Corporate Moochers - how to spot them

[Loren Pechtel]

The consequence of not having welfare for employed people is that employees will be poorer. My contention is that having poorer employees does not cause unprofitability. What my argument exhibited was evidence for this contention: the fact that 19th-century cotton mills were profitable even though they had much poorer employees that actual modern MW employers. This thereby exhibits one way for actual profitable 21st-century MW employers to still make a profit if this were a possible world where employed people who need welfare can't get it: they could make a profit by operating exactly the way they currently make a profit, with modern safe working conditions and so forth, but with their employees poorer, which doesn't cause unprofitability.

Is it your contention that having poorer employees in fact would have made 19th-century cotton mills unprofitable, were it not for the money employers saved by having unsafe conditions? If so, what extraordinary evidence do you have for that extraordinary claim?

Don't you understand? Leftist theory is more important than observations in determining how things work.

 

[laughing dog]

The consequence of not having welfare for employed people is that employees will be poorer. My contention is that having poorer employees does not cause unprofitability. What my argument exhibited was evidence for this contention: the fact that 19th-century cotton mills were profitable even though they had much poorer employees that actual modern MW employers. This thereby exhibits one way for actual profitable 21st-century MW employers to still make a profit if this were a possible world where employed people who need welfare can't get it: they could make a profit by operating exactly the way they currently make a profit, with modern safe working conditions and so forth, but with their employees poorer, which doesn't cause unprofitability.

Is it your contention that having poorer employees in fact would have made 19th-century cotton mills unprofitable, were it not for the money employers saved by having unsafe conditions? If so, what extraordinary evidence do you have for that extraordinary claim?

Don't you understand? Leftist theory is more important than observations in determining how things work.

I don't see how that is any less true if one substitutes "conservative" or "libertarian" or "fascist" for "leftist" because theory is always more important for ideologues than reality.

 

[Canard DuJour]

My statement (and, I think, hers) is about what would happen in this world if employed people who need welfare didn't get it.

Do you understand how counterfactual conditionals work? They have possible world semantics. Whenever X is the case and you talk about what would happen if X were not the case, you're talking about a different possible world, not this world. This is a world where employed people who need welfare can get it.

Of course. The counterfactual invoked was the no-welfare condition and its consequence for actual employers. You OTOH invoke counterfactual employers which haven't existed for centuries. That's basically changing the subject.

It didn't say you'd get shut down for not providing decent wages and I've no idea what the plane and crucifix thing is about.

Just an illustrative example of using a counterfactual conditional in an argument and then mixing up the world the arguer is actually in with the possible alternate world of his argument.

Well it's just mixing up counterfactuals. Planes without crucifixes would be restaurants and retail run in 19thC factory conditions, and there aren't any to "look at", nor could there be.

The argument does not exhibit one way actual MW employers in today's real world of restaurants and retail would be able to make a profit. They are the employers Rhea refers to. Not 19th century cotton mills and chimney sweeps somehow transported into the 21st...

The consequence of not having welfare for employed people is that employees will be poorer. My contention is that having poorer employees does not cause unprofitability. What my argument exhibited was evidence for this contention: the fact that 19th-century cotton mills were profitable even though they had much poorer employees that actual modern MW employers. This thereby exhibits one way for actual profitable 21st-century MW employers to still make a profit if this were a possible world where employed people who need welfare can't get it: they could make a profit by operating exactly the way they currently make a profit, with modern safe working conditions and so forth, but with their employees poorer, which doesn't cause unprofitability.

19th century employers and working conditions show nothing of the kind.

Is it your contention that having poorer employees in fact would have made 19th-century cotton mills unprofitable, were it not for the money employers saved by having unsafe conditions? If so, what extraordinary evidence do you have for that extraordinary claim?

No, since that's irrelevant.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Don't you understand? Leftist theory is more important than observations in determining how things work.

I don't see how that is any less true if one substitutes "conservative" or "libertarian" or "fascist" for "leftist" because theory is always more important for ideologues than reality.

Conservative, I agree.

The more radical libertarians I agree.

I lack enough observations to address the fascists.

Note, though, that you are not rebutting my point.

 

[Bomb#20]

You're using fallacious reasoning here, equivocating between what is required to make a profit and the practice of offloading costs of business onto others.

