Elections, then? It’s not about elections specifically, but for some reason that is true of a lot of threads I see in that forum.
As a Democrat who is socially conservative on some issues (namely abortion and gun control), I have to largely agree with this assessment. The issues that are actually being debated and in question are by and large those related to economics (such as taxes, spending, regulations, entitlements, and health care). Even with regards to the social issue I’m most concerned about (abortion), its unlikely Roe v. Wade will be overturned anytime soon while Democratic policies probably will do more to reduce abortions in the long run while Republican state legislatures prefer to pass laws that get immediately blocked by the courts.
Most progressives and social democrats are opposed to hysterical, uncritical patriotism not patriotism of all sorts. They do recognize that national boundaries exist and most government policies will be enacted on national lines.
The problem with this is that the Republican elites are not fundamentally different from their liberal counterparts-consider (for example) the sort of sleaze pushed by Ruper Murdoch’s media empire. And unlike the liberal elites, the Republican elites are dishonest enough to present themselves as otherwise in elections.
[shrug] That’s not economic conservatism, that’s just tax-resentment, every taxpayer has some. Economic conservatism would be arguing that lower taxes are better for everybody including the poor.
If I equally disagreed with both at least I appreciate the utility of a fiscal conservative being concerned about my tax money over a social conservative being concerned about my bedroom habits.
Some did starve then, I think.
I don’t know any liberal who says that. Technically it’s true, of course, see above, but we do have a politically independent Fed to control the money supply. And inflation is not always a bad thing, you know, it can be a sign of a growing economy as deflation is a sign of a depression; it’s only bad if it happens too fast or because of increased real external costs to the national economy, e.g., petroleum in the '70s.
If they’re that unpopular, why are they in power?
Well, economics is the operation of a set of impersonal forces like supply and demand, even if those forces are the aggregate sum of individuals making free economic choices within a certain range of options. But economic policy is always a choice, and morals are relevant to it, as to any policy choice.
The traditional conservative or libertarian view is that people would feel a greater urgency to go to school, study a relevant major or otherwise train and develop job skills if there were fewer safety nets in place. That is the definition of “moral hazard”. It’s not an issue of “being ok”. It’s an issue of not being qualified for the “decent jobs” because you didn’t prepare yourself. So by default, you get stuck with the “crap jobs”. Which, by the way, still need doing. Should those crap jobs be performed by the architects and engineers and doctors who spent years or decades educating themselves and building a valuable skill set?
To a large extent, WWII was the “dynamic system” created as a response to the Great Depression.
Certainly out of control debt is a concern. But as as BrainGlutton pointed out, running a national economy and deciding monetary policy is more complex than simply balancing the national budget like a housewife planning a trip to the grocery store. Traditionally, austerity measures have had the opposite of desired effects by increasing unemployment and reducing overall economic growth.
Part of the problem is that the word “conservative” means something different in politics than what it means in general.
A true conservative wants things to stay pretty much as they are (including, possibly, a bit of backtracking to things as the used to be.) Conservatives prefer policies that are proven by time and are suspicious of policies recommended by theory.
As an economic conservative (to some extent), I’m disappointed that political conservatives aren’t well-described by the above, economically. As a social liberal, I’m disappointed that they ARE well-described by the above, socially.
A true conservative would be careful and avoid risks, and as such, would be committed to ecological conservation and alarmed by the remotest possibility that the scientific consensus on AGW might be correct. Instead, political conservatives are more concerned with maintaining “business as usual” despite the risks, thanks to a focus on short-term economics.
I strongly disagree with this.
I’ll draw a parallel with physical science. There’s no room for morality and values in physical law. The laws of the universe are what they are, regardless of how we want them to be. However, while it’s not up to us to determine what physical law is, we do determine science policy. The toxicology of anthrax is amoral, but I think it’s immoral (for the sake of argument) to pursue research in weaponizing anthrax.
Similarly, there’s no changing the mathematical laws of economics, but that’s not the starting point. The starting point is to determine what sort of economic distribution is just, and then to see if attaining that distribution (or something close to it) is economically feasible. Is optimizing our collective wealth good enough? What if that distribution is such that it leads to extreme income inequality? Does income inequality matter if the inequality came about in a “legitimate” manner? What about questions of moral dessert? Economic freedom? We first answer these questions; then we move on to economics.
I agree with Ronald, except when Congress tries to legislate away reality rather than trying to mitigate it. For example, the law of gravity has no morals, and many people die because they interact with the law of gravity in unfortunate ways. The best way to solve this problem is to minimize the opportunities of citizens to run afoul of the law of gravity. If politicians addressed the issue the way they do economic issues, however, they’d simply outlaw gravity. That’s what politicians do when they try to set prices or wages, or ban gouging(another way of saying “We hate supply and demand”).
