Should a person who works really hard doing a physical "dirty job" be paid well? (employment, wage)
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Morally, I'd say yes but capitalism dictates, at least in theory, that people should be paid according to their contribution to society and supply and demand. From that standpoint, the accountant is more valuable than somebody who pours concrete.
Would you elaborate, please, on your thoughts about the role of morality in this discussion?
Do you go to the sports forums and complain about not being on a professional team too? I mean, it's not fair that they have physical skills you don't and are paid more as a result.
Why don't you storm down to the local neurosurgeon and demand a job paying 300k while you are at it?
Hey, come by my office....we will pay you 100k...you do understand advanced statistics, finance and economics right? Surely you'd fit right into our department where "average" means you were in the top 1% of standardized testing. Hey, how hard could it be to get a PHD in statistics from the University of Chicago?
I come from a family full of laborers whom I greatly respect and they make decent livings. If you called me a hijacker of money around us at a bar while sharing a round, they'd beat your stupid ass and then we'd buy you another beer.
So stop generalizing and whining.
Another tough guy from the cubicle world, if you had bothered to read the entire OP you'd have seen that he was speaking to the problem of "poor" pay not good pay or average pay. Grow up and accept the fact that not all people are going to see things your way, you have some history here of these kinds of retorts wherein you indulge your self in these tough talking posts, talk about being a stupid ass.
The fair assessment of labor's value has to include the human aspect of that "commodity" that's what separates it from any thing else in the market, in my view.
This view is not supported by reality. That reality is human nature. To me you are saying we need to force humans to go against their nature.
Adams Smith wrote in 'The Wealth of Nations':
"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages."
He simply addressed human nature. Also, human labor is a commodity also. When I offer my skills as let us say an electrician, the contractor will trade with me something for my services. In this case I will offer to instanll an electrical system for money. We traded two commodities, I do the commodity called laber and he give me the commodity called money. It is a simple trade. After I am done and he pays me I go home to my family and he to his. He does not owe me anymore than we agreed and the same from I. He is not a social worker to look at my humanity. He has a business to make money to support his family, his goal, his dreams, etc. and I do the same when I work for him. He does not care about my goals and neither do I about his.
When you work for somebody you want to assess his value as a human being? I will venture to guess you will go to work for him because you want to earn money he pays you for the skills you have to offer and he needs.
Granted, the more a boss is humane to his people and looks at them as human beings, the better. Good companies that realize this actually do better because the people are willing to go the extra mile for the company.
Companies do hire customer service specialist. I do tell companies that the first step to improve customer service is to first look at your personnel. If they are going to do better customer service is to first look how you can best service them. The happier they are the most production and better service they will offer to the customer. Some companies do follow that principle but others do not at their own expense.
However, the point that "The fair assessment of labor's value has to include the human aspect of that "commodity" is not something that has to be forced. Wise companies do that but others may not.
When you start using the word 'fair' you really get into a very complicated area. That is when you end up forcing economic systems like socialism and communism. Even then what is fair? What is your yardstick that what you call fair others may agree with? What is the fair pay for labor and who will decide it? You? That is why the concept of capitalism is perhaps the best system so far deciding what is the fairest pay for a certain commodity. Perfect system? No it is not. It can be abused but so far to me it is the best we got so far. It has taken many countries to the top of the world in many areas such as standards of living, life span, health, housing, etc.
--people should be paid according to their contribution to society and supply and demand---
However, hiring of illegals should not be part of the supply and demand equation
Who's talking about illegals on this thread? Do you understand the definition of ILLEGAL? I don't advocate breaking the law. Do you? Are you a criminal?
Another tough guy from the cubicle world, if you had bothered to read the entire OP you'd have seen that he was speaking to the problem of "poor" pay not good pay or average pay. Grow up and accept the fact that not all people are going to see things your way, you have some history here of these kinds of retorts wherein you indulge your self in these tough talking posts, talk about being a stupid ass.
I was responding to your insults not the OP's post which I already addressed. In fact, I support better pay for anyone with a skill and have given examples of say....crane operators earning every penny of their 6-fig salary.
So, you insulted a bunch of people with a rude blanket statement and are now crying because I threw the crap back at you? Wow, way to start a fight and then cry when somone hits back. Go home and tell your mom the other kids were mean to you for no reason.
Who's talking about illegals on this thread? Do you understand the definition of ILLEGAL? I don't advocate breaking the law. Do you? Are you a criminal?
What we are talking about is hard physical jobs and their pay.
Yes--illegals--have a lot to do with the pay scale differentials.
