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"Wage slave" is an artificial left wing term designed to smear the concept of honest work. In fact two terms that left wingers hate prima facie are "honest" and "work", so naturally the combination of the two generates extra special fear and loathing.
In fact, "wage slave" really expresses resentment. Resentment that people without a work ethic, or really any ethics, are forced to engage in mundane jobs in order to subsist. They hate their routine, they hate their job, they hate themselves for not having more talent and drive to do things that more successful people do. But rather than make themselves valuable, they curse value itself. Rather than increase their talent, they curse talented people. Rather than work harder, they curse hard workers. Rather than solving the problem of poverty, which is a personal problem, they curse anyone with wealth, they curse wealth itself.
And invent terms of envy like "wage slave" to imply that their worthlessness is not their fault, but the fault of their imagined slavemasters. However, their real slavemasters are their addictions to incompetence and sloth.
"It couldn't be my fault. I am disadvantaged. I wasn't born lucky, like those with the silver spoons. I am not the 1%, I am a victim of the system, a victim of the forces of evil, the forces that make me a mediocre and worthless good-for-nothing in this materialistic world filled with evil wealthy people who just HAD to have stolen their wealth, because certainly one cannot be talented and valuable and tireless and ambitious and virtuous. No, it couldn't be my fault. The cards are stacked against me. The rich people give their kids all the money and collect interest on their yachts, while sensitive and lovely people like myself are left out in the cold, forced to become "wage slaves" to put meager scraps on the table. It couldn't be my fault. I didn't have the right parents. The system doesn't favor the ordinary nice people, just the horrible people with good looks and talent who are members of the Propserity Club. I shouldn't have to work as a "wage slave". I am one of the nice people and could be such a perfect author or inventor, if only I had the time, the free time, like the wealthy folk who work out in the gym while I toil as a wage slave. And if only the state would provide me with an "affordable" education, actually, check that, a free education, because who wants debt, then I too, could be a member of the Talent Club and become a one percenter. But no, it is all denied to me by the greedy elitists who want to keep all the wealth for themselves. The wealth which dropped from the sky and was gobbled up in the big nets of the evil wealthy slavemasters who are withholding it from its rightful owner: ME!"
Wow, there's enough here to make for a rambling rant, so I might just divide this into multiple posts.
I've never been a labor union member, but observation leads me to think that the left and specifically labor unions, are divided on issues of "honest" "work' - there are certainly elements of organized labor which believe in performing an honest day's work for an honest day's pay, and it's not their fault when the leadership sucks (in more ways than one).
In my experience there some employers are exploitative; I've had employers who gave me a 10% raise after three weeks and I've had employers who paid everyone minimum wage with no raises, take it or leave it.
Some jobs are dead-end as well as routine; I've had jobs with no realistic promotion path (having to wait 20 years for your boss to retire before a promotion becomes available is not realistic for people earning minimum wage). Working harder does not earn you advancement in a dead-end job at a workplace where everyone is paid minimum wage; I've seen it.
Wow, there's enough here to make for a rambling rant, so I might just divide this into multiple posts.
I've never been a labor union member, but observation leads me to think that the left and specifically labor unions, are divided on issues of "honest" "work' - there are certainly elements of organized labor which believe in performing an honest day's work for an honest day's pay, and it's not their fault when the leadership sucks (in more ways than one).
In my experience there some employers are exploitative; I've had employers who gave me a 10% raise after three weeks and I've had employers who paid everyone minimum wage with no raises, take it or leave it.
Some jobs are dead-end as well as routine; I've had jobs with no realistic promotion path (having to wait 20 years for your boss to retire before a promotion becomes available is not realistic for people earning minimum wage). Working harder does not earn you advancement in a dead-end job at a workplace where everyone is paid minimum wage; I've seen it.
How can you be a victim to voluntary employment? Your entire premise makes little sense - you're explaining your employment history as if you are a captive hostage. If you are ever in a poor work situation you always have the option to leave and find another employer. If you're making minimum wage for twenty years then you have made many poor life choices as well as failed to prove your value to your employer - and clearly your employer must be correct about your worth as if that was not the case you would quit and take a higher paying job.
