# John Mace's (and others') opinion about societal fairness, 99%, etc **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 6, 2011, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-maces-and-others-opinion-about-societal-fairness-99-etc/605215 "2011-12-06T01:44:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2011, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-maces-and-others-opinion-about-societal-fairness-99-etc/605215/201 "2011-12-09T15:46:32Z")
> [@villa](#): > > Wrong. If there are to be 100 unionized workers in a particular place of employment, their bargaining power will enable them to achieve a certain level of compensation, made up of wages and other benefits. If one of the other benefits sought is to exclude a particular group of workers, here black workers, then that will reduce the ability to achieve higher wages. Segregation may protect the wages of some whites, who would otherwise potentially lose jobs, but it reduces the overall wage rate. In actual history, labor unions have a loooong history of excluding “undesirable” workers for the purpose of keeping wages higher. It was also part of the impetus behind minimum wage and living wage laws: it would keep low-skill workers out of the market. That’s sheer historical fact. (see, frex [Roots of the Underclass: The Decline of Laissez-Faire Jurisprudence and the Rise of Racist Labor Legislation 43 American University Law Review 1993-1994](http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/aulr43&div=10&id=&page=) or [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract\_id=1533570](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1533570)) You may be right that segregation in actual fact hurt them, but the large majority of actual labor unions throughout history (right up until the Civil Rights era) argued the opposite. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2011, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-maces-and-others-opinion-about-societal-fairness-99-etc/605215/202 "2011-12-09T16:49:17Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > You need to think at least superficially about what you post before you post it. I would like to withdraw this remark and apologize for it to **villa**. There’s another Doper who does shit like this, and I don’t care to sound like him. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2011, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-maces-and-others-opinion-about-societal-fairness-99-etc/605215/203 "2011-12-09T17:47:42Z")
> [@gravitycrash](#): > > Why stop at outsized CEO pay? Is Samuel L Jackson worth 20 million per movie? Some executive in Hollywood thinks so. > > How about Taylor Swift or Lady Gaga? Hell they just sing for a living. > > Albert Pujols (baseball player) just received a 250 million ten year contract to play a game. I guess he shouldn’t get all of that money either because there are people flipping burgers at Hardees for minimum wage. > > Who gets to determine how much someone should get paid? Surely a Doctor is worth more to society than a popular entertainer. > > It’s the get even mindset from the left and the perceived unfairness of it all that drives people like John Mace or myself nuts. You’re making something up that, well, I won’t say doesn’t exist at all, but is far from a common or mainstream view among “the left”. A great example of this is Steve Jobs, who of course founded Apple, a favorite company among the left, who (as the stereotype goes) all took their iPads to OWS protests. And he was insanely crazily rich. But did people complain about it? Very few, because, for the most part, people don’t resent someone who started with relatively little, had ideas and talents, worked hard to create obvious items of value to society, and got rich for it. But Steve Jobs and the money he made is very different from Wall Street, Enron, whoever got rich getting bailed out in the bailout, etc. So even though Steve Jobs was obviously one of the 1% (heck, the 0.0001%), he’s not who the anger/envy is directed at. (Sports and entertainment figures are yet another issue, and I think a lot of people, including myself, are somewhat bemused by the amount of money they make, but most people don’t get mad at THEM for it. Sure, Albert Pujols gets paid an amount of money which one would be hardpressed to really objectively defend given what he contributes to society, but heck, that’s not HIS fault, and he seems like a nice guy, so more power to him…) ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2011, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-maces-and-others-opinion-about-societal-fairness-99-etc/605215/204 "2011-12-10T16:23:00Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I would like to withdraw this remark and apologize for it to **villa**. There’s another Doper who does shit like this, and I don’t care to sound like him. Not a problem. I have a thick enough skin. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-maces-and-others-opinion-about-societal-fairness-99-etc/605215.md?page=10)