Glorious People's Republic of Seattle Declared

[Cheezy the Wiz]

You're proposing that workers in the First World not only refuse to pursue wage increases, but implicitly that they accept and perhaps even demand wage cuts.

Not before the revolution I'm not. I've stated that I'm ambivalent about the minimum wage fight because I think it's a waste of a communist's time in a country dominated by liberal politics that can win the fight for us. Afterward, well, so long as we still operate under the idea of "prices," we'll have control over such things anyway, which is really what "necessitates" higher wages in the First World in the first place. It's what the minimum wage battle centers around. So we can lower those prices and solve the living standard issue that way. I'm sure there'll be some manner of wage increase, but I think it's absurd to behave as if Marxism objectively equals fighting for higher wages for everyone.


The First World proletariat is not the majority of workers in the world, yet the majority of wealth is in the First World. We cannot think of things at national level, when capitalism is not bounded by national borders. The minimum wage argument is nearly always framed around national statistics like GDP, consumption curves, and GINI coefficient; these are red herrings in arguments about wealth distribution in a global capitalist system. We must look beyond them, to the heart of the system itself. It's the same basic Marxism, what's changed is the scope.

 

[plarq]

Maybe you're right, but then, asking first world working class to sacrifice their interest to help the third world brothers? Aren't human selfish in nature?

 

[Hygro]

The workers of the global south won't thank us for our martyrdom. They'd prefer our support, and we're better positioned to lend that the better the wages and conditions we achieve.

I think this is psychologically accurate.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Aren't you confusing with average lowest salary? Because Denmark has no legislated minimum wage. Actually, it has one of the least regulated labour markets of the world.

Just click on the dame link dame it

negotiated between unions and employer associations; the average minimum wage for all private and public sector collective bargaining agreements was approximately DKK 110 ($20) per hour, exclusive of pension benefits.

I don't know about regulation, but it sure seems to have strong unions.

 

[Tahuti]

I don't know about regulation, but it sure seems to have strong unions.

It has a strong safety net. Danish employees that are disatisfied with their jobs can quit rather easily, which functions as a deterrent against underpaying workers. Danish employers probably use unions as an informant to figure out what the ideal wages are, since Danish labour law does not put much legislative force to prop up the unions, unlike Germany or Sweden for instance.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Maybe you're right, but then, asking first world working class to sacrifice their interest to help the third world brothers? Aren't human selfish in nature?

If I thought that, I wouldn't waste my time being a communist.

I'm asking some of them to act against their immediate material interest. It's obviously in everyone's interest, with regards to climate change or working hours, for example, to end capitalism, and I expect the struggle in the First World to primarily take those forms, along with national liberation struggles in the imperial center (indigenous peoples, POC, etc).

I think this is psychologically accurate.

As do I. I just want to make that clear if I didn't already.

 

[aelf]

So, as usual, you are wrong, kid. I will say though that people like you did convince me that the US needs to increase public spending on basic education, ASAP. This level of ignorance is just unacceptable for a civilized country. Your government failed you.

Must... resist... making quips about the state of education in developing countries.

I will be fair and acknowledge that lots of Americans and Western Europeans get their fascism and communism hilariously wrong too.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Really? I'd like to hear that case.

Because here's some simple math (do communists believe in math or is it evil bourgeois white male science?):

30 dollars per hour * 8 hours a day * 22 days a month * 12 months a year = 63,360 dollars per year. Here's the deal: the average personal income in the US is about 43,000 dollars a year. Even allowing that this is an understatement as it is including non-workers in the calculation, the average income just counting working Americans does not exceed 50-something thousand dollars per year.

That means if everybody got paid the exact same, that is, if all those CEOs and bankers and sport superstars shared their wealth with everybody else, if every single American deposited all of his income in a big bag of Worker's Solidarity and then everybody drew the exact same amount they would still not get the equivalent of 30 dollars per hour.

In short, the US is simply not rich enough to pay 30 dollars an hour as an average wage, much less a minimum wage.

So what was that case again?

Wait, wait, wait. I got it. Since, in Luiz-land, wages are a stable, exclusive pool of money that exists independent of the economy, rather then an exchange of goods and services, Luiz is making a few implicit arguments here.

