Why is FAIR TRADE better than FREE TRADE?

[DrZoidberg]

But that wasn't DBT's argument. DBT's argument is that we should somehow subsidise workers pays so that they can afford more luxuries because that will improve the economy. The last bit is important. DBT was arguing that it's good for the whole economy that we do this. Not because it makes poor children happy. Which I think is an admirable cause.

I objected to DBT's embracing a fantasy of economic theory, he wanted to be true, only to justify making poor people's lives a little bit less miserable. You don't need to invent that subsidising workers helps the economy. The fact that the children are made happier is enough to justify the programme.

I didn't say anything about subsidizing workers pay, or even suggested it. You are adding your own twist and misrepresenting what I said. I said that there is a power imbalance between employers and employees. And that this imbalance, in basic terms (amongst other factors), is causing wage stagnation. loss of purchasing power over time and greater difficulty in making ends meet. Which in turn suppresses economic activity because workers do not have money for little luxuries like eating out, going to the movies or whatever....which would otherwise support a range of businesses and create a thriving economy.

If you want workers to be paid more than they're worth, you need to subsidise their pay somehow. If they then use that subsidy to pay for services and products you are artificially creating a market which wouldn't exist in a free market.

Then you make the fallacy of thinking that would make the economy thrive more than otherwise. That last bit is a complete fantasy. If you take in a plant from outside and make it a house plant the moment you stop watering it, it will die. Because the ecology that normally supports it isn't there. It doesn't matter how much that plant then thrives and spreads. As long as they are kept indoors you'll need to keep watering them. If you take them back outside they'll quickly revert to whatever they were before you took them in.

I'm not adding anything that isn't implied from what you are saying. You just haven't though it through properly.

 

[DBT]

Worth?

Is a football player worth their five million per annum contract while a doctor or teacher is paid a fraction of that?

A workers worth, depending on the criteria, may be determined in many ways.

The point is that workers employed in a range of sectors are not getting their fair share of the wealth they help to produce...that their wages have in fact fallen below market value. Meanwhile the rich enjoy their own growing income and wealth. Is their worth to be measured in money and property? Their great talent for making money?

 

[DrZoidberg]

Worth?

Is a football player worth their five million per annum contract while a doctor or teacher is paid a fraction of that?

A workers worth, depending on the criteria, may be determined in many ways.

Nobody's wages ever fall below market value (assuming companies aren't doing anything illegal). If they did fall below market value it wouldn't be their market value.

All you are saying is that you wish that workers market value was higher than it really is. I'm sorry, but it isn't. If you manipulate it, we'll get a bunch of weird following effects that may hurt the overall economy.

Yes, a football player is worth whatever he is being paid, because, for whatever bizarre reason, consumers love paying for it. I don't like sports. So why anybody would spend large sums of money to watch sports is a mystery to me. But people are doing it freely. Nobody is being forced to watch sports. Nor pay for it. It looks to me like a perfectly legit, fair and well functioning market to me. so yes, a football player is worth that salary.

I personally think teachers should be paid more. But that's just my personal opinion. The market clearly disagrees.

The point is that workers employed in a range of sectors are not getting their fair share of the wealth they help to produce...that their wages have in fact fallen below market value. Meanwhile the rich enjoy their own growing income and wealth. Is their worth to be measured in money and property? Their great talent for making money?

What are you basing this opinion on? You were the one who presented me the graphs. So you know the numbers. It looks to me exactly what we'd expect given the last decades technological development. It looks perfectly fair to me. Yes, what a surprise that a market that increasingly has capital generating income would lead to the owners of capital being relatively richer.

People being paid by their employers what wealth they are actually generating, what isn't fair about that?

I'm a lefty, I don't get what you are talking about. Or rather, I think I do. But it looks like old dusty (and stupid) Marxist tropes that have never been true.

As a lefty I don't think private property is sacred. I think it's perfectly fine to take from the rich to give to the poor. Because it is sometimes good for society as a whole. But I don't need to dress it up with bullshit moral justifications or with fantastic bullshit economic theories. When lefty's do that we tend to wreck the economy and then everybody loses. Conservatives have a good point when they say that socialist policies often only lead to disaster and everybody being worse off. Let's not do that for once.

