If you pay your employees more than your competitors, just out of the kindness of your heart, one likely scenario is that your business will go under. No one will pay the higher price you have to charge for your good or services. What good is that for your employees?
I think you really want there to be a LEGAL obligation, not a moral one. That’s the only way to sustain wages at higher level than the market value.
Fessie, did you find it unfair that you were only paid 10% of you r boss’ salary? How close to your boss’ salary do you think you should make? You said that QtM’s imaginary receptionist should get to live in a nice house too. Why? Your six imaginary employees that learned their job in two days are making $100,000 a piece, when you are the one who went through all the education, work and risk to start a company. What happens when you get sued and the company goes under? You lose your shirt, your employees keep their money and then go to the next factory and get another sweet job making $100,000 a year popping out widgets in your imaginary world.
Do you really think that there is only so much money to go around and if the wealthy are to wealthy the middle class don’t have a fair chance of climbing the ladder?
I would consider myself middle class and I think this country gives me ample opportunity to rise above. Do you know why I still haven’t? Because I’ve been fucking lazy! Do you think the wealthy people out there are stopping me from going to school and getting a higher paying job? Most people I know who don’t rise above cashier at Wal-mart have only there own lazyness to balme. Believe it or not Evil Captor, some people are perfectly content with a menial job because they’re too damn lazy to do anything it takes to get a better one. I know janitors who have no desire to learn English! Should they get to live in a beautiful house too?In your world should Wal-mart cashiers be paid enough to maintain a wonderful lifestyle because Wal-mart is a hugely successful corporation?
An adequate, home-owning, bills paid lifestyle? Yes. And if you don’t think it’s correct, then please 'splain why it is Wal*Mart runs those feel-goody commercials about what great employers they are?
Just to clarify, I’m not arguing that businesses should be (or could be) run at a loss. Or that life is ever going to be fair. That the working poor are all saints. Etc. etc.
But why does the cost of doing business have to include exhorbitant incomes for the people at the top? Millions and millions of dollars for people who already have millions and millions of dollars? GREED!!! These people are not admirable. They are greedy.
Fessis: You seem to be focusing on the moral obligation that wealthy people have to society. What about the moral obligation that everyone has to not become a burden to their society? What about the moral obligation people have to NOT start families if they can’t support them? Sure, some people become poor because of events beyond their control, but you don’t seem to be making any distinction between those people and the ones who are just “coasting”.
As long as there are people who are content to “coast”, there will be poverty. If all the rich people go together and pooled their wealth to ensure that no one in the US made less than $50k/year, what do you think would happen? $50k/year would become the new poverty level as prices rose to reflect the prices eveyone now was able to pay for goods and services (that they couldn’t pay before). The people who were content to “coast” would keep getting $50k/year and would be just as bad off as they are now making $15k/year (or whatever the poverty level currently is).
It’s not fully clear to me what your vision for society is, but from what I can tell so far, the only way to achieve it would be thru tight government regulation of wages AND prices. That has been tried a number of times, and rather than making everyone rich, it made most everyone poor.
I live in North Jersey Fessie. Houses are super expensive. You shouldn’t have a right to make the paycheck of a North jersey home buyer by being a cashier at Wal-mart. Maybe you can work two jobs. Maybe you can go to night school. Don’t you think one should strive for a position above cashier before they rake in bigger bucks?
I don’t understand the question.
You don’t have to admire wealthy people but lots of people do. Its usually what motivates one to become wealthy too.
The basic problem is that there really never is enough money for most people. Your expenses tend to expand with your income. There is some minimum income that is required to buy the basics - food, modest clothing and shelter - but after that, people start finding new things to buy. Do people continue living at the same standard as they make more? No. They buy a bigger house, a nicer car, they go out more often, buy nicer clothes. Most people DO earn enough to raise a family. They just don’t earn enough to buy a $50,000 car, or spend weekends in the Hamptons, or go out to $150 dinners every week, or buy a plasma screen HDTV. Oh but they want to. No one should have to go without.
They do give $5 an hour in value. Well, technically they must create $5 in value for themselves in addition to covering the expenses of non-value creating services and capital investments in the company. I bill out at close to $300 an hour. I don’t keep most of that because it has to go to paying Manhattan rent for the office, buying supplies, laptops, phones, paying the internal accountants, receptionists and IT staff and other people who don’t generate revenue. It’s the same principal with the burger flippers and widget makers.
That is what you and Evil Captor completely fail to grasp. From a business point of view, your value is measured by exactly how much someone is willing to pay you for. The more competition for your skills, the higher salary you can command in the job market. Why do you think someone like me gets paid ten times as much as a Wal Mart employee? Because I work ten times as hard? No. I have specialized skills and education that make me a much more scarce resource to an employer. I would not even consider a WalMart job because it would not cover the costs of my education. Should the market indicate to me that people with MBAs are not making significantly more than those without, I wouldn’t wast my time and money pursueing one. I would go take some cushy job or in worst case go work some easy job in Blockbuster Video and the economy would suffer the loss of my mad business skillz.
