The truth about minimum wage and income inequality

Winter Woman

Well-Known Member
Doing a good job so you get the raise is how it works. A good employee is worth their weight and we keep them by giving them raises so they don't leave. And then there are the others that aren't worth effort to train.
 

NLXSK1

Well-Known Member
Yeah I'm sure the CEO and shareholders of walmart work their asses off every day. I'm not advocating taking from the middle class and you know that. Wealth redistribution is a necessity for capitalism to work, otherwise the middle class disappears and you have a small group of extremely wealthy individuals who own everything, and a growing number of poor workers who own little. We're seeing this happen in the US right now, and it's been progressing for the last 35 years since this idiotic form capitalism started catching on. You guys on the right don't understand that wealth in capitalism is inevitably consolidated, and businesses become monopolies as they expand which is one (of many) reasons taxes and anti trust laws exist. They also exist to pay for roads, bridges, infrastructure, defense, etc. Hell, a couple years ago in 2006 Citi group and Goldmansachs started calling American society "the emerging plutocracy". Talk about hearing it from the horses mouth.

That would only be true if the financial situation was fixed and you could not create wealth...

However, wealth is created all the time so it is not a zero sum game...
 

abandonconflict

Well-Known Member
good post.

Take this claydigger example, I go out and dig clay with a cheap shovel. I can only dig so much clay, lets say I can dig $20,000 a year worth of clay. If someone comes along who has a $300,000 clay digging machine which will let me dig $500,000 dollars worth of clay in a year, offers me a job for $130,000 dollars a year digging clay with his machine. If I was socialist I would say something like "Well why does he get to keep $70,000?!? I should get all that because I am digging all the clay!"...Well no because its the value of your labor which is $20,000 by yourself, your making +$110,000 dollars to dig clay for someone else. Your SUPPOSED to be able to save that extra money and get yourself a clay machine. The problem is you can't do that if its not a free market and with minimum wage the value of your labor is decreased to whatever the fuck minimum wage happens to be or whatever the fuck the other clay tycoons are paying their minions.
Another fictional example by Deprave. Watch him ask for real world examples of how his dystopia sucks.
 

Dr Kynes

Well-Known Member
I agree with this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_without_adjectives

Rudolf Rocker started as an anarchosyndicalist but later abandoned that as he became more extremely antipropertarian. The adjectives of anarchy in my opinion describe only ownership of capital (resources).
which is COMMUNISM, not anarchy.

communism assumes that all things are held in common with no owner, not even the state, and in it's final utopian form, communism has no state, not even a class structure, simply all the people holding EVERYTHING (no exceptions) in common.

If property is not owned by anyone, not even a state or a collective, that is Communism and Communism is NOT anarchy.
If property is owned and administered by a state or collective that is Socialism. which is ALSO not anarchy.
Further, BOTH of these ideas are merely subsets of Marxist theory which contains 0% anarchist thought.


seriously, i don't agree with marx's goals but he did spell all this out in detail in his collected works, as did trotsky and lenin.
 

GOD HERE

Well-Known Member
Doc,

You were right about these fools being hopeless. I tell them their bitching "talking points" already exist in capitalism. But that's tin foil hat talk!

There have been experiments where I offer you $50 in free money, but I get $950. All you have to do is accept. Even if you got to keep the $50, it's unfair I get $950. So the libertarian socialist will keep things fair and we all get nothing!

I'm no fool, I'm also not greedy. I'll happily accept $50 if the alternative is nothing.

That's why they're communist anarchists. The man gets all $1,000!
Racist Rabbit I put fluoride in your water last week. Hope that's not an issue.

God
 

abandonconflict

Well-Known Member
which is COMMUNISM, not anarchy.

communism assumes that all things are held in common with no owner, not even the state, and in it's final utopian form, communism has no state, not even a class structure, simply all the people holding EVERYTHING (no exceptions) in common.

If property is not owned by anyone, not even a state or a collective, that is Communism and Communism is NOT anarchy.
If property is owned and administered by a state or collective that is Socialism. which is ALSO not anarchy.
Further, BOTH of these ideas are merely subsets of Marxist theory which contains 0% anarchist thought.


seriously, i don't agree with marx's goals but he did spell all this out in detail in his collected works, as did trotsky and lenin.
common ownership is not lack of ownership, it's not even democratic necessarily, stop saying that things that are not the same are the same

It's like saying anarchism is chaos because anarchy and chaos are synonymous in present vernacular.

What you seem to lack understanding of, is that anarchy is not revolutionary, it's continuous rebellion toward illegitimate authority. Communism seeks to extract surplus value from labor to administer it to all with out a state. "From each according to ability, to each according to need" as Marx put it. This may or may not be compatible with anarchism. I'm not arguing that case, you are.

What is that you think makes anarchism resemble Marxism? Class warfare? Class warfare is present in all forms of capitalism also.
 

bundee1

Well-Known Member
If you work mininum wage you don't buy Starbucks. Mininum wages jobs are how you learn how to be a good employee.
I live in NYC. Shit is expensive, even in the boroughs. Right before I got a job I had. 1.69 in my pocket and no one around (not even a corner deli) had coffee at that price. Not Starbucks. Minimum wage here should be close to 20k a year after taxes to live in a studio or with a roommate and be able to commute and eat.
 

ginwilly

Well-Known Member
I live in NYC. Shit is expensive, even in the boroughs. Right before I got a job I had. 1.69 in my pocket and no one around (not even a corner deli) had coffee at that price. Not Starbucks. Minimum wage here should be close to 20k a year after taxes to live in a studio or with a roommate and be able to commute and eat.
Your state should set min wage at that. Every high school kid working at that Starbucks needs to be able to support himself. Of course the downside of this is that that 3 dollar coffee goes to 4.50 and everyone else will find their check that was not raised now has less buying power.

