Very finite labor is the source of all food, clothing, and shelter that all people depend upon to exist. Every single person either used their own labor or other people's labor to procure these essentials of existence. Capital is infinite and itself does absolutely nothing for these essentials, except to buy the finite human labor that creates all of it. This is not market philosophy, this is undeniable facts of reality.
What sort of undeniable facts of reality are they? Do you mean those claims are statements of pure logic and we can confirm them by contemplation of the meaning of the words you wrote? If so, I'm not following the inference. Can you break it down into smaller steps?
Or do you mean your above claims are falsifiable empirical statements that have been confirmed by observation? If so, which observation confirms your claims, and how would the contrary observation, had it been made, falsify them?
Or do you mean you believe in "a priori synthetic truths" out of Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason", and you think the above claims are examples?
Be that all as it may, when you say "capital is infinite", it makes me suspect that by "capital" you mean currency or some other debt instrument that can be created at will out of nothing but people's trust in one another. That's not a useful concept of what capital is. Most kinds of capital are every bit as very finite as labor -- raw materials, machinery, land, technical knowledge, market knowledge, reputation, rule of law, national defense, to name a few. For that matter, people's trust in one another is itself a finite supply of social capital. That too will run out, if too many dollars or IOUs are printed, and then people will no longer accept them in payment, which means not even the theoretically infinite supply of debt financing is infinite in practice.
Moreover, even if money really were infinite in some substantive sense, that wouldn't mean the particular employer of some particular employee has an infinite amount. Only governments can keep churning out unlimited amounts of money.
You appear to be asserting that trading your labor to someone belongs in an entirely different mental category from trading anything other than labor to someone.
Yes, because labor isn't just a different mental category but an objectively different type of thing.
Everything above the molecular level is an objectively different type of thing from everything else -- even a microgram of water is an objectively different type of thing from some other microgram of water, which undoubtedly contains a slightly different amount of deuterium. Point being, the whole purpose of categorization is to group
unlike things together -- to categorize is to make a choice of which differences matter to us and which we feel are irrelevant. The fact that Andy's labor is an objectively different kind of thing from Beth's bitcoin does not objectively require us to apply different standards to them any more than three extra deuterium atoms objectively require us to apply different standards to two water samples. My labor is an objectively different type of thing from your labor. If you put them in the same category, that's your choice. It's not something objectivity forced on you.
It is THE root source of all goods and services, and every person can only give the same finite amount of it.
The first claim appears to be metaphysics. (Feel free to show otherwise -- see above.) The second claim is blatantly false. Some people can give more labor than others, whether you measure quantity of labor by hours, by observed incremental production, or by what others are willing to trade for it. If you have a measure of labor that gets the same answer for everybody, feel free to present it and explain why it's a better measure than the others.
I am observing the logical fact that the standard ethical objections to slavery apply to taking a person's finite labor without enough compensation for them to exist a result of that labor.
You say "taking" as though the person isn't doing his job voluntarily. The employer isn't "taking"; she's receiving in exchange for doing what she agreed to do. I'm not sure which ethical objections to slavery you regard as "standard", but the ones I regard as standard are, in substance, the following three:
(1) Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose.
(2) Slavery is economically inefficient.
(3) Seeing a slave chained up makes me angry at the guy who chained him.
There's also a popular but nonstandard ethical objection:
(4) Employing wage labor for profit is exploitation, because of some gobbledegook involving the Labor Theory of Value.
None of the first three applies to receiving a person's voluntarily traded finite labor without enough compensation for him to exist as a result of that labor. (The fourth does; but then the fourth also applies to paying somebody $300/hour for profit, so you're not going to build a case on that, even if the LTV weren't a steaming pile of dingoes' kidneys.)
So it would appear that only leaves (3'): Seeing a guy voluntarily work for too little to exist on makes you angry at the guy he's swapping his labor to. Is that the standard ethical objection you had in mind, or did I miss one?
It is not obvious to me that the principle you propose is ethical. To me your principle looks like a rather simple and entirely ordinary tribal double-standard, one rule for your in-group and a different rule for your out-group.
It is not a double standard. You're making a false equivalence between giving two objectively different things, labor and $. They have different names because they are different.
You're the one making a false equivalence here: you're making a false equivalence between "my labor" and "Joe Smith's labor". They have different names because they're different. Mine is 40 hours a week; Joe can only work 12 hours a week because he's on dialysis. Mine is programming labor; Joe's is taking tickets at a theater labor. People are willing to trade more to get mine than Joe's because mine causes them more incremental revenue than Joe's. And yet in spite of all these differences, you assert that I can only give the same finite amount of "labor" as Joe can. That's you making a false equivalence between giving two objectively different things.
As for me, I didn't make any equivalence at all between labor and money. I said:
"If the business owner has to make the employee's life better by whatever he can buy himself for $10/hr, but the employee doesn't have to make the business owner's life better by whatever she could buy herself for $10/hr, then how do you figure the owner and the employee are identical in this respect? That sounds pretty unidentical."
That's a question, not a claim. I'm just being skeptical.
The burden is on you to show that two separate things given different names are identical in all ways that matter for the exchange of those things.