 

[DrZoidberg]

The Luddites in England destroyed spinning Jennys because the technological progress was putting cottage industry weavers out of business. They were now making less money because of the same work and didn't think it was fair. That's the kind of argument you are making.

We need to keep a laser focus on actual productivity and find a way to maximise that, no matter what socialist policies we put in place. If we cripple economic developments for lofty socialist goals we're just repeating the misstakes of USSR and Maoist China.

 

[ZiprHead]

You're just repeating what I'm saying. The reason is because increasingly productivity comes from capital, not labour. So the wages are following actual market value. Nothing is wrong in the graph. Workers ARE being paid a fair wage, based on what they are contributing. You can argue that they should have more than their fair share. But then you should be aware that you are manipulating market value, and that never ends well.

Capital does't do anything without a worker doing something to manipulate it, so you're wrong on your first point.

You're complaining about market manipulation yet employers are constantly practicing it in their own favor. You say market manipulation never ends well, neither does the system of royalty vs. peasant/serf.

12 Ways Companies Manipulate Employees (W/ Examples)

 

[DrZoidberg]

You're just repeating what I'm saying. The reason is because increasingly productivity comes from capital, not labour. So the wages are following actual market value. Nothing is wrong in the graph. Workers ARE being paid a fair wage, based on what they are contributing. You can argue that they should have more than their fair share. But then you should be aware that you are manipulating market value, and that never ends well.

Capital does't do anything without a worker doing something to manipulate it, so you're wrong on your first point.

You're complaining about market manipulation yet employers are constantly practicing it in their own favor. You say market manipulation never ends well, neither does the system of royalty vs. peasant/serf.

12 Ways Companies Manipulate Employees (W/ Examples)

You are reading this on a Web browser. Once programmed, the web browser generates money continually without the need of a programmer. VBulletin board similarly needs to be programmed once, then continuously pulls in cash.

In what way are the workers necessary to manipulate these?

 

[ZiprHead]

You're just repeating what I'm saying. The reason is because increasingly productivity comes from capital, not labour. So the wages are following actual market value. Nothing is wrong in the graph. Workers ARE being paid a fair wage, based on what they are contributing. You can argue that they should have more than their fair share. But then you should be aware that you are manipulating market value, and that never ends well.

Capital does't do anything without a worker doing something to manipulate it, so you're wrong on your first point.

You're complaining about market manipulation yet employers are constantly practicing it in their own favor. You say market manipulation never ends well, neither does the system of royalty vs. peasant/serf.

12 Ways Companies Manipulate Employees (W/ Examples)

You are reading this on a Web browser. Once programmed, the web browser generates money continually without the need of a programmer. VBulletin board similarly needs to be programmed once, then continuously pulls in cash.

In what way are the workers necessary to manipulate these?

Wow, so much obtuseness.

You never get bug fixes and security updates in your web browser? Those were created by workers. What version number is your browser up to now? All of those created by workers.

Can you imagine what would happen to this place without moderators to enforce the rules? Without the sysadmin keeping the board running it would have broken down years ago.

RayJ, a worker, found us a far cheaper web hosting service a couple years ago that has saved the board tons of money. He had to do the work to set the board up on the server. A worker had to do the work to assign the space on the server to our board.

So now there you are, like capital with out a worker manipulating it, just sitting there looking incredibly stupid.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

But that wasn't DBT's argument. DBT's argument is that we should somehow subsidise workers pays so that they can afford more luxuries because that will improve the economy. The last bit is important. DBT was arguing that it's good for the whole economy that we do this. Not because it makes poor children happy. Which I think is an admirable cause.

I objected to DBT's embracing a fantasy of economic theory, he wanted to be true, only to justify making poor people's lives a little bit less miserable. You don't need to invent that subsidising workers helps the economy. The fact that the children are made happier is enough to justify the programme.

I didn't say anything about subsidizing workers pay, or even suggested it. You are adding your own twist and misrepresenting what I said. I said that there is a power imbalance between employers and employees. And that this imbalance, in basic terms (amongst other factors), is causing wage stagnation. loss of purchasing power over time and greater difficulty in making ends meet. Which in turn suppresses economic activity because workers do not have money for little luxuries like eating out, going to the movies or whatever....which would otherwise support a range of businesses and create a thriving economy.