I am? Show your work.

My work was in the following lines, which you have deleted.

No, it was not. Your complete passage was as follows:

"You're using fallacious reasoning here, equivocating between what is required to make a profit and the practice of offloading costs of business onto others. The former is fairly easy - if nothing else you can just steal the money from other people. You make a huge amount of profit, all of which is paid for by others. What is more useful, and the reason why we keep corporations around at all, is that they create wealth. That is they create more value overall as a result of their presence."​

All the lines I deleted did was explain the difference between creating wealth and offloading costs of business onto others. They in no way showed that I equivocated between the two, let alone showed that the business practice in dispute in this thread offloads business costs and/or fails to create wealth. I deleted them because they didn't require a response, since they're not a point in dispute and since I and probably all our readers were already aware of the distinction. If you want to show I equivocated between the two you're going to have to point out the place in my argument where you think I did so, not simply assert that I did and expect readers to take your word for it.

The point was that people were willing to accept a high casualty rate then, and they aren't now. That is something demanded by the wider society, yes, but the causalties are being authored by the business, and cost is thus bourne by the business. That's why Rhea was entirely on point here, because the disconnect you're arguing between living wage and the business applies just as well to casaulty rates and the business.

I.e., people used to allow a disconnect between casualties and the business, and they don't now, because people used to be willing to accept a high casualty rate, and they aren't now. That may well be correct psychology. And they allow a disconnect between poor employees and the business because they're willing to accept poor employees. That may well also be correct psychology. And this is something you and Rhea wish to change in our culture because you don't accept poor employees so you don't want to allow a disconnect between poor employees and the business. That's undoubtedly correct psychology.

However, none of this correct psychology has any bearing on the circumstance that the casualties actually were, in point of fact, authored by the business. Irrespective of how anyone feels about it, employers incentivized employees to do dangerous things. And psychological similarities in how people react to A and B don't make the business cause B by sympathetic magic just because the business causes A. For Rhea to have been entirely on point here would require people's unwillingness to accept casualties to be evidence for businesses causing employee injury; i.e., it would require deriving a conclusion about a matter of fact from a value judgment.

I'm arguing for a disconnect between the business and employee poverty because no one has exhibited a mechanism by which the business causes employees to be poor. That does not apply just as well to casualty rates and the business; a mechanism by which the business causes casualties has been exhibited. The historical shifts in what people are willing to accept make for interesting history but they don't exhibit a causal mechanism.

So you are claiming that if an employee is not paid enough not to be starving, that's the employer offloading the cost of business, actively contributing to starvation, creating a negative externality, and so forth. Show your work.

Cost of employee to society = X (not starving, desperate or creating other externalities)
Cost to employee to business Y
Where Y < X, society is having to subsidise the business.

Cost of unemployed person to society = Z (not starving, desperate or creating other externalities)
Cost of employee to society = X (not starving, desperate or creating other externalities)
Cost of employee to business = Y
Cost of employment to business = Y
Cost of employment to society = X - Z.

When X < Z, regardless of Y the business is providing a positive externality to society, to the tune of (Z - X). As you say, it's the employee creating the externalities if he doesn't receive X. Your math would only make sense if it were the business that caused the employee to exist in the first place.

Simply put, someone has to pay for the employee to be a functional member of society. If the employer is claiming all their labour (the benefit of their presence) but not paying for the cost of their presence, then they are creating a negative externality.

In the first place, the employer isn't "claiming" it. The employee is offering it for sale and the employer is amenable. You're talking as though the employer were preventing the guy from selling his labor elsewhere.

In the second place, you're objectifying the guy as a pure laborer with no benefit from his presence other than his labor. That's just nonsense -- we don't give people "decent safe housing, decent safe food and decent safe healthcare" only so employers can get their labor. We can tell, because calling the policy you're advocating a "living wage" is propaganda to hide an equivocation fallacy -- we actually pay people more than it costs just to keep them alive and able to work. All the nonlabor benefits from his presence that we are buying with welfare payments are benefits shared across the whole community, not received only by the employer.

And in the third place, your claim of implication is a non sequitur. If somebody creates both costs and benefits, and he delivers all the costs to me and all the benefits to you, that does not constitute you creating a negative externality. That's him creating a negative externality.

