism are linked to the flawed economics of large scale communism though.

Ethereal
07-09-2017, 04:34 PM
It wasn't automation that killed child labor. It was an influx of immigrants (mostly Irish initially) and a market crash that led public opinion to favor adults getting jobs over children taking up those jobs. Around 20% of American laborers (by official figures, it was likely higher) were under the age of 15-16 in 1900, when efforts to restrict and even ban child labor were underway.
Yet they still have to make exceptions for farms and such because "child labor", while being a politically charged term, isn't necessarily unjust or undesirable. Technically, most children in America "labor" in one form or another. Chores are a form of labor, attending school is a form of labor, etc.

Ethereal
07-09-2017, 04:37 PM
You mean when Americans that didn't own land lived in squalor because they didn't make enough money? Come on, now, Peter. Let's not romanticize the past.
So every American who did not own land lived in squalor? Or just some of them? Plenty of Americans live in "squalor" today, do they not?

Ethereal
07-09-2017, 04:40 PM
Anarchist societies usually either endure or get destroyed from without. (Most often the latter, unfortunately.) That is because these systems (which are generally socialist or communistic) do not have fundamental structural problems, as shown by the fact that, unlike other social systems, they do not get overthrown from within. They may not produce a lot of economic growth, but frankly that doesn't seem to matter to the people who participate in such projects so much as having a say in the crafting of public policy and feeling more genuinely equal to those around them. People really don't need a lot of economic expansion to be happy. The need to feel like they are cared for and included.

Except what you're proposing is not really anarchist. It would be one thing if it were done on the small scale where the community established a democratic consensus of some sort, but you seem to be talking about large scale political engineering, which will be statist and authoritarian by its nature.

Ethereal
07-09-2017, 04:41 PM
there are competing studies on that, you just picked your feel good study. The unemployment rate in Seattle is 3.1. When you live in an economy largely based on consumption like ours is the more disposable income the better the economy.
If a $15 minimum wage is good for the economy, then a $30 minimum wage must be twice as good.

Ethereal
07-09-2017, 04:43 PM
Conditions forced children to work, they didn't have a choice. Being for something is great, but becoming so inflexible that one becomes an ideologue is not. Without some base level of minimum wage and labor laws, especially child labor laws, people will be beyond exploited. Big government is a horrible thing, but it isn't exactly preferable when big government turns into unchecked corporate rule.
It's ironic you should that, since the ones who think minimum wage laws are necessary are the ones arguing from an ideological perspective as opposed to an economic one.

Kalkin
07-09-2017, 04:49 PM
Where does a business get this power? A business can't force people to work there. A business simply values work at a certain wage and offers jobs to those who will take them. Same with workers who value their time and agree to the offer or not. If no one takes the offer, then the business needs to re-evalue the offer.

Wages are subjective.

Spot on. Minimum wage laws should be for children, if anyone at all.

Green Arrow
07-09-2017, 04:55 PM
It reduced child labor the most because the machines required adults to run them. You seem to ignore that.
I ignore it because it's irrelevant. Automation reduced labor across the board. The major factors that reduced child labor specifically were immigration, economic downturn, and reform efforts that banned the practice. Yes, automation played a part, but not to the extent that you are attempting to portray.

Automation doesn't "target" anything, other than to raise efficiency and/or productivity. Reducing child labor was a side effect.
A minor side effect that did not play a major role in reducing child labor to the extent of the other factors I've listed. One of which, as you keep trying to deny, was legislation.

Yes, I was born and raised on a farm. It was dangerous work. People die. Of course not from blank lung disease.
It's also not half as dangerous as factory work.

Can't catch disease on a farm? Huh? Here's a list: https://www.cdc.gov/healthypets/pets/farm-animals.html

It was an exaggeration. The chances are much lower. Let's not be pedantic.

Did the factories force people to work for them? No.
You keep bringing this up. People did work for them. Whether they were forced to or not is irrelevant. They weren't forced by the factory to work there, but they weren't given a choice how much they worked for or what their work conditions were. And in some cases, like the Massachusetts glass factory I brought up, forced them to remain in the factory against their will to the point of erecting barbed wire atop their fences to keep them from leaving.

Marxist exploitation theorising is tiresome.

So is poisoning the well. I haven't advocated Marxism.

Kalkin
07-09-2017, 04:55 PM
So every American who did not own land lived in squalor? Or just some of them? Plenty of Americans live in "squalor" today, do they not?
I don't own land and I'm not living in squalor... weird.

Peter1469
07-09-2017, 05:36 PM
Exactly! I wouldn't call that a disastrous unemployment rate, but rather below the national average of 4.4%. I don't believe that a crisis has been created in Seattle.


What is the unemployment rate for unskilled labor.

Other than teen agers, they are the ones that make minimum wage.

Peter1469
07-09-2017, 05:38 PM
In farm work today, Monsanto has given us Roundup- and that causes cancer.
Automation reduced all labor, Chris. So naturally it reduced child labor, because of how many child laborers there were. It certainly didn't target child labor and no, automation did not kill child labor before the reformers. More than half of U.S. states (28 to be precise) regulated child labor by 1899, and in 1900 still 20% of the labor force was a child under 15.

No, it wasn't. Have you ever worked on a farm or in a factory? You can't get black lung on the farm, Chris. There's virtually no disease you can catch from farm work, plenty that you could catch from factory work back then. It's not even close to equal.


Who said otherwise? The point is the factories exploited that need by forcing children to work 70 hours a week, six days a week, for one dollar. A glass factory in Massachusetts had such bad conditions they had to put barbed wire on their fences to keep the kids there, because 12 year olds were carrying huge loads of hot glass for .40 cents a night.

Did the family force them to pay ridiculously low and force bad conditions?

Peter1469
07-09-2017, 05:39 PM
You are incorrect... http://www.nelp.org/publication/raise-wages-kill-jobs-no-correlation-minimum-wage-increases-employment-levels/
Explain your position and how your link supports it.

Agent Zero
07-09-2017, 05:44 PM
The consequences...Seattle tried this stuff. People quit their jobs because they were no longer eligible for free stuff.....
minimum wage at 10 dollars an hour increases tax liabilities which the worker pays for, but receives nothing in return. The more people you have working, the greater the tax collections. In many cases, a 10 dollar an hour job isn't sufficient. Take CA for example. you live in a hovel when you make 10/hour.
If a fellow goes from 8/hr to 10 or better, I too must get a rise from 20 to 25/hour.
Minimum wage is a carrot.......
Nope.

Wrong.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/06/27/seattles-higher-minimum-wage-is-actually-working-just-fine/?utm_term=.d0a557108a45

gamewell45
07-09-2017, 05:49 PM
Business aren't going to reduce what they already pay people. Lower min wage will be applied to new workers.

If their hours increase they will make more even at a lower wage.

The Seatle min wage rise reduced not just the hours worked but the new jobs available.
I must admit, you do make a compelling argument. I guess we'll know either way over time.

Agent Zero
07-09-2017, 05:56 PM
What is the unemployment rate for unskilled labor.

Other than teen agers, they are the ones that make minimum wage.

Untrue. 50% of workers under 25 earn minimum wage. That's hardly "teenagers". Only 11% of teenagers make minimum wage or less.

http://www.epi.org/publication/wage-workers-older-88-percent-workers-benefit/

Chris
07-09-2017, 05:59 PM
Nope.

Wrong.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/06/27/seattles-higher-minimum-wage-is-actually-working-just-fine/?utm_term=.d0a557108a45

That op ed is questionable. It reports a study that found negative effects cased by Seatle's min wage increase. It claims that's out of step with other studies and points to a meta-study, iow, a sruvey, but what's accessible to the reader doesn't support the op-ed contention. It then counters with a study out of Berkeley that lo and behold found that increasing min wage increase min wage. And the op-ed's criteria for assessing the effects of raising the min wage: "Until you start seeing low-income people in Seattle and around the country taking to the streets to demand lower minimum wages, don’t listen to anyone who tries to tell you otherwise."

This post provides an economist review: http://thepoliticalforums.com/threads/85542-The-First-Minimum-Wage-Reduction?p=2079909&viewfull=1#post2079909

Chris
07-09-2017, 06:04 PM
I ignore it because it's irrelevant. Automation reduced labor across the board. The major factors that reduced child labor specifically were immigration, economic downturn, and reform efforts that banned the practice. Yes, automation played a part, but not to the extent that you are attempting to portray.

A minor side effect that did not play a major role in reducing child labor to the extent of the other factors I've listed. One of which, as you keep trying to deny, was legislation.

It's also not half as dangerous as factory work.


It was an exaggeration. The chances are much lower. Let's not be pedantic.

You keep bringing this up. People did work for them. Whether they were forced to or not is irrelevant. They weren't forced by the factory to work there, but they weren't given a choice how much they worked for or what their work conditions were. And in some cases, like the Massachusetts glass factory I brought up, forced them to remain in the factory against their will to the point of erecting barbed wire atop their fences to keep them from leaving.


So is poisoning the well. I haven't advocated Marxism.


Irrelevant to you, perhaps, but, so?

If "Automation reduced labor across the board" then it reduced child labor as I said. So we agree on the facts.

Legislation came later.

No one claim early industrial work was safe.

Then don't be pedantic with exaggerations.

Whether people were forced by factory owners is relevant in negating your argument anyone was taken advantage of, and polly's claim of oppression.

Weren't given a choice by whom?

Your arguments are similar to Marx's. So are Polly's.

Mister D
07-09-2017, 06:05 PM
Untrue. 50% of workers under 25 earn minimum wage. That's hardly "teenagers". Only 11% of teenagers make minimum wage or less.

http://www.epi.org/publication/wage-workers-older-88-percent-workers-benefit/
Read his post again, total zero. lol

Chris
07-09-2017, 06:05 PM
I must admit, you do make a compelling argument. I guess we'll know either way over time.

That is certainly an important point. Assessments of the effects of raising min wage in Seatle are way too early. We will need to wait years and years. Same for reducing min wage.

Agent Zero
07-09-2017, 06:10 PM
That op ed is questionable. It reports a study that found negative effects cased by Seatle's min wage increase. It claims that's out of step with other studies and points to a meta-study, iow, a sruvey, but what's accessible to the reader doesn't support the op-ed contention. It then counters with a study out of Berkeley that lo and behold found that increasing min wage increase min wage. And the op-ed's criteria for assessing the effects of raising the min wage: "Until you start seeing low-income people in Seattle and around the country taking to the streets to demand lower minimum wages, don’t listen to anyone who tries to tell you otherwise."

