Will the poor go on a crime-spree if employers don't provide high-paying babysitting slots for them?
A person who cannot survive by working, or welfare, is still going to get hungry. Maybe he'll live at the expense of his relatives or charities, maybe he'll steal bread to feed himself. Either way the society will pay for him somehow.
It does not follow from this that employers as a class should be imposed upon to be the welfare-providers and have to turn their business into a babysitting center instead of an enterprise to serve consumers. Such penalty imposed onto this one important segment of the economy, driving up its costs and penalizing production, only makes the economy worse and reduces the standard of living and increases the social problems you're trying to address.
You are ignoring human nature if you think that poor people will just commit suicide by starvation just so that the consumers can save a few pennies.
No, many of them will then be able to get hired at a low-wage job which is now illegal, because employers will be able to expand production if they are allowed to reduce their labor cost.
Did those same poor people "commit suicide by starvation" when they were replaced by robots/machines, or when new technology made their jobs less valuable and reduced their incomes by putting them into lower-level jobs?
This process of mechanization has had the exact same impact on the low-level workers as that of replacing them with cheap labor or reducing their wage level as a result of the lower costs.
It is not true, as you are implying, that all "poor people" will resort to crime instead of doing something to improve themselves or finding other non-criminal solutions. You are slandering all poor people by insinuating that they will all commit crimes if they can't get the high-paying job they think they're entitled to.
This doesn't make them "scum", and that you'd think that it does tells more about your attitude about the poor than it does about mine.
You're the one who called them "rabble":
The problem with your argument is that you think it costs nothing to keep people unemployed and below subsistence wages. In reality, that is not the case. At some point, the cost saving that you get from lower wages is less than the externalized cost of having a poor underclass that you have to keep in line by combination of welfare and police. What you save as a consumer is offset by what you lose as either taxpayer or from having to maintain private security to keep out the rabble from your gated community.
In addition to calling them "rabble" you falsely accuse the poor of being prone to crime, while the truth is that most of the poor do not commit crimes, and when they lose their job, or their wage level decreases, they do not typically go out on a crime rampage as you are insinuating, and it is not necessary to pay employers to babysit them in order to scoop them up off the streets and keep them out of mischief. That you believe this shows your own hidden deep contempt for poor people and your attitude that we need to shake down employers to pay the costs for keeping these rabble out of trouble.
I notice you dodged the question: who's going to pay for the societal cost associated with a poor, oppressed underclass?
Again, I don't accept your premise that they are the "scum" (my term) or the "rabble" that you called them, because you are wrong to insinuate that all poor people are going to go on a crime rampage when they can't get the higher-paying job they think they're entitled to.
Anyone who would go on a such a crime spree is "scum" or "rabble" or whatever term you prefer, because they are assaulting the well-being of others instead of doing what they can to improve themselves and fix their problems, and the vast majority of poor people do not do such a thing, as you're accusing them of doing.
. . . or the employees are a part of a strong union and are able to negotiate collectively.
To the detriment of consumers, who are always better served by competition rather than price-fixing or wage-fixing.
The whining crybaby consumers you mean?
So then you are saying here that the "living wage" theory is based on the idea that serving consumers is not what businesses are supposed to do because the consumers are whining crybabies to expect companies to serve them with better products and lower prices. And you are acknowledging that "living wage" is detrimental to consumers, but they are obligated to bear this sacrifice, because for them to expect better service at lower prices makes them crybabies.
The term crybabies was what you ascribed to the workers who are selling their labor. Their desire to get more pay for their labor is no different from the consumer's behaviour to expect better products or service at lower prices.
There's a big difference: The consumer shops for the lowest price but does NOT demand that laws be passed imposing any price level onto sellers or other consumers. But the wage-earners demand labor laws forcing the employers to pay higher prices for labor.
Whether it's companies demanding corporate welfare, or wage-earners demanding "living wage" laws or other labor laws driving up the labor cost, it is only crybabies who go whining to the state to force someone to pay them a higher price or protect them against having to compete or to provide them with a subsidy or demanding a bailout.