The second thing that you seem to fail to grasp is the concept of inflation and purchasing power. Sure we could pay everyone more but then prices would go up and the actual purchasing power of the dollar would decrease. At the expense of a few dozen clerks and shelf stackers (who wouldn’t make more money anyway) thousands of people get to enjoy the low prices of Walmart. The money saved can then be spent elsewhere in the economy.
It seems to me that people who criticize capitalism and free markets lack an understanding of how they actually work. They fail to realize that many of the inequities they object to are caused by INTERFERENCE in the free market, not the free market itself - corruption, predatory practices, fraud, and so on. The roll of government as I see it is not to provide everyone their dream job or make sure every business succeeds. It is to 1) provide safety nets so people can recover from economic downturns and 2) provide an environment where companies can compete.
Mr. Mace you are absolutely correct, there are a whole lot of “coasters”; I’ve worked with, known, and am related to plenty of 'em. I’m sure not going to answer for them or act as their caretaker; nor do I think it’s possible to create some sort of utopian society. I’m sure you’re correct about government controls not working and in fact creating an abomination.
Personally, I think the answer at both ends of the spectrum is the ancient and far-reaching incentive known as shame. People who won’t make the effort to pull their own weight and take responsibility for themselves to the extent that they are capable - shame! And people who gorge excessively, who exploit others, who aren’t willing to say “thanks, I’ll pass, I’ve got enough” - shame on them, too!
So fessie, do we say “shame on you” to the coasters while we hand them a big fat paycheck?
fessie: OK, I can pretty much agree with your last post. It seems this thread started out with “why do we admire the super-rich” (which is somewhat of a strawman since many people have indicated they admire success more than wealth and the two are only loosely correlated), and has now moved to “what should we do about it”. Back to the OP, I’ll just say that many of the super-rich disgust me. I admire success, not piles of money. But, I don’t begrudge the truely successful their piles of money just because some of the super-rich are a-holes.
[QUOTE=fessie]
But what do you really gain when the “going rate” is insufficient to raise a family? How does increasing your own (presumably existent) wealth trump your obligation to society?
When reading through this thread, seeing it roughly half in favor of our capitalistic system, half wanting to change it, I first thought it was a question of the haves and have nots. I wondered if we were to take the accumulative wealth of those in favor of our system vs the accumulated wealth of those wanting change, I figured the ones if favor would have a higher number. And before anyone jumps on me, I am not saying that makes one group better than the other. I just wondered if that was where the difference lay. Those that figured out how to make the system work supported it, those that either didn’t know how, or have chosen not to work the system, oppose it.
But now I think it is much more fundamental than that. I think is boils down to the idea of who owes what to society. My core belief is the only way I am obligated to society is to not be a burden on it. Someone is mentally or physically handicapped, or has another such hardship, will not able to meet that obligation, understandably, and I have no problem pitching in, with the rest of society, to help these people out. But if the rest of us do our part and support ourselves, then society benefits.
So for most of us, we need to find a way to generate enough income so we can support ourselves. After that need is met, we need to start accumulating wealth in one way or another so we have something to fall back on when times get tough, you get laid off, business goes under, natural disaster, etc. Then comes obtaining money for things you may not need, but would like to have, money for kid’s braces, kid’s college, down payment on house. And so it goes. Most people level off at some point, some continue on.
I don’t make judgements on people on how they chose to spend their extra money. If they are supporting themselves and have lots left over, good for them. I personally am involved with several charities and I get immense pleasure out of seeing some of my extra money make a difference. But if someone else gets immense pleasure out of sailing around in a yacht, I am not going to say that money should have been spent on my charity. It is their money and are free to use it how they wish.
And I suppose we are obligated to support society by paying our taxes. I personally am in favor of a consumption tax, rather than income tax, but since that is how it is set up, we are obligated to pay it if we chose to live here.
But a business owner obligated to make sure his employees can live in a nice house? No way. If they want to live in a nice house, then they can, they just need to find a way to generate enough income to afford one. If they are not willing to make the sacrifices that would involve, I don’t know why I should have to sacrifice my earnings for them.
Grits: Excellent post! I, too, don’t understand how someone becomse obligated to supply an employee with a “living wage” just because you have hired that person.
Suppose Mary starts a company and hires Joe at minimum wage. Joe knows what he’s getting into, and no one put a gun to his head to work for Mary. Why does Mary suddenly have an obligation to pay Joe more? Had Mary sat on her butt and not started the company where would Joe be, and why would she in that case have less of a moral obligation to support Joe?
Heck, just be aware of the distinction between these two positions:
[ul][li]You’re quite wealthy, so we’ll tax you at a higher rate. It won’t greatly affect your life, and the money can help with social programs.[/li][li]You’re too wealthy and thus deserve to be punished.[/ul][/li]
The OP likes the latter, though I think the more reasonable position is the former.
Where in the world do you come off saying that? I never mentioned taxes at any point, nor punishment. I think scorn is a more appropriate response, and probably healthier.
The question of an employer’s obligation is an interesting one - when I get a chance, I’ll open an IMHO on it, I’m curious as to what people will say. And I wonder what people would’ve said 50 years ago.
Grits, I’m not certain but I think you’re off on your half and half observation. Seems to me it’s mostly Evil and fessie contributing many posts in favor of change and many others with fewer posts favoring the current system.
I’d have to say another oversight being made by those leaning towards socialism is that 53% of those making minimum wage are under the age of 23. Should pimply faced Billy, in need of money to upgrade his computer and pay for gas money/insurance on the car mom bought him, really be making enough money to purchase his own house if he can fit the 40 hours in after school? I’ll say for certain that if that were the case, I would not be in college right now.
And 47% are not. (See, I went to university!)
Since when was the minimum wage supposed to be governed by the concept of a middle-class kid and his potential laziness/ability to work for 40 hrs a week and undertake college? I thought that the whole idea of the minimum wage was that it should be set at a level which would keep a parent of dependent children (read: in Olden Times, a working-class married father without health problems) above the poverty-line.
Oh well, I guess this is one of those “cultural gulf” topics which divide Americans and Brits/Aussies/Europeans. You say Rabid Socialist Enclave, I say Civilised Humanitarian State.
I don’t care if you’re lazy or not. I don’t think economics is a zero sum game. It’s not the absolute amounts of wealth I’m concerned with here, it’s how the wealth – whatever amount exists – is distributed in society. I think working the free market system to ensure that the wealthy don’t grab too high a proportion of it will result in more money for EVERYBODY – including the wealthy. I think there is a certain portion of the wealthy that are a bunch of amoral pigs who’ll grab every bit of wealth in the U.S. and let everyone else starved if they’re not prevented from doing so. I guess I don’t admire them like some people do. I don’t hate them either. SOMEBODY’S gonna be wealthier than others in a free market system, and I’m perfectly happy with the wealthy being wealthy, so long as the middle class is robust.
I’m perfectly OK with Wal-Mart cashiers making enough money to maintain a wonderful lifestyle, but I’m not mandating that they should. I do think a healthy economic system should allow anyone who is willing to work to stay clothed, fed and sheltered. YMMV of course. You may hate Wal-Mart cashiers and want them to suffer horribly for some reason. That’s your problem.
Perhaps since you have all those mad biz skillz and understand free markets so well, you can debunk my notion that over time and without restriction, the wealthy will game the system so that an ever-increasing amount of wealth will go into their pockets, as is happening right now in the U.S.
BTW, being such a whiz and all, you DID grasp that I am not proposing to replace the free market with a command economy, but just do the usual minor regulatory stuff with an aim to keeping the middle class robust, right? Maybe you remember way back in MBA school reading about Henry Ford raising the wages of his workers so they could afford his cars. What a fool, right?
So, John, you’re an employer. You hire someone. You pay them shit. They live in their car because your measly wages won’t buy them an apartment. They go to the local food bank for food. When they get sick, they go to work anyway, because you keep them on just below full time so you won’t have to pay health insurance. If they get really sick or seriously injured, their only chance at health care is to find an emergency room that takes indigents.
You’re cool with that, eh? Makes you feel all good inside?
Not if you are going to continue in that tone.
A market where a few wealthy corrupt and control the system is by definition not a free market. And I never said their should be no restrictions.
Prove to me that this is happening now in the US. How is the distribution of wealth compare to other times in history? And is this happening because the wealthy are corrupting the system or because people spend the majority of their income on crap to entertain themselves instead of wealth-building assets?
I think you are simplifying things a little. Henry Ford, unlike his peers, felt that the automobile should be available to all, not just the wealthy. He developed processes and procedures that REDUCED THE UNIT COST of the automobile.
http://www.time.com/time/time100/builder/profile/ford3.html
"The critics were too stupid to comprehend that because Ford had lowered his costs per car, the higher wages didn’t matter — except for making it feasible for more people to buy cars. "
He could afford to raise wages BECAUSE he was able to reduce costs. He had a significant advantage in a highly competitive industry where 50 star-ups a year were trying to build cars (sound familiar?) Because he was able to reduce costs through automation, he could sell his product cheap enough for the masses to purchase them (does that sound like another company you should know?).
Now unlike Fords car business, Walmarts and other big box stores cannot afford to pay their workers twice the market wage and still offer low prices. Their margins are typically a few cents on the dollar.