Personal example-------in 1963, a week out of high school, I got hired at a union meat packing plant about 25 miles from the farm.
Lugging beef quarters on my shoulder was a hard ,physical, job that not everyone could do or wanted to do.
However, the wages and benefits were some of the best around.
After 19 years there, I saw the " handwriting on the wall".
Our packing plant, and many others, could not compete with packing plants who were emerging farther west in rural areas and paying much lower wages and lower benefit packages.
But, ---supply and demand-- determined wages.
In a short time those packing plants realized ( or knew all along) that those sparsely populated areas could not provide them with enough workers as --hard, physical jobs-- comes with a higher turnover rate.
--supply and demand-- would dictate they would have to raise wages to attract workers to re-locate there. They refused to play the--supply and demand-- game and circumvented it by hiring illegals.
So, tell me Jay, would the pay and benefits for --hard physical jobs-- had stayed the same if illegals were not brought into the --supply and demand-- equation?
I ,frankly, don't care if you think my post about illegals is relevant or not.
Stating that illegals have not interfered with the wages being paid and the worth of doing--hard, physical labor-- is ludicrous as it has a direct bearing of wages paid via --supply and demand-- in the US workforce.
This view is not supported by reality. That reality is human nature. To me you are saying we need to force humans to go against their nature.
Adams Smith wrote in 'The Wealth of Nations':
"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages."
He simply addressed human nature. Also, human labor is a commodity also. When I offer my skills as let us say an electrician, the contractor will trade with me something for my services. In this case I will offer to instanll an electrical system for money. We traded two commodities, I do the commodity called laber and he give me the commodity called money. It is a simple trade. After I am done and he pays me I go home to my family and he to his. He does not owe me anymore than we agreed and the same from I. He is not a social worker to look at my humanity. He has a business to make money to support his family, his goal, his dreams, etc. and I do the same when I work for him. He does not care about my goals and neither do I about his.
When you work for somebody you want to assess his value as a human being? I will venture to guess you will go to work for him because you want to earn money he pays you for the skills you have to offer and he needs.
Granted, the more a boss is humane to his people and looks at them as human beings, the better. Good companies that realize this actually do better because the people are willing to go the extra mile for the company.
Companies do hire customer service specialist. I do tell companies that the first step to improve customer service is to first look at your personnel. If they are going to do better customer service is to first look how you can best service them. The happier they are the most production and better service they will offer to the customer. Some companies do follow that principle but others do not at their own expense.
However, the point that "The fair assessment of labor's value has to include the human aspect of that "commodity" is not something that has to be forced. Wise companies do that but others may not.
When you start using the word 'fair' you really get into a very complicated area. That is when you end up forcing economic systems like socialism and communism. Even then what is fair? What is your yardstick that what you call fair others may agree with? What is the fair pay for labor and who will decide it? You? That is why the concept of capitalism is perhaps the best system so far deciding what is the fairest pay for a certain commodity. Perfect system? No it is not. It can be abused but so far to me it is the best we got so far. It has taken many countries to the top of the world in many areas such as standards of living, life span, health, housing, etc.
You have a great day.
El Amigo
My original contention was that labor has been commidified and therefore low pay or terrible working conditions are accepted as being an aspect of the market economy and not a reflection of our own philosophy. I think it's become common thinking now that any consequences suffered by those who labor at the lowest end of the compensation scale somehow deserve their plight because they are not taking the initiative to "better themselves".
Whenever this type of discussion comes up I can rest assured that the screamers will accuse me of wanting to elevate the pay of a ditchdigger to that of a surgeon, that's how ridiculous folks can get when they fail to look for the gist of someones thoughts. Your following comment on the human aspect of management/labor relations summed up my own feelings that I may not have expressed as well.
"
"Granted, the more a boss is humane to his people and looks at them as human beings, the better. Good companies that realize this actually do better because the people are willing to go the extra mile for the company.
Companies do hire customer service specialist. I do tell companies that the first step to improve customer service is to first look at your personnel. If they are going to do better customer service is to first look how you can best service them. The happier they are the most production and better service they will offer to the customer. Some companies do follow that principle but others do not at their own expense."
This subject of wages and fairness has been debated by the likes of David Ricardo, Malthus, Karl Polanyi, Keynes, and other economists and thinkers, the commodification of labor was not always as readily accepted as it is today. Adam Smith was very much a part of that group of people who saw human activity as soley an expression of self interest, of course not all agreed, there were many who saw money, land, and labor as those things that should not be commodified.
