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Nobody here is seriously advocating an immediate jump to $15/hr, so I don't know why you're acting like that's anybody's argument. All serious plans for increasing the minimum wage do it via several incremental increases over a period of several years. Also, businesses are not perfectly logical, and can't actually determine a worker's "worth" to any appreciable degree, much less be able to do so during the hiring process. So there's no reason to believe they would prefer someone who was "worth" $14/hr over somebody who was "worth" the previous minimum wage.
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Aug 19, 2016 01:00
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I think we found the new Jrode
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Aug 19, 2016 01:05
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Literally The Worst posted:I think we found the new Jrode Yeah, I took out the bot because I thought someone was fake Libertarian posting. Earlier me: "It's fine, no one needs to do this, we have a semi-functional robot for this"
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Aug 19, 2016 01:06
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Nitrousoxide posted:In short, business will hire those with the highest marginal utility first, and those earning near the current minimum wage will have a hard time competing with those who have a higher marginal utility. That and the jobs done by those with the lowest marginal utility are more likely to have their jobs automated. This is assuming that many jobs can be effectively automated, though. People like to point out fast food operations as a case for such, but ordering and food preparation are only two small facets to the overall function of a restaurant and its viability (employees also perform maintenance, janitorial duties, restocking, and a security function, for instance). It's the same thing for, say, office janitorial work - every office building has a different layout, different fixtures (such as in bathrooms), and offices are dynamic environments where things can change. It's still going to be cheaper, most likely, to just pay humans to do that sort of work and adapt to cubicle crowding, different toilet heights, different messes and so on. Driverless cars are still a long way out, and I honestly suspect that between ironing out kinks in the automation software, unforeseen social issues with them (such as there not being a human driver, perhaps making them more attractive for stuff like transporting drugs and guns around), and a general reluctance to give up one's personal car, they're not going to be as dramatic as they seem. Even driverless freight trucks seem suspect in their impact; with no human driver that has a family, friends, and police who worry about them, and hence no risk of criminal penalty for injuring or killing them, why wouldn't we see criminal gangs trying to run them off the road to loot their contents? It's just a loving robot truck, carrying a bunch of TVs or TV dinners that can be taken and funneled into the grey market. Technology advances, crime adapts to take advantage of it, same as everything else does. While it might all sounds like I'm talking a bunch of outlandish scenarios, how many people worried about identity theft, credit card fraud, data breaches, and Nigerian scammers in the 1970s and 1980s, before the Information Era really kicked off? And my broader point is that automation is a hollow threat. It involves time and money to develop, perfect, and implement. It's risky. If its developers don't foresee the outlandish scenarios like what I've mentioned above and figure out how to mitigate them, then it's being set up to fail, and do so hard. And if it's not perfect in function, reliable for long stretches, and readily adaptable to changing business needs (while not compromising the previous two needs), then it's no good. It's a tall order that I'm willing to bet against in the broad scheme of things.
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Aug 19, 2016 01:10
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Kthulhu5000 posted:This is assuming that many jobs can be effectively automated, though. People like to point out fast food operations as a case for such, but ordering and food preparation are only two small facets to the overall function of a restaurant and its viability (employees also perform maintenance, janitorial duties, restocking, and a security function, for instance). It's the same thing for, say, office janitorial work - every office building has a different layout, different fixtures (such as in bathrooms), and offices are dynamic environments where things can change. It's still going to be cheaper, most likely, to just pay humans to do that sort of work and adapt to cubicle crowding, different toilet heights, different messes and so on. I can't wait for my McDonald's to close during busy hours because one of the robots broke and they need to wait for an Official Company-Licensed Technician(R) to fix it.
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Aug 19, 2016 01:18
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Nitrousoxide posted:In short, business will hire those with the highest marginal utility first, and those earning near the current minimum wage will have a hard time competing with those who have a higher marginal utility. That and the jobs done by those with the lowest marginal utility are more likely to have their jobs automated. those jobs would already be automated if they could. it's not like mcdonalds or w/e is holding back out of the good of their hearts. "oh no we are being forced to pay our employees an almost livable wage, better roll out the robots. that'll teach those dirty poors!!!"
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Aug 19, 2016 01:25
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Nitrousoxide posted:Consider whether a more modest increase along with a guaranteed income from the government would achieve your aims better. how to heck does libertarian advocate for GBI?
