# The Nahployment 'Crisis' **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 30, 2021, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nahployment-crisis/941117 "2021-04-30T19:07:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 24
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2021, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nahployment-crisis/941117/463 "2021-05-10T22:16:58Z")
The market, same as apples or hammers. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2021, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nahployment-crisis/941117/464 "2021-05-10T22:23:15Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > I’m sure **Sam\_Stone** meant “worth $8/hr” to the employer Yeah. “Worth” in this context simply means “the employer can get away with not paying the employee any more than this amount and will still have enough employees to staff the business”. It’s got zilch to do with any notion of what the worker merits or deserves for their work, or how much value they add to the business. If the employer subsequently finds that they don’t have enough employees to staff the business if they refuse to pay more than $8/hour, then if they want to stay in business, the employees’ productivity will immediately become “worth” more to them. Even if nothing has changed about the employees’ productivity, efficiency, workload, or any other characteristic except their willingness to continue doing that job at that wage. > [@D\_Anconia](#): > > Is it your belief that corporations exist for the benefit of workers ? Well, that’s what the corporations tell us, right? That’s why they refer to themselves as “job creators” and expect massive tax breaks from municipalities in return for their munificent kindness in hiring the municipalities’ residents to work their jobs. Now you’re telling us that the benevolent-job-creators narrative was all a myth, and corporations’ only purpose in existing is to make as much money as they can by any available means, including by ruthlessly exploiting their workers to the fullest extent they can get away with? Gosh, D\_Anconia, I’m…I’m not sure I can bear the shattering disillusionment. [sob] ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2021, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nahployment-crisis/941117/465 "2021-05-10T22:23:44Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > If a worker’s productivity is worth $8/hr, and the law says they have to be paid $15, Then an employer who can automate for the equivalent of say, $12/hr will do so, but would still be better off with a lower cost employee. Or, if the small restaurants can’t automate (it’s very expensive in capital - one thing restaurants are notoriously short of), they’ll go out of business and we will get consolidation of large chains with industrial-style automated operations. The company might be better off, but the economy won’t be, since we’d hope that employee will move to a job where they are more productive. And I’m not sure that the company would be. First, they could reorganize the work so the employee is more productive without expensive automation. Second, not all employees are the same. I’d bet improvement in productivity (at the low end) goes up more than linearly with pay. Pay someone $7.25 for that job with $8 in output and you’ll get the bottom of the barrel. Remember the WalMart versus Costco article? WalMart paid low, and their employees hung out in the stockroom and never bothered to restock shelves. I’ve never seen a Costco employee who wasn’t hustling. WalMart must have read the article, since they increased pay after that. Too bad about the capital. That’s why manufacturing is done in big, automated factories not in piecework shops. Sucks for the owner of the small factory. The vegetable cannery my wife worked for when I was in grad school went under because the owners took money out of the business and didn’t reinvest in automation. That’s the way it goes. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2021, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nahployment-crisis/941117/466 "2021-05-10T22:26:36Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > I’m sure **Sam\_Stone** meant “worth $8/hr” to the employer. That’s how I took it, and it isn’t that hard to calculate. Any business getting only $8 an hour of productivity out of an employee is heading for doom, unless it is a decision to keep people on in hard times, like during the pandemic. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2021, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nahployment-crisis/941117/467 "2021-05-10T22:28:17Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > > [@Max\_S](#): > > > > I’m sure **Sam\_Stone** meant “worth $8/hr” to the employer > > Yeah. “Worth” in this context simply means “the employer can get away with not paying the employee any more than this amount and will still have enough employees to staff the business”. > > It’s got zilch to do with any notion of what the worker merits or deserves for their work, or how much value they add to the business. > > If the employer subsequently finds that they don’t have enough employees to staff the business if they refuse to pay more than $8/hour, then if they want to stay in business, the employees’ productivity will immediately become “worth” more to them. Even if nothing has changed about the employees’ productivity, efficiency, workload, or any other characteristic except their willingness to continue doing that job at that wage. Exactly, **Kimstu**. _Sam_ presented the idea as if the employee’s “value” were an actual, fixed commodity when that isn’t at all true. The reality is that for the most part, employers alone determine the “value” of a worker’s contributions and they consistently determine that the value is the least that an employer can get away with. “I can’t pay my employees more,” he said from the balcony of his mansion. “The company simply couldn’t stay in business if I raised employee pay; there just isn’t the money.” ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2021, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nahployment-crisis/941117/468 "2021-05-10T22:47:35Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Well, that’s what the corporations tell us, right? That’s why they refer to themselves as “job creators” and expect massive tax breaks from municipalities in return for their munificent kindness in hiring the municipalities’ residents to work their jobs. > > Now you’re telling us that the benevolent-job-creators narrative was all a myth, and corporations’ only purpose in existing is to make as much money as they can by any available means, including by ruthlessly exploiting their workers to the fullest extent they can get away with? I’m not seeing the disconnect; it seems as though one could believe that the purpose of a corporation is to make money, _and_ that it’ll often do so by offering money to potential laborers who are, y’know, _likewise_ looking to make money — in hopes of churning out a product or service that yet other people will (when hoping to act in _their_ interests) agree to hand over money in exchange for. Heck, it seems like you could figure that _everyone_ in those situations is out for themselves — and figure that they’ll _therefore_ engage in a little of the old offer-and-acceptance whenever both parties to a proposed transaction think it’s a good deal: that being a job creator doesn’t have to be a goal _in its own right_ to be something that _routinely winds up happening_ when a would-be employer and a would-be employee each see just such an agreement as being to their benefit. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2021, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nahployment-crisis/941117/469 "2021-05-10T22:56:29Z")
The purpose of a corporation is to maximize shareholder wealth. Not maximizing wages, fix the environment, or community involvement. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2021, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nahployment-crisis/941117/470 "2021-05-10T23:04:21Z")
D’Anconia, stuck in the same early 20th-century economic theory which allows one the moral conviction that only owners, and not employees, should be allowed to go on strike, is now asserting shareholder theory as a fact, assuming not a single one of us has heard of stakeholder theory, or even the word ‘theory’. > **[Stakeholder theory](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakeholder_theory)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > The stakeholder theory is a theory of organizational management and business ethics that accounts for multiple constituencies impacted by business entities like employees, suppliers, local communities, creditors, and others. It addresses morals and values in managing an organization, such as those related to corporate social responsibility, market economy, and social contract theory. > The stakeholder view of strategy integrates a resource-based ... Dude, did you even get the point of the novel? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2021, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nahployment-crisis/941117/471 "2021-05-10T23:41:10Z")
Except that there is a slight power imbalance in the cases we’re discussing. If the potential employee refuses the job because the pay is too low, the employer goes to the next person on the list, except in cases where the pay is so low that no one is interested, in which case the employer whines about employees being lazy. On the other hand if an employee turns down all really low paying jobs, the employee might wind up starving. And let’s not pretend that employees benefit from a business doing well, at least beyond the well enough to stay open. Upsell the customer, get the same pay. The additional profits go to the management and the stockholders, not you. If you are good enough to really make money for your employer, you probably are good enough to get a real job. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2021, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nahployment-crisis/941117/472 "2021-05-10T23:46:36Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > The purpose of a corporation is to maximize shareholder wealth. Not maximizing wages, fix the environment, or community involvement. Theoretically. The way it really works is that the purpose is to maximize management wealth. Ever vote in a company election for a board of directors. Cuba is way democratic by comparison. Not to mention with modern trading practices lots of investors are in and out of a company within minutes, and so care nothing except immediate movements of stock prices. You are right about the environment, though which explains why the companies used to dump waste in the air and in the water. The only way to get them to stop was to fine them big time or send them to jail if they kept doing it. I trust you are in favor of these laws. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2021, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nahployment-crisis/941117/473 "2021-05-10T23:57:21Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > You are right about the environment, though which explains why the companies used to dump waste in the air and in the water. The only way to get them to stop was to fine them big time or send them to jail if they kept doing it. I trust you are in favor of these laws. - Unlikely. Regulations fuck with profits. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nahployment-crisis/941117/474 "2021-05-11T01:27:00Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > it seems as though one could believe that the purpose of a corporation is to make money, _and_ that it’ll often do so by offering money to potential laborers who are, y’know, _likewise_ looking to make money Sure, that’s entirely reasonable. But what we often see is propaganda designed to convey the impression that a corporation cares about its workers and makes an effort to treat them well. (Along with other noble goals like fostering community improvement, environmental responsibility, etc.) Right up to the point where workers or worker advocates start exerting pressure on the corporation for better treatment of workers. Which is when the rhetoric changes to the surly indifference of attitudes like that expressed by D\_Anconia, growling that the corporation has no business caring about anything but the maximization of its own profit and it’s outrageous for anybody to expect anything different. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nahployment-crisis/941117/475 "2021-05-11T01:44:42Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I’m actually going to stop at Wendy’s to pick up supper tonight. I will report back the exact cost of the bill. So, I got Wendy’s today. Two single burger with fries combos (regular, not upsized) and a salad for my wife. With tax at the drive-through it was $32.65. I went through at supper time, and was the only car at the drive-through. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nahployment-crisis/941117/476 "2021-05-11T02:32:22Z")
I wonder why, lol. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nahployment-crisis/941117/477 "2021-05-11T02:42:42Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > The purpose of a corporation is to maximize shareholder wealth. Not maximizing wages, fix the environment, or community involvement. Then corporations are morally bankrupt and clinically psychopathic, and are antithetical to the improvement of mankind. > [@D\_Anconia](#): > > Is it your belief that corporations exist for the benefit of workers? It is my belief that they should be. The profits of a corporation should go first and foremost to improving the lives of the workers that make that success possible, not robber barons who contribute money instead of labor. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nahployment-crisis/941117/478 "2021-05-11T02:45:25Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > It’s got zilch to do with any notion of what the worker merits or deserves for their work, or how much value they add to the business. That’s how pay and salaries are determined, yes. Yours too. > [@Kimstu](#): > > If the employer subsequently finds that they don’t have enough employees to staff the business if they refuse to pay more than $8/hour, then if they want to stay in business, the employees’ productivity will immediately become “worth” more to them. Even if nothing has changed about the employees’ productivity, efficiency, workload, or any other characteristic except their willingness to continue doing that job at that wage. Yes. That is exactly how it works. Supply and demand. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nahployment-crisis/941117/479 "2021-05-11T02:58:33Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > That’s how pay and salaries are determined […] > > That is exactly how it works. Supply and demand. Yes, along with market distortions that give the employers disproportionate amounts of power. My point is that the loaded rhetoric about “worth” and “value” of particular jobs is trying to obscure those simple facts, in order to discourage people from complaining about low pay. The employer doesn’t say “I don’t need or want to pay these employees more than $8/hour as long as I can get enough employees to work for that amount”, which would be a fair acknowledgement of their market incentives and power. No, what they say is that those employees’ labor isn’t “worth” more than $8/hour, suggesting some kind of intrinsic value which is all they can properly claim to “earn”. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nahployment-crisis/941117/480 "2021-05-11T03:15:30Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > “I don’t need or want to pay these employees more than $8/hour as long as I can get enough employees to work for that amount” It isn’t loaded rhetoric, it is very direct. ‘Your productivity isn’t worth more than $8/hour to me because I can find someone else who will do your job for that amount.’ ETA: ‘And so can every other employer.’ Or, because the boss doesn’t feel like explaining his/her reasons, ‘Your productivity isn’t worth more than $8 an hour.’ ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nahployment-crisis/941117/481 "2021-05-11T03:42:19Z")
No, what would be direct would be saying “I can get plenty of applicants at $8/hour, so that’s the most I’ll pay.” ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2021, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nahployment-crisis/941117/482 "2021-05-11T03:43:13Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Ever vote in a company election for a board of directors. Yes, every time, for 30+ years. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nahployment-crisis/941117.md?page=23) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nahployment-crisis/941117.md?page=25)