Congress doesn’t outlaw gravity, but it does require that their be guardrails in places where people can slip and fall long distances. Setting wages doesn’t work, but setting boundaries does. Economic conservatives oppose guard rails because they reduce the area where people move, and no one will ever fall, and if they do it’s their fault anyway.
Setting a wage doesn’t set a boundary. A wage is just a price, and price is just information about market conditions. There’s no guardrail here, rather there is just an attempt to outlaw reality.
If we did this with gravity, we’d say, “Only people who can survive a fall from three stories may fall off of buildings.” That’s exactly what you do with a minimum wage. You say, “Only people whose work is worth X amount may work.”
No, but setting a minimum wage is a boundary, which is what I was talking about.
And we are actually telling businesses to get it together to define jobs whose productivity is above the minimum wage, since allowing them to pay almost nothing allows them to structure their businesses to be very inefficient, which doesn’t help the economy. I added that since economic conservatives in general don’t seem all that concerned about making sure workers make enough not to starve.
If you ask even liberal economists about the minimum wage, they’ll tell you it’s a poor tool for improving the lot of poor workers. The Earned Income credit is far better. People’s work is worth what it’s worth. If society believes people should make more than their labor is worth, then society should pay for it through taxes. This idea that businesses should bear that cost is stupid, because businesses can just choose not to bear the cost of certain types of labor at any price. I worked in fast food through two minimum wage hikes. Did our labor costs rise? Nope. We just used less of it. We were all expected to keep labor costs to 25% of sales. So I guess we don’t really need a dishwasher anymore. Drivers can wash dishes. We don’t need anyone to prep. The daytime manager has time to do that, even though he’d rather not. Cutting pizzas? Drivers can cut their own, and if no driver is in the store the manager can cut them. How about phones? Well, we used to use three people, but now we can use two and the manager can assist if a call comes in and the other two are already occupied.
Now your point that this makes things more efficient is well taken. I actually prefer a higher wage/fewer workers system. But this also creates a more entrenched lower class of unemployables.
Why do you think there is an exact correlation between wages and productivity? Check out the unpaid intern thread. Here is a class of people paid nothing for their work, which definitely has some value. In the case of more workers than jobs, employers can get away with paying much less to workers than their contribution. In times of shortage, companies pay more. If you doubt this, I suggest you try to hire a new technology PhD. Bidding wars for scarce talent can elevate the salaries of new and unproven hires above that of well performing veterans.
Of course it is trivially true that workers are worth, in some sense, what the market pays. But then minimum wage workers are worth exactly the minimum wage. Paying less than the contribution of the worker to the company is profit, not survival.
“Price ceilings” and “price floors” are the Econ 101 explanation, but in reality, it’s a bit more complex than that. It depends on a lot of other factors like the elasticity of both the labor markets and the markets for the products and services being sold. Also, companies need a certain number of workers in certain positions to function at all. Drivers washing dishes are drivers not out delivering orders.
The reason minimum wage is a poor tool for improving the lot of the poor is that, as you pointed out, it really doesn’t make their labor any more valuable. A better tool is to enable them to learn skills that are more valuable. Now some might argue that this sort of thinking has created a glut of college-educated professionals and basic market economics suggests that would drive down salaries. Even if that were true, the difference is that well-educated people with technical skills have a greater ability to come up with creative, more entrepreneurial solutions that ultimately create more (and better) jobs for more people.
Because intern work has little to no value. Or maybe a better way to think of it is to compare it to college. College students have to perform work (in the form of their studies), but they have to PAY to do it. From an economics standpoint, college students are there to receive knowledge and education, but don’t yet have anything to offer. Unpaid interns have just enough to offer to justify receiving the benefits in terms of experience and education of working at their target company. The company can get anyone to file or sit at the front desk. The interns are unpaid because they chose a field where so many people want to join, they are willing to work for free.
Not to mention, internships are supposed to be TEMPORARY.
That said, I don’t believe in the unpaid internship and wouldn’t work one. Other than maybe someplace like Goldman Sachs or Mckinsey, but they pay their interns anyway.
Legally unpaid internships are supposed to have no value to the companies. Practically, if they did have no value companies wouldn’t be falling all over themselves to get interns. And our interns did add value, but since we pay them it is okay.
Sure the jobs are temporary - but so are many jobs for which you get paid, as all consultants and freelancers know.