Your state should be allowed to set it at whatever they want. Your state should also be allowed to do away with min wage if they see fit. It would be an interesting case study if two neighboring states decided to do this. It's been fascinating watching Indiana vs Illinois vs Ohio. Funny thing, our favorite mayor in Chicago has been watching too and is talking austerity. I bet he never would have been elected had he campaigned on that.
 

bundee1

Well-Known Member
Unfortunately those high school kids are sometimes helping support their alcoholic or drug addicted parents or smaller siblings. Again I speak from experience, I hired those kids and even with years of experience they couldnt get paid more than $9/hr. Corporations and the people who run them aee so detached from the day to day workings they have no soul and no compassion.

When the CEO of the company I used to work for was asked what kind of car he drove (this was a q&a with employees) he responded:
"In the winter I drive a Range Rover and in the summer a Jaguar".

Earlier in the Q&A an employee had asked why the starting wage was the same in most markets when cost of living was radically higher in NYC. His rote answer was " we stay competitive with other businesses in our segment".


He hasnt done another one since that day.
 

ginwilly

Well-Known Member
You seem to have strong emotions about what this man drives. Seriously though I would love to see NY go to 15 bucks an hour for min wage. It would be awesome if California adopted it too, it's pretty expensive there. I would also love to see other states have the ability to abolish min wage.

It seems if that happened there would be a huge exodus to those 2 states. I mean, you would think that right?
 

Dr Kynes

Well-Known Member
common ownership is not lack of ownership, it's not even democratic necessarily, stop saying that things that are not the same are the same

It's like saying anarchism is chaos because anarchy and chaos are synonymous in present vernacular.

What you seem to lack understanding of, is that anarchy is not revolutionary, it's continuous rebellion toward illegitimate authority. Communism seeks to extract surplus value from labor to administer it to all with out a state. "From each according to ability, to each according to need" as Marx put it. This may or may not be compatible with anarchism. I'm not arguing that case, you are.

What is that you think makes anarchism resemble Marxism? Class warfare? Class warfare is present in all forms of capitalism also.
see youre getting wrapped around the axle of the "ownership" word appearing in relation to "The Commons"

"The Commons" are not owned by anyone or anything in The Utopian Communist Worker's Paradise. they simply exist, and everyone takes from the commons only what they need, and all things are shared equally.

if you mark out a patch, plow it, fertilize it, and carry water to grow weed, it is not YOUR dope which you would then trade for My tomatoes or Deprave's wheat, or Wabbit's corn, but rather, i simply harvest such dope as i need, and you likewise visit the patch on which i grow tomatoes, and take such tomatoes as you need, and so on, with no economic activity at all.

there would be no concept of ownership, even your underpants would be communal, and when you take them off, Godhere can put them on if he so desires.

that is the dream marx envisioned for the stateless Worker's Paradise, a truely free, truely egalitarian smurf village.

we only talk about the commons being "Owned" because this implies that no single person could declare "This is Mine" , because it is already owned, by everybody and nobody all at the same time.

real anarchy is certainly not "revolutionary" since a revolution abolishes one thing to replace it with another, by design.

anarchy is solely destructive, with no creative power to follow. under anarchy, the US would cease to be, and NOTHING would replace our government. this is viewed by some as an ideal, but this too is completely unworkable and utopian, since every time anarchy has occurred, SOMEBODY has instituted order (usually by violence) to the detriment of the anarcho-populace who were not prepared for violence to defend their lack of governance and order.

the only solution for the Anarcho-populace is to institute some form of order, to defend their disorder from aggression, and in so doing, dismantled their anarchy themselves.

anarchy has become a buzzword with no real meaning in the context in which it is used, since anarchy is in fact chaos, and chaos invites violence, which invariably results in the imposition of order.

i did not imply communism was democratic, in fact there is no need for democracy in The Utopian Communism's Worker's Paradise, since there is no state, and thus no need to elect leaders for that non-existent state.

communism is also not anarchy, since communism presumes that everyone lives an orderly life of their own volition, and thus anarchy does not occur, since everyone imposes order on their own lives without any outside force (the state), but it is order all the same.

anarchy does NOT resemble marxism, it is anathema to marxism. YOUR version of "anarchy", which is NOT anarchy but rather "anarcho-______ism" (which is a fiction) assumes a similar smurf village style self-established order without imposition by a state, or laws, or in fact any form of governance, and thus is NOT anarchy, even though you insist on calling it "anarchy". using a word outside it's established definition is the cause of the confusion and misapprehensions, and this is solely a result of SEMANTICS, not logic or reality.

you could call your vision of "anarchy" anything else, any word you choose, and it will still not be actual anarchy.

if you wish to distance yourself from marxism (and the authoritarian baggage which it has so consistently earned) then you could choose any of a variety of words to describe a stateless self-established entirely self-actualized society of caring and sharing, with no property ownership, no state, no class or caste system, and no imposed order whatsoever, but it will still resemble Utopian Communism so strongly that the parallel will be drawn.

"Egalitarianism" comes to mind as a possible alternative to "anarcho-___ism"

"Chomskyism" has a certain ring to it.

"Naderism" would be a useful choice, but would have no cache' outside the US

"Spoonerism" is already in use within some circles, but i doubt you would accept that since most Spoonerites have an acceptance of property rights ingrained in their philosophies.

but continuing to use "Anarchy" in direct violation of the definition of the word is counter-productive.
 
Top