This post provides an economist review: http://thepoliticalforums.com/threads/85542-The-First-Minimum-Wage-Reduction?p=2079909&viewfull=1#post2079909

As is that study. It's not been peer reviewed. Like everything in life, there's going to be winners and losers. I've yet to hear of mass layoffs in lieu of automation in the service industry too, although the naysayers have been predicting that as well.

American workers have adjusted to changes for centuries. They will now too.

On a related note, why are you Trumpers so damn cynical?

Green Arrow
07-09-2017, 06:11 PM
Child labor was made unnecessary by the material prosperity produced by markets and technological progress, not government intervention. If material conditions still necessitated such labor, then no amount of government intervention would be able to stop it.

Can you demonstrate that? Because child labor declined from around 33% in 1880 to 26% in 1900 (keep in mind this is just counting ages 10-15 and only cites official figures, not accounting for "under the table" child labor) and then to around 6% by 1930, which excellently coincides with legislation in 28 states (as of 1899) and eventually the whole country (1928) to limit and then ban the practice altogether.

And by the way...the Industrial Revolution did not cause "material prosperity" for the vast majority of workers, only for company owners and administrators. The average worker was doing worse than when we had an agrarian economy.

Green Arrow
07-09-2017, 06:12 PM
Yet they still have to make exceptions for farms and such because "child labor", while being a politically charged term, isn't necessarily unjust or undesirable. Technically, most children in America "labor" in one form or another. Chores are a form of labor, attending school is a form of labor, etc.

I didn't think it was necessary to spell out exactly what kind of "labor" I'm referring to, considering I keep bringing up factories.

Green Arrow
07-09-2017, 06:14 PM
So every American who did not own land lived in squalor? Or just some of them? Plenty of Americans live in "squalor" today, do they not?

I didn't say all of them. And very few Americans (relatively) today live in squalor compared to the Industrial Revolution, and the definition of "squalor" has different meaning today than it would have back then. Although there certainly are Americans today that live in comparable status of squalor.

Green Arrow
07-09-2017, 06:15 PM
I don't own land and I'm not living in squalor... weird.

I didn't realize that we are currently living in the year 1890.

Green Arrow
07-09-2017, 06:22 PM
Irrelevant to you, perhaps, but, so?
Not to me, to the discussion at hand.

If "Automation reduced labor across the board" then it reduced child labor as I said. So we agree on the facts.
As I said already. It did not reduce child labor to the extent that the other factors I mentioned, and you downplayed, did.

Legislation came later.
No, it didn't. It came right in the thick of it. 28 states by 1899 had passed legislation limiting or outright banning child labor, and in ten years the child labor rate dropped more than 10%. As more states and, eventually, the federal government joined the movement and passed more legislation limiting and/or banning it, it dropped more than 20% in the thirty years that followed. Much as you want to ignore the fact that government did something good to solve the problem, the fact still remains.

No one claim early industrial work was safe.
Correct. I never claimed anyone did.

Then don't be pedantic with exaggerations.
Via Merriam-Webster: one who is unimaginative or who unduly emphasizes minutiae in the presentation or use of knowledge

Whether people were forced by factory owners is relevant in negating your argument anyone was taken advantage of, and polly's claim of oppression.
No, it doesn't.

Weren't given a choice by whom?
Conditions of the day.

Your arguments are similar to Marx's. So are Polly's.

Your habit of breathing and eating is similar to Marx's. You Marxist, you.

Green Arrow
07-09-2017, 06:22 PM
In farm work today, Monsanto has given us Roundup- and that causes cancer.

I'm talking about the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Kalkin
07-09-2017, 06:29 PM
I didn't realize that we are currently living in the year 1890.
Well, now you know.

Green Arrow
07-09-2017, 06:31 PM
Now that I'm finally caught up...
@IMPress Polly (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=399), here's the problem:

18652

Since the 1970s, wages have stagnated while productivity has skyrocketed. You know what's also skyrocketed? The share of the wealth held by the richest among us. Somewhere in that time period the richest Americans realized that if they depressed worker wages while demanding ever-increasing productivity, they could become richer than they ever dreamed of, because as wages stagnate and productivity rises, income rises - for them.

Let's get real, here. No major corporation is going out of business or anywhere close to it if they pay their workers the same amount relative to inflation as they did in the 1970s. It would barely make a dent in their profits. They don't have to lay off workers, or switch to automatons, or raise prices, or any other measure they take in response. They do that for one reason: to piss off customers into voting for pro-corporate politicians and fuck with the statistics. They do it so their ever-ardent defenders can have something to point to when they say raising the minimum wage is a bad thing.

That's all this is. They are artificially creating a problem that needs to be fixed, and the fix, as always, benefits them over anyone else.

William
07-09-2017, 07:10 PM
We have been learning about Victorian England in class, and I have been reading books by people like Charles Dickens, and I'm sorry to say that most people here seem to have a very similar attitude to the English of the early to mid 1800s. It took the Factories Act of 1833, and the Mines Act of 1842 to prevent young children from working in factories and going down mines. It was not any form of automation which stopped that, and it was not the concern of the factory or mine owners - who were dead against any limitation of their profit - took an Act of Parliament, and new laws.

We keep talking about limitations on workers, but why are there no limitations on the corporate world? Why do we always assume that if the cost of production goes up due to necessary things like a living wage - the cost of goods must go up accordingly? The adulation of business and wealth seems like a religion in the USA - from the Reagan presidency, with its 'trickle down' economics to the current fantasies about 'job creators' (billions in an off-shore account does not create any jobs) and the benefits to society of the very wealthy buying Rolls and yachts.

Why cannot we limit the profit-taking of large corporations by introducing a progressive rate of company tax - just like we do with individuals? Like when a company finds there is more for the shareholders when it spends more on wages and equipment, cos the tax rate on the remaining profits is lower - maybe the race for higher and higher profits each year will slow down.

A country with maybe 10% of very rich people, while the rest are struggling to survive, is not a great society.

Newpublius
07-09-2017, 07:15 PM
Now that I'm finally caught up...
@IMPress Polly (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=399), here's the problem:

18652

Since the 1970s, wages have stagnated while productivity has skyrocketed. You know what's also skyrocketed? The share of the wealth held by the richest among us. Somewhere in that time period the richest Americans realized that if they depressed worker wages while demanding ever-increasing productivity, they could become richer than they ever dreamed of, because as wages stagnate and productivity rises, income rises - for them.

Let's get real, here. No major corporation is going out of business or anywhere close to it if they pay their workers the same amount relative to inflation as they did in the 1970s. It would barely make a dent in their profits. They don't have to lay off workers, or switch to automatons, or raise prices, or any other measure they take in response. They do that for one reason: to piss off customers into voting for pro-corporate politicians and $#@! with the statistics. They do it so their ever-ardent defenders can have something to point to when they say raising the minimum wage is a bad thing.

That's all this is. They are artificially creating a problem that needs to be fixed, and the fix, as always, benefits them over anyone else.

I myself now offer (also free of charge) a sure-fire idea for a profitable business that uses as its key input the talents of most of these believers in a gap between productivity and pay: Put yourself in business, as a consultant, offering to identify those locales and industries where the gap is real. You yourself don’t have to open and dirty your hands by operating the likes of restaurants, lawn-care companies, or junk-removal services. Instead, set up shop as “XYZ, Consultant, LLC.” Advertise your professional skill at identifying places in the economy where existing firms are currently earning excess profits off of workers who are underpaid. You would, in this way, do little more than what you currently do – namely, insist, based upon your theory-informed reading of the data, that the productivity/wage gap is real and relevant throughout the economy.

To make money, you’d charge entrepreneurs and companies – big, small, and middlin’ – a fee. Various models for such fees are possible. I don’t know which specific model would work best for you, or which one would eventually be discovered by the competitive market process to be the fee model that is optimal. The simplest model is to charge by the hour. You should not think this model to be far-fetched because you already obviously believe that other people – especially legislators, voters, pundits, and your students and readers – should believe your claims about a gap between productivity and wages. If these other people should believe your claims upon encountering the brilliance of your argument and the compelling nature of the data that you show to them, then there is every reason to suppose that executives at McDonald’s, Wal-Mart, and Padre Julio’s Lawn & Garden Service will believe your claims. These business people have positive powerful incentives to pay careful attention to you and to reward you monetarily for helping them in their incessant quests to greedily earn more and more profits.

But, as I say, fee models other than by-the-hour are possible. It will pay you to hire a business consultant who is expert in advising on such matters.

Now go forth! You have no excuse. If you are correct, the billionaire class and other capitalist exploiters will beat a path to your office door and shower you with big bucks for informing them of profit opportunities that they have yet to notice with sufficient clarity or certainty.

Adapted from CafeHayek.com

Green Arrow
07-09-2017, 07:19 PM
I myself now offer (also free of charge) a sure-fire idea for a profitable business that uses as its key input the talents of most of these monopsony-power believers: Put yourself in business, as a consultant, offering to identify those locales and industries where monopsony is real. You yourself don’t have to open and dirty your hands by operating the likes of restaurants, lawn-care companies, or junk-removal services. Instead, set up shop as “XYZ, Consultant, LLC.” Advertise your professional skill at identifying places in the economy where existing firms are currently earning excess profits off of workers who are underpaid. You would, in this way, do little more than what you currently do – namely, insist, based upon your theory-informed reading of the data, that monopsony power is real and relevant throughout the economy.

To make money, you’d charge entrepreneurs and companies – big, small, and middlin’ – a fee. Various models for such fees are possible. I don’t know which specific model would work best for you, or which one would eventually be discovered by the competitive market process to be the fee model that is optimal. The simplest model is to charge by the hour. You should not think this model to be far-fetched because you already obviously believe that other people – especially legislators, voters, pundits, and your students and readers – should believe your claims about a gap between productivity and wages. If these other people should believe your claims upon encountering the brilliance of your argument and the compelling nature of the data that you show to them, then there is every reason to suppose that executives at McDonald’s, Wal-Mart, and Padre Julio’s Lawn & Garden Service will believe your claims. These business people have positive powerful incentives to pay careful attention to you and to reward you monetarily for helping them in their incessant quests to greedily earn more and more profits.

But, as I say, fee models other than by-the-hour are possible. It will pay you to hire a business consultant who is expert in advising on such matters.

Now go forth! You have no excuse. If you are correct, the billionaire class and other capitalist exploiters will beat a path to your office door and shower you with big bucks for informing them of profit opportunities that they have yet to notice with sufficient clarity or certainty.