We are what we are today, but still not all agree that things are as they should be. I'm not for forcing anything, it'd be my hope that people could come to a more human approach in their thinking without feeling that they are forsaking their common sense.
Now I'm just a kid but this is my opinion. I feel that they should be paid better. They are the backbone of society. The ones that hold everything up. Compare a lawyer working at a firm to a janitor in that firm. Who makes the building clean and takes out the trash? Who makes the office spotless while shining the windows and creating a perfect impression for the lawyer's clients? Think about our societys trash? So much trash. Who takes them all away? Who works the sewers? Etc. They are very much an important and extremely vital part of our society as your Master's Degree in Accounting friend. They should be paid just as much.
There are laws of economics much like there are laws in physics and other sciences. What goes up comes down. Water turns to gas at a certain temperature.
Blue collar workers certainly are the backbone of America, but if your hypothetical lawyer had to pay so much to have a clean office, he would charge his clients that much more or maybe choose not to have a law office resulting in the janitor having no job, not even a low-paying one.
If everyone made so much money, the prices of goods and services would be much higher. This is how we get inflation. If the workers at McDonald's all made $100K a Big Mac would cost $20,000. If your highway-worker friend made as much as accountants, there would either be no accountants or highway building would be prohibitavely expensive and we'd have dirt roads.
You should study economics if you've got a curious mind for stuff like this.
My original contention was that labor has been commidified and therefore low pay or terrible working conditions are accepted as being an aspect of the market economy and not a reflection of our own philosophy. I think it's become common thinking now that any consequences suffered by those who labor at the lowest end of the compensation scale somehow deserve their plight because they are not taking the initiative to "better themselves".
Not my thinking at all. Life is not fair. We are not born the same. Some people are born with great legs to be great runners, great abilities to become scientists, great abilities to be great plumbers, etc. Some are born to be go getters and always looking to climb higher. Some simply do enough to get enough to live a limited life but happy to spend time on other things they consider more important. Some are simply lazy and do not care to do much and others love to live at others expense. Some do try hard but not go much further because of circumstances in life. And also I know there are those that abuse those that have less and that is unfortunate. We should try to curve injustice but not at the expense of having programs that force morality and fairness on others because those two subject are that, very subjective and will never be resolved.
Whenever this type of discussion comes up I can rest assured that the screamers will accuse me of wanting to elevate the pay of a ditchdigger to that of a surgeon, that's how ridiculous folks can get when they fail to look for the gist of someones thoughts. Your following comment on the human aspect of management/labor relations summed up my own feelings that I may not have expressed as well.
"
"Granted, the more a boss is humane to his people and looks at them as human beings, the better. Good companies that realize this actually do better because the people are willing to go the extra mile for the company.
Companies do hire customer service specialist. I do tell companies that the first step to improve customer service is to first look at your personnel. If they are going to do better customer service is to first look how you can best service them. The happier they are the most production and better service they will offer to the customer. Some companies do follow that principle but others do not at their own expense."
Spoiler
This subject of wages and fairness has been debated by the likes of David Ricardo, Malthus, Karl Polanyi, Keynes, and other economists and thinkers, the commodification of labor was not always as readily accepted as it is today. Adam Smith was very much a part of that group of people who saw human activity as soley an expression of self interest, of course not all agreed, there were many who saw money, land, and labor as those things that should not be commodified.
Sure, we can come up with systems to curve injustice but we can only go so far. Example: I do not like unions. However, I will say they can serve some purpose. I would go along unions if all they do is to protect treatment of workers, to protect some programs like retirement and things like that but not for telling a company how much to pay a worker. That market should decide that.
Spoiler
We are what we are today, but still not all agree that things are as they should be. I'm not for forcing anything, it'd be my hope that people could come to a more human approach in their thinking without feeling that they are forsaking their common sense.[/
quote]
I referred to forcing because you wrote "The fair assessment of labor's value has to include the human aspect of that "commodity". Has to include sound like forcing that point. I may have missinterpreted your statements but that is how I read it.
Well, the phrase, "has to" implies a moral obligation to your fellow humans, if business considerations become elevated to a more important level than that of human welfare, and they are already in some instances, I'll see that as a step backwards. I added a portion of your statement to say that I agreed with your contention regarding the wisdom of choosing to recognize the fact of worker reward being a good thing. It's just a simple thing but most people want to argue the economic principle instead. I merely stated that I think low pay was a bad idea, I still do. Are you worried that some may use force to persuade the rest? I know I am. I'm thinking that some group will force you to do something you don't want to do, I won't be in that group.........
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Hey, how hard could it be to get a PHD in statistics from the University of Chicago? 