If you want workers to be paid more than they're worth, you need to subsidise their pay somehow. If they then use that subsidy to pay for services and products you are artificially creating a market which wouldn't exist in a free market.

It's the same problem that underlies so much of leftist error--that there's an infinite pool of money that can be used to pay for whatever they want. (While they never claim infinite they never care to measure it--something that only makes sense if it's infinite.)

Then you make the fallacy of thinking that would make the economy thrive more than otherwise. That last bit is a complete fantasy. If you take in a plant from outside and make it a house plant the moment you stop watering it, it will die. Because the ecology that normally supports it isn't there. It doesn't matter how much that plant then thrives and spreads. As long as they are kept indoors you'll need to keep watering them. If you take them back outside they'll quickly revert to whatever they were before you took them in.

I'm not adding anything that isn't implied from what you are saying. You just haven't though it through properly.

If you inject magical value into the economy of course it grows. Good luck with the magic, though.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Worth?

Is a football player worth their five million per annum contract while a doctor or teacher is paid a fraction of that?

A workers worth, depending on the criteria, may be determined in many ways.

The point is that workers employed in a range of sectors are not getting their fair share of the wealth they help to produce...that their wages have in fact fallen below market value. Meanwhile the rich enjoy their own growing income and wealth. Is their worth to be measured in money and property? Their great talent for making money?

A worker's worth is the value they produce. Yes, this is hard to measure when it's a team effort but that doesn't change the basic issue.

The left wants some nonsensical definition of worth based on standard of living--but standard of living doesn't produce output.

As for the football player--his worth is what people will pay to see him play minus the costs of doing so.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You're just repeating what I'm saying. The reason is because increasingly productivity comes from capital, not labour. So the wages are following actual market value. Nothing is wrong in the graph. Workers ARE being paid a fair wage, based on what they are contributing. You can argue that they should have more than their fair share. But then you should be aware that you are manipulating market value, and that never ends well.

Capital does't do anything without a worker doing something to manipulate it, so you're wrong on your first point.

And the worker does basically nothing without capital to use. You need a balance of both.

 

[DBT]

Worth?

Is a football player worth their five million per annum contract while a doctor or teacher is paid a fraction of that?

A workers worth, depending on the criteria, may be determined in many ways.

The point is that workers employed in a range of sectors are not getting their fair share of the wealth they help to produce...that their wages have in fact fallen below market value. Meanwhile the rich enjoy their own growing income and wealth. Is their worth to be measured in money and property? Their great talent for making money?

A worker's worth is the value they produce. Yes, this is hard to measure when it's a team effort but that doesn't change the basic issue.

The left wants some nonsensical definition of worth based on standard of living--but standard of living doesn't produce output.

As for the football player--his worth is what people will pay to see him play minus the costs of doing so.

A workers worth is measured by the wealth their labour generates. Workers are not getting their fair share of the wealth they generate....which is flowing rapidly to the high end of town.

Workers are exploited because there is a power imbalance between individual workers and the employer. Which is why unions were formed in the first place.

 

[DBT]

Worth?

Is a football player worth their five million per annum contract while a doctor or teacher is paid a fraction of that?

A workers worth, depending on the criteria, may be determined in many ways.

Nobody's wages ever fall below market value (assuming companies aren't doing anything illegal). If they did fall below market value it wouldn't be their market value.

We are not talking legalities. This is about market value. The figures provided show that workers are not getting a fair share of the wealth they generate. That the top end of town continues to grow they wealth is a symptom of this imbalance.

All you are saying is that you wish that workers market value was higher than it really is. I'm sorry, but it isn't. If you manipulate it, we'll get a bunch of weird following effects that may hurt the overall economy.

Again, given the figures (provided), workers are not getting paid their worth in terms of wealth generated. Not even close.

 

[ZiprHead]

You're just repeating what I'm saying. The reason is because increasingly productivity comes from capital, not labour. So the wages are following actual market value. Nothing is wrong in the graph. Workers ARE being paid a fair wage, based on what they are contributing. You can argue that they should have more than their fair share. But then you should be aware that you are manipulating market value, and that never ends well.

Capital does't do anything without a worker doing something to manipulate it, so you're wrong on your first point.