1) Any and all income increases are exploitative. Wages are a zero-sum game, because wages are finite, fixed resource being divied up. If I work harder at my job and bring in twice as much in wages compared to last month, clearly I have STOLEN it. The average income in the US is about 43,000 dollars a year. Clearly if you're making above that, someone else has to make less than that. Any increase above the previous average is, as Luiz has pointed out, mathematically impossible.

3) Being nicely sequestered like this however, does still give us a lot of latitude for improvements in the state of labor. I mean, aside from cutting down on this habit people have of stealing other peoples wages, the good news is, wages being entirely stable, we don't have to actually work to earn them. The average wage is 43,000 dollars, and that's derived from a mathematical constant. Even if I around at work and get fired, well that's OK. Because you see, I just increased someone's income by an equal amount. If we all simply quit our jobs, we'll still make $43,000 a year each.

3) The good news is, thanks to Luiz's economic innovation, Luiz is still wrong. He's just bad at math, rather then economics. A minimum wage of $30 dollars is still possible. In fact, it's laughably small. The United States can support a minimum wage of $13,401,868,693,000 a year. How? Simple. We just need less people. Wage's being stable, and coming out of the same "pot" all we need to do is reduce the number of people employed, and everyone's share of the national wages will go up.

If we initiated a massive federal program to pay people to leave, say by handing them a few hundred thousand, or even a million dollars and asking them to leave, it would quickly pay for itself. After all, not only would this reduce the maintenance cost of federal services, but because the remaining population would have a higher income bracket, tax revenues would actually increase despite the smaller population. Increased, income for all, increased tax revenue, decreased costs. It's a wonderful solution.

So yes, there's a very compelling argument for the $30 minimum wage, as provided for by Luiz.

Let's just hope math doesn't turn out to be a communist plot.

 

[luiz]

Wait, wait, wait. I got it. Since, in Luiz-land, wages are a stable, exclusive pool of money that exists independent of the economy, rather then an exchange of goods and services, Luiz is making a few implicit arguments here.

1) Any and all income increases are exploitative. Wages are a zero-sum game, because wages are finite, fixed resource being divied up. If I work harder at my job and bring in twice as much in wages compared to last month, clearly I have STOLEN it. The average income in the US is about 43,000 dollars a year. Clearly if you're making above that, someone else has to make less than that. Any increase above the previous average is, as Luiz has pointed out, mathematically impossible.

3) Being nicely sequestered like this however, does still give us a lot of latitude for improvements in the state of labor. I mean, aside from cutting down on this habit people have of stealing other peoples wages, the good news is, wages being entirely stable, we don't have to actually work to earn them. The average wage is 43,000 dollars, and that's derived from a mathematical constant. Even if I around at work and get fired, well that's OK. Because you see, I just increased someone's income by an equal amount. If we all simply quit our jobs, we'll still make $43,000 a year each.

3) The good news is, thanks to Luiz's economic innovation, Luiz is still wrong. He's just bad at math, rather then economics. A minimum wage of $30 dollars is still possible. In fact, it's laughably small. The United States can support a minimum wage of $13,401,868,693,000 a year. How? Simple. We just need less people. Wage's being stable, and coming out of the same "pot" all we need to do is reduce the number of people employed, and everyone's share of the national wages will go up.

If we initiated a massive federal program to pay people to leave, say by handing them a few hundred thousand, or even a million dollars and asking them to leave, it would quickly pay for itself. After all, not only would this reduce the maintenance cost of federal services, but because the remaining population would have a higher income bracket, tax revenues would actually increase despite the smaller population. Increased, income for all, increased tax revenue, decreased costs. It's a wonderful solution.

So yes, there's a very compelling argument for the $30 minimum wage, as provided for by Luiz.

Let's just hope math doesn't turn out to be a communist plot.

I was just pointing out that you can't, by definition, set the minimum wage above the average wage. And $30/hour happens to be above the current average wage in the US, hence you can't enforce it now. But answering your points:

1) As the economy grows (and inflation erodes the value of currency), what is impossible today becomes possible tomorrow. At some point a $30/hour minimum wage will not only be possible but even irrelevant, just like a $1/hour minimum wage is irrelevant today but would have been impossible in 1800 (or even much later than that). So no, the economy is not a zero-sum game when looked as a process, but at any given instant there's only a limited amount of resources, so naturally you can't set a minimum income above the average.

