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As to Dude, I think he must have had either some sort of work incurrred injury. Or some sort of disease that struck him at a rather young age...I mean at age 20 or 30 rather than at 80 or 90.
Age 16 and age 21. Ive never asked for a penny of help for anything, because I can still walk, wake up, and go to work. It is my personal belief that welfare of any type should be reserved for the infirm (who are not that way by their own doing) and elderly who cannot work. Not only would I be a hypocrite, but I could never live with myself knowing I could be taking benefits from someone who is paralyzed or worse off then me.
My ex mother in law is obese by her own inability to keep her hand out of the twinkie box, and went doctor to doctor until she got one to declare her disabled, and fill out the neccessary government information. She now receives about 4/5 of what I do free of charge from Uncle Sam, and partially off my back. Its sickening really.
IMHO the Soviet Union collapsed, like the US auto industry is doing, because of way too many middle managers protecting their turf instead of being productive and an absolutely vicious competition for the jobs as top thief. This was crony capitalism run by greedy thugs with a secret police to back them up. No wonder it failed.
Capitalism works best under enough regulation to keep the thieves, gamblers and con artists out while helping honest entrepreneurs and businessmen run an honest shop. When a few investors manage to corner a market it is no longer a market but has become a criminal conspiracy. Monopoly only works for the monopolist that owns it and then only for a limited time.
My Mom and my stepfather put a little convenience store in a low income neigborhood. When I used to visit her, I would see all these young and abled bodies sitting across the street from the store. They were there all day drinking beer, playing ball, and living with these women and getting them pregnant. They go their food stamps and so did the women.
1. First thing, food stamps have required at least 20 hours of work a week for people without dependents to receive benefits 3 months every year since 1996. Its very rare that anyone outside of disabled people and people with dependent children are getting food stamps for any real amount of time without doing anything at all.
2. Second thing, able bodied does not mean they are employable at any meaningful position. Its likely a large number of those individuals, if even qualified for employment, would achieve no more then low level, low paying work. In many cases, especially adults with dependents, working these worthless jobs paying far less then living wage, would force them in to worse situations then they would be in if they did not work at all. That is the reality. Do you really expect a single mother getting Section 8, food stamps and TANF for three people to go get a job a McDonalds? The day care alone would take up more then her income, and working would possibly reduce her benefits.
This is an unfortunate symptom of capitalism, and always has been. In order for the wealthy to continue to get wealthy, they must give handouts to the undertoe created in its wake to keep them complacent.
The only way you fix this is to make work pay. If you simply cut the handouts, you will have mass rioting, and increased property crime, especially theft. If you make work more appealing then collecting, then you have something there.
The only thing that is worth ANYTHING is water, land to grow and raise food, and the minerals in the land. Period. That is finite.
Is the labor worth nothing?
In your example, the capitalist has all the power, & automatically puts the laborers in a state of indenture because their labor cannot be converted to wealth without his land and the resources on it. But doesn't it work the other way too? His land & resources are useless without labor to pull the resources out of the land and convert them into something people will want.
Why do we need to cast the laborer as a victim in this scenario, unable to prosper except at the whim of the capitalist? When resources are owned by one party, and labor by another, then both sides share "power" or "wealth" and the control of those will ebb & flow, sometimes in favor of one party and sometimes in favor of the other. One need only look at the ridiculous stranglehold many labor unions have on the various industries they are killing off, to see the truth of that.
Last edited by Bill Keegan; 04-24-2009 at 10:40 AM..
Reason: Typos
Is the labor worth nothing?
In your example, the capitalist has all the power, & automatically puts the laborers in a state of indenture because their labor cannot be converted to wealth without his land and the resources on it. But doesn't it work the other way too? His land & resources are useless without labor to pull the resources out of the land and convert them into something people will want.
No, because the capitalist only "needs" that labor in so much as to the point he cannot do it himself. He is never in a situation of duress, as the people who must sell their labor are. If neccessary, the capitalist can farm enough potatoes to feed himself, and probably enough to profit a small amount. He could also trade the land for food. He does not "need" to profit extraordinarily by stealing labor value from additional employees.