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Aug 19, 2016 01:30
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Sloppy Milkshake posted:those jobs would already be automated if they could. it's not like mcdonalds or w/e is holding back out of the good of their hearts. Does that follow? It's not inconceivable that the purchase/upkeep on the robots would cost them e.g. $12/hour on average compared to $10/hour for humans. This isn't an argument against a $15/hour minimum wage, though. Stinky_Pete posted:how to heck does libertarian advocate for GBI? They're not all an-caps. Milton Friedman was in favor of mincome iirc.
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Aug 19, 2016 01:32
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Stinky_Pete posted:how to heck does libertarian advocate for GBI? It's pretty popular among the Silicon Valley technolibertarian set.
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Aug 19, 2016 01:33
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Curvature of Earth posted:I can't wait for my McDonald's to close during busy hours because one of the robots broke and they need to wait for an Official Company-Licensed Technician(R) to fix it. Sloppy Milkshake posted:those jobs would already be automated if they could. it's not like mcdonalds or w/e is holding back out of the good of their hearts. These two points actually tie in together. Fast food companies might be headed by dummies, but the people who do the work of marketing, product development, operations and such are pretty intelligent, at least when it comes to the core of the business. It's like what Neal Stephenson pointed out in Snow Crash, about franchises and the like basically condensing as much of their operating procedures (with emergency contingencies and the like) to fit into three-ring binders. Automation basically does away with those comforting and well-developed procedures and flow charts that allow them to bring on employees and bring them up to speed. Overhauling existing restaurants, having to plan out new locations with new automation paradigms, hoping it all works out and doesn't go wrong or alienate customers...big business is conservative at heart, pretty much, especially when it's big business that produces goods (like a fast food corporation) rather than services (like a bunch of overeducated pie-in-the-sky Silicon Valley techno-libertarian startups). Radical shifts in hardware and software are easy, in the end (though tell that to big banks and the like that still run old mainframes because switching over and risking all that data and processing ability gives them palpitations); shifts in procedures, not so much. I couldn't help but feel irony in my college and university time that despite the organizational claims to greenness and being good to the environment, it seemed like I got a ream of useless paper copies of class stuff every term. We can't get rid of paper because of inertia, habit, and fears of technological incompetence and unreliability; why should McDonald's risk everything to save a few bucks an hour on labor, when it's easier to just try and fight it as much as possible?
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Aug 19, 2016 01:35
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If it's cheaper to automate the job than it is to hire somebody to do it then the job will probably get automated. That's one of the arguments against a higher minimum wage; if you can spend $10/hr on a machine to do X task just as well as a person paid $15/hr then the machine wins. That really isn't news; machines have been getting continually better since we invented machines and it's eventually going to happen. The labor sector is already shifting more and more toward non-routine work. Which food service, uh, kind of is. Food service is chock full of edge cases. Just remembering your regular customers and what they like is a task that machines just can't handle yet. Yeah ordering kiosks still exist and are spreading but that's more of a labor saver than a replacement. Food service, despite being called an "unskilled job" (anybody that's done it will tell you that it's anything but), is absolutely not easily automated right now. But see the whole point of machines is to save labor so humanity can, as a whole, do more with less effort. Every person not farming is a person who can possibly go be a scientist or something. Same goes for basically any other job; the reason mechanics exist at all is because that's one pair of hands that wasn't forced into growing food by necessity. One of the major differences now when compared to the past is that, well, we can produce mountains of food with little effort. Whereas in the past 90% of labor was subsistence farming we've mechanized the production of necessities so much it's just stupidly easy to produce them. If you look at the past that was even how such things were sold; more machines means more leisure time! The home of the future will do everything for you! No more washing dishes or clothing by hand! No more back breaking farm labor all day, every day! Humans, overall, just plain don't want to live as poverty-stricken dirt farmers so we figured out how to get out of that. That's what machinery and automation are for. The entire point is to increase everybody's standard of living. At this point forcing everybody to have a job is just plain unnecessary. It's a thing of the past. The assumptions of past economies are no longer relevant. Considering how few people in America are farmers now we could easily feed every single person in America using nothing but volunteer labor. I guarantee if you gave everybody mincome and rounded up everybody that liked the idea of living on a farm you'd have to start turning people away. Going beyond that you could meet everybody's needs solely on people who would work for some extra scratch above mincome. That gets away from minimum wage, but still; this "everybody must earn a living" idea is just plain bullshit. In the face of minimum wage the only person that benefits from a low minimum wage is the business owner. If he could pay less he could but if you legally twist his arm and declare "no you will pay better" then he doesn't have a choice. He needs labor to run his business but it's an expense; he doesn't care if his workers are starving. He just needs warm bodies there. If he can drive wages lower he will which is, coincidentally, why arguments against minimum wage tend to come from conservative or libertarian think tanks funded by ultra rich people. I wonder what their motivation could possibly be.
