And let me note once again that “productivity” is a term of art in economics, so since we’re having a discussion about economics and if you want to use that term to mean something else, you need to put your definition out there for everyone to see.
But we don’t live in a “free market” economy when it comes to labor. There are massive, massive restrictions on who gets access to what labor markets-- immigration controls. This means that US unskilled labor is protected from the Indian guy that will work for pennies on the dollar, while skilled labor in other countries is prevented from accessing the markets where they would get paid the most.
I’m not saying this is a bad thing. But it is a reality.
The forces that set labor rates would still be the same, even if the actual rate might change. It’s not productivity that sets labor rates, it’s supply and demand. Of course you can raise the demand by restricting the supply, and in the case of American workers, that is happening due to immigration controls.
The people with the most wealth are not baseball players or movie stars, but people who own things… like baseball teams and movie studios. And many of them do nothing at all. Celebrities at least produce entertainment.
I don’t have to take responsibility for the decisions that other people make. Only my own. I do agree we have a fucked up culture though - one where looks and status and money matter more than fairness, justice or kindness.
I just glanced over the thread again and don’t see that we have a shared definition of productivity that we’re discussing. Is productivity not a measure of the efficiency of increasing value and utility? Not necessarily value and utility to me, obviously. Managers and owners certainly increase value and utility. Good ones do, at least. Bad ones lose money or get fired.
As to the relationship between income and productivity, they’re clearly linked, but not perfectly. If someone asks for and is given a raise for performing the same work, I doubt he had a similar step-change in productivity. But a person whose productivity drops might get shitcanned quickly. So there’s some hysteresis. There are transaction costs. There are occluded market signals.
Sorry to pick a nit, but would you mind restating that? Demand is like the quasi-constant variable: restricting supply raises prices. And, I think, the effect of that is to throttle demand, at least WRT non-essentials. If you increase supply, causing prices to decrease, demand increases, somewhat, as more buyers are able to afford a product/service.
Not a nitpick. Carelessness on my part. Yes, I meant to write “price”, not demand. Not sure what I was thinking…
I personally don’t think taxes are a way of “punishing” anyone; I was referencing the quotes from upthread. (A lot of people do think that way, though.)
I think that taxes are, or should be, a way of controlling inflation. (I realize most people don’t think of it that way.)
I’m using it in the ordinary meaning: “the quality, state, or fact of being able to generate, create, enhance, or bring forth goods and services”.
You would argue that? Then, why don’t you? Lay out the argument in support of your thesis instead of just stating it.
I was a shop foreman in a union truck repair shop. If comparing just mechanics to mechanics it is hard to show a correlation between income and productivity. Some non union shops the guys might be making $15.00 per hour and be hard working good mechanics. In the union shop you may have someone totally unqualified who is lazy and carries a bad attitude making $30.00 per hour. Without that protection from the union the good mechanics would be pushing the bad mechanics to either keep up or move over.
I would think that a high paid position should be able to ask more of its employees.Well the first part is tautological. Income is the measure of the amount of money that you get (from whatever source). The more money you get, the more you can consume. (The more stuff you can buy.)
Someone who makes a million dollars a year can buy more stuff that someone who makes $100 a year.
The second part is the subject of the thread. You could break it into two parts. The first part is whether anyone actually thinks income is a measure of how much you produce.
If there are people who think that - and I think there are many - the second part is whether it’s true.
I think the relationship between how much you produce and how much income you have is weak, at best.
The executives at Enron made millions defrauding investors, for example. Some of them eventually went to prison for it, but not all. Some cashed out early, or otherwise evaded prosecution. One bought the state of Wyoming, and lives a very comfortable life, without (so far as I know) producing anything at all.
More recently, Wall Street and rating agencies made billions selling fraudulent bonds. No person was prosecuted, and the people involved wound up keeping most or all the money they made. The result was the worst recession since WWII. So in that case it wasn’t just that they made massive amounts of money producing nothing (or at least nothing of value); they made massive amounts of money setting fire to the economy as a whole.
There was a time that there was a high degree of correlation. Now days there’s an slightly inverse correlation as work is defined. This slight inverse correlation becomes extremewly pronounced in the top 1% of income. It would be cheaper in fact to double their pay and make them stay home.
Obviously there are many exceptions to this and by percentage most exceptions are near the bottom of the scale. A small percentage at the top are very important to the overall functioning of the system.
Yes, that owner, the one who sits on his ass during the game and cheers like everyone else in the stadium. you act as if owning a major league franchise is a “substantial financial risk” or a “substantial financial burden”. the vast vast majority of franchises are simply a cash cow, they virtually never loose money. that is not to say that the points you make are not valid. they are. but not for a sports team. (unless you are starting a new sports league). your points would be valid for a situation like a tech company for example. i’m sure there are lots and lots of situation where the points you make are valid, the owner takes a risk and has burdens, not with a sports franchise.
That’s the point. The owner of the New York Giants doesn’t actually do anything. All they do is sign checks.
What?
Most employers would pay people less if they could do so an still retain their employees. No offense but your statement seems incredibly naive and idealistic. Do you disagree with the idea that many, but not all, employers would pay less if they could?
I agree that an artist should not have a guaranteed income. I am an artist, well, not a professional one, and I still agree with you. But school teachers should be paid more. So should police officers and similar situations. Stating that “the market demands” doesn’t really do much for me. It seems that by putting the phrase “the market demands” into a sentence people feel they can justify almost anything.
The value of a worker’s contribution is how much more profit the company makes due to the work they do. Which is to say, the employee’s share of production minus the employee’s pay. “Productivity” is a measure of how much revenue the company can extract from an employee, the more you pay them, the less productive they will be, by definition. As an aggregate value, “productivity” is either meaningless or a measure of how rapidly the class divide is expanding.
I suggest a few minutes spent on your web search engine of choice to clear up your misconception of the profitability of sports franchises.