Employment is an exchange. It consists of two distinct actions. (1) The employee engages in some productive activity that the employer wants him to do. (2) The employer gives him some asset that the employee wants to own. Which one of these two actions is the one that you are claiming creates a negative externality and actively contributes to starvation?

The employer claiming all the productive activty while bearing less than the full cost.

I.e., neither action contributes to starvation all by itself, but doing both together does so? How does that work? Is there a mechanism you can show by which the two activities combine synergistically to cause starvation? Does the gift of the asset perhaps persuade the employee to spend all his time in that productive activity, thereby preventing him from doing some different productive activity that would otherwise have induced some third party to give him more assets that he could have traded for more food?

Or do you mean they combine metaphysically rather than physically, and cause starvation by virtue of the way your accounting methodology applies its cost allocation conventions to define "the full cost" of the productive activity?

So too with employees getting welfare. The employer has to pay for employees. The base cost of an employee is the cost of maintaining that employee to a certain arbitrary standard...

How is it possible for whether an action actively contributes to a physical phenomenon to depend on an arbitrary standard?

The same logic applies to a different yardstick. The only difference between the starvation example and the less than an arbitrary standard example is that society now recognises needs of the employee beyond merely food.

I.e., you're bundling, the same as a cable TV company that will sell you a package of movies and sports, but won't let you buy just the movies even though you don't get any benefit from the sports. You want to make two things -- labor the person can sell, and the satisfaction for him of some arbitrary standard society recognizes as his "needs" -- and making both these things costs you more than making only one. But since there's a ready market for Thing 1 and no buyers for Thing 2, you offer them together as a package deal. And, hoping to cut down on the complaints from your customers about the bundling, you tell them that your entire costs incurred in making both things are "the base cost of Thing 1".

All of which is your option. Hey, you're the seller. But that does mean when you claim the point is that if employers are making a profit and don't pay you what it costs you to make Thing 1 and Thing 2 then they are actively contributing to starvation, you're talking utter bosh.

And distinguishing between such companies by comparing them to a standard you've already stipulated is arbitrary will correctly identify the companies that produce wealth, will it?

Absolutely, it identifies the opportunity cost of employment.

I'm not following. What opportunity is being missed out on as a result of the MW employment, and what is the cost of that missed opportunity?

If the company is not paying for the value of the employees, then it's offloading that cost onto other people.

What do you mean by "the value" of the employees? Do you mean the degree to which somebody values them, and if so, who? Or do you mean the output of some computation that determines their value objectively whether anyone values them that much or not, and if so, which computation?

 

[laughing dog]

Don't you understand? Leftist theory is more important than observations in determining how things work.

I don't see how that is any less true if one substitutes "conservative" or "libertarian" or "fascist" for "leftist" because theory is always more important for ideologues than reality.

Conservative, I agree.

The more radical libertarians I agree.

I lack enough observations to address the fascists.

Note, though, that you are not rebutting my point.

There is no need to rebut the point since it has not been shown to be relevant to the discussion.

 

[Togo]

The point was that people were willing to accept a high casualty rate then, and they aren't now. That is something demanded by the wider society, yes, but the causalties are being authored by the business, and cost is thus bourne by the business. That's why Rhea was entirely on point here, because the disconnect you're arguing between living wage and the business applies just as well to casaulty rates and the business.

I.e., people used to allow a disconnect between casualties and the business, and they don't now, because people used to be willing to accept a high casualty rate, and they aren't now. That may well be correct psychology. And they allow a disconnect between poor employees and the business because they're willing to accept poor employees. That may well also be correct psychology. And this is something you and Rhea wish to change in our culture because you don't accept poor employees so you don't want to allow a disconnect between poor employees and the business. That's undoubtedly correct psychology.

However, none of this correct psychology has any bearing on the circumstance that the casualties actually were, in point of fact, authored by the business. Irrespective of how anyone feels about it, employers incentivized employees to do dangerous things. And psychological similarities in how people react to A and B don't make the business cause B by sympathetic magic just because the business causes A. For Rhea to have been entirely on point here would require people's unwillingness to accept casualties to be evidence for businesses causing employee injury; i.e., it would require deriving a conclusion about a matter of fact from a value judgment.