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Aug 19, 2016 01:37
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I agree that a mincome is better than a minimum wage, but while we wait for the general strike and/or mass violence it would take to get such a thing, a livable minimum wage is a nice stopgap. Additionally, if you're working to institute a mincome, then I assume that you're in favor of a robust welfare system so long as we have to have one. In that case, why worry about losing jobs that provide less value to society than one person can live on (i.e. the only kind of position that would be cut under an increased min wage)? It seems to me like those jobs are already a drain on society that we should be working to retask people away from. e: I forgot to ask, is the fact that libertarianism exists to advocate for white supremacy a feature to you, or a PR problem that nonetheless isn't a deal-breaker? Mornacale fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Aug 19, 2016 |
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Aug 19, 2016 01:38
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Curvature of Earth posted:It's pretty popular among the Silicon Valley technolibertarian set. oh man, now I'm worried that subculture might assimilate me when I move to the Bay edit: also, since ToxicSlurpee's post reminded me of it, here's Bertrand Russel's In Praise of Idleness the idea that all this crazy new automation ought to give us the same wages for half the hours worked has been knocking about since 1932 i work by that philosophy to this day Stinky_Pete fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Aug 19, 2016 |
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Aug 19, 2016 01:39
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Stinky_Pete posted:oh man, now I'm worried that subculture might assimilate me when I move to the Bay Don't worry, just make friends with poor people and hate everyone else you meet. That's what I did.
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Aug 19, 2016 01:43
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Mornacale posted:Don't worry, just make friends with poor people and hate everyone else you meet. That's what I did. sweet, I already know a philosophy grad student, a poli sci major with an abrasive personality who works in sales, and an international relations major up there so i'll just hang out with them
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Aug 19, 2016 01:48
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Nitrousoxide posted:In short, business will hire those with the highest marginal utility first, and those earning near the current minimum wage will have a hard time competing with those who have a higher marginal utility. That and the jobs done by those with the lowest marginal utility are more likely to have their jobs automated. Well to start with, recorded history. But I'll be more specific once I'm home. 
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Aug 19, 2016 01:58
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Like, the minimum wage has been increased before. The economy didn't collapse. No one threw up their hands and shouted "all our raises were immediately eaten by inflation, there is no reason to do this again!" also get this the inflation is going to happen anyway
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Aug 19, 2016 02:00
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Stinky_Pete posted:oh man, now I'm worried that subculture might assimilate me when I move to the Bay Relating to that is something that Buckminster Fuller pointed out; people who don't need to work tend to find other things to do and some of them are going to tinker. Really what he pointed out was that out of every 10,000 people 1 of them will come up with some sort of innovation that will end up supporting the rest. I mean, really...when it gets to the point that we can produce enough to feed everybody so cheaply and easily the question isn't "why should we feed everybody?" the question is "why shouldn't we?" The only reasoning lolbertarians offer is "because freedom." Yes you, a peasant, born into a poor family, have the right to starve to death because somebody more privileged decided that you should.
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Aug 19, 2016 02:17
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Nitrousoxide posted:In short, business will hire those with the highest marginal utility first, and those earning near the current minimum wage will have a hard time competing with those who have a higher marginal utility. If someone is making $14/hr doing IT work why does that magically make them a better janitor. They might bring in more profit doing IT work, but they're not going to be mopping floors twice as fast and competing with minimum wage work. Anyway, usually businesses are more reluctant to hire overqualified people with degrees in a specialized field to do minimum wage manual labor, because those people will bail the second something opens up in their field. paragon1 posted:Like, the minimum wage has been increased before. The economy didn't collapse. No one threw up their hands and shouted "all our raises were immediately eaten by inflation, there is no reason to do this again!" Right. We already pursue purposely inflationary policy to encourage lending and investment instead of hoarding cash. If minimum wage starts causing inflation then great then our inflationary monetary policy doesn't have to be so aggressive. But on the other hand that would mean poor people getting more of the money instead of rich people so nah better not do it.