Whether two things have different names depends on what people choose to call them, not on what they are. I'm not asserting that labor and capital are identical; I am challenging Malintent and you to show that the undoubted differences between some bit of labor and some bit of capital are substantive grounds to apply different standards to them, when you evidently regard the equally undoubted differences between that bit of labor and some other bit of labor not to be substantive grounds. You ignore whatever differences you please, and then you criticize me for not seeing why the differences you choose should not be ignored too.
I have already gone beyond my burden by specifying how they differ in ways that are critical.
Not in the least. The specific difference you pointed out -- the alleged infiniteness of capital -- is a figment of your imagination. And you didn't explain why infiniteness is critical to what obligations people have to one another. And you appealed to unidentified arguments -- "the standard ethical objections" -- as though readers should be convinced by arguments we don't get to read. That does not satisfy your burden of proof.
I am not saying you endorse slavery, but rather that some of the ethical principles that slavery violates apply to taking a person's one innate and finite resource for survival (their labor) without giving them enough in exchange to survive on.
Taking a person's one innate and finite resource for survival (their labor)
even while giving them enough in exchange to survive on evidently violates whatever principles slavery violates, if by "taking" you mean obtaining by force. If by "taking" you mean obtaining voluntarily, which ethical principles?
A person getting no compensation for their labor that others profit from is a slave,
When I volunteered to help sort donations for a few hours at a charity, I received no compensation. So according to your theory, if one of the poor people who received a handout turned around and pawned his handout for a cash profit, that means I was a slave.
Nope, it doesn't mean that at all.
Yes, that's what it means. Maybe
you didn't mean that at all; but
what you said does mean that. This is English, not Humpty-Dumpty speech. Feel free to restate your criterion for "slave" so it excludes charity volunteers.
You chose to use your labor to promote your own social/ethical goals. That is qualitatively different than when a person's engages in labor that doesn't result in any benefit to them, unless there is compensation for it (which is the case for 99.99% of paid employees).
Of course it's qualitatively different -- everything is qualitatively different from everything. Feel free to restate your criterion for "slave" so it lists all the distinctions you think are important for determining whether a person is a slave.
The reason that slavery requires physical force to keep the workers on the job is because they are not compensated. They are doing tasks that have no benefit to themselves, and thus compensation from those who benefit is the sole reason they would do the work without threat of violence. Physical enslavement is the byproduct of taking labor from people who get no benefit from that labor and thus have no will to do it.
That's not correct. It's entirely normal to compensate slaves. In ancient Rome it was so common that many slaves saved up enough to buy their freedom. In modern America lots of slaver pimps share the take with the trafficked girls whose sexual favors they sell, presumably so the girls will have something to do in their off hours besides brood about escaping.
The reason that slavery requires physical force to keep the workers on the job is because they are not compensated
enough to persuade them not to quit.
In a modern world where it is impossible for most people to use their labor to direct produce their food, clothing, and shelter, they have no choice but to give their labor to others in exchange for compensation to buy these things. Thus, similar to slavery, there is no real "choice" to work for some employer.
And in the pre-farming world there was no choice but to use their labor to go out and hunt and gather. Slavery is slavers'
fault. The unfortunate reality that staying alive takes effort is not anyone's
fault.
The only choice they have is which employer
And a hunter-gatherer's only choice is which rabbit and which bush. Were our ancestors slaves to bushes that stubbornly refused to drop their berries wherever they were needed?
and even that is often very limited (and increasingly so with corporate consolidation).
Finally! You pointed to something that's somebody's
fault. Yes, when a person is facing an employer who has monopoly power because she deliberately made other choices unavailable to him, you have a case for making an analogy to slavery. That's why we have anti-collusion laws.
Thus, their only choice is often to trade their labor for whatever a particular employer is willing to pay them or have nothing at all, beyond what some generous others donate to them.
And if one of our ancestors stunk at hunting and gathering, he had to trade his labor for whatever meager amount of plants he could find that he could identify as edible, and make up the difference with what some generous others donated to him. Do you think it would have gone over well if the tribe philosopher said "Thag can't live on what little that the gods are willing to give up to him in return for his struggles. So he should just stay back at camp, leave the hunting and gathering to the rest of us, and have nothing at all, beyond what some generous others donate to him. Sure, that means we'll have to donate even more to him than we do now, but leaving him out of the gathering altogether is the right thing to do. It just isn't fair for anyone to get so little for his gathering efforts."?
So, free-market faith that "choice" is free and thus their are no moral obligations to compensate more than you can get desperate people to work for is utter nonsense.
Is that directed at me? I didn't express faith in free markets; I made no claims about what compensation obligations people have or don't have; and contending that choice isn't free because their only choice is often to trade their labor for whatever a particular employer is willing to pay them or have nothing at all, beyond what some generous others donate to them, is a completely irrational argument in a country containing hundreds of millions of generous others willing to donate to them. How on earth do you figure a guy whose only choice is to work for the man for peanuts or else go on the dole doesn't have a free choice?
Using people's desperation and lack of options to coerce them into giving their labor for sub-sustaining pay is not actual slavery, but only a shade less grotesquely immoral slavery, and something decedent society should prevent, and any sustainable society must prevent.