Are you done?

Newpublius
07-09-2017, 07:36 PM
"Why cannot we limit the profit-taking of large corporations by introducing a progressive rate of company tax - just like we do with individuals? Like when a company finds there is more for the shareholders when it spends more on wages and equipment, cos the tax rate on the remaining profits is lower - maybe the race for higher and higher profits each year will slow down."

First off it simply is untrue that shareholders are better off when operating expenses increase. K deed the increased operating expenses reduce incone tax but the remainder is still generally less.

Taxes tax, its what they do. A tax on anything reduces the marginal benefit/increases the marginal cost of any behavior. There's no exception to this. If you doubt this one needs to ask why carbon taxes would reduce carbon emissions.

Profits are signals, people vote their dollars and those dollar votes go to highly desired goods and services. Its the market sending the decentralized decision, to allocate resources in profitable, desirable ways. Dampen that signal and society will suffer the consequences of dampening that signal.

Newpublius
07-09-2017, 07:39 PM
Are you done?

Come to think of it, no.

To suggest that employees aren't paid commemsurate with their productivity is an absurdity. Tens of millions of employees quit their jobs to get better paying jobs. We can see this in the voluntary quits rate in the BLS reports. As the terms of employment decrease, ie pay decreases for instance, the turnover rate increases. Walmart's turnover rate is on the order of 30% per year.

Employers should generally minimize costs/inputs, all inputs, that includes labor. When I paid $25/hr it was because I had to, not because I wouldn't have preferred to pay less. I absolutely would have so preferred.

This entire meme is an absurdity. I can see why it has traction. People want to say, "I get paid $X per hour but I am really worth more."

Self-worth itself will invariably lead to such opinions, but if you're not getting paid more you have to ask why people aren't willing to do so. Its not a conspiracy.

Green Arrow
07-09-2017, 07:46 PM
Come to think of it, no.

To suggest that employees aren't paid commemsurate with their productivity is an absurdity. Tens of millions of employees quit their jobs to get better paying jobs. We can see this in the voluntary quits rate in the BLS reports. As the terms of employment decrease, ie pay decreases for instance, the turnover rate increases. Walmart's turnover rate is on the order of 30% per year.

Good, you posted something that could be responded to appropriately. Now we can get somewhere.

It's a fact, as I've demonstrated from the BLS, that wages have stagnated while productivity has increased. If you think that's wrong, present facts that counter it.

Chris
07-09-2017, 08:02 PM
As is that study. It's not been peer reviewed. Like everything in life, there's going to be winners and losers. I've yet to hear of mass layoffs in lieu of automation in the service industry too, although the naysayers have been predicting that as well.

American workers have adjusted to changes for centuries. They will now too.

On a related note, why are you Trumpers so damn cynical?


Study vs op ed, hmmm, I'll take the study.


I've yet to hear of mass layoffs in lieu of automation in the service industry too, although the naysayers have been predicting that as well.

Baloney, no one ever predicted that canard. What's predicted by most studies is maybe a 1-3% reduction and not in existing jobs but future jobs.


Trumpster? LOL, I dislike Trump and have argued against many of his policies. Nice try at deflection though.

Newpublius
07-09-2017, 08:03 PM
Good, you posted something that could be responded to appropriately. Now we can get somewhere.

It's a fact, as I've demonstrated from the BLS, that wages have stagnated while productivity has increased. If you think that's wrong, present facts that counter it.

Politically weaponizing data, the bottom line is that workers will get bid up to their marginal product of labor. There's no OPEC of American employers colluding to drive wages down.

People will pay $5 for a $10 bill all day long and if such is the case, one needs to explain why $6 isn't being paid, or $7 and so on. I would suggest the productivity measure is off. Employers frankly just don't care what the 'measure' is at all.

Indeed, what seems more likely is that productivity enhancements simply aren't being enjoyed by the enployer at all. Taxes will do that.

Peter1469
07-09-2017, 08:04 PM
Untrue. 50% of workers under 25 earn minimum wage. That's hardly "teenagers". Only 11% of teenagers make minimum wage or less.

http://www.epi.org/publication/wage-workers-older-88-percent-workers-benefit/


Bull shit.

I made minimum wage at McDonalds for 6 months.

If you are 25 and are making the minimum wage, you need to think about what you did to make yourself worthless. (In general. Some will take low paying jobs for specific reasons.)

Peter1469
07-09-2017, 08:06 PM
I'm talking about the late 1800s and early 1900s.
ok

Chris
07-09-2017, 08:07 PM
Not to me, to the discussion at hand.

As I said already. It did not reduce child labor to the extent that the other factors I mentioned, and you downplayed, did.

No, it didn't. It came right in the thick of it. 28 states by 1899 had passed legislation limiting or outright banning child labor, and in ten years the child labor rate dropped more than 10%. As more states and, eventually, the federal government joined the movement and passed more legislation limiting and/or banning it, it dropped more than 20% in the thirty years that followed. Much as you want to ignore the fact that government did something good to solve the problem, the fact still remains.

Correct. I never claimed anyone did.

Via Merriam-Webster: one who is unimaginative or who unduly emphasizes minutiae in the presentation or use of knowledge

No, it doesn't.

Conditions of the day.


Your habit of breathing and eating is similar to Marx's. You Marxist, you.



I'm beginning to understand irrelevant. You mean what disagrees with you.

Legislation came in the 1900s. The Industrial Revolution started in the late 1700s.

Ignoring the rest as not very meaningful.


Oh and btw, I looked up your children fenced in a Massachusetts glass factory. It turns out you left out the part of the families, unable to care for them, gave them to the factories. Basically they were sold as slaves. But I guess that point was irrelevant because it goes to what I've been arguing, the facotries didn't force anyone, their families did.

Kalkin
07-09-2017, 08:08 PM
I myself now offer (also free of charge) a sure-fire idea for a profitable business that uses as its key input the talents of most of these believers in a gap between productivity and pay: Put yourself in business, as a consultant, offering to identify those locales and industries where the gap is real. You yourself don’t have to open and dirty your hands by operating the likes of restaurants, lawn-care companies, or junk-removal services. Instead, set up shop as “XYZ, Consultant, LLC.” Advertise your professional skill at identifying places in the economy where existing firms are currently earning excess profits off of workers who are underpaid. You would, in this way, do little more than what you currently do – namely, insist, based upon your theory-informed reading of the data, that the productivity/wage gap is real and relevant throughout the economy.

To make money, you’d charge entrepreneurs and companies – big, small, and middlin’ – a fee. Various models for such fees are possible. I don’t know which specific model would work best for you, or which one would eventually be discovered by the competitive market process to be the fee model that is optimal. The simplest model is to charge by the hour. You should not think this model to be far-fetched because you already obviously believe that other people – especially legislators, voters, pundits, and your students and readers – should believe your claims about a gap between productivity and wages. If these other people should believe your claims upon encountering the brilliance of your argument and the compelling nature of the data that you show to them, then there is every reason to suppose that executives at McDonald’s, Wal-Mart, and Padre Julio’s Lawn & Garden Service will believe your claims. These business people have positive powerful incentives to pay careful attention to you and to reward you monetarily for helping them in their incessant quests to greedily earn more and more profits.

But, as I say, fee models other than by-the-hour are possible. It will pay you to hire a business consultant who is expert in advising on such matters.

Now go forth! You have no excuse. If you are correct, the billionaire class and other capitalist exploiters will beat a path to your office door and shower you with big bucks for informing them of profit opportunities that they have yet to notice with sufficient clarity or certainty.

Adapted from CafeHayek.com
Ouch, that had to leave a mark. Nothing is quite like reality raining on the fantasy parade.

Chris
07-09-2017, 08:10 PM
We have been learning about Victorian England in class, and I have been reading books by people like Charles Dickens, and I'm sorry to say that most people here seem to have a very similar attitude to the English of the early to mid 1800s. It took the Factories Act of 1833, and the Mines Act of 1842 to prevent young children from working in factories and going down mines. It was not any form of automation which stopped that, and it was not the concern of the factory or mine owners - who were dead against any limitation of their profit - took an Act of Parliament, and new laws.

We keep talking about limitations on workers, but why are there no limitations on the corporate world? Why do we always assume that if the cost of production goes up due to necessary things like a living wage - the cost of goods must go up accordingly? The adulation of business and wealth seems like a religion in the USA - from the Reagan presidency, with its 'trickle down' economics to the current fantasies about 'job creators' (billions in an off-shore account does not create any jobs) and the benefits to society of the very wealthy buying Rolls and yachts.

Why cannot we limit the profit-taking of large corporations by introducing a progressive rate of company tax - just like we do with individuals? Like when a company finds there is more for the shareholders when it spends more on wages and equipment, cos the tax rate on the remaining profits is lower - maybe the race for higher and higher profits each year will slow down.

A country with maybe 10% of very rich people, while the rest are struggling to survive, is not a great society.

Right, except that history came after automation and the need to skilled adult workers to run the machines, had made child labor obsolete. As Eth said above, lawmakers would never have made such laws otherwise.

Chris
07-09-2017, 08:15 PM
I myself now offer (also free of charge) a sure-fire idea for a profitable business that uses as its key input the talents of most of these believers in a gap between productivity and pay: Put yourself in business, as a consultant, offering to identify those locales and industries where the gap is real. You yourself don’t have to open and dirty your hands by operating the likes of restaurants, lawn-care companies, or junk-removal services. Instead, set up shop as “XYZ, Consultant, LLC.” Advertise your professional skill at identifying places in the economy where existing firms are currently earning excess profits off of workers who are underpaid. You would, in this way, do little more than what you currently do – namely, insist, based upon your theory-informed reading of the data, that the productivity/wage gap is real and relevant throughout the economy.

To make money, you’d charge entrepreneurs and companies – big, small, and middlin’ – a fee. Various models for such fees are possible. I don’t know which specific model would work best for you, or which one would eventually be discovered by the competitive market process to be the fee model that is optimal. The simplest model is to charge by the hour. You should not think this model to be far-fetched because you already obviously believe that other people – especially legislators, voters, pundits, and your students and readers – should believe your claims about a gap between productivity and wages. If these other people should believe your claims upon encountering the brilliance of your argument and the compelling nature of the data that you show to them, then there is every reason to suppose that executives at McDonald’s, Wal-Mart, and Padre Julio’s Lawn & Garden Service will believe your claims. These business people have positive powerful incentives to pay careful attention to you and to reward you monetarily for helping them in their incessant quests to greedily earn more and more profits.

