Politico: "The Pitchforks are Coming for Us Plutocrats"

[myDeaconmyhand]

The American economy, and our place in the world will keep evolving, and that scares me too, but I think that trying to stop or slow that evolution by artifically suppressing labor costs in the U.S. is more scary, because that's basically allowing a 2nd world working class to develop in the American economic and social structure. Let me put it this way: If the labor force for a private company is ultra dependent upon government assistance, isn't that company dependent upon government assistance for its labor costs?

 

[2&2 Slider To Leyritz]

No. The company isn't telling or asking the government to supply that assistance. If the government did not supply that assistance, that wouldn't change the company's pay scale. The company is backing into its labor budget based off of its gross or per unit profit calculations, not a calculation of government assistance.

 

[myDeaconmyhand]

Who gives a fuck whether the company asked for it or not, they depend on it because their employees depend on it. Without food and shelter and health there are no employees. What are you not understanding about this? It's an artificial wage suppression because industry knows that the government, for the most part, won't allow it's citizens to go without these things, which requires tax derived government assistance, which is just a less efficient side of the same coin.

 

[myDeaconmyhand]

What an absurd standard. I didn't ask anyone for paved roads or property rights either, yet i'm oddly dependent upon both.

 

[Deacon923]

The argument made by the piece linked in the OP is not primarily about government subsidizing Wal-Mart through entitlements (although he does go into it a little bit). His bigger argument is that forcing business to invest more in their workforce creates a virtuous cycle of spending by the workforce, leading to growth for all (including business). Thus his points about how all the trillions that big companies have sitting in the bank aren't doing anything productive for society, and about how he individually as a filthy rich person 1,000,000 times as wealthy as an unskilled laborer does not consume 1,000,000 times as much as the unskilled laborer. It's about getting more money moving productively through the economy through requiring spending on the workforce, as opposed to the trickle down theory that if you just let the rich keep more of their money, they will automatically spend more on the workforce and be "job creators".

I think that part of his argument is much more compelling than the business subsidy through entitlements argument, which while interesting and perhaps with some truth in some industries has some serious conceptual weaknesses.

I recently read Capital in the 21st century and some of the concepts in there have big synergy with the concepts in Hanauer's piece.

 

[myDeaconmyhand]

It's pointless for the 2&2s of this country to philosophize within a framework of zero government intervention regarding wages, because that framework doesn't exist. The U.S. government does intervene, it has, and will continue to. There is a minimum wage, and it was created with a purpose, and it's currently failing to serve that purpose. The conservative narrative (or just 2&2, whatever) that this vague manufacturing industry, dependent upon a minimum wage work force, wouldn't survive if the minimum wage were raised to a living wage, is a false flag, a sensationalist narrative created by industry leaders, shouted by conservative politicians, spread by conservative voters. For example, just read what Papa John of Papa John's Pizza had to say about a possible minimum wage hike, because the delivery pizza industry would surely collapse if the minimum wage were increased.


You want to convince me that the sky is falling? Show me the concrete numbers projecting the collapse, unsubjective figures on par with the dollar inflation and cost of living numbers that support my argument that the minimum wage needs to be increased.

 

[Strickland33]

What an absurd standard. I didn't ask anyone for paved roads or property rights either, yet i'm oddly dependent upon both.

This. Libertarians and anarchists simply have zero understanding of just how central the state is for the production and maintenance of everyday life.

You just can't bracket governance or the government, and theorize the economy or the state in such a framework.

Ask Somalians how well that system (or lack thereof) has worked out for them.

 

[WakeandBake]

No. The company isn't telling or asking the government to supply that assistance. If the government did not supply that assistance, that wouldn't change the company's pay scale. The company is backing into its labor budget based off of its gross or per unit profit calculations, not a calculation of government assistance.

It is? In the business I run the profit calculations are based off the cost of the raw materials and the cost of doing business, which includes labor, and my markup.

I'm supposed to figure up my profits first, and then decide what I am paying my labor? shit