Wal-Mart pays wages that are too low to live on, therefore, whatever increased productivity (which isn’t very much, frankly) we can say they’re adding to the total economy, however much they’re reducing the theoretical additional dole burden, they are not an independent firm earning profits on a “free” market without government disturbance. They are, at a fundamental level, receiving a public subsidy.
This makes the unexamined assumption that all jobs in a free market must deliver a living wage. This is not true. A completely laissez-faire society would still have plenty of jobs not paying enough to support a single adult, because not everyone needs that sort of job: Teenagers getting some spending money during the summer, students supplementing a college grant, adults getting a second income in a household that can already support itself.
Yes, true. And in a completely laissez-faire society, the majority of current low-wage workers who do not fall into those categories would simply drop dead.
Hence why I’d think that over time, wages would rise to the level of subsistence. Even Wal-Mart doesn’t like having to clear dead bodies out of the store or having to continually train new workers because their most devoted ones, the ones who choose to stay, keep dying.
Yes, true. And in a completely laissez-faire society, the majority of current low-wage workers who do not fall into those categories would simply drop dead.
In such a laissez faire society, why would you “blame” the entity that employs them at some wage, instead of blaming the millions of entities that won’t or don’t employ them at any wage? You don’t work at Walmart for minimum wage if someone else will pay you $10. How is Walmart the bad guy for being the private entity that is willing to give you a better deal than any other entity in society (including government which is also an employer)? How is it not the “fault” of the non-employers of the minimum wage earners that they make so little?
I don’t claim that’s necessarily a reasonable reaction, but you certainly ought not be as surprised by it as you are signalling here. If I’m suffering, Sam is ignoring my suffering, and Pat is benefiting from my suffering, it’s a pretty common reaction to judge Pat worse than Sam.
I don’t claim that’s necessarily a reasonable reaction, but you certainly ought not be as surprised by it as you are signalling here.
OMG, you essentially agree with me but don’t like your reading of what you think I am signaling about the unreasonable reactions?
What are your priorities here?
Is being surprised at this sort of deep meta- wierdness also not to your taste? If so feel free to interpret my feelings as appalled, disappointed, or frustrated if that seems to you more appropriate.
In such a laissez faire society, why would you “blame” the entity that employs them at some wage, instead of blaming the millions of entities that won’t or don’t employ them at any wage?
Because the Third Option is being left out: independent living off the commons. This is what disappeared with the Enclosure Movement and thus signalled the rise of capitalism. Wal-Mart is the entity withdrawing this worker from subsistence on the commons, and also partially responsible for the elimination of the commons, therefore they are responsible for “beating” the Commons Offer.
I have to concur with Ms Lebovitz here; what do you mean living off the commons?
Talking about enclosure strongly implies farming/herding on public land, but that seems like an unlikely argument for you to make. What common goods have been privatized by Walmart in this situation, and how were people living off of them before?
Edit: Oops, replied to wrong comment. Was meant for the parent.
Ok, let’s see. Firstly, the enclosures were a completely English, not even Anglo-American, phenomenon; nobody else even had any commons. Secondly, the commons were just about sufficient to support something like 10% of a population of around 10 million. Thirdly, wow, I would much rather have a Walmart wage than try to scrape together meals from the land that nobody cares about enough to claim for themselves. To suggest that this is a viable alternative all over the world and in industrial times is silly.
It is exactly the pre-capitalist norm. You cannot discuss the iniquities of capitalism without reference to what happened before and outside capitalism.
My impression is that in medieval and ancient Europe, the bulk of the population were serfs or slaves with very limited legal rights—the opposite of independence. They also had well defined land holdings—they did not “live independently off the commons”.
I have the impression that there are hunter-gathering or herding societies where the population “lived independently off the commons”—but are there examples of societies with farming and cities where this was a routine or comfortable way of life?