You, and others who share your views, need to remember that we have a capitalist economic system and your employer is out to make a profit. You may think that you're entitled to 50K a year because that's how much you need to have a nice house, car, iPhone, Xbox, etc., but in reality the business that is employing you owes you NOTHING - not even a job. The business owner is look ing out for his/her own interests and if he/she pays employees more than they are worth, the business will shut down since its competitors will be able to offer the same goods/services at a lower price (since labor costs are lower).
However, you are equally as powerful in the relationship because your employer needs your work product to make a profit. Any rational employer would pay you as much as you demand if you are providing value to them. If you are flipping burgers, it's naive to think you'll get a raise every few months as your job is easily replaceable by any high schooler with a day's worth of training. That is why you need to make yourself valuable to employers (go to school, learn a trade, etc) so that you can demand a raise. If your current employer won't give you the raise you demand, there will be other employers that will gladly give you the wages you demand if you are valuable.
The funny thing about business/employers is that you can predict their behavior as they are at the mercy of the market. They have free will and so do you - the result is market equilibrium. You get paid what you deserve.
How can you be a victim to voluntary employment? Your entire premise makes little sense - you're explaining your employment history as if you are a captive hostage. If you are ever in a poor work situation you always have the option to leave and find another employer. If you're making minimum wage for twenty years then you have made many poor life choices as well as failed to prove your value to your employer - and clearly your employer must be correct about your worth as if that was not the case you would quit and take a higher paying job.
You, and others who share your views, need to remember that we have a capitalist economic system and your employer is out to make a profit. You may think that you're entitled to 50K a year because that's how much you need to have a nice house, car, iPhone, Xbox, etc., but in reality the business that is employing you owes you NOTHING - not even a job. The business owner is look ing out for his/her own interests and if he/she pays employees more than they are worth, the business will shut down since its competitors will be able to offer the same goods/services at a lower price (since labor costs are lower).
However, you are equally as powerful in the relationship because your employer needs your work product to make a profit. Any rational employer would pay you as much as you demand if you are providing value to them. If you are flipping burgers, it's naive to think you'll get a raise every few months as your job is easily replaceable by any high schooler with a day's worth of training. That is why you need to make yourself valuable to employers (go to school, learn a trade, etc) so that you can demand a raise. If your current employer won't give you the raise you demand, there will be other employers that will gladly give you the wages you demand if you are valuable.
The funny thing about business/employers is that you can predict their behavior as they are at the mercy of the market. They have free will and so do you - the result is market equilibrium. You get paid what you deserve.
remember the concept of "wage slave" that got this (sub)thread started? The concept of wage slave says it's not entirely voluntary because you have to work to stay alive. If you pay your employees minimum wage with no raises, your competitors can't (duh) offer te same goods/services at a lower price, since they can't get cheaper labor than you (this was before cheap undocumented labor was readily available, hence competitors could not undercut your wages).
when other employers are paying the same minimum wage, jumping to another employer does nothing to increase your wage. if all of an employer's workers are paid minimum wage with no raises. your concept of "proving your value to your employer" is meaningless, since in such an environment it is not possible for even the best employee to prove their value to their employer. if other employers are paying the same minimum wage, there are no higher-paying jobs to be had by jumping to another employer. i had one employer who made net $3M per year wit a payroll of $500K while paying minimum wage with no raises.
WhoTF said anything about $50K a year and a nice house? We're talking about $15K a year and employees living in crappy SRO housing, we had two dozen employees and NOBODY owned a home or had any hope of buying one. Going to school and learning a trade is not an option for me as a wage slave, going to school costs money and i can't afford that on minimum wage (at least not if i want to keep a roof over my head at the same time). see how that works? that's part of being a wage slave.
"Wage slave" is an artificial left wing term designed to smear the concept of honest work. In fact two terms that left wingers hate prima facie are "honest" and "work", so naturally the combination of the two generates extra special fear and loathing.
