Pathological Altruism

[DBT]

It's not a matter of 'evil' - just the all too human attribute of self interest. An essential part of the nature of business is a desire to reduce costs and maximize profits, obviously the owners/investors want to see a good return on their investment. Using the term ''Pathological Altruism'' seeks to denigrate the opposition. The opposition being those who question the ideology of profit at any cost, and would like to see those at the bottom get a reasonable return for their time and effort while performing productive work for the company. Which I don't think is too much to expect in a developed Nation.

 

[Arctish]

A rising tide lifts all boats.

A thousand people making $40,000/year do more for the economy than 100 people making $400,000/year or 1 person making $40,000,000. They buy more shoes, soap, pasta, peanuts, earrings, beer, movie tickets, take-out meals, airline tickets, and toilet paper. They have more clothes that need dry cleaning, more carpets that need shampooing, more houses that need painting, and more furnaces that need tune-ups. They eat more food, drink more coffee, and use more paper napkins than that 1 rich guy possible could. Putting more money in their hands means more jobs, not less, because once they have the money to pay for the goods and services they want and need, they will, and once business picks up employers take on more employees to meet the rising demand.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

What is a living wage? Please define specifically what you mean by "living"? Is having two people living in a home that is more suited for just one individual an unlivable situation, even though two people could live in that situation (although less than ideal)?

how a person chooses to live is a personal decision. How person is forced to live due to artificially low wages and draconian labor laws is something else. If two people decide to live below their means, and many people do, that is their business, but simple living or sparse living should be a choice of lifestyle, not a requirement of survival.

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A living wage job is better than a lower than living wage job.

What is your maximum tolerance to living wage jobs vs. unemployment ratio?

for how long? The minimum wage started out at 25 cents an hours in the US. It has a history of rising and the republic hasn't toppled yet. Employment rates go up and down for many reasons and again the republic hasn't toppled yet.

as for what is my maximum tolerance of unemployment, I can tolerate many things and that tolerance also fluctuates and is based on more than wages, as is employment. Now there may be a spike in unemployment initially, but we don't no how much or for how long because we do know that when poor and working people have more income, aggregate demand in the society goes up. We also know the a poor man's dollar (http://www.freeratio.org/thearchive...7079&highlight=poor+man's+dollar.#post6927079) has a greater effect on demand than its initial value. As demand increases industrious entrepreneurs will find a way to fill that need under the wage laws, thus supplying jobs and cause the unemployment rate to go down.

But you have read this all many times before. not like this is a new topic.

Perhaps you thought I forgot.

I didn't.

Also, why do you think is it the case that black teens and black young adults (age 18-29) have much higher unemployment levels today (even before the great recession) than they had in the 50's and 60's, when discrimination was much worse?

Well, and I'm guessing mind you, it could have to do with businesses that used to hire black people who lived in urban areas fleeing to the suburbs where public transportation doesn't go. it could have to do with offshoring and the fact that it is hard to drive from Detroit to Taiwan. It could have to do with an explosion in automation and technology. It could have to do with financialization and de-industrialization of the US economy. It could have to do with women having to join the work force and increasing the pool of available workers.

Need i go on?

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-living-wage.htm

Do read the whole article.

It's not long.

and the ideas in it aren't scary.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

If a company says, we can only stay in business if we are allowed to dump X thousands of gallons of toxic sludge into the river, expel X tons of coal ash into the air, kill X amount of patients who take our medicine, are the people opposed to those businesses being allowed to do those things pathological?

 

[Nice Squirrel]

It's not a matter of 'evil' - just the all too human attribute of self interest. An essential part of the nature of business is a desire to reduce costs and maximize profits, obviously the owners/investors want to see a good return on their investment. Using the term ''Pathological Altruism'' seeks to denigrate the opposition. The opposition being those who question the ideology of profit at any cost, and would like to see those at the bottom get a reasonable return for their time and effort while performing productive work for the company. Which I don't think is too much to expect in a developed Nation.

This, and yet somehow we are called extremists for this view.

 

[BH]

How much farther does it have to go downhill for workers in the US to where the Soviet standard of living would have been better than what we could get over here?

 

[Nice Squirrel]

For many we are already there.

 

[Sarpedon]

Let me know when there's a bread and vodka line.

Not that I care about the bread, I bake my own. Flour lines would be a problem.

 

[Sabine Grant]

It's not a matter of 'evil' - just the all too human attribute of self interest. An essential part of the nature of business is a desire to reduce costs and maximize profits, obviously the owners/investors want to see a good return on their investment. Using the term ''Pathological Altruism'' seeks to denigrate the opposition.

It certainly does portray the opposition as being affected by a pathology. Which the term "pathological" evokes a clinically/medically related diagnosis. In this case,a disorder of some sort impairing the ability/capacity to formulate rationally constructed conclusions.