But, as I say, fee models other than by-the-hour are possible. It will pay you to hire a business consultant who is expert in advising on such matters.

Now go forth! You have no excuse. If you are correct, the billionaire class and other capitalist exploiters will beat a path to your office door and shower you with big bucks for informing them of profit opportunities that they have yet to notice with sufficient clarity or certainty.

Adapted from CafeHayek.com


What with Walmart's ~3% profit margin I'm sure they'd be dying to hire these expert in finding for them excessive profits.

Newpublius
07-09-2017, 08:18 PM
What with Walmart's ~3% profit margin I'm sure they'd be dying to hire these expert in finding for them excessive profits.

And that net margin still hasn't been distributed as a dividend to a shareholder yet which then gets taxed AGAIN or if Walmart retains those earnings, there's still the contribution to capital gain which gets taxed if the shareholder recognizes a gain on sale.

Fact, when you spend a $1 at Walmart, the governments see a larger percentage of that dollar than Walmart shareholders.

William
07-09-2017, 08:24 PM
"Why cannot we limit the profit-taking of large corporations by introducing a progressive rate of company tax - just like we do with individuals? Like when a company finds there is more for the shareholders when it spends more on wages and equipment, cos the tax rate on the remaining profits is lower - maybe the race for higher and higher profits each year will slow down."

First off it simply is untrue that shareholders are better off when operating expenses increase. K deed the increased operating expenses reduce incone tax but the remainder is still generally less.

Taxes tax, its what they do. A tax on anything reduces the marginal benefit/increases the marginal cost of any behavior. There's no exception to this. If you doubt this one needs to ask why carbon taxes would reduce carbon emissions.

Profits are signals, people vote their dollars and those dollar votes go to highly desired goods and services. Its the market sending the decentralized decision, to allocate resources in profitable, desirable ways. Dampen that signal and society will suffer the consequences of dampening that signal.

I understand what you are saying, but you are missing the point I am trying to make.

Sure the profits will be less, but the lesser amount of tax paid will offset that to some extent, and the society gains a better paid, less violent, and more happy population. The present system places the shareholders first in importance - a society is more than shareholders. That you think first of the shareholders, and there is a discussion against minimum wages, is part of the reason why I think modern America is close to early Victorian England in its general attitudes.

Green Arrow
07-09-2017, 08:27 PM
I'm beginning to understand irrelevant. You mean what disagrees with you.
Damn, you caught me. Not only am I a Marxist, I'm also deceitful.

Legislation came in the 1900s. The Industrial Revolution started in the late 1700s.
No, it didn't. 28 states by 1899, Chris. Some of that came as early as the 1830s. Stop reaching.

Oh and btw, I looked up your children fenced in a Massachusetts glass factory. It turns out you left out the part of the families, unable to care for them, gave them to the factories. Basically they were sold as slaves. But I guess that point was irrelevant because it goes to what I've been arguing, the facotries didn't force anyone, their families did.
You're right. Slave owners weren't forced to enslave blacks, they were just as innocent as the slaves themselves. The real villains were the evil families that couldn't afford the kids.

Huh, I wonder why they couldn't...

Chris
07-09-2017, 08:32 PM
Damn, you caught me. Not only am I a Marxist, I'm also deceitful.

No, it didn't. 28 states by 1899, Chris. Some of that came as early as the 1830s. Stop reaching.

You're right. Slave owners weren't forced to enslave blacks, they were just as innocent as the slaves themselves. The real villains were the evil families that couldn't afford the kids.

Huh, I wonder why they couldn't...


OK, I was looking at feeral child labor law.


Slave owners bought slave. They weren't given them by the slaves' parents.

I wouldn't call such families villians. As someone said much earlier they were victims of circumstance, one might even say life. Not sure why people always need skapegoats to blame. I guess those families could have left their kids starve.

Chris
07-09-2017, 08:34 PM
I understand what you are saying, but you are missing the point I am trying to make.

Sure the profits will be less, but the lesser amount of tax paid will offset that to some extent, and the society gains a better paid, less violent, and more happy population. The present system places the shareholders first in importance - a society is more than shareholders. That you think first of the shareholders, and there is a discussion against minimum wages, is part of the reason why I think modern America is close to early Victorian England in its general attitudes.

Welfare keeps people in poverty, it doesn't get them out.

Raising min wages helps a select few, if their hours aren't cut, all the while harming others.

Newpublius
07-09-2017, 08:42 PM
I understand what you are saying, but you are missing the point I am trying to make.

Sure the profits will be less, but the lesser amount of tax paid will offset that to some extent, and the society gains a better paid, less violent, and more happy population. The present system places the shareholders first in importance - a society is more than shareholders. That you think first of the shareholders, and there is a discussion against minimum wages, is part of the reason why I think modern America is close to early Victorian England in its general attitudes.

The shareholders are first in importance, but last in line. They are NOT better paid, overall the price floor will do what price floors do. Society will have a deadweight loss, more violent and more reliant on welfare.

William
07-09-2017, 08:42 PM
Right, except that history came after automation and the need to skilled adult workers to run the machines, had made child labor obsolete. As Eth said above, lawmakers would never have made such laws otherwise.

Cotton mills were one of the earliest forms of automation, and child workers were used cos of this automation, and continued to be until the Factory Act. It was automation in that instance which made child workers profitable for the industrialists.


Child workers in the mills did the most unskilled work. This was often the most boring, repetitive and tiring work. A child could spend all day tying ends of cotton or cleaning fluff from the machines. Children as young as five were put to work in some mills. The welfare of children in factories and workshops depended to a large extent on the employer or mill owner.

A Mr Henry Houldsworth who owned mills in the city of Glasgow reported at the time there were:

" 10,000 persons employed in the cotton factories of the district, excluding New Lanark." He had a table of numbers and ages in support of his statement from which it appeared that 41 mills employed 3,146 males and 6,854 females, largely children of course.
http://newlanark.org/learningzone/clitp-jobsforchildren.php

It was also very dangerous work cos it required small people who could dart in and out of moving machinery to oil it, and to retrieve bits of cotton. Many children were killed or disabled in accidents.

Newpublius
07-09-2017, 08:47 PM
Cotton mills were one of the earliest forms of automation, and child workers were used cos of this automation, and continued to be until the Factory Act. It was automation in that instance which made child workers profitable for the industrialists.


http://newlanark.org/learningzone/clitp-jobsforchildren.php

It was also very dangerous work cos it required small people who could dart in and out of moving machinery to oil it, and to retrieve bits of cotton. Many children were killed or disabled in accidents.

Yes, indeed, sad. You know DDT was problematic, but you know what else is problematic? Having insects eat your food. DDT mania likely cost millioks of people their lives.

Point of course is.....why chikd labor? How could people be so cruel? Necessity demands it....



https://youtu.be/bqgVYqg05xU

William
07-09-2017, 08:51 PM
Welfare keeps people in poverty, it doesn't get them out.

Raising min wages helps a select few, if their hours aren't cut, all the while harming others.

I don't see how raising the national minimum wage only helps a select few. Surely raising the minimum income of everyone can only make that society a better place to live?

How can it harm anyone except the corporate sector?:huh:

Newpublius
07-09-2017, 08:55 PM
I don't see how raising the national minimum wage only helps a select few. Surely raising the minimum income of everyone can only make that society a better place to live?

How can it harm anyone except the corporate sector?:huh:

See a price floor's deadweight loss and you will see that the deadweight loss will be shared between supply (in this case the workers) and demand (in this case the employers. That burden will be shared based on the slopes of the lines (in econkmic jargonx the relwtive elasticity of supply and demand)

William
07-09-2017, 08:57 PM
Yes, indeed, sad. You know DDT was problematic, but you know what else is problematic? Having insects eat your food. DDT mania likely cost millioks of people their lives.

Point of course is.....why chikd labor? How could people be so cruel? Necessity demands it....



Necessity did not demand child labour - corporate profits demanded that.

And your link is an endless loop - please test links before your post them.

William
07-09-2017, 08:59 PM
See a price floor's deadweight loss and you will see that the deadweight loss will be shared between supply (in this case the workers) and demand (in this case the employers. That burden will be shared based on the slopes of the lines (in econkmic jargonx the relwtive elasticity of supply and demand)

Can I have that without jargon? I'm in 4th year high school! :grin:

katzgar
07-09-2017, 09:00 PM
I don't see how raising the national minimum wage only helps a select few. Surely raising the minimum income of everyone can only make that society a better place to live?
How can it harm anyone except the corporate sector?:huh:

it doesnt just help a select few. the added money circulates through the economy. the disposable income is what our economy is all about.

Newpublius
07-09-2017, 09:00 PM
Necessity did not demand child labour - corporate profits demanded that.

And your link is an endless loop - please test links before your post them.

Link continues to work for me. The second parents could afford not to have children work, that's exactly what happened.

Ethereal
07-09-2017, 09:03 PM
Can you demonstrate that?

Just look at third world countries that rely heavily upon such labor. Do you think government laws prohibiting the practice would make a significant difference if material conditions did not permit it? And do you think banning "child labor" (however we're defining that) in a country like that would actually be good for the population? Some studies seem to indicate that shutting down child labor in developing countries causes great harm, especially to the children who lost the jobs. That isn't to say those jobs are wonderful or humane, because they usually are not, but compared to all the realistic alternatives available to a child with no real skills, it's a dreamland. Many children who lose factory jobs in the third world wind up completely destitute as a result, along any family members they may have been supporting with their wages.


Because child labor declined from around 33% in 1880 to 26% in 1900 (keep in mind this is just counting ages 10-15 and only cites official figures, not accounting for "under the table" child labor) and then to around 6% by 1930, which excellently coincides with legislation in 28 states (as of 1899) and eventually the whole country (1928) to limit and then ban the practice altogether.

It also coincides with the industrial revolution.


And by the way...the Industrial Revolution did not cause "material prosperity" for the vast majority of workers, only for company owners and administrators. The average worker was doing worse than when we had an agrarian economy.

It kind of did though. Because while I agree that factory conditions that prevailed during the industrial revolution, especially in densely populated urban areas, were generally pretty awful, the "industrial revolution" encompasses more than just people working in manufacturing plants under harsh conditions. It essentially includes all the technological spin-off and development of that era. Basically, it was science that made child labor less necessary than it was before. Massive increases in productivity through machinery, automation, telecommunications, travel, etc. tend to explain why that happened.

William
07-09-2017, 09:04 PM
Gee, Exxon demands profits, I'm still not sending my kids down to the refinery.