In fact, "wage slave" really expresses resentment. Resentment that people without a work ethic, or really any ethics, are forced to engage in mundane jobs in order to subsist. They hate their routine, they hate their job, they hate themselves for not having more talent and drive to do things that more successful people do. But rather than make themselves valuable, they curse value itself. Rather than increase their talent, they curse talented people. Rather than work harder, they curse hard workers. Rather than solving the problem of poverty, which is a personal problem, they curse anyone with wealth, they curse wealth itself.
And invent terms of envy like "wage slave" to imply that their worthlessness is not their fault, but the fault of their imagined slavemasters. However, their real slavemasters are their addictions to incompetence and sloth.
"It couldn't be my fault. I am disadvantaged. I wasn't born lucky, like those with the silver spoons. I am not the 1%, I am a victim of the system, a victim of the forces of evil, the forces that make me a mediocre and worthless good-for-nothing in this materialistic world filled with evil wealthy people who just HAD to have stolen their wealth, because certainly one cannot be talented and valuable and tireless and ambitious and virtuous. No, it couldn't be my fault. The cards are stacked against me. The rich people give their kids all the money and collect interest on their yachts, while sensitive and lovely people like myself are left out in the cold, forced to become "wage slaves" to put m eager scraps on the table. It couldn't be my fault. I didn't have the right parents. The system doesn't favor the ordinary nice people, just the horrible people with good looks and talent who are members of the Propserity Club. I shouldn't have to work as a "wage slave". I am one of the nice people and could be such a perfect author or inventor, if only I had the time, the free time, like the wealthy folk who work out in the gym while I toil as a wage slave. And if only the state would provide me with an "affordable" education, actually, check that, a free education, because who wants debt, then I too, could be a member of the Talent Club and become a one percenter. But no, it is all denied to me by the greedy elitists who want to keep all the wealth for themselves. The wealth which dropped from the sky and was gobbled up in the big nets of the evil wealthy slavemasters who are withholding it from its rightful owner: ME!"
Evil is not necessary when the playing field is not level, when employers have lots of cheap (e.g. undocumented) labor available. since market conditions are never guaranteed and are subject to change, participants tend to alternate between boom and bust and to make hay while the sun shines (esp landlords who often are alternatively crying or laughing all the way to the bank).
The uncertainty of government regulation - and the regulatory creep which seems to have created a malaise in the job market - certainly has not been good for either employers or employees.
And it's government's fault when people are priced out of education because government made education too expensive. So there is plenty of blame to go around.
A negative income tax is a idea to ponder, but the only real gain would be to lay off hundreds of thousands of government workers that manage the vast local, state and federal welfare system. That would never happen so doing any sort of negative income tax would just be adding more welfare payments on top of the current massive welfare system.
Good luck with that! Let's start with medicare which will continue to raise our deficit for the next 30 years. Are you planning to receive social security and medicare? If so, if the public good is non existent, let's start with you, shall we? What about your parents? Let's kick them off the dole and you can come up with their healthcare costs and support them on your own.
And under your definition of value, drug dealers and prostitutes are good, virtuous citizens. And their jobs are legal in some states, so you can't refute that what they are doing is illegal while what you do is legal. And you still haven't refuted that fractured banking is stealing our money.
And Medicaid, disability, WIC, food stamps, housing vouchers are not raising the deficit?
Funny how you liberals are so completely obsessed with only those programs people had to pay into to collect on --- yet you have no worries at all about a very rapidly growing welfare population that never paid in a dime yet will be taken care of very nicely their entire lives.
You want to punish and punish and punish again the productive taxpaying class. Meanwhile the welfare rates are skyrocketing. Medicare and Social Security have some limits -- set by age and quarters worked. Social Security checks are surprisingly small considering many people paid in a huge chunk of their wages for over 50 years. A welfare household costs on average $62,000 a year -- far more than a social security recipient who worked and paid in over 50 years will receive.
How about eliminating all those big giveway programs to those who never paid in a dime first?
And Medicaid, disability, WIC, food stamps, housing vouchers are not raising the deficit?
Funny how you liberals are so completely obsessed with only those programs people had to pay into to collect on --- yet you have no worries at all about a very rapidly growing welfare population that never paid in a dime yet will be taken care of very nicely their entire lives.