2) I have no idea what you mean here. I assumed a minimum wage of $30/hour keeping the same employment configuration as we have now. I'm not suggesting that economic output is constant or anything like that. I'm assuming a snapshot view of the economy. Right now, $30 dollars an hour as a minimum wage is impossible. If things change, and they always change, it can become possible. But it will take a good while.

3) Same as above

 

[Masada]

People need to stop confusing nominal increases in the minimum wage with, you know, real increases. Because a nominal increase to $22 ain't going to stand long even if the baseline is linked to CPI.

Warren is arguing that if the minimum wage had kept pace with productivity it would be $22 an hour (not $27, which you made up), and even a $22 minimum wage is not quite feasible (as she admits, because of course gains in productivity don't translate entirely in wage increases), but at least $22, unlike $30, would be mathematically feasible (even if it would still ruin the economy, as Warren knows, which is why she is arguing for one $10).

Today, comrade luiz told me that labour markets are not efficient. I shrank back at his blasphemy assault on one of the sacred tenets of neoliberalism.

Must... resist... making quips about the state of education in developing countries.

Given that Australia and Singapore are significantly wealthier than well just about everyone, I believe that we have ample license to laugh at everyone in this thread.

 

[luiz]

People need to stop confusing nominal increases in the minimum wage with, you know, real increases. Because a nominal increase to $22 ain't going to stand long even if the baseline is linked to CPI.

Yep.

Today, comrade luiz told me that labour markets are not efficient. I shrank back at his blasphemy assault on one of the sacred tenets of neoliberalism.

Nobody believes the labour markets are perfectly efficient. I certainly don't

And neoliberalism is a just a scare crow used by anti-liberals. No modern school of economics derided as neoliberal by its critics believes in perfectly efficient labor markets.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

It has a strong safety net. Danish employees that are disatisfied with their jobs can quit rather easily, which functions as a deterrent against underpaying workers. Danish employers probably use unions as an informant to figure out what the ideal wages are, since Danish labour law does not put much legislative force to prop up the unions, unlike Germany or Sweden for instance.

I don't buy your apparent notion that this was the sole result of strong social security. That just seems no sufficient explanation. To be blunt: I am totally ignorant here. But I suspect that the Danish unions in deed play a remarkably strong rule. Just perhaps not in a way which we are used to from other countries (as Germany or as you say Sweden). I mean lets take Germany - from what I gather unions are merely actually strong in key large industries. There certainly is a lot of low-wage going on. But that is also due to recent reforms - praised by the world. It is funny how the world only manage to praise if a country manges to make the individual employer more vulnerable. I can not recall a single instance where the strengthening of employer was praised. I mean there are arguably bad protections. Bot overall, it seems ABSOLUTELY clear to me that most people benefit form employers having a strong negotiation position.

$30/hour happens to be above the current average wage in the US

For a guy who prides himself in understanding and using math, you are remarkably inept in doing so.
As has already been pointed out - surprisingly many people don't work a day (young people, students, retirees...), but their are part of the calculation of the per-capita-income.

 

[Old Hippy]

Given that Australia and Singapore are significantly wealthier than well just about everyone, I believe that we have ample license to laugh at everyone in this thread.

I have a feeling it is multi national food chains that are laughing, they make a profit paying Australian min rates of pay, (even when taking into account youth rates for 16 year olds). European stores do too, I imagine US shareholders of these companies must get a fit of the giggles driving to the bank, every time they pass one of their stores...

 

[Masada]

How do you reconcile your view that a $30 minimum wage will wreck the economy if, as you seem to think, it won't stand?

Nobody believes the labour markets are perfectly efficient. I certainly don't

I said efficient, there's a huge difference between the two. You also don't seem to understand that it's economic dogma that wages are linked to productivity and that labor's share of output is really fixed. That's like, I dunno, neoliberalism wage theory 101. You, amusingly enough, just denied both and must really be a socialist.

And neoliberalism is a just a scare crow used by anti-liberals. No modern school of economics derided as neoliberal by its critics believes in perfectly efficient labor markets.