Lol, I'm sure you have better reasons for not sending your little kids to work in the refinery - but the law, as well as community standards, forbids that. :wink:

William
07-09-2017, 09:06 PM
Link continues to work for me. The second parents could afford not to have children work, that's exactly what happened.

Doesn't for me, and ties the page up - maybe it's a geographic issue.

Newpublius
07-09-2017, 09:10 PM
"Because while I agree that factory conditions that prevailed during the industrial revolution, especially in densely populated urban areas, were generally pretty awful, the "industrial revolution" encompasses more than just people working in manufacturing plants under harsh conditions."

And its important to note. Compared with today because overall it was a major improvement over the pre-industrial alternative which was the kids worked, just they made even less.

Ethereal
07-09-2017, 09:12 PM
I didn't say all of them. And very few Americans (relatively) today live in squalor compared to the Industrial Revolution, and the definition of "squalor" has different meaning today than it would have back then. Although there certainly are Americans today that live in comparable status of squalor.
Well, Pete's original comment didn't limit it to just the industrial revolution. When America had an agrarian economy, there were basically no minimum wage laws or labor laws. Very little taxes, regulations, and bureaucracy. But I would argue that things were not as bad as people would like to believe. Naturally, farming was not an easy life, but it got the job done and promoted stronger communities. And because farming was so important, many common people did tend to have an ownership interest in some land.

katzgar
07-09-2017, 09:15 PM
Well, Pete's original comment didn't limit it to just the industrial revolution. When America had an agrarian economy, there were basically no minimum wage laws or labor laws. Very little taxes, regulations, and bureaucracy. But I would argue that things were not as bad as people would like to believe. Naturally, farming was not an easy life, but it got the job done and promoted stronger communities. And because farming was so important, many common people did tend to have an ownership interest in some land.

in 1900 the average male lifespan was 47 so yes life sucked.

Newpublius
07-09-2017, 09:17 PM
Well, Pete's original comment didn't limit it to just the industrial revolution. When America had an agrarian economy, there were basically no minimum wage laws or labor laws. Very little taxes, regulations, and bureaucracy. But I would argue that things were not as bad as people would like to believe. Naturally, farming was not an easy life, but it got the job done and promoted stronger communities. And because farming was so important, many common people did tend to have an ownership interest in some land.

Life expectancy was 40. Look at George Washington was about as wealthy as people got. Now, forget the cherry tree, read about his teeth.

Lousy team means bad....but the etymology is a bit different. Full of lice and yes, people were filled with lice and the wigs were to.

Sanitation? Forget it....

William
07-09-2017, 09:17 PM
Just look at third world countries that rely heavily upon such labor. Do you think government laws prohibiting the practice would make a significant difference if material conditions did not permit it? And do you think banning "child labor" (however we're defining that) in a country like that would actually be good for the population? Some studies seem to indicate that shutting down child labor in developing countries causes great harm, especially to the children who lost the jobs. That isn't to say those jobs are wonderful or humane, because they usually are not, but compared to all the realistic alternatives available to a child with no real skills, it's a dreamland. Many children who lose factory jobs in the third world wind up completely destitute as a result, along any family members they may have been supporting with their wage



All that is true, but don't you think laws that dictate children should go to school, and not be working in manufacturing, could put pressure on those societies to change what they see as acceptable?

All those third world societies have filthy rich people who got so by shameless exploitation of the poor and destitute. Part of the reason countries are like that is cos of the thinking that a man must have the right to make money any way he can - the other part is manufacturers from wealthy countries - like Nike - who exploit the conditions in those countries to make obscene profits. As long as we think cheap running shoes are worth all that misery, nothing will change.

Ethereal
07-09-2017, 09:18 PM
The adulation of business and wealth seems like a religion in the USA - from the Reagan presidency, with its 'trickle down' economics to the current fantasies about 'job creators' (billions in an off-shore account does not create any jobs) and the benefits to society of the very wealthy buying Rolls and yachts.

Our "adulation" of business started long before Reagan. America's founding fathers revolted against the British empire in large part due to restrictions on commerce and business.

Ethereal
07-09-2017, 09:30 PM
Lol, I'm sure you have better reasons for not sending your little kids to work in the refinery - but the law, as well as community standards, forbids that. :wink:
The basic reason is that we're wealthy. If we lived in poverty and the best option available to us was having a child work at a factory, then that is probably what we would do. Not only for our own sake, but the child's sake as well. Or do you think a child working in a factory in Sri Lanka will be happy to lose their job? Do you think they and their family would thank you for your help? Or would they curse you for it?

Ethereal
07-09-2017, 09:31 PM
in 1900 the average male lifespan was 47 so yes life sucked.
Yea. If only the government had made a law changing their life expectancy from forty-seven to eighty, then things would have been awesome.

Ravens Fan
07-09-2017, 09:33 PM
Read his post again, total zero. lol

Mister D Do not change members' names.

Ethereal
07-09-2017, 09:35 PM
All that is true, but don't you think laws that dictate children should go to school, and not be working in manufacturing, could put pressure on those societies to change what they see as acceptable?

Oh, it will definitely put pressure on that society. I am arguing that such pressure would be harmful generally speaking.


All those third world societies have filthy rich people who got so by shameless exploitation of the poor and destitute. Part of the reason countries are like that is cos of the thinking that a man must have the right to make money any way he can - the other part is manufacturers from wealthy countries - like Nike - who exploit the conditions in those countries to make obscene profits. As long as we think cheap running shoes are worth all that misery, nothing will change.

Actually, countries like India and China were impoverished because they had too much restriction on business and commerce. The reason why their economies are doing much better than they did in the past is because they liberalized their economies to a certain extent, although some significant restrictions still remain.

Cletus
07-10-2017, 01:32 AM
There should be no minimum wage. Wages should be a private contract between employer and employee. If an employee or potential employee feels he is being paid less than he deserves, he can look elsewhere for employment.

An employee's value to a company is only what the employer thinks it is. The State should have no say in determining that.

Chris
07-10-2017, 08:21 AM
There should be no minimum wage. Wages should be a private contract between employer and employee. If an employee or potential employee feels he is being paid less than he deserves, he can look elsewhere for employment.

An employee's value to a company is only what the employer thinks it is. The State should have no say in determining that.

Agree, but it's also what the employee thinks he's worth. If the two can't come to mutually agreeable terms, so be it, they can each look elsewhere.

Chris
07-10-2017, 08:34 AM
Cotton mills were one of the earliest forms of automation, and child workers were used cos of this automation, and continued to be until the Factory Act. It was automation in that instance which made child workers profitable for the industrialists.


http://newlanark.org/learningzone/clitp-jobsforchildren.php

It was also very dangerous work cos it required small people who could dart in and out of moving machinery to oil it, and to retrieve bits of cotton. Many children were killed or disabled in accidents.


Unless you can document that, I'll stick with the general rule that automation replaces workers including children with workers skilled enough to run the machines. The source you cite seems to me to be about pre-automation cotton mills.

You have to realize that automation was gradual. I'm seeing where by the mid 19th century children had been replaced. Hell, now most workers are gone and the mills fully automated.

The question here isn't whether children worked in factories under horrendous conditions, but what pushed them out of the factories. My contention is automation pushed them out long before reform laws did.

Chris
07-10-2017, 08:39 AM
I don't see how raising the national minimum wage only helps a select few. Surely raising the minimum income of everyone can only make that society a better place to live?

How can it harm anyone except the corporate sector?:huh:

Because only a select few make the current min wage, so only a few get paid more when it's raised. OK, I probably shouldn't say "select" but it is few. Min income zis not raised for everyone.

Would it be nice to raise the income of everyone $1, yes, $10, yes, $100, sure, maybe, why not $100000? --Because how do you pay for it? Even raising it a few dollows requires businesses to adjust: reduce hours worked, hire fewer people, raise prices and possibly lose customers--oh, wait, if they go out of business because of it, all the employees will have lost, as well as customers.

Chris
07-10-2017, 08:48 AM
Necessity did not demand child labour - corporate profits demanded that.

And your link is an endless loop - please test links before your post them.


Explain how profits demand child labor. I desire a lot of profit but I don't hear anyone banging on my door ready to be oppressed by me. So explain how exactly that works because I'd like to get rich quick.

Chris
07-10-2017, 08:50 AM
it doesnt just help a select few. the added money circulates through the economy. the disposable income is what our economy is all about.

Look it up, katz, those at or under min wage make up perhaps 2-3% of the workforce, and many of them are exempt.

Circulates? You mean is redistributed. That generates no wealth. Or are you a believer in the Keynesian myth of the multiplier factor?

Chris
07-10-2017, 08:54 AM
Can you demonstrate that? Because child labor declined from around 33% in 1880 to 26% in 1900 (keep in mind this is just counting ages 10-15 and only cites official figures, not accounting for "under the table" child labor) and then to around 6% by 1930, which excellently coincides with legislation in 28 states (as of 1899) and eventually the whole country (1928) to limit and then ban the practice altogether.

And by the way...the Industrial Revolution did not cause "material prosperity" for the vast majority of workers, only for company owners and administrators. The average worker was doing worse than when we had an agrarian economy.


The aggregate wealth, health and well-being of everyone skyrocketed, except those who did not participate:

https://i.snag.gy/UKrTiQ.jpg

See Gregory Clark's A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World.

William
07-10-2017, 10:44 AM
Explain how profits demand child labor. I desire a lot of profit but I don't hear anyone banging on my door ready to be oppressed by me. So explain how exactly that works because I'd like to get rich quick.

Sorry Chris, but if you are just going to be sarcastic, I'm not interested in discussing this with you.

My point was that the factory owners exploited cheap child labour to maximise profits, and also, that the mechanised spinning jenny was an early form of automation.

Chris
07-10-2017, 10:44 AM
William, this breakdown from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is informative on the "select" few earning at or below min wage:


Age. Minimum wage workers tend to be young. Although workers under age 25 represented only about one-fifth of hourly paid workers, they made up about half of those paid the federal minimum wage or less. Among employed teenagers (ages 16 to 19) paid by the hour, about 10 percent earned the minimum wage or less, compared with about 2 percent of workers age 25 and older. (See tables 1 and 7.)

Gender. Among workers who were paid hourly rates in 2016, about 3 percent of women and about 2 percent of men had wages at or below the prevailing federal minimum. (See table 1.)