Employees, on the other hand, will not eat, unless they can sell their labor to someone. Period.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill Keegan
One need only look at the ridiculous stranglehold many labor unions have on the various industries they are killing off, to see the truth of that.
Unions are not capitalism. Unions put a crimp in the "free market", which in theory, would allow all participants in the market to freely exchange. Unions artificially control the supply of labor, which forces the capitalist to adapt.
Any how, if you take the massive debts out of the picture. The owners of these firms could do a few things.
1. Reduce operations to a point where they could run them by themselves, and exchange the end products for food
2. Exchange the capital they own for food, or other capital which they could take better advantage of.
Both of these would result in the layoff of all of the union, and what would they do. If you guessed starve, you are correct.
Labor is worthless unless it is employed. Land is always valuable to someone who can employ it.
Unions are not capitalism. Unions put a crimp in the "free market", which in theory, would allow all participants in the market to freely exchange. Unions artificially control the supply of labor, which forces the capitalist to adapt.
Labor is worthless unless it is employed. Land is always valuable to someone who can employ it.
Thank you. Now all we need to do is show these simple truths to the Labor Union "leaders".
Thank you. Now all we need to do is show these simple truths to the Labor Union "leaders".
I think labor unions are a good thing, in theory. I think, wage floors must be created, or they will be driven in to the ground (see the US during its industrialization period).
The problem is, the unions become corrupt, capitalistic and parasitic entities themselves. They want more then what is fair, and often, more then even what their labor value is worth (the product is being sold for less then it costs to build, meaning the labor value variable would be a negative number).
In ANY economic system, the maximum a persons wage should be is the labor value of the product. Modern unions do not care about this. They are simply about getting as many concessions as they possibly can.
Never get me wrong, I am not about "sticking it to the man", as most unions are. I am completely opposed to the behavior of many of them. It should never have been about making the companies bend over, just about ensuring a fair wage.
I think labor unions are a good thing, in theory. I think, wage floors must be created, or they will be driven in to the ground (see the US during its industrialization period).
The problem is, the unions become corrupt, capitalistic and parasitic entities themselves. They want more then what is fair, and often, more then even what their labor value is worth (the product is being sold for less then it costs to build, meaning the labor value variable would be a negative number).
In ANY economic system, the maximum a persons wage should be is the labor value of the product. Modern unions do not care about this. They are simply about getting as many concessions as they possibly can.
Never get me wrong, I am not about "sticking it to the man", as most unions are. I am completely opposed to the behavior of many of them. It should never have been about making the companies bend over, just about ensuring a fair wage.
I don't even think that the over the top wages are the biggest problem that unions create. It's their insistence on job protection. They create situations where the companies not only have to pay their labor more than they want to pay (and I get that most companies will always insist they pay too much for labor, and that that assertion may or may not be true.) but they are also forced to employ more people than they need to create their products. Which of course, translates to higher cost of product to the consumer.
This is a fundamental assumption of yours. Given this assumption the rest of your argument follows--albeit not completely. Your thesis that labor has no value is incorrect. However, that is not the biggest problem with your thesis. The biggest problem is the assumption that wealth is a zero sum game. This assumption is not in conformance with any economic theory, nor any financial practice that I am aware of. Can you find some credible citations of how this works with any economic theory? I am quite curious...
I understand that labor can be "over-valued." I understand that it can be "under-valued." I do not understand that it is valueless. Please explain.
How exactly are you defining "socialism/communism", because last time I checked, the Soviet Union was nothing more then a state run capitalism constructed to filter wealth to the ruling class at a far more efficient rate then free market capitalism ever could imagine doing.
Socialims and communism pretty much centered in a planned economy. It did not allow competition as in capitalism.
I think you are stretching it when you say state run capitalism because capitalism is a system where private businesses compete against other private businesses for customers to buy their products or for their services.
If it was capitalism as you said Marx would not have written against it. I believe Stalin made statements agains competition.
You have a great day.
El Amigo
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Thank you. Now all we need to do is show these simple truths to the Labor Union "leaders".