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Aug 19, 2016 02:18
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Stinky_Pete posted:edit: Same.
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Aug 19, 2016 02:27
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Nitrousoxide posted:I'm a libertarian. Lol Judging from your posts you do are not a left libertarian which is like, the only respectable form of libertarianism So lol
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Aug 19, 2016 02:31
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Stinky_Pete posted:also, since ToxicSlurpee's post reminded me of it, here's Bertrand Russel's In Praise of Idleness This essay caused a big change in my thinking when I first read it. Before that, I had the same sentiment that was on display at the DNC this year: "no one who works full time deserves to live in poverty." Ruminating on Russell's points shortened that to "no one deserves to live in poverty." Far simpler, far more moral. Twerkteam Pizza posted:Lol Speaking as one of the thread's more prolific poo poo-divers, I still have no idea what the gently caress a "left libertarian" is. Anarchists maybe? But it sure doesn't sound that way the way the Mises set uses it.
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Aug 19, 2016 03:10
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Who What Now posted:Nobody here is seriously advocating an immediate jump to $15/hr, so I don't know why you're acting like that's anybody's argument. All serious plans for increasing the minimum wage do it via several incremental increases over a period of several years. No one is pretending that a business can perfectly determine the value of a person's labor before hire. That is figured out after hire through adjustments and the changing conditions of the labor market Kthulhu5000 posted:This is assuming that many jobs can be effectively automated, though. People like to point out fast food operations as a case for such, but ordering and food preparation are only two small facets to the overall function of a restaurant and its viability (employees also perform maintenance, janitorial duties, restocking, and a security function, for instance). It's the same thing for, say, office janitorial work - every office building has a different layout, different fixtures (such as in bathrooms), and offices are dynamic environments where things can change. It's still going to be cheaper, most likely, to just pay humans to do that sort of work and adapt to cubicle crowding, different toilet heights, different messes and so on. No one is suggesting that all sub 15/hr jobs will be automated. But automation will find niches just as human labor does. Don't pretend I'm saying that automation is bad either. But if your goal is for people to earn more you need to make the analysis on whether the potential loss of jobs is with the increase in wages. That's a question of degrees, not hard yes's or no's Stinky_Pete posted:how to heck does libertarian advocate for GBI? I'm not an anarco capitalist. My libertarianism comes from utilitarianism. I believe that the markets can generally cause the greatest good for the greatest number. I'm well aware that there are market failures that need correcting and fully embrace using the government when no private mechanism can be found to alleviate them. A GBI may have fewer downsides compared to a minimum wage. If your goal is to ensure the health and security of people you should be willing to consider other options. The GBI, for instance, would not suffer from the issue of making the lowest rung unable to compete with other more qualified applicants and leaving them jobless. However it requires substantial sources of revenue to fund, so getting the money to fund it requires careful choice to limit the negative externalities from taxation on whatever you draw those funds from.
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Aug 19, 2016 03:12
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A GBI isn't happening. We can't even get UHC in this country even though it costs less per capita and has better outcomes because it would take care of the unemployed too and we can't have that. Minimum wage is one of the few pro-labor laws that can win at the ballot box in 2016 America.
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Aug 19, 2016 03:19
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Goon Danton posted:This essay caused a big change in my thinking when I first read it. Before that, I had the same sentiment that was on display at the DNC this year: "no one who works full time deserves to live in poverty." Ruminating on Russell's points shortened that to "no one deserves to live in poverty." Far simpler, far more moral. Generally if an ideology says left in front of it to distinguish itself it's usually gonna be informed by anarchism and true democracy in some way, yeah. It's pretty much what Chomsky and his followers believe could lead to a sort of utopia. Chomsky ain't exactly a pro-business type of guy
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Aug 19, 2016 03:24
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"GBI would be better" is one of the few good arguments against a minimum wage, except that it only matters as such if you get a choice. In this case, it's a smokescreen for the same old bullshit arguments against a minimum wage.