Race and Hispanic or Latino ethnicity. The percentage of hourly paid workers with wages at or below the federal minimum differed little among the major race and ethnicity groups. About 3 percent of White and Black workers earned the federal minimum wage or less. Among Asian and Hispanic workers, the percentage was about 2 percent. (See table 1.)

Education. Among hourly paid workers age 16 and older, about 5 percent of those without a high school diploma earned the federal minimum wage or less, compared with about 3 percent of those who had a high school diploma (with no college), 3 percent of those with some college or an associate degree, and about 2 percent of college graduates. (See table 6.)

Marital status. Of those paid an hourly wage, never-married workers, who tend to be young, were more likely (5 percent) than married workers (1 percent) to earn the federal minimum wage or less. (See table 8.)

Full- and part-time status. About 6 percent of part-time workers (persons who usually work fewer than 35 hours per week) were paid the federal minimum wage or less, compared with about 2 percent of full-time workers. (See table 1.)

Occupation. Among major occupational groups, the highest percentage of hourly paid workers earning at or below the federal minimum wage was in service occupations, at about 7 percent. Two-thirds of workers earning the minimum wage or less in 2016 were employed in service occupations, mostly in food preparation and serving related jobs. (See table 4.)

Industry. The industry with the highest percentage of workers earning hourly wages at or below the federal minimum wage was leisure and hospitality (about 13 percent). Three-fifths of all workers paid at or below the federal minimum wage were employed in this industry, almost entirely in restaurants and other food services. For many of these workers, tips may supplement the hourly wages received. (See table 4.)

State of residence. The states with the highest percentages of hourly paid workers earning at or below the federal minimum wage were Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina (all were at or about 5 percent). The states with the lowest percentages of hourly paid workers earning at or below the federal minimum wage were in the West: Alaska, California, and Oregon (all were 1 percent or less). It should be noted that many states have minimum wage laws establishing standards that exceed the federal minimum wage. (See tables 2 and 3.)

@ https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2016/home.htm

Chris
07-10-2017, 10:46 AM
Sorry Chris, but if you are just going to be sarcastic, I'm not interested in discussing this with you.

My point was that the factory owners exploited cheap child labour to maximise profits, and also, that the mechanised spinning jenny was an early form of automation.

Sorry, William, but I am dead serious. How does a desire for profit oppress people? Stop speaking in metaphors.

In actual fact, the first exploiters of children in the early industrial age were families, they needed the income to survive.

Kalkin
07-10-2017, 12:16 PM
in 1900 the average male lifespan was 47 so yes life sucked.

Your statement is illogical.

Kalkin
07-10-2017, 12:19 PM
There should be no minimum wage. Wages should be a private contract between employer and employee. If an employee or potential employee feels he is being paid less than he deserves, he can look elsewhere for employment.

An employee's value to a company is only what the employer thinks it is. The State should have no say in determining that.

Exactly. Adults can decide for themselves what they're willing to work for.

katzgar
07-10-2017, 12:29 PM
Your statement is illogical.


your statement is nonsensical

Kalkin
07-10-2017, 12:57 PM
your statement is nonsensical

Nice try, but a fail regardless. You equated a short life with a sucky life. Those two things have nothing to do with each other, so now you cover your mistake with a nonsensical post of your own. Up your game if you want to compete with intellectuals.

katzgar
07-10-2017, 02:01 PM
Nice try, but a fail regardless. You equated a short life with a sucky life. Those two things have nothing to do with each other, so now you cover your mistake with a nonsensical post of your own. Up your game if you want to compete with intellectuals.

You are not an intellectual, just silly

Kalkin
07-10-2017, 02:05 PM
You are not an intellectual, just silly
As if you'd recognize intellect. You've shown little to no capacity thus far.

katzgar
07-10-2017, 03:30 PM
As if you'd recognize intellect. You've shown little to no capacity thus far.

this statement is useless. "Your statement is illogical."

Kalkin
07-10-2017, 03:32 PM
this statement is useless. "Your statement is illogical."

At least you've accurately labeled your contribution. Next work on capitalization.

kilgram
07-10-2017, 03:49 PM
We have been learning about Victorian England in class, and I have been reading books by people like Charles Dickens, and I'm sorry to say that most people here seem to have a very similar attitude to the English of the early to mid 1800s. It took the Factories Act of 1833, and the Mines Act of 1842 to prevent young children from working in factories and going down mines. It was not any form of automation which stopped that, and it was not the concern of the factory or mine owners - who were dead against any limitation of their profit - took an Act of Parliament, and new laws.

We keep talking about limitations on workers, but why are there no limitations on the corporate world? Why do we always assume that if the cost of production goes up due to necessary things like a living wage - the cost of goods must go up accordingly? The adulation of business and wealth seems like a religion in the USA - from the Reagan presidency, with its 'trickle down' economics to the current fantasies about 'job creators' (billions in an off-shore account does not create any jobs) and the benefits to society of the very wealthy buying Rolls and yachts.

Why cannot we limit the profit-taking of large corporations by introducing a progressive rate of company tax - just like we do with individuals? Like when a company finds there is more for the shareholders when it spends more on wages and equipment, cos the tax rate on the remaining profits is lower - maybe the race for higher and higher profits each year will slow down.

A country with maybe 10% of very rich people, while the rest are struggling to survive, is not a great society.
Impressive post. Congrats.

Отправлено с моего Aquaris E5 через Tapatalk

katzgar
07-10-2017, 03:50 PM
At least you've accurately labeled your contribution. Next work on capitalization.


ah yes, the capitalization schill, tacky very tacky. reread my post till you understand it.

Tahuyaman
07-10-2017, 03:53 PM
I personally believe 10.00 an hour should be the federal standard for minimum wage. If you work 40 hrs a week you gross 310.00 before any deductions....

40 hrs a week times $10.00 an hour equals $310.00 prior to any deductions? What form of math is that?

Tahuyaman
07-10-2017, 03:55 PM
The consequences...Seattle tried this stuff. People quit their jobs because they were no longer eligible for free stuff.....
minimum wage at 10 dollars an hour increases tax liabilities which the worker pays for, but receives nothing in return. The more people you have working, the greater the tax collections. In many cases, a 10 dollar an hour job isn't sufficient. Take CA for example. you live in a hovel when you make 10/hour.
If a fellow goes from 8/hr to 10 or better, I too must get a rise from 20 to 25/hour.
Minimum wage is a carrot.......

In Seattle, the rise in minimum wage resulted in those minimum wage workers earning and average of $125.00 a month less as their employer cut their hours.

Chris
07-10-2017, 04:50 PM
In Seattle, the rise in minimum wage resulted in those minimum wage workers earning and average of $125.00 a month less as their employer cut their hours.

Exactly, their hours were reduced.

Tahuyaman
07-10-2017, 04:54 PM
Exactly, their hours were reduced.
So, it did the opposite of what it was supposed to do.

Chris
07-10-2017, 05:05 PM
So, it did the opposite of what it was supposed to do.

For those people it did nothing. But it also reduced the available new jobs for others. So, yes, a net loss.

But you know it's the intention that counts!

Tahuyaman
07-10-2017, 05:20 PM
For those people it did nothing. But it also reduced the available new jobs for others. So, yes, a net loss.

But you know it's the intention that counts!

Yes, intentions are the only thing which matters.

katzgar
07-10-2017, 06:09 PM
For those people it did nothing. But it also reduced the available new jobs for others. So, yes, a net loss.

But you know it's the intention that counts!

nope, what you say isnt true.

katzgar
07-10-2017, 06:11 PM
In Seattle, the rise in minimum wage resulted in those minimum wage workers earning and average of $125.00 a month less as their employer cut their hours.

more pretend reality. you are cherry picking conflicting reports but that is what you guys do

Tahuyaman
07-10-2017, 06:17 PM
more pretend reality. you are cherry picking conflicting reports but that is what you guys do

Nope. That is a fact. The average minimum wage worker in Seattle is now making $125.00 a month less.

katzgar
07-10-2017, 06:24 PM
Nope. That is a fact. The average minimum wage worker in Seattle is now making $125.00 a month less.

nope, it is a fact that you havent proven either diddly or squat. there are how ever conflicting reports so you are just cherry picking crap.

Chris
07-10-2017, 06:26 PM
nope, what you say isnt true.

I've already presented the studies. I believe you claimed there are studies that countered that and then you gave us an op-ed by a min wage advocate. Speaking of useless statements, find some facts to back your opinions.

Tahuyaman
07-10-2017, 06:27 PM
nope, it is a fact that you havent proven either diddly or squat. there are how ever conflicting reports so you are just cherry picking crap.

You're wrong, but I will defend your right to be wrong.

Chris
07-10-2017, 06:27 PM
nope, it is a fact that you havent proven either diddly or squat. there are how ever conflicting reports so you are just cherry picking crap.

Oh, wow, the prove it ploy!!

Produce the conflicting reports--not min wage advocate op eds.

Tahuyaman
07-10-2017, 06:34 PM
The University of Washington, not exactly an institution which supports conservative ideas, just released a study showing that the average minimum worker in Seattle brings home $125.00 less a month now.

Even the Seattle city council is acknowledging this. I'm sure they will come up with some solution which makes it even worse.

Chris
07-10-2017, 06:38 PM
The University of Washington, not exactly an institution which supports conservative ideas, just released a study showing that the average minimum worker in Seattle brings home $125.00 less a month now.

Even the Seattle city council is acknowledging this. I'm sure they will come up with some solution which makes it even worse.


And to counter that, iirc, katzgar threw out an op-ed by a min-wage advocate, who questioned the paper. I had already posted a write up by an economist who says all but a few papers back in the 90s fors a concensus on the detrimental effects of raising min wage.

The ball is in katzgar's court to prove it otherwise.

Kalkin
07-10-2017, 07:09 PM
ah yes, the capitalization schill, tacky very tacky. reread my post till you understand it.
You post like an uneducated person. What is a schill? Sadly, A thousand scholars could reread your post a thousand times each and it would still be incoherent, poorly punctuated, and lacking intellectual depth.

Kalkin
07-10-2017, 07:10 PM
40 hrs a week times $10.00 an hour equals $310.00 prior to any deductions? What form of math is that?

Idiot-math.

The Xl
07-10-2017, 07:13 PM
7.70 is probably a reasonable minimum wage in Missouri.

Peter1469
07-10-2017, 07:14 PM
nope, it is a fact that you havent proven either diddly or squat. there are how ever conflicting reports so you are just cherry picking crap.

dismissed as a troll

Peter1469
07-10-2017, 07:16 PM
If there is to be a minimum wage it must be local.