No, it doesn't. That the value has changed over time is a matter of fact, not judgement. No amount of opinion from you or me or Rhea will change the fact that society used to accept starving homeless labourers, and no longer does so. The reason why the circumstances have changed (fact) is because social expectations and values have also changed (also fact).

I'm arguing for a disconnect between the business and employee poverty because no one has exhibited a mechanism by which the business causes employees to be poor.

Has anyone argued for one?

So you are claiming that if an employee is not paid enough not to be starving, that's the employer offloading the cost of business, actively contributing to starvation, creating a negative externality, and so forth. Show your work.

Cost of employee to society = X (not starving, desperate or creating other externalities)
Cost to employee to business Y
Where Y < X, society is having to subsidise the business.

Cost of unemployed person to society = Z (not starving, desperate or creating other externalities)
Cost of employee to society = X (not starving, desperate or creating other externalities)
Cost of employee to business = Y
Cost of employment to business = Y
Cost of employment to society = X - Z.

When X < Z, regardless of Y the business is providing a positive externality to society, to the tune of (Z - X). As you say, it's the employee creating the externalities if he doesn't receive X. Your math would only make sense if it were the business that caused the employee to exist in the first place.

My math is based on the fact that the business is claiming all of the labour of an individual, but not meeting off all his costs.

You're trying to use an arbitrary start point. Whether this is simply a stick in the sand or an attempt to smuggle a value judgement in as a fact, I can't tell, but it's still arbitrary. You're arguing above that (potential) employees are a cost to society, some of which is defrayed by being employed, and that any contribution the employer makes is thus welcome. Sort of treating employment like a charity. But such an economy doesn't work, because there is no other income source other than employment to meet costs. All costs to society ultimately have to be met by someone, and taken simply, that someone is always an employer or business of some kind. So you're trying to argue that an employer should be able to hire people for less than the amount it takes to maintain them, on the basis that the difference between X and Z will be met by some other employer.

My argument is that there is no point having such employers around. As a society, it's only worth having around employers who pay the Z of their employees, their cost to society. That isn't because of a moral judgement, or fine feelings, it's to stop other, more successful businesses having to support the losers who can't meet their costs.

And that's the problem with what Wallmart is doing. They displace other businesses to provide employment on a subsidised basis, relying on other businesses (via the taxpayer) to help them meet their employment costs. They're moochers, or more accuarately, leeches.

Simply put, someone has to pay for the employee to be a functional member of society. If the employer is claiming all their labour (the benefit of their presence) but not paying for the cost of their presence, then they are creating a negative externality.

In the first place, the employer isn't "claiming" it. The employee is offering it for sale and the employer is amenable. You're talking as though the employer were preventing the guy from selling his labor elsewhere..

They are. Being available for work is written into the contract.

In the second place, you're objectifying the guy as a pure laborer with no benefit from his presence other than his labor. That's just nonsense -- we don't give people "decent safe housing, decent safe food and decent safe healthcare" only so employers can get their labor.

Their labour, and the labour of others, is all that it available to pay for it. Unless you're using magic pixies. From the point of view of the economics of the society, that's exactly why we keep them around.

We can tell, because calling the policy you're advocating a "living wage" is propaganda to hide an equivocation fallacy -- we actually pay people more than it costs just to keep them alive and able to work. All the nonlabor benefits from his presence that we are buying with welfare payments are benefits shared across the whole community, not received only by the employer.

Sure, which is why in practice we tax businesses, and spread the revenue around the whole community. But there is only one source of cash here. Ultimately, you're still arguing for one business subsidising another.

And in the third place, your claim of implication is a non sequitur. If somebody creates both costs and benefits, and he delivers all the costs to me and all the benefits to you, that does not constitute you creating a negative externality. That's him creating a negative externality.

You don't think the costs should be charged against the benefits?

Employment is an exchange. It consists of two distinct actions. (1) The employee engages in some productive activity that the employer wants him to do. (2) The employer gives him some asset that the employee wants to own. Which one of these two actions is the one that you are claiming creates a negative externality and actively contributes to starvation?

The employer claiming all the productive activty while bearing less than the full cost.

I.e., neither action contributes to starvation all by itself, but doing both together does so? How does that work? Is there a mechanism you can show by which the two activities combine synergistically to cause starvation? Does the gift of the asset perhaps persuade the employee to spend all his time in that productive activity, thereby preventing him from doing some different productive activity that would otherwise have induced some third party to give him more assets that he could have traded for more food?