You want to punish and punish and punish again the productive taxpaying class. Meanwhile the welfare rates are skyrocketing. Medicare and Social Security have some limits -- set by age and quarters worked. Social Security checks are surprisingly small considering many people paid in a huge chunk of their wages for over 50 years. A welfare household costs on average $62,000 a year -- far more than a social security recipient who worked and paid in over 50 years will receive.
How about eliminating all those big giveway programs to those who never paid in a dime first?
This is where your tax money goes:
Social Security 20.3%
Medicare 13.5%
Medicaid 7.6%
Unemployment compensation 3.4%
Low-income assistance 9.2%
Of this 9.2%, it goes to these programs:
Earned Income Tax Credit and other tax credits-refundable portion More_info 2.9%
Food stamps More_info 2.2% $0.00
Supplemental Social Security (SSI) More_info 1.5%
Low-income housing More_info 1.0%
School lunch More_info 0.5%
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families More_info 0.5%
Women, Infant and Children Special Supplemental Nutrition Program (WIC) 0.2%
Child care for poor families Child Care and Development Fund More_info 0.2%
Low Income Home Energy Assistance More_info 0.1%
-http://www.thirdway.org/taxreceipt
This 20.3% and 13.5% for social security and medicare is ON TOP of what people paid into the system. And they almost always receive more than they paid into the system. People contribute a measly 6.2% of their income to social security and even less for medicare. And how many people on social security today were housewives who never paid a cent into the system?
80.4% of all welfare recipients are off the dole within five years. So your premise that they never paid into the system and never will is outrageously false.
Your idea that the average welfare household gets $64,000 in benefits is false as well.
Quote:
In testimony before the House Budget Committee in 2012, Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation said that simply dividing the means-tested spending by the number of the poor “can be misleading because many persons with incomes above the official poverty levels also receive means-tested aid.” He recommended dividing the figure by the bottom third of the income distribution, which yielded a figure of $36,000 for a family of four.
The Congressional Budget Office, in a report this month, had an even more nuanced approach, estimating the average federal spending per household in 2006 for the 10 largest means-tested programs (worth about 75 percent of Sessions’s total) by different income quintiles (See Box 1.) For the lowest quintile, the figure is nearly $9,000, after adjusting to 2012 dollars.
In both cases, when a more nuanced approach was taken, the headline number shrinks.
Either way, BI addresses the fact that our current system is wasteful and encourages people to stay in poverty. What has the right offered? Nothing. It was actually Clinton who passed the Welfare to Work program that got a significant number of long term welfare users off the roles. Bush did nothing to change welfare, although he passed taxed cuts and started a multi-trillion dollar war and turned a surplus into an extravagant deficit. And it was Reagan who started the lifeline program that everyone calls, "Obamaphones." And the Bush administration changed that program to cover cell phones. And I don't see Republicans thanking the most liberal president in American history who passed medicare and social security when they use their benefits. So what do you suggest?
Last edited by soanchorless; 05-19-2013 at 11:18 AM..
Yawn. Drug dealers are scum. Drug users are scum. Prostitutes are scum. Medicaire and social security need to be abolished. Medical care is a personal concern addressable by private, unregulated insurance. Retirement is a personal problem addressable by saving and investment.
Fractured banking? WTF? Please stop. You are way over your head trying to discuss economic theory. You don't even have a handle on the basic terminology. To correct you, I would first have to teach you economics, and I already have a job.
And realtors are scum. Next! You gave your definition of value. You said that if the market was willing to pay for something, what they chose to pay for must be providing value. People are obviously willing to pay for drugs and sex. And they don't even have to be nudged into paying for it with government subsidies! That is the free market, brother.
So you're saying your parents are paying for all their healthcare and retirement costs, and you plan to not use anymore social security and medicare benefits than you paid in, right? I guess I better let you get to work so you can help people get those government subsidized home loans then!
Last edited by soanchorless; 05-19-2013 at 11:34 AM..
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Let's start with medicare which will continue to raise our deficit for the next 30 years. Are you planning to receive social security and medicare? If so, if the public good is non existent, let's start with you, shall we? What about your parents? Let's kick them off the dole and you can come up with their healthcare costs and support them on your own. 