The opposition being those who question the ideology of profit at any cost, and would like to see those at the bottom get a reasonable return for their time and effort while performing productive work for the company. Which I don't think is too much to expect in a developed Nation.

IMO, key statement :

those at the bottom get a reasonable return for their time and effort while performing productive work for the company.

Let me illustrate via my direct observation "those at the bottom". In the industry which is my work environment, "those at the bottom" are hourly wage dependent health care workers under the designation of CNAs and HHAs. In Florida, hourly wages for such non skilled nursing designation ranges from 9 to 11 dollars per hour. Such workers cannot assume their Basic Living Expenses unless they work an average of 50 to 60 hours a week if not more (depending on whether they are a single individual household or have dependent children).The majority of agencies/companies employing those workers will avoid providing overtime. Resulting in those workers supplementing their limited number of hours to 40 weekly by holding one or two other jobs.

Speaking of productivity, it would be greatly unreasonable to expect that they will still be able provide quality services to those companies/agencies clients. It can hardly be expected of a CNA/HHA who just left a 12 hour night shift to then function productively while picking up another shift of 6 hours for another agency/company following her 12 hour shift.

When workers/employees get the sense from their employer that they are treated as assets to the company, there is no doubt in my mind that such sentiment will improve the worker's productivity and his/her willingness to be a customer oriented person. Publix offers starting hourly wages above what a mega corporation like Walmart will offer. Publix ad campaign relies on this one sentence "where shopping is a pleasure". That because their employees are given the incentive via higher wages to be customer oriented. Trader Joe's is another company who understands the intimate association between incentive to be productive and customer oriented and providing starting wages higher than a mega corporation like Walmart. Costco has a similar philosophy to TJ.

Some of us proponents of rising the minimum wage are usually people who are connected and interact with a great variety of human beings. We are "people persons". We cannot be detached from "those at the bottom". We are fully aware of and cannot be blissfully oblivious to their needs. We place the mental, emotional and physical well being of our fellow human beings "at the bottom" above the "ideology of profit at no cost". Throughout my life, it has been an ethically driven principle for me to direct my capacity for empathy towards fellow human beings entrapped in an exploitative system.

 

[rousseau]

Interesting point, nice to see it vocalized.

Without getting into specific examples of it being applied, there does seem to be a tendency for people to form strong beliefs of what's 'right' without really questioning their own beliefs. Then they'll spend their lives fighting to the death for a false proposition.

 

[KeepTalking]

Pathological altruism seems rampant on this board, at least in the political threads.

Are you really seeing pathological altruism, or just discussion of politics and policies? Altruism denotes some kind of action taken to help another, and just flapping our gums, or pounding on our keyboards is not action.

So it's worth calling out.

Not if it is not really happening.

Its definition may vary, but essentially it occurs when a well-meaning person seeks to aid a third person, but fails to appreciate the harm to the third person caused by such good intentions - harm which is reasonable foreseeable to an external observer.

So what harm have we caused with our supposed pathological altruism on this board?

There's a peer-reviewed paper on the subject: http://www.pnas.org/content/110/Supplement_2/10408.full.pdf+html

The above paper provides several examples of pathological altruism, none of which concern wages or posting on message boards.

Pathological altruism is evident in the "living wage" discussion,

Bullshit. The paper you cite provides a working definition in which the altruistic person "inflicts reasonably forseeable harm" to those that he/she is attempting to help, or to his/herself.

As previously mentioned, we are taking no action here to either help or harm anyone. Further, the whole purpose of this board is to discuss whether or not certain policies are reasonable. Therefor, it is unreasonable to say that the harm of enacting a living wage has reasonably forseeable consequences.

where its proponents dismiss the harm of job losses and price increases; and in some instances charge that if a business cannot afford to pay a "living wage" it should not be in business. What happens to workers should that be the rule? A minimum-wage job is better than no job.

These are not reasonably forseeable consequences, as you provide no data that shows paying a living wage has a reasonable chance of causing the above outcomes. It is mere supposition on your part.

I'm sure there are many other examples.

I'm not so sure about that, as the one you provided is a terrible example, and it is not clear that we are taking any action here at all.

I would just like to add, however, that I would much rather see pathological altruism than pathological greed, or pathological hatred, which seems to be what is on offer from the other side of the debate.

 

[Sabine Grant]

By barbos :As for fast food industry, I think they should make $15/hour law, I really want to see robots doing it as a result

What this mantra about "robots" keeps dismissing is that those fast food chains corporations will have to assume expenditures related to hiring or contracting personnel qualified in the maintenance of the said "robots". Further, "robots" and when it comes to automation in general, they are programmed based on what are the most common requests from customers. Anything out of the ordinary will be responded with "sorry, we cannot process your request".