Tahuyaman
07-10-2017, 08:11 PM
If there is to be a minimum wage it must be local. Absolutely. This is obviously an area where the one size fits all concept is stupid.

William
07-10-2017, 08:45 PM
Sorry, William, but I am dead serious. How does a desire for profit oppress people? Stop speaking in metaphors.

In actual fact, the first exploiters of children in the early industrial age were families, they needed the income to survive.

OK, Chris, I obviously don't know enough US history to discuss this properly with you - I was talking of the situation in the late 18th - early 19th century in England - so I will give you the victory if that is what you want. And I am sure you are right about poor families exploiting their children in the early industrial age, but I don't think they intended it as exploitation - just the means of economic survival (there was no 'dole' or welfare of any sort).

But I am not talking in metaphors, and I did not claim the desire for profit itself oppresses people. I respect you too much not to be totally honest with you, so please don't use those straw man tactics with me. The mill and mine owners wanted, like every other business, to maximise their profits, and employing young children was an opportunity to do that - until it was outlawed by Acts of Parliament.

Tahuyaman
07-10-2017, 08:52 PM
Other than those who earn substantial tip income, does anyone actually work for minimum wage?

Chris
07-10-2017, 10:06 PM
OK, Chris, I obviously don't know enough US history to discuss this properly with you - I was talking of the situation in the late 18th - early 19th century in England - so I will give you the victory if that is what you want. And I am sure you are right about poor families exploiting their children in the early industrial age, but I don't think they intended it as exploitation - just the means of economic survival (there was no 'dole' or welfare of any sort).

But I am not talking in metaphors, and I did not claim the desire for profit itself oppresses people. I respect you too much not to be totally honest with you, so please don't use those straw man tactics with me. The mill and mine owners wanted, like every other business, to maximise their profits, and employing young children was an opportunity to do that - until it was outlawed by Acts of Parliament.

I'd still like to hear what you even meant.

This afternoon I did some research into cottom mills in the early industrial age. I was looking in particular for profit margin data. I read how this mill made a profit and that mill went out of business quickly, how conditions were terrible but entire towns rose up around mills. But no data on profit margins.

Maybe someone can find it since I keep hearing how cotton mill owners oppressed people for profit, again and again and again, but where's the data to support that?

Automation removed the need for child labor. The laws came later.

Discussion is an exchange, like the free market, there is no one vitor, everyone gains.

William
07-10-2017, 10:48 PM
I'd still like to hear what you even meant.

This afternoon I did some research into cottom mills in the early industrial age. I was looking in particular for profit margin data. I read how this mill made a profit and that mill went out of business quickly, how conditions were terrible but entire towns rose up around mills. But no data on profit margins.

Maybe someone can find it since I keep hearing how cotton mill owners oppressed people for profit, again and again and again, but where's the data to support that?

Automation removed the need for child labor. The laws came later.

Discussion is an exchange, like the free market, there is no one vitor, everyone gains.

OK, I will try to tell you what I have learnt. This may help.


Children had worked alongside their parents on farms for generations. This tradition continued during the Industrial Revolution as children worked with their parents in factories and mills around Britain. Hours were long, labour was hard and pay was minimal, or non-existent. Factory owners utilised every source of employment they could.

Children were sought after as they could be trained easily and paid a minimum wage. The Industrial Revolution resulted in the exploitation of children in many different industries.

Children were often forced to work in difficult conditions for long hours. They received little pay and were harshly disciplined. There were no restrictions on the age of workers or number of hours that could be worked. Exploitation, however, prompted reform and by the mid-19th century, the government took steps to reduce child labour.

The first jobs for children in the Industrial Revolution were in water-powered cotton mills. Factory owners approached poor families and orphanages and offered to house, feed and clothe children in exchange for labour. Trapped by economic circumstances, families handed over their children to work in the cotton mills.

Machinery was not fenced off and children were exposed to the moving parts. This led to a large number of injuries in the cotton mills. Children could have their hands crushed by moving machines. If their hair became tangled in the machine, their scalps could be ripped off. Some children were killed instantly when they went to sleep and fell into their machine.

Cotton mills, and later factories, exercised a regime of strict discipline and harsh punishment.

By 1788, over two-thirds of workers in textile factories were children. Some factories employed children as young as five or six. Other factories worked children as many as 16 hours a day.

As steam power was applied to factory machines, children were hired in greater numbers by factory owners. Children were the ideal employees as factory owners needed large numbers of workers for a very low cost. Factory owners preferred to employ children as they were obedient, easily trained and low cost and low maintenance. The poor treatment of children in cotton mills continued in the factories.

Children were used to carry out hazardous jobs. Children were ordered to move between machinery where adults could not fit, to fix broken machines.

Child labour was used in almost every industry during the Industrial Revolution. Children worked in gas works, nail factories, construction sites, shipyards and chimney sweeping. The use of child labour in factories revealed a social problem. Families, trapped by poverty, were forced to send their children to work in poor conditions for equally poor pay. Although children were sent to work, their pay did little to resolve the poverty crisis in Britain's working class.

From the opening of the first cotton mills, there were attempts to stop the use of child labour. Notable public figures campaigned against child labour. The majority of legislation, however, was ineffective and did not stop child labour.

In the Factory Act 1802 (UK), children were limited to working twelve-hour days. There were few positive results from this piece of legislation as children were still permitted to work in mining and other hazardous occupations.

In the Factory Act 1833 (UK), children under nine were not allowed to work. Children between the ages of nine and 13 were allowed to work only eight hours a day. Two hours of education were compulsory. The extent to which this legislation was successful is unknown. Four inspectors were appointed to patrol all of Britain's factories. This measure proved inefficient.

The Ten Hour Act 1847 (UK) limited women and children working in factories and textile mills to ten-hour days. These ten hours would be worked between six in the morning and six in the evening.

Legislation focused only on the working hours of children, not the circumstances or industries in which children worked. This issue was addressed in 1842. The Mines Act 1842 (UK) made it illegal for women or boys under the age of 13 to work underground.

Legislation created the opportunity for child labour to be phased out. As working conditions generally improved and compulsory education was implemented, child labour decreased.

http://www.skwirk.com/p-c_s-14_u-424_t-1100_c-4255/child-labour/nsw/child-labour/the-industrial-revolution/the-impact-of-the-industrial-revolution

Sorry I know it's a lot to read, but it sets out the facts much better than I can.

As you may see, it was not automation which caused child labour to end. In fact, things like the steam powered Spinning Jenny (an early form of automation) created an incentive to employ children.

That was the situation in early industrial England, but of course I agree with you that much later automation removed the need for child and cheap labour. But not in 1802, 1833 or 1847 - when those Acts became Law. And even then it took ages to become effective - but without that legislation it would not have happened at that time.

katzgar
07-11-2017, 06:48 AM
Other than those who earn substantial tip income, does anyone actually work for minimum wage?


yes

DGUtley
07-11-2017, 06:48 AM
ah yes, the capitalization schill, tacky very tacky. reread my post till you understand it.


Your statement is illogical.


your statement is nonsensical


You are not an intellectual, just silly


As if you'd recognize intellect. You've shown little to no capacity thus far.


this statement is useless. "Your statement is illogical."


At least you've accurately labeled your contribution. Next work on capitalization.

WARNING - Kalkin and katzgar please stop bickering and discuss the topic. Thank you.

katzgar
07-11-2017, 06:51 AM
I'd still like to hear what you even meant.

This afternoon I did some research into cottom mills in the early industrial age. I was looking in particular for profit margin data. I read how this mill made a profit and that mill went out of business quickly, how conditions were terrible but entire towns rose up around mills. But no data on profit margins.

Maybe someone can find it since I keep hearing how cotton mill owners oppressed people for profit, again and again and again, but where's the data to support that?

Automation removed the need for child labor. The laws came later.

Discussion is an exchange, like the free market, there is no one vitor, everyone gains.

nope, you got it wrong again. this is the third time I have tried to get through to you so I am not optimistic. 2.9 children were unemployed when child labor was banned....very simple.

Chris
07-11-2017, 08:22 AM
OK, I will try to tell you what I have learnt. This may help.

http://www.skwirk.com/p-c_s-14_u-424_t-1100_c-4255/child-labour/nsw/child-labour/the-industrial-revolution/the-impact-of-the-industrial-revolution

Sorry I know it's a lot to read, but it sets out the facts much better than I can.

As you may see, it was not automation which caused child labour to end. In fact, things like the steam powered Spinning Jenny (an early form of automation) created an incentive to employ children.

That was the situation in early industrial England, but of course I agree with you that much later automation removed the need for child and cheap labour. But not in 1802, 1833 or 1847 - when those Acts became Law. And even then it took ages to become effective - but without that legislation it would not have happened at that time.


Problem is you're still focused on conditions when we've all agreed conditions were terrible. At least your source agrees that "Children had worked alongside their parents on farms for generations. This tradition continued during the Industrial Revolution as children worked with their parents in factories and mills around Britain." That's just the way things were back then, as families moved from country to city, why would you expect that tradition to stop.

I read "The Industrial Revolution resulted in the exploitation of children in many different industries" and recall reading in several places how the Industrial Revolution exploited automation. Devoid cof the emotional appeal of children, we see what the word really means. Basically, to make use of.

But in Marxist Theory it becomes something therrible, something oppressive. OK, OK, you never read Marx, but you've read people who have and have had teachers who have: Marxist Exploitation Theory is pervasive in modern liberal thought. But you have to realize it imposes a world view on plain facts. It's intent is to make capitalism look bad.

"it was not automation which caused child labour to end" according to a write up on child labor. You site the Factory Act 1802 and The Ten Hour Act 1847. However, automation started way before that and not just children but adults were being replaced, in this history, by a donkey:


In 1738 Lewis Paul and John Wyatt of Birmingham patented the Roller Spinning machine and the flyer-and-bobbin system, for drawing cotton to a more even thickness, using two sets of rollers that travelled at different speeds. This principle was the basis of Richard Arkwright's later water frame design. By 1742 Paul and Wyatt had opened a mill in Birmingham which used their new rolling machine powered by a donkey, this was not profitable and soon closed. A factory was opened in Northampton in 1743, with fifty spindles turning on five of Paul and Wyatt's machines, proving more successful than their first mill; this operated until 1764.

@ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton-spinning_machinery

The laws came later.

And here's what's interesting: According to your source, "Legislation focused only on the working hours of children, not the circumstances or industries in which children worked." IOW, they didn't address the problem.

It was, as your source states: "As working conditions generally improved and compulsory education was implemented, child labour decreased." What improved the working conditions? Automation.


You haven't addressed profits.

Chris
07-11-2017, 08:27 AM
nope, you got it wrong again. this is the third time I have tried to get through to you so I am not optimistic. 2.9 children were unemployed when child labor was banned....very simple.

Again, a number, out of context, with no source. Meaningless.

katzgar
07-11-2017, 08:43 AM
your inability to click on a provided link isnt my issue.

Chris
07-11-2017, 08:56 AM
nope, you got it wrong again. this is the third time I have tried to get through to you so I am not optimistic. 2.9 children were unemployed when child labor was banned....very simple.


your inability to click on a provided link isnt my issue.


Uh, what link?

Tahuyaman
07-11-2017, 09:02 AM
yes

who? Kids in high school in their first job?

katzgar
07-11-2017, 09:37 AM
Uh, what link?

you make my point for me.

katzgar
07-11-2017, 09:39 AM
who? Kids in high school in their first job?

learn how to google. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/09/08/who-makes-minimum-wage/

Tahuyaman
07-11-2017, 10:03 AM
The fact is, there are not millions of families out there being supported by the minimum wage worker. This is a myth. Minimum wage is mostly paid to unskilled laborers just entering the job market for the very first time and is a short termed thing, or someone working to supplement another primary income.

Tahuyaman
07-11-2017, 10:10 AM
Who earns minimum wage?

http://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/report/who-earns-the-minimum-wage-suburban-teenagers-not-single-parents


http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/09/08/who-makes-minimum-wage/

Tahuyaman
07-11-2017, 10:12 AM
learn how to google. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/09/08/who-makes-minimum-wage/

That backs up my Comment. Good for you.

Chris
07-11-2017, 10:13 AM
The fact is, there are not millions of families out there being supported by the minimum wage worker. This is a myth. Minimum wage is mostly paid to unskilled laborers just entering the job market for the very first time and is a short termed thing, or someone working to supplement another primary income.

katzgar, unawares, just supported your assessment with his link.

Here's more based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (https://www.bls.gov/regions/southwest/news-release/minimumwageworkers_texas.htm) data:

https://i.snag.gy/bDvl2y.jpg

Those last three columns are tiny percentages.

Chris
07-11-2017, 10:29 AM
So, novel idea, let's get back to the topic, minimum wage reduction!

To put teens to work, lower the minimum wage (https://www.epionline.org/oped/o213/)


...The data bear this out: Teens’ share of employment in the leisure and hospitality industry has dropped by 28 percent in the last five years; in retail, it’s fallen by more than 40 percent. Economists at Miami and Trinity universities analyzed the impact of the federal minimum wage increase, and found that more than 114,000 fewer teens were employed as a direct result of the mandate.

If this is what raising wages has wrought, why not go the other direction? The federal government already has a “training wage” law on the books (as do a number of states), and a study published in Cornell University’s labor economics journal found evidence that training wages can moderate the negative employment effects of a higher minimum wage.

...It’s not like teens don’t have the potential. Research published in the Monthly Labor Review finds that the vast majority of people who start at the minimum quickly move beyond it — usually within the first year, according to economists at Florida State University and Miami University. But moving beyond the minimum wage requires job experience, which is what a reduced teen minimum wage could accomplish.

...Lower wages for young adults in the short term mean higher wages in the long term. Research has shown that a senior in high school holding down a part-time job earns higher wages and better benefits six to nine years later than their jobless counterparts. That means a teen minimum wage that increases job prospects now could pay off down the line.

William
07-11-2017, 10:39 AM
Problem is you're still focused on conditions when we've all agreed conditions were terrible. At least your source agrees that "Children had worked alongside their parents on farms for generations. This tradition continued during the Industrial Revolution as children worked with their parents in factories and mills around Britain." That's just the way things were back then, as families moved from country to city, why would you expect that tradition to stop.

I read "The Industrial Revolution resulted in the exploitation of children in many different industries" and recall reading in several places how the Industrial Revolution exploited automation. Devoid cof the emotional appeal of children, we see what the word really means. Basically, to make use of.

But in Marxist Theory it becomes something therrible, something oppressive. OK, OK, you never read Marx, but you've read people who have and have had teachers who have: Marxist Exploitation Theory is pervasive in modern liberal thought. But you have to realize it imposes a world view on plain facts. It's intent is to make capitalism look bad.

"it was not automation which caused child labour to end" according to a write up on child labor. You site the Factory Act 1802 and The Ten Hour Act 1847. However, automation started way before that and not just children but adults were being replaced, in this history, by a donkey:



@ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton-spinning_machinery

The laws came later.

And here's what's interesting: According to your source, "Legislation focused only on the working hours of children, not the circumstances or industries in which children worked." IOW, they didn't address the problem.

It was, as your source states: "As working conditions generally improved and compulsory education was implemented, child labour decreased." What improved the working conditions? Automation.


You haven't addressed profits.

Thanks for all that Chris, but I still don't see anything coming of us discussing this any further. :smiley:

You think my teachers are Marxist liberals, who set out to make Capitalism look bad, and you seem to be saying there was no need for the laws governing child labour. I don't agree, but I think we have strayed far enough away from the topic at this point.

There is a poem that starts with these lines -

"I come from a different country than you, and none of our travels have been in the same lands ..."

So I'm not saying you are wrong - it is just that we have grown up with different values, and I don't want to get into a pages long "I said ... but you said," type of argument over this. I see too many of those on these pages. :wink:

Cheers for your input.

katzgar
07-11-2017, 10:40 AM
Who earns minimum wage?

http://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/report/who-earns-the-minimum-wage-suburban-teenagers-not-single-parents


http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/09/08/who-makes-minimum-wage/

reread post 216, this time for comprehension

Kalkin
07-11-2017, 10:41 AM
Viva la difference.

Chris
07-11-2017, 10:43 AM
Thanks for all that Chris, but I still don't see anything coming of us discussing this any further. :smiley:

You think my teachers are Marxist liberals, who set out to make Capitalism look bad, and you seem to be saying there was no need for the laws governing child labour. I don't agree, but I think we have strayed far enough away from the topic at this point.

There is a poem that starts with these lines -

"I come from a different country than you, and none of our travels have been in the same lands ..."

So I'm not saying you are wrong - it is just that we have grown up with different values, and I don't want to get into a pages long "I said ... but you said," type of argument over this. I see too many of those on these pages. :wink:

Cheers for your input.


I said you get your basically Marxist view of exploitation from someone.

I didn't say there's no need to law governing child labor. I said automation removed the need for child labor and then laws were passed--and as I pointed out from your source, mainly to reduce hours, not address conditions, which improved with more automation.

Facts are facts.

Chris
07-11-2017, 10:45 AM
learn how to google. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/09/08/who-makes-minimum-wage/


reread post 216, this time for comprehension

Yea, great lesson in how to google.

But the link goes to support Tahuyaman's argument. Perhaps you should have read it.

Tahuyaman
07-11-2017, 10:49 AM
reread post 216, this time for comprehension


Its time for you to face the facts. This notion that millions of American families are having to get by on a minimum wage worker is a myth.

What's really odd is that some people think those who do earn minimum wage stay in that condition for thier entire working life.

Tahuyaman
07-11-2017, 10:50 AM
reread post 216, this time for comprehension

I did read it. It backs up exactly what I am saying here.

katzgar
07-11-2017, 10:51 AM
Its time for you to face the facts. This notion that millions of American families are having to get by on a minimum wage worker is a myth.

What's really odd is that some people think those who do earn minimum wage stay in that condition for thier entire working life.



I never said that but I have come to expect posts like that.

Kalkin
07-11-2017, 10:54 AM
I still fail to see a compelling reason why the government should insert itself between two free individuals coming to an agreement on compensation for labor.

Tahuyaman
07-11-2017, 10:57 AM
I never said that but I have come to expect posts like that.

Comments which communicate the truth should be expected. Unfortuantely, that's not always the case here.

Chris
07-11-2017, 11:03 AM
I still fail to see a compelling reason why the government should insert itself between two free individuals coming to an agreement on compensation for labor.

BINGO! The value of labor is subjective, the employer holding one value, the employee another, and it is up to them to find a value both can agree on and gain from...or walk away.

Kalkin
07-11-2017, 11:11 AM
Here's the other side of the coin that no one ever seems to talk about:
What about the employees who are overpaid by the employer, either due to lack of skill and/or lack of effort? Should the government step in on behalf of the abused employer and demand lower wages? Or should the abused employer be able to fire at will, just like the abused employee can quit at will?

katzgar
07-12-2017, 06:32 AM
Here's the other side of the coin that no one ever seems to talk about:
What about the employees who are overpaid by the employer, either due to lack of skill and/or lack of effort? Should the government step in on behalf of the abused employer and demand lower wages? Or should the abused employer be able to fire at will, just like the abused employee can quit at will?

your kidding right?

stjames1_53
07-12-2017, 06:51 AM
your kidding right?

I don't think he was. Work vs. pay should be the right of the employee and employer.

katzgar
07-12-2017, 07:49 AM
I don't think he was. Work vs. pay should be the right of the employee and employer.

thats not what he said

Chris
07-12-2017, 08:10 AM
thats not what he said

Right, Kalkin was talking about employees who "exploit" employers and whether they can be fired as freely as employees can quit.

Kalkin
07-12-2017, 09:41 AM
your kidding right?
Only if you think equal rights are a joke. Do you?




(you're, btw)

Kalkin
07-12-2017, 09:45 AM
Right, Kalkin was talking about employees who "exploit" employers and whether they can be fired as freely as employees can quit.
And, I might add, should the government be able to mandate a pay cut to equal out the labor/value equation, exactly like it attempts with raising minimum wages?

katzgar
07-12-2017, 10:39 AM
Right, Kalkin was talking about employees who "exploit" employers and whether they can be fired as freely as employees can quit.

there is no conversation here beyond saying this is common knowledge

DGUtley
07-12-2017, 10:42 AM
Here's the other side of the coin that no one ever seems to talk about:
What about the employees who are overpaid by the employer, either due to lack of skill and/or lack of effort? Should the government step in on behalf of the abused employer and demand lower wages? Or should the abused employer be able to fire at will, just like the abused employee can quit at will?

Naaaah, the Browns deserved what they got with Johnny Football.

Kalkin
07-12-2017, 11:01 AM
Naaaah, the Browns deserved what they got with Johnny Football.

Never a good idea to buy into hype. That's how we ended up with obama.