The asset is given in return for the employee spending his time doing labour for the employer. The labourer is consuming a limited resource to meet the employers needs, and entering into a legal contract restricting his rights to work elsewhere.

The only thing the labourer has to meet living costs is his labour. If they employer pays too little for it, then the labourer either starves, or imposes those costs on others.

Why should my business have to pay to support your sweat shop. Why subsidise the sweat shop at all?

So too with employees getting welfare. The employer has to pay for employees. The base cost of an employee is the cost of maintaining that employee to a certain arbitrary standard...

How is it possible for whether an action actively contributes to a physical phenomenon to depend on an arbitrary standard?

The same logic applies to a different yardstick. The only difference between the starvation example and the less than an arbitrary standard example is that society now recognises needs of the employee beyond merely food.

I.e., you're bundling, the same as a cable TV company that will sell you a package of movies and sports, but won't let you buy just the movies even though you don't get any benefit from the sports. You want to make two things -- labor the person can sell, and the satisfaction for him of some arbitrary standard society recognizes as his "needs" -- and making both these things costs you more than making only one. But since there's a ready market for Thing 1 and no buyers for Thing 2, you offer them together as a package deal. And, hoping to cut down on the complaints from your customers about the bundling, you tell them that your entire costs incurred in making both things are "the base cost of Thing 1".

That is the cost of maintaining the employee.

While it would be lovely to have a business where you can labour for no time and still make money, I'm afraid the real world doesn't work that way. A business that consumes all of a person's labour, must meet all of their costs. It's not a complicated principle.

And distinguishing between such companies by comparing them to a standard you've already stipulated is arbitrary will correctly identify the companies that produce wealth, will it?

Absolutely, it identifies the opportunity cost of employment.

I'm not following. What opportunity is being missed out on as a result of the MW employment, and what is the cost of that missed opportunity?

They're not available to work for another employer.

If the company is not paying for the value of the employees, then it's offloading that cost onto other people.

What do you mean by "the value" of the employees? Do you mean the degree to which somebody values them, and if so, who?

Society has placed an arbitrary value on the cost of the employee, by dictating a minimum standard to which they must be maintained. The business, to consume the labour of a person, must pay the maintenance costs of that person.


This really isn't that complicated. You have a society. It has costs, set at a minimum per person by that society. And it has labour. The labour is sold to meet the costs. If business A does not pay enough for the labour to meet the costs, then that cost has to be met by another business. There's lots of intermediate steps, but that's what it boils down to. So why on earth would a society want to charge businesses that do meet these costs to pay for the gap left by those that don't? You can rail on about whose costs they really are, what constitutes a subsidy, and where the moral responsibility lies, but in practice the businesses have to bear the cost, one way or another.

 

[ksen]

What do you mean by "the value" of the employees?

And this right here is an example of why people think libertarians are pieces of shit.

 

[Rhea]

My argument is that there is no point having such employers around. As a society, it's only worth having around employers who pay the Z of their employees, their cost to society. That isn't because of a moral judgement, or fine feelings, it's to stop other, more successful businesses having to support the losers who can't meet their costs.

And that's the problem with what Wallmart is doing. They displace other businesses to provide employment on a subsidised basis, relying on other businesses (via the taxpayer) to help them meet their employment costs. They're moochers, or more accuarately, leeches.

Yes. It's amazing to see the argument that people dying in streets is a valid business model still. But it's not. Society today says we don't let people die, and the corollary is that if you want to make money, especially loads and loads of it, you have to abide by the costs of today's society that agrees with this. Or - go start your own island where you can employ people at sub-subsistence wages until they die and then just hire another one after you shovel the corpse to the curb. But the society that says we don't do that doesn't want you mooching off of the folks who are preventing it.

You don't get to employ as if people are disposable _and_also_ live and sell in the environment of safe living. Not without being known as a moocher and a leech.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

What do you mean by "the value" of the employees?

And this right here is an example of why people think libertarians are pieces of shit.

I haven't seen any libertarians asked in the context of this thread. But different people mean different things by "the value" of an employee, and sometimes they do not mean anything. It makes perfect sense to ask when it's not clear.