Further and based on the number of times I have encountered folks who get very frustrated with automated voices when calling a company, I am not so certain that we would see a majority of consumers cheering for the "robotisation" of any given business.

To also add that there is a great variety of businesses within the US industry where "robots" would never be able to replace humans. Take health care and my job for example. I would defy anyone to demonstrate how a "robot" would be able to provide the services my employer provides through me.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

The paper you cite provides a working definition in which the altruistic person "inflicts reasonably forseeable harm" to those that he/she is attempting to help, or to his/herself.

And I know several individuals who fit this description, they pride themselves on helping and do not understand that they themselves are making things worse. For example, someone who provides comfort for a sick person and denies them access to a physician because they have things under control.

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[Further and based on the number of times I have encountered folks who get very frustrated with automated voices when calling a company, I am not so certain that we would see a majority of consumers cheering for the "robotisation" of any given business.

And for god sakes don't advertise to me or tell me my call is important, it just serves to enrage me and cancel service.

 

[Canard DuJour]

Interesting point, nice to see it vocalized.

It's same old same old conservatism and has been vocalised ad nauseam.

Without getting into specific examples of it being applied, there does seem to be a tendency for people to form strong beliefs of what's 'right' without really questioning their own beliefs. Then they'll spend their lives fighting to the death for a false proposition.

Why not get into specific examples? The only one here (so far) is the minimum wage, about which proponents endlessly cite evidence and opponents endlessly cite abstract principles.

...??

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

I still say we hsould have a guaranteed basic income for all supplied through the tax system, and let employers and employees agree to whatever wages above that that they want to pay. Take the threat of starvation away from the table and let the two bargain a fair price. The government should not be forcing any particular price, and the employer should not be funding welfare by paying employees more than their work is worth.

 

[ksen]

Take the threat of starvation away from the table

What? And wreck the decades of hard work to put the threat of starvation on the table?

 

[Trausti]

It's same old same old conservatism and has been vocalised ad nauseam.

Without getting into specific examples of it being applied, there does seem to be a tendency for people to form strong beliefs of what's 'right' without really questioning their own beliefs. Then they'll spend their lives fighting to the death for a false proposition.

Why not get into specific examples? The only one here (so far) is the minimum wage, about which proponents endlessly cite evidence and opponents endlessly cite abstract principles.

...??

Specific examples. Affirmative action, whereby standards are lowered for assumed disadvantaged persons giving them preference in admission to academic institutions. Intentions, good. Harm - academic mismatch: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/10/the-painful-truth-about-affirmative-action/263122/

The housing crisis, whereby the government implemented policies encouraging the lending of mortgages to at-risk borrowers to promote minority home ownership. Intentions, good. Harm - well, yeah know...

Aid to Africa, meant for development but used to prop up dictatorships, cronyism, and impeding local economic development. This is also true for aid to Haiti, in that the local farmers cannot compete with cheap and free foreign aid.

Here's a NYT article on the subject: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/science/04angier.html?pagewanted=all

 

[KeepTalking]

And I know several individuals who fit this description, they pride themselves on helping and do not understand that they themselves are making things worse. For example, someone who provides comfort for a sick person and denies them access to a physician because they have things under control.

And the paper cited actually uses similar examples to this, but there are no examples anywhere close to the living wage example from the OP. That just seems to have been pulled from thin air, or the OP's nether regions.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

I still say we hsould have a guaranteed basic income for all supplied through the tax system, and let employers and employees agree to whatever wages above that that they want to pay. Take the threat of starvation away from the table and let the two bargain a fair price. The government should not be forcing any particular price, and the employer should not be funding welfare by paying employees more than their work is worth.

I think UBI is a great idea.

 

[ksen]

It's same old same old conservatism and has been vocalised ad nauseam.


Why not get into specific examples? The only one here (so far) is the minimum wage, about which proponents endlessly cite evidence and opponents endlessly cite abstract principles.

...??

Specific examples. Affirmative action, whereby standards are lowered for assumed disadvantaged persons giving them preference in admission to academic institutions. Intentions, good. Harm - academic mismatch: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/10/the-painful-truth-about-affirmative-action/263122/

The housing crisis, whereby the government implemented policies encouraging the lending of mortgages to at-risk borrowers to promote minority home ownership. Intentions, good. Harm - well, yeah know...

Aid to Africa, meant for development but used to prop up dictatorships, cronyism, and impeding local economic development. This is also true for aid to Haiti, in that the local farmers cannot compete with cheap and free foreign aid.

Here's a NYT article on the subject: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/science/04angier.html?pagewanted=all

So basically anything to do with black people.

The more you know.