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So how would you explain this scenario: A farmer grows crops and sells his harvest at the farmer's market for a small profit. The townspeople buy his goods for the same price every week, using the same wages they earn every week. Eventually, the farmer is able to save up his profits, which helps him accumulate wealth. The townspeople aren't any less wealthy, because they are paying the same price every week out of the same wages every week for necessary consumption, in other words, the money in their bank accounts stay the same.
A few things to point out
1. Money is not wealth, money is a medium of exchange.
2. Assuming that money is a static medium of exchange, and cant possibly become worthless, and is always accepted as legal tender. The money made by "wages" represents a LOSS of wealth for whoever is employing the townsfolk. This part of the equation you left out.
To put it in numbers
Your farmer is X, he starts out with 5 land, from which he produces vegetables
Your townsfolk, Y, own nothing, and must sell their labor
The employer of your townsfolk, Z, has 5 land, but needs labor.
A has $1
Lets also assume that land is statically valued at $1 per unit.
How much wealth is in the economy? $11
Here is what happens
Z must sell one of his land to pay Y, so, say he sells one land to A, for $1.
Z uses that $1 to pay Y
Y use that $1 to pay X for his vegetables
What is the end result?
Well,
X has 5 land and $1
Y still has nothing
Z has 4 land
A has 1 land
How much wealth is STILL in the economy? $11. The only thing it did was change hands.
Now, when you introduce non-static resources, wealth is also revalued, as well as exchanged, but it always stays the same. If the value of one guys land goes up, the value of somebody elses whatever goes down.
Keep reading this over and over pokerplayer....let it sink in.
Nobody takes a job without knowing the pay/terms.
Once they agree to work at those terms everything else in their life is their own responsibility.
You should become familiar with the term economic duress.
The rate of pay for doing the job of ricksha driver was not high enough to buy enough food to keep someone alive back in pre WWII china. That was a dieing wage not a living wage. This lead to the cultural revolution in china. Wana go there?
The only time money is "wasted" is if it has a negative return. However, "returns" can be measured any number of ways. Public schools and roads do nothing but cost money if you are simply looking at financials, but they certainly have a positive return.
The agencies that set those things up also make their money back from property and fuel taxes, and it's not exactly transparent as to whether these things are actually costing us more than they should.
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Most of that certainly needs to be done. However the biggest part of that which isnt required is "a guy sees a market opportunity". An individual private investor is absolutely not required to research the market, or set up shop.
What I'm getting at is that without ownership of the business, the full potential of an economy's society is severely restricted because the government will swoop in and redistribute it anyways.
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Well, not at all like a board of directors. A board of directors has little to nothing to do with democracy, and usually everything to do with nepotism, like most things in capitalism.
They would be rewarded a small amount of additional money as an overhead cost, but not enough for it to be the sole purpose for them taking on the job.
This indicates that you've never received a shareholder voting packet before. Corporations mail these out to all shareholders, no matter how small their holdings are, who use it to vote on things like an appointment of someone into the board of directors. It's kind of like the election packet you receive for government elections; not everyone is informed on the issues, but the right is available to them nonetheless. And being appointed to whatever management team you establish to run the company is a huge responsibility; I would want the company run by somebody who can focus as much of their effort as they can into it, which then means that 1. you'll have to pay them more money, and 2. they won't be as involved in the actual labor process.
Last edited by Vinsanity; 04-14-2010 at 09:36 AM..
You should become familiar with the term economic duress.
"Economic Duress": A misleading term invented by socialists who would like you to believe that your natural need for food, shelter, etc. is somehow someone else's fault, and therefore they are responsible for fulfilling those needs for you.
"Economic Duress": A misleading term invented by socialists who would like you to believe that your natural need for food, shelter, etc. is somehow someone else's fault, and therefore they are responsible for fulfilling those needs for you.
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Originally Posted by newonecoming
The rate of pay for doing the job of ricksha driver was not high enough to buy enough food to keep someone alive back in pre WWII china. That was a dieing wage not a living wage. This lead to the cultural revolution in china. Wana go there?
It my not be someone else's fault but it sure as h8ll can end up being someone else's problem.
It my not be someone else's fault but it sure as h8ll can end up being someone else's problem.
Only if they choose to make it so... as most decent humans will do.
The word "choose" is absent from socialists' vocabularies, though... which is why their governments become oppressive tyrannies, unacceptable to those same decent humans.
Only if they choose to make it so... as most decent humans will do.
The word "choose" is absent from socialists' vocabularies, though... which is why their governments become oppressive tyrannies, unacceptable to those same decent humans.
If the choice is between armed revolution and starvation what choice would you make?
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Originally Posted by Little-Acorn
"Economic Duress": A misleading term invented by socialists who would like you to believe that your natural need for food, shelter, etc. is somehow someone else's fault, and therefore they are responsible for fulfilling those needs for you.
The question is what if any minimum wage should there be. Your comment on economic duress, argues for no minimum wage. The end result of that is mass starvation and armed revolution. I said that it wasn't someone else's fault but if you don't pay someone enough for working for you to keep them alive it will become your problem. You responded about choice. Well the choice of where to set wages has consequences. You can't separate the choice from the consequence. They are a matched set. And the end result of the current trend of the collective choices of everyone that is setting wages is starvation and armed revolution. If you don't want to go there then we need to change direction. The sooner that this happens the lower the cost of doing it the longer it takes the higher the cost.
The rate of pay for doing the job of ricksha driver was not high enough to buy enough food to keep someone alive back in pre WWII china. That was a dieing wage not a living wage. This lead to the cultural revolution in china. Wana go there?
It wasn't certainly the' pokerplayers' of the world
The source that I am quoting is a first hand witness that was in china in 1939. The link you provided I don't see a date on in the text reference. It feels like post WWII.
“It was the urban meddle class that suffered most from the rise in prices, not the masses.” from the text link to. Who is suffering now? The middle class? The minimum wage is the bottom of the safety net for the middle class.
Your comment on economic duress, argues for no minimum wage. The end result of that is mass starvation and armed revolution.
For most of the U.S.'s history, the country had no minimum wage.
Were you about to point out the mass starvation and/or armed revolution in the U.S. this caused?
...takes care of that fallacy...
Back to the subject:
When you hire someone, you are no more "responsible" for his and his family's well-being, than he is for yours. Socialist wishful thinking notwithstanding, HE is responsible for himself and his family. Part of that responsibility, is making sure he can support them. If he can't, it's not the fault of whoever hired him to sweep the floor and paid him to do it.
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