And the worker does basically nothing without capital to use. You need a balance of both.

Tell that to DrZoidberg.

 

[DBT]

A balance of both is needed. Minimising pay for workers is not a balance of labour and capital.

 

[DrZoidberg]

You are reading this on a Web browser. Once programmed, the web browser generates money continually without the need of a programmer. VBulletin board similarly needs to be programmed once, then continuously pulls in cash.

In what way are the workers necessary to manipulate these?

Wow, so much obtuseness.

You never get bug fixes and security updates in your web browser? Those were created by workers. What version number is your browser up to now? All of those created by workers.

Can you imagine what would happen to this place without moderators to enforce the rules? Without the sysadmin keeping the board running it would have broken down years ago.

RayJ, a worker, found us a far cheaper web hosting service a couple years ago that has saved the board tons of money. He had to do the work to set the board up on the server. A worker had to do the work to assign the space on the server to our board.

So now there you are, like capital with out a worker manipulating it, just sitting there looking incredibly stupid.

They keep on building upon an earlier code base. That code base acts as lever to multiply the value of later work. The code base is owned by the capitalist. Not workers. So the capitalist gets that added value. Not workers. Which is in order.

 

[DrZoidberg]

We are not talking legalities. This is about market value. The figures provided show that workers are not getting a fair share of the wealth they generate. That the top end of town continues to grow they wealth is a symptom of this imbalance.

All you are saying is that you wish that workers market value was higher than it really is. I'm sorry, but it isn't. If you manipulate it, we'll get a bunch of weird following effects that may hurt the overall economy.

Again, given the figures (provided), workers are not getting paid their worth in terms of wealth generated. Not even close.

I guess we fundamentally disagree on how to read those graphs. Because I think they disapprove what you are saying.

Since they are generating relatively less value, according to how the market works, they should get less. Which is what the graphs show.

So it all seems in order to me

 

[DrZoidberg]

A balance of both is needed. Minimising pay for workers is not a balance of labour and capital.

Again, Marxist fantasies. The market is like a force of nature. If the market doesn't work the way you'd like, tough luck. Capitalists will always pay workers as little as they can get away with. That's in order.

Messing with this rarely ends well. The system I prefer is flat taxes and just giving the poorest money automatically. It keeps all the incentives intact.

 

[DBT]

A balance of both is needed. Minimising pay for workers is not a balance of labour and capital.

Again, Marxist fantasies. The market is like a force of nature. If the market doesn't work the way you'd like, tough luck. Capitalists will always pay workers as little as they can get away with. That's in order.

Messing with this rarely ends well. The system I prefer is flat taxes and just giving the poorest money automatically. It keeps all the incentives intact.

Nothing to do with Marxism.

If workers join together in order to get a better deal they are capitalizing on their strength in numbers.
By doing so they balance (to some degree) the advantage that employers over individual workers. Unions secure better deals for workers. Proven without a shadow of doubt.

How unions help all workers

''Unions have a substantial impact on the compensation and work lives of both unionized and non-unionized workers. This report presents current data on unions’ effect on wages, fringe benefits, total compensation, pay inequality, and workplace protections.

Some of the conclusions are:

Unions raise wages of unionized workers by roughly 20% and raise compensation, including both wages and benefits, by about 28%.

Unions reduce wage inequality because they raise wages more for low- and middle-wage workers than for higher-wage workers, more for blue-collar than for white-collar workers, and more for workers who do not have a college degree.

Strong unions set a pay standard that nonunion employers follow. For example, a high school graduate whose workplace is not unionized but whose industry is 25% unionized is paid 5% more than similar workers in less unionized industries.

The impact of unions on total nonunion wages is almost as large as the impact on total union wages.

The most sweeping advantage for unionized workers is in fringe benefits. Unionized workers are more likely than their nonunionized counterparts to receive paid leave, are approximately 18% to 28% more likely to have employer-provided health insurance, and are 23% to 54% more likely to be in employer-provided pension plans.

Unionized workers receive more generous health benefits than nonunionized workers. They also pay 18% lower health care deductibles and a smaller share of the costs for family coverage. In retirement, unionized workers are 24% more likely to be covered by health insurance paid for by their employer.

Unionized workers receive better pension plans. Not only are they more likely to have a guaranteed benefit in retirement, their employers contribute 28% more toward pensions.

Unionized workers receive 26% more vacation time and 14% more total paid leave (vacations and holidays).

Unions play a pivotal role both in securing legislated labor protections and rights such as safety and health, overtime, and family/medical leave and in enforcing those rights on the job. Because unionized workers are more informed, they are more likely to benefit from social insurance programs such as unemployment insurance and workers compensation. Unions are thus an intermediary institution that provides a necessary complement to legislated benefits and protections''

 

[DrZoidberg]

A balance of both is needed. Minimising pay for workers is not a balance of labour and capital.

Again, Marxist fantasies. The market is like a force of nature. If the market doesn't work the way you'd like, tough luck. Capitalists will always pay workers as little as they can get away with. That's in order.

Messing with this rarely ends well. The system I prefer is flat taxes and just giving the poorest money automatically. It keeps all the incentives intact.

Nothing to do with Marxism.

If workers join together in order to get a better deal they are capitalizing on their strength in numbers.
By doing so they balance (to some degree) the advantage that employers over individual workers. Unions secure better deals for workers. Proven without a shadow of doubt.

How unions help all workers

''Unions have a substantial impact on the compensation and work lives of both unionized and non-unionized workers. This report presents current data on unions’ effect on wages, fringe benefits, total compensation, pay inequality, and workplace protections.

Some of the conclusions are:

Unions raise wages of unionized workers by roughly 20% and raise compensation, including both wages and benefits, by about 28%.

Unions reduce wage inequality because they raise wages more for low- and middle-wage workers than for higher-wage workers, more for blue-collar than for white-collar workers, and more for workers who do not have a college degree.

Strong unions set a pay standard that nonunion employers follow. For example, a high school graduate whose workplace is not unionized but whose industry is 25% unionized is paid 5% more than similar workers in less unionized industries.

The impact of unions on total nonunion wages is almost as large as the impact on total union wages.

The most sweeping advantage for unionized workers is in fringe benefits. Unionized workers are more likely than their nonunionized counterparts to receive paid leave, are approximately 18% to 28% more likely to have employer-provided health insurance, and are 23% to 54% more likely to be in employer-provided pension plans.

Unionized workers receive more generous health benefits than nonunionized workers. They also pay 18% lower health care deductibles and a smaller share of the costs for family coverage. In retirement, unionized workers are 24% more likely to be covered by health insurance paid for by their employer.

Unionized workers receive better pension plans. Not only are they more likely to have a guaranteed benefit in retirement, their employers contribute 28% more toward pensions.

Unionized workers receive 26% more vacation time and 14% more total paid leave (vacations and holidays).

Unions play a pivotal role both in securing legislated labor protections and rights such as safety and health, overtime, and family/medical leave and in enforcing those rights on the job. Because unionized workers are more informed, they are more likely to benefit from social insurance programs such as unemployment insurance and workers compensation. Unions are thus an intermediary institution that provides a necessary complement to legislated benefits and protections''

I'm not against trade unions. I think unions are important and a necessary component to any healthy labour market. So I'm not sure why you brought it up?

edit: trade unions are also a part of the market. A free market isn't everybody laying down flat and letting the capitalists walk all over them. A free market is everybody hustling to get a piece, even workers.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Worth?

Is a football player worth their five million per annum contract while a doctor or teacher is paid a fraction of that?

A workers worth, depending on the criteria, may be determined in many ways.

The point is that workers employed in a range of sectors are not getting their fair share of the wealth they help to produce...that their wages have in fact fallen below market value. Meanwhile the rich enjoy their own growing income and wealth. Is their worth to be measured in money and property? Their great talent for making money?

A worker's worth is the value they produce. Yes, this is hard to measure when it's a team effort but that doesn't change the basic issue.

The left wants some nonsensical definition of worth based on standard of living--but standard of living doesn't produce output.

As for the football player--his worth is what people will pay to see him play minus the costs of doing so.

A workers worth is measured by the wealth their labour generates. Workers are not getting their fair share of the wealth they generate....which is flowing rapidly to the high end of town.

Workers are exploited because there is a power imbalance between individual workers and the employer. Which is why unions were formed in the first place.

This reads more like a leftist position piece than actually addressing the issue.