The "crybabies" are those who get what they want by running off to the government and demanding some form of subsidy or interference into the buying and selling which pays them an unearned gain or profit at someone else's expense.
A "crybaby" is someone who tries to improve his condition by assaulting others and making them worse off by imposing high costs onto them.
What consumers demand is a competitive marketplace where all the producers have to compete, and where there are safeguards against fraud, but not where the state interferes to set any of the prices or give preferential treatment to any particular class of buyers or sellers.
(Actually there are a few cases of crybaby consumers -- e.g., the gasoline tax is too low in most places. And there might be some other examples.)
Why should I care about one group of whining crybabies more than another group of whining crybabies?
The consumers are not whining crybabies, because they are not demanding that the state interfere to impose price levels onto sellers. All they demand is that there be competition and minimum fraud. They are not demanding benefits that others have to pay for.
But labor unions and many wage-earners are crybabies because they are demanding inteference by the state to benefit them at the cost of everyone else in the society.
When your demands to benefit your particular group result in costs that all members of society have to pay for, so there is a net cost to all, then you're a crybaby. But not if all you're demanding is freedom for all individuals to make their own choices to buy or sell, a competitive market, absence of fraud -- these are demands that benefit us all by making our whole economy more productive and rewarding those producers who perform the best. That's the opposite of "crybaby".
Why should the employer be allowed collective negotiation, but employees shouldn't?
Employers are NOT allowed collective negotiation for any prices, either the prices they pay or the prices they charge for anything. Price-fixing is illegal for them, but is allowed to wage-earners, who alone are allowed to engage in price-fixing.
All buyers/sellers are allowed to shop around, check to see what others are paying or charging, and can seek ways to circumvent the laws against price-fixing. But no one is legally allowed to practice anti-competitive price-fixing except wage-earners.
By collective negotiation, I mean that a single corporation is a collective. If corporate HR can negotiate with 10 employees with one voice, why shouldn't those 10 employees be allowed to pool their resources and negotiate as one voice also?
Well, they ARE allowed to. And it would be impractical to try to prevent them.
However, the harm of it is that it unnecessarily drives up the labor cost, which is passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices. It's irrelevant who represents the employer -- if it's a committee, a collective. Whatever the structure or the process, anything that drives up the cost of production higher than necessary to get the production done is detrimental to consumers.
Any increase in the cost, such as labor cost, which is not due to an increase in quality or performance, is detrimental to consumers and a net loss to society. The ideal is perfect competition throughout all levels and transcending all the divisions, so that no one is able to gain a higher income except through improved performance.
Though this ideal is impossible, it's always best to move closer and closer to the ideal. Anticompetitive collusion should be prevented wherever practical measures to prevent it are possible.
Free marketplace also means that you are free to cooperate with others for economies of scale, and that should apply just as well to employees as it does to employers.
But it does not apply to competitors cooperating together to fix their price/wage instead of trying to undercut each other in order to give consumers a better deal. Some cooperation is good, but not anticompetitive cooperation that benefits only the ones cooperating and drives up costs or drives down output to the detriment of everyone else.
Unionization is just evening the playing field so that both sides have collective negotiation power.
No, there's no uneven playing field.
Employers have no legal freedom to engage in setting wages or prices by collaborating or collectively negotiating with their competitors.
There might be some questionable practices by some employers, but in general this is a silly point to argue, because employers have plenty of bargaining power and don't need to break the antitrust laws, or risk doing so, when there are so many legal ways they can keep down their labor cost and seek lower-cost labor
I wasn't talking about anti-trust violations. Merely the employers using their leverage as bigger entities for whom an individual employee is merely a fraction of their work force, whereas employees usually have only one full-time job.
But this higher leverage of employers is simply a reflection of their higher value. Those of higher value always have more leverage than those of lower value. It's not because they're employers per se that they have higher value. Rather, it's because of their higher value that they are employers.
In a few cases the employee does have high value -- even higher than the employer. Such as a celebrity being solicited to take a time slot to host a TV show. There is no need to "even the playing field" every time one party has more leverage than the other. Those of higher value always have this advantage -- it's a part of the benefit of having more value.
If you're nothing but a dime-a-dozen unskilled job-seeker, don't expect to have the "playing field" leveled for you by society. Your value is low. Either do the best you can, maybe improve yourself, or just go whining to the government to pass a "living wage" law to give crybaby benefits to low-value workers and hope you'll be lucky enough to get a job in the tight labor market which is made even tighter with each additional employer-bashing law you get passed. The ones harmed by these laws are a greater number than the few crybabies who benefit.
It is no more "wage-fixing" for employees to band together and demand a certain minimum wage, or none of them will work for the employer, than it is for the said employer to dictate a maximum wage and refuse to hire anyone who asks for more.
It's no more "wage-fixing" for an employer to do this than it is "price-fixing" for a customer to refuse to pay a price that is too high. Anyone is free "to dictate a maximum" or "minimum" price or wage or whatever and refuse to pay or charge higher or lower.
Exactly my point.
No that's not your point. Your point is that some workers should be able to dictate to the employer what is paid to OTHER workers, not just to themselves. You want these workers to dictate that the employer may not hire another worker who is willing to work for less. That is not what employers do when they set their own wage level and refuse to pay higher. That employer who refuses to pay you what you want is not trying to prevent some other employer from hiring you at that higher wage level.
And that is not what a consumer is doing when s/he refuses to pay a price that is too high. That consumer is not dictating to other consumers what price they must pay. If you are a desperate consumer who wants that product and is willing to pay that high price, you are free to do that, and the other consumer who says the price is too high cannot dictate to you as a consumer that you may not buy that product at that high price. That other consumer has no business dictating to you what price you must pay or what price is too high for you, but can only dictate what price he or she will pay, and that is the limit of what that consumer can dictate.
But your point is totally different: You want certain sellers, wage-earners, to be able to dictate to other wage-earners what price they must charge, and that if they refuse, they are breaking the law, and you want them to be treated as criminals, and also the employer hiring them.
The employer who says, "here's the wage I will pay, no more, take it or leave it," is not dictating anything except what price HE ALONE will pay, but NOT what any other employer will pay, which is none of his concern.
So, get it straight -- no one dictates anything to anyone else, except this one thing alone, which is the price only he or she as an individual is willing to pay or is willing to accept. He or she is free to dictate this one figure and nothing else.
Which you disagree with, because you want workers to be able to dictate to other workers/sellers the price they must charge, and if they charge a different price you want to make criminals of them and the employer who hires them at the price you have made illegal. That's what your point is.
Anyone, including unions who negotiate on behalf of their members, should be entitled to do so.
But they should not be entitled to dictate to other workers what their wage-level has to be if those workers would rather compete as individuals, perhaps because they're desperate and will settle for less in order to have a competitive advantage over your union workers and "steal" their jobs because the employer doesn't recognize their union, as your theory would force the employer to do.
No, my point is freedom of choice for every individual worker and employer, whereas your point is to impose and dictate "living wage" pay levels onto everyone which drives up the labor cost and cost of business and thus the prices consumers must pay.
Of course there needs to be a balance, a big union can bully small employers the same way as big corporations can bully individual workers.
No, big corporations cannot "bully" individual workers, because the worker is free to quit. Just as a consumer cannot "bully" a store by refusing to buy a certain product because the price is too high. You do not "bully" someone by saying what your price is and then saying, "take it or leave it" -- that is not bullying.
The "bully" is the one who says, "this is my price, and I'm also imposing it onto everyone else, and anyone who pays more or less than this is a criminal." That's the "living wage" bully who dictates what price others have to pay or be paid, and anyone who doesn't comply is a criminal.
Best balance is achieved if unions are about the same size as their counterparts.
Again, there's no need to "level the playing field" between those of higher value (the employers) and those of lower value (job-seekers). Their disadvantage is due only to their lower value and nothing else -- not anything unfair that has to be compensated for.
It's true -- those who have low value also have low leverage or bargaining power. Their low compensation rightly reflects their low value, and if they want more, they can either improve their performance and thus their value, or they can whine and be crybabies, which is what the "living wage" is all about.
No, it's not only about low value. It's that the employment relationship is indivisible for the employee.
But it all boils down to low value of the employee. That indivisibility is a function of that employee's low value.
No, it is not. That employee's value is what it is, but his bargaining power is affected by the fact that he either has a job or doesn't (and usually can't go without that job for a long time).
But all that is due to his lower value and nothing more. None of what you just said is true of a job-seeker who has high value. The high-value worker/job-seeker cannot be unemployed except by choice, because s/he is holding out for a better offer. You're talking only about a desperate job-seeker of low value who can't get hired. None of what you're saying applies to a high-value worker/job-seeker.
He can't just sell half his labor to one company to make ends meet . . .
Yes he can, if he's a high-value worker. The company will do whatever it has to to work it out, because he's worth the sacrifice or adjustment they'd have to make.
. . . while using other half to look for a better opportunity.
If he's a high-value worker/job-seeker he already has several opportunities which offer him all the options he needs. You're describing only a low-value worker/job-seeker who is desperate because of his/her low value.
Imagine a company that has 10 employees. If he gets into disagreement about pay with one of them, the worst that happens is that he loses 10% of his work force and maybe a bit more of its revenue while searching for a replacement. But meanwhile that employee risks losing 100% of his income.
Only because this is a low-value worker. If he were a high-value employee, that company could not do without him, and his contribution would be more than 10% of the product. If this employer can really do without him and manage, it has to be because the employer has considerably more value than this worker.
Both parties know this, which puts the employee at a disadvantage in a negotiation.
What they know is that the employee is of much lower value than the employer. That employer is creating much more value in the economy to require several employees, and it's in society's interest for that employer to be rewarded for the value he is contributing, and to penalize him by forcing him to pay more than is necessary to get that work done is to impose a net cost onto society and reduce incrementally the overall standard of living. Pandering to this one worker out of pity toward him only ends up harming everyone else and causing a total net loss to society.
Society is better served by that one worker doing whatever sacrifice is necessary to fix his problems. If he is really worth what he's demanding, he can simply make his demand and threaten to quit if he doesn't get what he wants. Besides, some other employer will hire him at those better terms if he is really worth what he's demanding. The very fact that no other employer will hire him only proves his relative
low value.
On the other hand, if the 10 employees were unionized and said that if the employer doesn't pay that one worker what he asks, they will all go on strike, then both sides would be negotiating on equal terms.
And the whole society is worse off. It is a net loss for everyone. Imposing "equal terms" onto everyone in all situations is not a social good. Those who have earned their "unequal" advantage over someone else are entitled to benefit from it. They had to work in order to gain that advantage. You're entitled to benefit from what you have earned.
Unionization is no more anticompetitive than all Wal-Mart stores being owned by the Waltons rather than competing with one another.
WalMart got big by serving consumers and lifting the general living standard of all. Unions got big by driving up prices consumers have to pay and causing the overall standard of living to be less than it would have been.
WalMart got big by helping to create the wealth and the prosperity, whereas unions got big by leeching off the wealth created by the capitalists.
Those who got big by earning their way to it are entitled to benefit from their size advantage. This applies to the "little guy" who is a little bigger than the other "little guy" who hasn't done quite as well. All the advantages and disadvantages or inequalities do not need to be balanced out or leveled in order to make everything fair. Rather, society is made better off overall if everyone works up from their disadvantage to overcome it and prove what their worth is by their performance.
The advantage they gain as they improve and gain more success is their reward for the work they contributed in order to attain that success. If that advantage is erased by "balancing" everything out or "leveling the playing field" so no one has any advantage over another, then much of the incentive to improve and perform and produce is undermined, and we lose much of the wealth and the higher standard of living that is created in the process of everyone struggling to improve and do better.