For example, did you know that by "the value" of an employee, Togo meant the arbitrary value that society has placed an arbitrary value on the cost of the employee, by dictating a minimum standard to which they must be maintained?

Also, I would like to ask why some other people would conclude that libertarians are pieces of shit because someone they believe to be a libertarian didn't understood right away, based on the information available to him, that by "the value" of an employee, Togo meant the arbitrary value that society has placed on the cost of the employee.

Regardless of the reason, those people would be very confused, because even if a libertarian had not understood that right away, that would not suggest that the libertarian in question (or any other libertarian who isn't even reading the thread) is a piece of shit. Or do you actually think that failure to realize that by "the value" of an employee, Togo meant the arbitrary value assigned to her by society, is solid evidence that one is a piece of shit?

Or perhaps you didn't realize what Togo was saying, and thought he was talking about something else? If so, what do you think he meant?

 

[ksen]

Or maybe libertarians just have a shitty disregard for humanity in general.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Or maybe libertarians just have a shitty disregard for humanity in general.

That attack on libertarians does address any of my points and/or questions.
Could you please address them?

Also, do you still believe that your claim "And this right here is an example of why people think libertarians are pieces of shit." is true?
If so, how so? If not, would you withdraw the claim?

 

[ksen]

Or maybe libertarians just have a shitty disregard for humanity in general.

That attack on libertarians does address any of my points and/or questions.

Ok.

Could you please address them?

Your questions were kind of pointless but I'll type out a response to your post after this.

Also, do you still believe that your claim "And this right here is an example of why people think libertarians are pieces of shit." is true?

Yes.

If so, how so?

Because the sun rises in the east.

If not, would you withdraw the claim?

No.

 

[ksen]

What do you mean by "the value" of the employees?

And this right here is an example of why people think libertarians are pieces of shit.

I haven't seen any libertarians asked in the context of this thread. But different people mean different things by "the value" of an employee, and sometimes they do not mean anything. It makes perfect sense to ask when it's not clear.

For example, did you know that by "the value" of an employee, Togo meant the arbitrary value that society has placed an arbitrary value on the cost of the employee, by dictating a minimum standard to which they must be maintained?

Yes.

Also, I would like to ask why some other people would conclude that libertarians are pieces of shit because someone they believe to be a libertarian didn't understood right away, based on the information available to him, that by "the value" of an employee, Togo meant the arbitrary value that society has placed on the cost of the employee.

Then you should ask those other people.

Regardless of the reason, those people would be very confused, because even if a libertarian had not understood that right away, that would not suggest that the libertarian in question (or any other libertarian who isn't even reading the thread) is a piece of shit. Or do you actually think that failure to realize that by "the value" of an employee, Togo meant the arbitrary value assigned to her by society, is solid evidence that one is a piece of shit?

What makes you think the word "value" was not understood?

And yeah, it's a shitty stand to take to argue that people should not be valued at least as much as it costs to keep them fed, housed, clothed, educated and healthy.

These laborers we're talking about are people. Human beings. The devaluation of human beings by libertarians and those on the right is disgusting.

Or perhaps you didn't realize what Togo was saying, and thought he was talking about something else? If so, what do you think he meant?

I realized just fine.

 

[Togo]

What do you mean by "the value" of the employees?

And this right here is an example of why people think libertarians are pieces of shit.

Also, I would like to ask why some other people would conclude that libertarians are pieces of shit because someone they believe to be a libertarian didn't understood right away, based on the information available to him, that by "the value" of an employee, Togo meant the arbitrary value that society has placed on the cost of the employee.

I'd guess that it was because a libertarian was advocating a value system that advocated letting people starve to death for reasons of economics. Just a guess.

Or perhaps you didn't realize what Togo was saying, and thought he was talking about something else? If so, what do you think he meant?

I'm not sure it really matters. All I'm doing is pointing out that the economic system being argued for simply doesn't add up, even if you don't have any finer feelings or moral sense at all.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Also, do you still believe that your claim "And this right here is an example of why people think libertarians are pieces of shit." is true?

Yes

Because the sun rises in the east.

No reason, then.

Also, I would like to ask why some other people would conclude that libertarians are pieces of shit because someone they believe to be a libertarian didn't understood right away, based on the information available to him, that by "the value" of an employee, Togo meant the arbitrary value that society has placed on the cost of the employee.