When a hunter-gatherer's desperation and lack of options means he has no real choice but to get out there and labor to find something to eat, is he being coerced? If this year the forest is only making sub-sustaining food available to him, is he being coerced? No? Why, then do you accuse an employer of coercing him when out of desperation and lack of other options he decides to accept an offer you consider too low,
unless it's the employer's fault that he's desperate and out of options?
and tiny amounts of compensation are only slightly better than slavery. A person has finite labor to give, so if there is not a minimum amount they must get in return for it, they suffer and die.
That's over-the-top rhetoric. If there is not a minimum amount they get in return for it they go on the dole.
Only in a system where people with more human decency than those employers give up part of the fruits of their labor to save them, which is only possible if enough other employees are getting compensated above what is minimally acceptable.
When a guy knows how to help somebody add $5 to her revenue, and she pays him $5 for the service, but he needs $10 to have a minimally acceptable life, so 500 people chip in a penny each to get him up to $10, and one of them's an employee who's being paid $20 because he's helping some other employer add $20 to his revenue, and he chips in a penny to help his fellow man, why do you claim this employee has more human decency than the first guy's employer? She's one of the 500 people chipping in a penny too. They're both doing exactly the same things: they're swapping what they have for what somebody else is willing to swap for it, and they're chipping in a penny to help take care of their unfortunate neighbor who isn't capable of supporting himself in that environment. What is there about buying $5 of revenue enhancement for $5 that magically confers on the buyer a personal moral obligation to also make a $5 donation on top of the $5 of payment for services rendered?
In any event, a rational person faced with a choice of supporting her neighbor by donating 2 cents along with 499 other people, or else supporting him all by herself, by buying 5$ of revenue enhancement from her neighbor for $5 plus a $5 donation, for a net loss of $4.98, will choose to do without the $5.00 revenue enhancement. That way she'll be simultaneously $4.98 richer and also not accused by people with strange moral theories of having less human decency than a guy willing to pay a penny. So if that happens -- if she chooses not to make a money-losing hire -- then enforcing your moral theory will make 500 people a penny worse off each, and make one guy sit around doing nothing when he could be half-way self-supporting and perhaps even acquiring skills and experience on the job that will enable him some day to add $10 to someone's revenue, and thereby become self-supporting. What does your moral theory have going for it to balance out all the people it's hurting? Why should we believe it's a moral theory, and not an immoral theory?
IOW, a system that most "libertarians" and conservatives oppose.
Who cares what libertarians and conservatives oppose? I'm not a libertarian or a conservative, so what's your point? Besides, even libertarians and conservatives and any others you look down on are entitled to truth. You appear to be claiming that libertarians and conservatives want a system in which hardly any employees are getting compensated above what is minimally acceptable. That's a ridiculous caricature. What reason do you have to think it's true? Disagreeing with your politics doesn't make someone a cartoon villain.
The fact that the worker would die without the generosity of others does nothing to lessen the gross immorality and indecency of the employer who took their labor without given them enough compensation to survive.
She didn't "take" his labor; he offered to sell it to her. And if the labor market is competitive, then he probably sold it to her for about what it was worth to her, assuming she's rational and the "law of diminishing returns" applies to labor, as it does to most things. So if you insist it's grossly immoral for her to buy something for what it's worth to her, what does your moral theory say she ought to do instead? Should she buy it for more than it's worth to her, charitably hurting herself in order to please you and 498 other people who all have so much human decency that they'd rather one person make a $5 donation so none of them will have to make a 1 cent donation? Or should she decline the man's offer and just donate 2 cents to him like decent humans do?
This makes the theory that they must get a minimum amount or they'll die kind of implausible.
They would die without others generously giving part of their own labor to save them.
So why not say that? If you have a case then you should be able to make it without the over-the-top rhetoric.
Thus, it is both ethical and perfectly compatible with any defensible economic system for those others to create rules of compensation that limit the degree to which they are forced to either give up part of their own labor to sustain these people or watch them die.
So why do you believe a minimum wage reduces the degree to which they are forced to give up part of their own labor to sustain these people? Sure,
if being told she has to pay $10/hr to be allowed to hire a guy who increases her production by $5/hr caused an employer to hire him for $10/hr and eat the $5/hr hit herself,
then the rule would indeed limit the degree to which those others are forced to give up part of their own labor to sustain him -- the same as if they created a rule of compensation that said a guy has to make a $5/hr donation to the communal poor fund if he wants to be allowed to not be Muslim. But it might instead cause her to just not hire the guy. If that happens then the rules won't bring about that reduction in their expense -- the same as if an infidel reacts to the jizya by just converting to Islam.
So do you have a reason to think she'll hire the guy even though it makes her worse off than she was without him? Are you perhaps proposing that it's both ethical and perfectly compatible with any defensible economic system for those people to create rules of compensation that fail to limit their own donation expenses and fail to help the impoverished guy, but at least make other people live in a way that doesn't conflict with those peoples' philosophical commitments? Or do you have a theory for how the minimum wage will limit the expense even if she doesn't hire the guy?