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Aug 19, 2016 03:24
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GunnerJ posted:"GBI would be better" is one of the few good arguments against a minimum wage, except that it only matters as such if you get a choice. In this case, it's a smokescreen for the same old bullshit arguments against a minimum wage. Gbi is only good if you also have a maximum income imo Like if you have gbi then it's an excuse for more free market focused trade agreements
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Aug 19, 2016 03:27
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Nitrousoxide posted:No one is pretending that a business can perfectly determine the value of a person's labor before hire. That is figured out after hire through adjustments and the changing conditions of the labor market Your wage is in no way actually tied to the value of your labor, and I don't understand why anyone would believe it is.
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Aug 19, 2016 03:30
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Who What Now posted:Your wage is in no way actually tied to the value of your labor, and I don't understand why anyone would believe it is. Religious faith in the utility of markets.
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Aug 19, 2016 03:33
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I spontaneously recalled a quote yesterday that's very apt for this post. I can't remember who said it, so if anyone does let me know (show sources). I'll paraphrase as best I can: The reason that so many people fear socialism is not because they are afraid that they won't get what they deserve, they're afraid that they will.
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Aug 19, 2016 03:34
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JustJeff88 posted:I spontaneously recalled a quote yesterday that's very apt for this post. I can't remember who said it, so if anyone does let me know (show sources). I'll paraphrase as best I can: That's so good
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Aug 19, 2016 03:36
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Who What Now posted:Your wage is in no way actually tied to the value of your labor, and I don't understand why anyone would believe it is. Well if your wage exceeds the value of your labor you're gonna get fired. But yes. You're generally correct that generally your wage is a factor of supply vs demand and not how much profit your employer makes per hour worked.
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Aug 19, 2016 03:36
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Nitrousoxide posted:Well if your wage exceeds the value of your labor you're gonna get fired. But yes. You're generally correct that generally your wage is a factor of supply vs demand and not how much profit your employer makes per hour worked. So then why did you try and say increasing the minimum wage would mean that people who made the previous minimum wage would be less likely to be hired?
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Aug 19, 2016 03:38
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Nitrousoxide posted:Well if your wage exceeds the value of your labor you're gonna get fired. But yes. You're generally correct that generally your wage is a factor of supply vs demand and not how much profit your employer makes per hour worked. No if your wage exceeds the value of your labor you're either outsourced or in management
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Aug 19, 2016 03:39
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GunnerJ posted:"GBI would be better" is one of the few good arguments against a minimum wage, except that it only matters as such if you get a choice. In this case, it's a smokescreen for the same old bullshit arguments against a minimum wage. So I think we are in agreement then generally that a GBI would be preferable to an increased minimum wage.
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Aug 19, 2016 03:39
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Who What Now posted:So then why did you try and say increasing the minimum wage would mean that people who made the previous minimum wage would be less likely to be hired? Because they likely provide the least marginal value per hour worked
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Aug 19, 2016 03:41
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Nitrousoxide posted:Because they likely provide the least marginal value per hour worked gently caress yourself
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Aug 19, 2016 03:44
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Nitrousoxide posted:Because they likely provide the least marginal value per hour worked You just agreed that wages are in no way influenced by the value of a worker's labor. Now you're saying this again. Which is it?
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Aug 19, 2016 03:46
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Nitrousoxide posted:Well if your wage exceeds the value of your labor you're gonna get fired. But yes. You're generally correct that generally your wage is a factor of supply vs demand and not how much profit your employer makes per hour worked. This is true, but it demolishes your argument that raising the minimum wage causes unemployment because this means employers can afford to pay minimum wage out of the surplus value they're sucking up from labor right now. It is very very unlikely that there's any significant amount of work being done that isn't actually productive enough to keep an able-bodied person doing it alive.
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Aug 19, 2016 03:46
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Nitrousoxide posted:Well if your wage exceeds the value of your labor you're gonna get fired. But yes. You're generally correct that generally your wage is a factor of supply vs demand and not how much profit your employer makes per hour worked. Tell that to CEOs making 8 or 9 digits a year off of companies they're deliberately pillaging.
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Aug 19, 2016 03:47
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