Then you should ask those other people

That would not be doable, since you have not identified them. You only claimed that “people” think that. But since you're making a claim about what people think and why (some people, it seems), I'm asking you.

Anyway, those people would be insulting libertarians for no reason, then, since there is no connection between Bomb#20's question and libertarians' allegedly being pieces of shit.

Regardless of the reason, those people would be very confused, because even if a libertarian had not understood that right away, that would not suggest that the libertarian in question (or any other libertarian who isn't even reading the thread) is a piece of shit. Or do you actually think that failure to realize that by "the value" of an employee, Togo meant the arbitrary value assigned to her by society, is solid evidence that one is a piece of shit?

What makes you think the word "value" was not understood?

Well, a number of reasons, but the facts that there were no sufficient information to figure out what Togo meant assuming he was making sense, that Bomb#20 was asking are enough.

And yeah, it's a shitty stand to take to argue that people should not be valued at least as much as it costs to keep them fed, housed, clothed, educated and healthy.

But even if that were true, those people would still be very confused if they thought that a libertarian and/or Bomb#20 made that claim and/or argued for that conclusion in this thread, or in the case of Bomb#20 in any other. They would be further confused if they thought that there is any connection between asking for clarification and being a shitty person.
That's all aside from the fact that Bomb#20 is not a libertarian.

These laborers we're talking about are people. Human beings. The devaluation of human beings by libertarians and those on the right is disgusting.

What do you mean by “devaluation”?
If you mean that Bomb#20 or anyone else here is arguing that those people should not be valued, you're very mistaken.
If you mean something else, what do you mean?

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Also, I would like to ask why some other people would conclude that libertarians are pieces of shit because someone they believe to be a libertarian didn't understood right away, based on the information available to him, that by "the value" of an employee, Togo meant the arbitrary value that society has placed on the cost of the employee.

I'd guess that it was because a libertarian was advocating a value system that advocated letting people starve to death for reasons of economics. Just a guess.

1. The claim that a libertarian was advocating a value system that advocated letting people starve to death for reasons of economics (or for any other reason) is false. Apart from the fact that Bomb#20 is not a libertarian, he was not advocating any of the sort.
2. Even if a libertarian had been advocating that, it would be very confused to conclude from the fact that someone (libertarian or not) asked for clarification, that libertarians are pieces of shit. So, why do you think that those other people would behave like that?
3. Incidentally, even if a libertarian advocated for something like that, it would be very confused to make a universal assessment about the moral character of all libertarians based on that, just as it would be confused to say that leftists are all pieces of shit because some leftists advocated for a system (e.g., North Korea,, Mao's China) that lets people starve to death for whatever reason (or unreason).

 

[Bomb#20]

What do you mean by "the value" of the employees? Do you mean the degree to which somebody values them, and if so, who? Or do you mean the output of some computation that determines their value objectively whether anyone values them that much or not, and if so, which computation?

What do you mean by "the value" of the employees?

And this right here is an example of why people think libertarians are pieces of <snip>.

I take it you aren't saying people who think this of libertarians think it for much the same reason so many Christians think the same thing of atheists -- because libertarians ask awkward questions that draw attention to the illogic and self-deception built into the faith of the sort of people who think this of libertarians. I take it you meant people think this of libertarians because you assumed I'm a libertarian and you chose to interpret the sentence you quoted, not as meaning what it literally said, but as a slang way of expressing the sentiment that employees are worthless. If that's what you thought I meant then of course you'd come away with a negative impression about my personal character. Hey dude, chill. That's not what I meant. We cool?

Of course, in order to make that interpretation plausible you'd have had to take the sentence out of context, cutting away the following sentences that made it clear that the sentence meant exactly what it said: that it was simply a straightforward request for clarification of specifically what quantity Togo had in mind that he used the phrase "the value" to talk about. Well, hey, look at that. That's what you did.

 

[ksen]

What do you mean by “devaluation”?

What I meant was "stop posting."

If you mean that Bomb#20 or anyone else here is arguing that those people should not be valued, you're very mistaken.
If you mean something else, what do you mean?

If I didn't mean "stop posting" then I meant "get out."

 

[ksen]

That's not what I meant. We cool?

Of course! We're just slinging shit at each other on the internet to pass the time. :hug: