New Study Confirms That American Workers Are Getting Ripped Off

[untermensche]

You are wrong about machines.

The productivity that comes from machines isn't free productivity, it is leveraged productivity proportional to the efforts of the workers who use and maintain them. Prove me wrong if you can.

The worker gets paid for what he does.

Give him a better tool, he produces more due to that tool. The extra value belongs to the owner of the tool. If you give it to the worker why would the owner spend the money for the tool??

The tool was paid for through theft.

The entire system is a system of theft from workers.

 

[Harry Bosch]

You are wrong about machines.

The productivity that comes from machines isn't free productivity, it is leveraged productivity proportional to the efforts of the workers who use and maintain them. Prove me wrong if you can.

The worker gets paid for what he does.

Give him a better tool, he produces more due to that tool. The extra value belongs to the owner of the tool. If you give it to the worker why would the owner spend the money for the tool??

First of all you are moving the goal posts. I'm not saying give all the extra production value to the worker, I'm saying give the SAME CUT to the worker he enjoyed before. Not only does the worker get the same cut for the same effort, the managers get the same cut for putting in the SAME EFFORT they put in before too. Don't act like the owners won't benefit from this. The increased production means increased income which means increased profit. It is STILL a good decision to give your workers tools even if they have the SAME CUT. (I swear that you are being deliberately obtuse to mess with me. I know you understand economics better than this last post indicates.) Even though the cut is the same everyone is making more money!

There is always going to be a cut. There has always been a cut. There have always been tools that affect production. You keep trying to justify changing the traditional cut when NOTHING has actually changed.


But you want to sell me on the idea that upgrading the factory floor means the workers should automatically have their wages frozen. It just doesn't follow.


PS. You want to know what happens if the owner DOESN'T invest in new tools and technology that can improve their efficiency? Their company goes out of business when their more efficient competitor who invested in the new technology undercuts their prices. In a competitive environment, ignoring new tools is a death sentence for a company. They really have no choice. If the managers are too stupid to upgrade, they deserve the death of their company. (It's a shame they never seem to feel any pain from their failures with golden parachutes popping open every time a Fortune 500 manager fails.)

Zorq: you are assuming that efficiency increases automatically increase profit at the same pace. Not so. If efficiency goes up due to automation and/or lean manufacturing, but the company reduces prices at the same pace - no extra profit.

 

[bilby]

First of all you are moving the goal posts. I'm not saying give all the extra production value to the worker, I'm saying give the SAME CUT to the worker he enjoyed before. Not only does the worker get the same cut for the same effort, the managers get the same cut for putting in the SAME EFFORT they put in before too. Don't act like the owners won't benefit from this. The increased production means increased income which means increased profit. It is STILL a good decision to give your workers tools even if they have the SAME CUT. (I swear that you are being deliberately obtuse to mess with me. I know you understand economics better than this last post indicates.) Even though the cut is the same everyone is making more money!

There is always going to be a cut. There has always been a cut. There have always been tools that affect production. You keep trying to justify changing the traditional cut when NOTHING has actually changed.


But you want to sell me on the idea that upgrading the factory floor means the workers should automatically have their wages frozen. It just doesn't follow.


PS. You want to know what happens if the owner DOESN'T invest in new tools and technology that can improve their efficiency? Their company goes out of business when their more efficient competitor who invested in the new technology undercuts their prices. In a competitive environment, ignoring new tools is a death sentence for a company. They really have no choice. If the managers are too stupid to upgrade, they deserve the death of their company. (It's a shame they never seem to feel any pain from their failures with golden parachutes popping open every time a Fortune 500 manager fails.)

Zorq: you are assuming that efficiency increases automatically increase profit at the same pace. Not so. If efficiency goes up due to automation and/or lean manufacturing, but the company reduces prices at the same pace - no extra profit.

Sure he is. But deflation is not the norm, so it's a fair assumption for the general case.

 

[zorq]

Zorq: you are assuming that efficiency increases automatically increase profit at the same pace. Not so. If efficiency goes up due to automation and/or lean manufacturing, but the company reduces prices at the same pace - no extra profit.

The way supply and demand curves move to meet each other, there's usually a profit to be made by increasing supply and reducing price. Sometimes there isn't. But we are still arguing pretty abstractly. And like bilby said, it works in the general case.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So you are okay with 4/5 of all the benefits of automation going to padding the CEO's/shareholders' pockets instead of the workers' and there is no way that we could ever call that a bad deal?

Do you think the CEOs are working harder now than they did in a previous era? Guess what. Their job has probably gotten easier with technology too. Making good decisions is easier when you have more pertinent information.

The workers contributed nothing to that automation, why should they reap the benefits? (Those of us involved in making the automation already got paychecks for doing so.)

Ultimately you can't have a large percentage of the population without incomes, without means of support, with no hope of a better life. Especially if those who are in that position see how the other half live, seemingly limitless money, property, luxury and boundless excess.

Eventually we will reach a point where there are not enough jobs for many people and something else will have to be done. I used to feel the answer would be UBI, but now I'm more inclined towards a system of government jobs--things that would be nice to have done but which aren't actually economic to do. That's for down the road, though, we haven't reached the point where there aren't enough jobs.

- - - Updated - - -

You are wrong about machines.

The productivity that comes from machines isn't free productivity, it is leveraged productivity proportional to the efforts of the workers who use and maintain them. Prove me wrong if you can.

The worker gets paid for what he does.

Give him a better tool, he produces more due to that tool. The extra value belongs to the owner of the tool. If you give it to the worker why would the owner spend the money for the tool??

First of all you are moving the goal posts. I'm not saying give all the extra production value to the worker, I'm saying give the SAME CUT to the worker he enjoyed before. Not only does the worker get the same cut for the same effort, the managers get the same cut for putting in the SAME EFFORT they put in before too. Don't act like the owners won't benefit from this. The increased production means increased income which means increased profit. It is STILL a good decision to give your workers tools even if they have the SAME CUT. (I swear that you are being deliberately obtuse to mess with me. I know you understand economics better than this last post indicates.) Even though the cut is the same everyone is making more money!

The problem with your approach is that the tools cost. A worker in a labor-intensive business gets a higher "cut" than a worker in a capital-intensive business. Adding automation is making the business more capital intensive.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You are wrong about machines.

The productivity that comes from machines isn't free productivity, it is leveraged productivity proportional to the efforts of the workers who use and maintain them. Prove me wrong if you can.

The worker gets paid for what he does.

Give him a better tool, he produces more due to that tool. The extra value belongs to the owner of the tool. If you give it to the worker why would the owner spend the money for the tool??

The tool was paid for through theft.

The entire system is a system of theft from workers.

Suppose you are right. Nobody's left to pay for that tool. It doesn't exist. Welcome to unterland where everybody starves.

In reality, you're the thief. You want to steal all the means of production from their rightful owners.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Zorq: you are assuming that efficiency increases automatically increase profit at the same pace. Not so. If efficiency goes up due to automation and/or lean manufacturing, but the company reduces prices at the same pace - no extra profit.

The way supply and demand curves move to meet each other, there's usually a profit to be made by increasing supply and reducing price. Sometimes there isn't. But we are still arguing pretty abstractly. And like bilby said, it works in the general case.

In the real world if company A is automating then likely B is also. Competition will drive the price down so they are making the same profit margin as before.

 

[untermensche]

The tool was paid for through theft.

The entire system is a system of theft from workers.

Suppose you are right. Nobody's left to pay for that tool. It doesn't exist. Welcome to unterland where everybody starves.

In reality, you're the thief. You want to steal all the means of production from their rightful owners.

The labor of workers pays for the tool.

In all worlds.

 

[Jarhyn]

The tool was paid for through theft.

The entire system is a system of theft from workers.

Suppose you are right. Nobody's left to pay for that tool. It doesn't exist. Welcome to unterland where everybody starves.

In reality, you're the thief. You want to steal all the means of production from their rightful owners.

Or, in your proposed Unterland, the workers get together and vote that they wish to spend some portion of their collective added value on improving their ability to add value. In this world, where workers own the means of production, improving the means of production directly benefits the workers.

At some point, though, we will end up in a situation where more people wish to do work than there are consumers of said work. What then? Would we need to lottery access to work? Would participating in that lottery be ethically sufficient to claim a share of the work done by a lottery pool? How do you distribute work to a willing and able workforce when there is less work than workers? After all, even public works and infrastructure still have diminishing returns on continuous investment.

In reality, I'm a human being. I want to have access to the means of production and to get the value back which I generate with that means less the operational costs and differential opportunity costs for accessing those means.

 

[zorq]

The problem with your approach is that the tools cost. A worker in a labor-intensive business gets a higher "cut" than a worker in a capital-intensive business. Adding automation is making the business more capital intensive.

New tools require capital, it's true. But the money spent on new tools can be and is considered part of the overhead of doing business. Money spent doesn't simply make the business MORE capital intensive.

If the new tools are more durable and future proof than the old and require less maintenance than the old ones it might make the business LESS capital intensive as the long term overhead costs to the management are decreased. New tools can effect efficiency on the labor side AND the capital side.

I don't think this angle gives you an excuse to change the cut you give workers either.

 

[Axulus]

The tool was paid for through theft.

The entire system is a system of theft from workers.

Suppose you are right. Nobody's left to pay for that tool. It doesn't exist. Welcome to unterland where everybody starves.

In reality, you're the thief. You want to steal all the means of production from their rightful owners.

Or, in your proposed Unterland, the workers get together and vote that they wish to spend some portion of their collective added value on improving their ability to add value. In this world, where workers own the means of production, improving the means of production directly benefits the workers.

At some point, though, we will end up in a situation where more people wish to do work than there are consumers of said work. What then? Would we need to lottery access to work? Would participating in that lottery be ethically sufficient to claim a share of the work done by a lottery pool? How do you distribute work to a willing and able workforce when there is less work than workers? After all, even public works and infrastructure still have diminishing returns on continuous investment.

In reality, I'm a human being. I want to have access to the means of production and to get the value back which I generate with that means less the operational costs and differential opportunity costs for accessing those means.

This proposal gets you into a mess as well. Those companies that have a lot of capital per worker will be extremely reluctant to hire new workers as it means giving any new worker a huge value of capital. What you will end up with is one class of worker very lucky to get on at a company with high capital per worker, and the rest of the workers shut out and relegated to service jobs with low capital per worker. You also lose a lot of efficiency as the best workers for the job won't necessarily be hired and some enterprises will have too high worker to capital ratios.

 

[untermensche]

Or, in your proposed Unterland, the workers get together and vote that they wish to spend some portion of their collective added value on improving their ability to add value. In this world, where workers own the means of production, improving the means of production directly benefits the workers.

At some point, though, we will end up in a situation where more people wish to do work than there are consumers of said work. What then? Would we need to lottery access to work? Would participating in that lottery be ethically sufficient to claim a share of the work done by a lottery pool? How do you distribute work to a willing and able workforce when there is less work than workers? After all, even public works and infrastructure still have diminishing returns on continuous investment.

In reality, I'm a human being. I want to have access to the means of production and to get the value back which I generate with that means less the operational costs and differential opportunity costs for accessing those means.

This proposal gets you into a mess as well. Those companies that have a lot of capital per worker will be extremely reluctant to hire new workers as it means giving any new worker a huge value of capital. What you will end up with is one class of worker very lucky to get on at a company with high capital per worker, and the rest of the workers shut out and relegated to service jobs with low capital per worker. You also lose a lot of efficiency as the best workers for the job won't necessarily be hired and some enterprises will have too high worker to capital ratios.

You imagine humans want to work as hard as possible.

They don't.

Only whip yielding dictators want humans to work as hard as possible.

Workers in control would set things up so people did not have to work as hard as possible.

This means more jobs.

Right now the dictators want to squeeze as much work out of their servants as possible.

This means less jobs.

 

[Axulus]

Or, in your proposed Unterland, the workers get together and vote that they wish to spend some portion of their collective added value on improving their ability to add value. In this world, where workers own the means of production, improving the means of production directly benefits the workers.

At some point, though, we will end up in a situation where more people wish to do work than there are consumers of said work. What then? Would we need to lottery access to work? Would participating in that lottery be ethically sufficient to claim a share of the work done by a lottery pool? How do you distribute work to a willing and able workforce when there is less work than workers? After all, even public works and infrastructure still have diminishing returns on continuous investment.

In reality, I'm a human being. I want to have access to the means of production and to get the value back which I generate with that means less the operational costs and differential opportunity costs for accessing those means.

This proposal gets you into a mess as well. Those companies that have a lot of capital per worker will be extremely reluctant to hire new workers as it means giving any new worker a huge value of capital. What you will end up with is one class of worker very lucky to get on at a company with high capital per worker, and the rest of the workers shut out and relegated to service jobs with low capital per worker. You also lose a lot of efficiency as the best workers for the job won't necessarily be hired and some enterprises will have too high worker to capital ratios.

You imagine humans want to work as hard as possible.

They don't.

Only whip yielding dictators want humans to work as hard as possible.

Workers in control would set things up so people did not have to work as hard as possible.

This means more jobs.

Right now the dictators want to squeeze as much work out of their servants as possible.

This means less jobs.

Your proposal would result in far less jobs since hiring a worker would make them an equal owner of all the capital at that particular company. Companies that have a high worth per worker means that a new worker will only be hired if they increase the value of the company more than the share they receive. A company that has a value of $1 million per worker means a new worker will only be hired if they bring more than a million in value to a company, and that is before taking into account any wage above and beyond the capital share they receive! A company with decent net worth would be insane to hire a janitor, for example. You might get a bunch of contractor arrangements where the workers are treated as contractors and few employees, but that would just result in what we have now: the company dictating to the contractors when to work, how much to work, and for what rate.

If you disallow contractors, you get into a situation of massive unemployment as few companies would be hiring since few employees bring enough value to justify the capital share they must be given under your proposal.

 

[untermensche]

You imagine humans want to work as hard as possible.

They don't.

Only whip yielding dictators want humans to work as hard as possible.

Workers in control would set things up so people did not have to work as hard as possible.

This means more jobs.

Right now the dictators want to squeeze as much work out of their servants as possible.

This means less jobs.

Your proposal would result in far less jobs since hiring a worker would make them an equal owner of all the capital at that particular company. Companies that have a high worth per worker means that a new worker will only be hired if they increase the value of the company more than the share they receive. A company that has a value of $1 million per worker means a new worker will only be hired if they bring more than a million in value to a company, and that is before taking into account any wage above and beyond the capital share they receive! A company with decent net worth would be insane to hire a janitor, for example. You might get a bunch of contractor arrangements where the workers are treated as contractors and few employees, but that would just result in what we have now: the company dictating to the contractors when to work, how much to work, and for what rate.

If you disallow contractors, you get into a situation of massive unemployment as few companies would be hiring since few employees bring enough value to justify the capital share they must be given under your proposal.

It would not be some dictator doing the hiring.

It would be the will of the group. And all decisions would be in the open for all to see. There are no decisions made by dictators in secret.

And the will of the group is not a greedy blind entity.

That is a single dictator. Or small group of dictators.

The dictator wants as few workers as possible to work as hard as possible.

The individual in the group wants to make things easy for themselves, not as difficult as possible. And the only way to do that is to make it easy for everyone.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The tool was paid for through theft.

The entire system is a system of theft from workers.

Suppose you are right. Nobody's left to pay for that tool. It doesn't exist. Welcome to unterland where everybody starves.

In reality, you're the thief. You want to steal all the means of production from their rightful owners.

The labor of workers pays for the tool.

In all worlds.

In all worlds with time machines, that is.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You imagine humans want to work as hard as possible.

They don't.

Only whip yielding dictators want humans to work as hard as possible.

Workers in control would set things up so people did not have to work as hard as possible.

This means more jobs.

Right now the dictators want to squeeze as much work out of their servants as possible.

This means less jobs.

Your proposal would result in far less jobs since hiring a worker would make them an equal owner of all the capital at that particular company. Companies that have a high worth per worker means that a new worker will only be hired if they increase the value of the company more than the share they receive. A company that has a value of $1 million per worker means a new worker will only be hired if they bring more than a million in value to a company, and that is before taking into account any wage above and beyond the capital share they receive! A company with decent net worth would be insane to hire a janitor, for example. You might get a bunch of contractor arrangements where the workers are treated as contractors and few employees, but that would just result in what we have now: the company dictating to the contractors when to work, how much to work, and for what rate.

If you disallow contractors, you get into a situation of massive unemployment as few companies would be hiring since few employees bring enough value to justify the capital share they must be given under your proposal.

It would not be some dictator doing the hiring.

It would be the will of the group. And all decisions would be in the open for all to see. There are no decisions made by dictators in secret.

And the will of the group is not a greedy blind entity.

That is a single dictator. Or small group of dictators.

The dictator wants as few workers as possible to work as hard as possible.

The individual in the group wants to make things easy for themselves, not as difficult as possible. And the only way to do that is to make it easy for everyone.

Your approach does nothing to address the problem he's pointing out. Nobody at the company benefits from hiring another worker enough to make up for what they lost in capital by hiring him.

 

[untermensche]

It would not be some dictator doing the hiring.

It would be the will of the group. And all decisions would be in the open for all to see. There are no decisions made by dictators in secret.

And the will of the group is not a greedy blind entity.

That is a single dictator. Or small group of dictators.

The dictator wants as few workers as possible to work as hard as possible.

The individual in the group wants to make things easy for themselves, not as difficult as possible. And the only way to do that is to make it easy for everyone.

Your approach does nothing to address the problem he's pointing out. Nobody at the company benefits from hiring another worker enough to make up for what they lost in capital by hiring him.

It is nothing like the current system that pays workers as little as possible.

It will be a system where workers are paid as much as possible.

And just like the dictators now like to work very little, they like best when they profit and do no work at all, the workers in control will want the same thing.

Which means they will hire as many workers as possible.

Your support for dictatorship is not only disloyal to humanity, it is also a way to make the lives of workers as difficult as possible.

It is pure common sense that the way to make the lives of workers as easy as possible requires empowering workers and eliminating dictators.

 

[DBT]

My point was about disenfranchised workers, disillusioned workers....workers who's wages have stagnated for decades while the rich get ever richer......seeing little chance of improvement in pay and conditions.

Well, if you assume that the myth about disenfranchised workers is true.

Why call it a myth? Jobs have been lost due to companies relocating offshore. Wages for ordinary workers have stagnated for decades. Jobs have disappeared because of computerization and mechanization.


These are not myths. The relevant information and evidence is easy to find.

 

[DBT]

Ultimately you can't have a large percentage of the population without incomes, without means of support, with no hope of a better life. Especially if those who are in that position see how the other half live, seemingly limitless money, property, luxury and boundless excess.

Eventually we will reach a point where there are not enough jobs for many people and something else will have to be done. I used to feel the answer would be UBI, but now I'm more inclined towards a system of government jobs--things that would be nice to have done but which aren't actually economic to do. That's for down the road, though, we haven't reached the point where there aren't enough jobs.

The official stats are overrated. In Australia, for example, you qualify as being employed if you do one hour of paid work a week. It keeps the employment figures looking reasonable, when in reality many casual workers are underemployed.

 

[barbos]

My point was about disenfranchised workers, disillusioned workers....workers who's wages have stagnated for decades while the rich get ever richer......seeing little chance of improvement in pay and conditions.

Well, if you assume that the myth about disenfranchised workers is true.

Why call it a myth? Jobs have been lost due to companies relocating offshore. Wages for ordinary workers have stagnated for decades. Jobs have disappeared because of computerization and mechanization.


These are not myths. The relevant information and evidence is easy to find.

Well, job loss and relocation is a natural process of economically unsustainable wage growth among said workers plus automation.
So, yeah, american workers had a good run while Europe was recovering from WW2 and Asia was in deep shit.
And frankly why should I give a damn about these $100K/year union workers being fired?