See this is the issue. You know enough about economics to be annoying but not enough about economics to actually know what your talking about. This is a good example. Economically perfect markets are a thought experiment which by nature allow economists to make lots of simplifying assumptions. This makes them easy for economists to work with them. That's why they exist. So claiming that someone doesn't believe that labor markets are perfectly efficient is meaningless because nobody believes it.

 

[Tahuti]

And neoliberalism is a just a scare crow used by anti-liberals. No modern school of economics derided as neoliberal by its critics believes in perfectly efficient labor markets.

Even I find the term 'neoliberalism' ridiculous and I would describe myself as 'anti-liberal'.

I don't buy your apparent notion that this was the sole result of strong social security. That just seems no sufficient explanation. To be blunt: I am totally ignorant here. But I suspect that the Danish unions in deed play a remarkably strong rule. Just perhaps not in a way which we are used to from other countries (as Germany or as you say Sweden). I mean lets take Germany - from what I gather unions are merely actually strong in key large industries. There certainly is a lot of low-wage going on. But that is also due to recent reforms - praised by the world. It is funny how the world only manage to praise if a country manges to make the individual employer more vulnerable. I can not recall a single instance where the strengthening of employer was praised. I mean there are arguably bad protections. Bot overall, it seems ABSOLUTELY clear to me that most people benefit form employers having a strong negotiation position.

It is true that labour market "reforms" with more sober safety nets makes nations more competitive on the globalised markets. Though it is more an argument against globalisation than anything else.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

1) As the economy grows (and inflation erodes the value of currency), what is impossible today becomes possible tomorrow. At some point a $30/hour minimum wage will not only be possible but even irrelevant, just like a $1/hour minimum wage is irrelevant today but would have been impossible in 1800 (or even much later than that). So no, the economy is not a zero-sum game when looked as a process, but at any given instant there's only a limited amount of resources, so naturally you can't set a minimum income above the average.

2) I have no idea what you mean here. I assumed a minimum wage of $30/hour keeping the same employment configuration as we have now. I'm not suggesting that economic output is constant or anything like that. I'm assuming a snapshot view of the economy. Right now, $30 dollars an hour as a minimum wage is impossible. If things change, and they always change, it can become possible. But it will take a good while.

3) Same as above

You have studied the teachings of the Grand Nagus well, particularly the 211th Rule of Acquisition.

 

[aelf]

Even I find the term 'neoliberalism' ridiculous

So is 'communism' or 'fascism', then.

 

[Wrymouth3]

I don't think I can agree with any city that hands out the paychecks to a 9/11 truther and TOM CABLE, sorry Azale, I think I have to side with the Jerry Fundome on this one.

 

[ParkCungHee]

I was just pointing out that you can't, by definition, set the minimum wage above the average wage. And $30/hour happens to be above the current average wage in the US, hence you can't enforce it now. But answering your points:

Well, I just proved they can given your model of economics. You can deny math all you like, but unless you

1) As the economy grows (and inflation erodes the value of currency), what is impossible today becomes possible tomorrow. At some point a $30/hour minimum wage will not only be possible but even irrelevant, just like a $1/hour minimum wage is irrelevant today but would have been impossible in 1800 (or even much later than that). So no, the economy is not a zero-sum game when looked as a process, but at any given instant there's only a limited amount of resources, so naturally you can't set a minimum income above the average.

OK, so even allowing for the fact that your hypothetical pot of wages to go up and down, that still doesn't mean distribution isn't a zero-sum competition. There's a fixed amount of wages, they have to add up to the average, therefor any increase in wages has to come at the expense of an existing wage earner.

2) I have no idea what you mean here. I assumed a minimum wage of $30/hour keeping the same employment configuration as we have now.

If things were the same as they are, they would not be different, yes.

I'm not suggesting that economic output is constant or anything like that.

Of course not. You're suggesting that wages have nothing to do with the economy. Wages can be calculated in their own little bubble, so why would economic output even come up?

I'm assuming a snapshot view of the economy. Right now, $30 dollars an hour as a minimum wage is impossible. If things change, and they always change, it can become possible. But it will take a good while.

This is just straight up denial of grade school level math.

 

[warpus]

therefor any increase in wages has to come at the expense of an existing wage earner.

Not necessarily, they could come at the expense of a shareholder's profits, a vp's salary, the IT budget, etc. There are many pots where the money can come from, it doesn't have to be the wages of existing employees.