To find a society “before and outside” capitalism in the relevant sense, requires going very far back in the history of our civilization. Are there examples from other parts of the world that you have in mind?
Well, “outside” of capitalism was pretty thoroughly explored in the 20th century and while they produced some really splendid music the 200 million dead by the hands of their own governments was admittedly a bit of a bummer. But maybe “before” has a better answer?
Well, capitalism’s immediate predecessor, mercantilism, was a pretty sweet setup all told (although I doubt it would seem particularly appetizing to you). Divine right of Kings and the virtues of a natural aristocracy is admittedly a tough sell, but the results were pretty phenomenal; each of the great golden ages of the European empires, one after another, for centuries. But still, going a bit further back couldn’t hurt.
Well now we’re in pre-Renaissance times, pretty good for our third bullet point, but the results aren’t so encouraging. Manorialism was a pretty inefficient system even in it’s own time; it’s probably for the best that the serfs were emancipated and all those usury laws got repealed, that would really put a damper on a post-industrial society. Still you can’t argue that all those Castles and Gothic Cathedrals weren’t a blast, and you could still find some un-enclosed Commons to farm if you wanted them. Put that one in the “maybe” column then.
Before that we’re into the Classical era and they didn’t even have a proper economic system, not to mention the way slavery choked off incentives for developing labor-saving technology. And the way masters choked off the slaves, er, literally… maybe best to just slide past that one too.
Maybe go all the way back to the Bronze Age; they must have had to have had something really interesting if they were cool enough to convince aliens to help build all those monuments. Well there was a lot of collective farming, that sounds right up your alley, although the whole Pharaoh thing seems like a bit of a drag. At least you get lots of nice pyramids and ziggurats, that’s pretty bad-ass.
Well what about if we go Full Environmentalist; leave the neolithic behind and embrace the hunter gatherer! There’s certainly something to be said about it nutritionally, that’s to be sure, and there does seem to be a bit of truth to the idea that it builds a man’s heroic character. Still, that doesn’t seem likely to scale well for 10 billion people and there’s that whole “no internet or penicillin” thing to consider too. I’m still a bit attached to looking at cat pictures and not dying of diarrhea, makes it hard to get into the back-to-the-earth spirit.
So I guess you were right; a little look at history really does put “the iniquities of capitalism” into perspective. Thanks!
Well, “outside” of capitalism was pretty thoroughly explored in the 20th century and while they produced some really splendid music the 200 million dead by the hands of their own governments was admittedly a bit of a bummer.
So every possible system other than capitalism leads to genocide? Surely you can’t actually believe that.
Out of all alternatives to capitalism that have actually been tried in practice during the last several centuries, is there one which you like and which you think is clearly superior to capitalism?
No, I’d go so far as to say that out of the six non-capitalist systems I mentioned only four were unarguably guilty of democide (the case against the mercantile powers relies on a stubborn refusal to understand how epidemiology works) and one of them is wholly innocent of murder on anything greater than the scale of a village.
The case for hunting and gathering just gets better and better.
This makes the unexamined assumption that all jobs in a free market must deliver a living wage. This is not true. A completely laissez-faire society would still have plenty of jobs not paying enough to support a single adult, because not everyone needs that sort of job: Teenagers getting some spending money during the summer, students supplementing a college grant, adults getting a second income in a household that can already support itself.
Yes, true. And in a completely laissez-faire society, the majority of current low-wage workers who do not fall into those categories would simply drop dead.
Hence why I’d think that over time, wages would rise to the level of subsistence. Even Wal-Mart doesn’t like having to clear dead bodies out of the store or having to continually train new workers because their most devoted ones, the ones who choose to stay, keep dying.
In such a laissez faire society, why would you “blame” the entity that employs them at some wage, instead of blaming the millions of entities that won’t or don’t employ them at any wage? You don’t work at Walmart for minimum wage if someone else will pay you $10. How is Walmart the bad guy for being the private entity that is willing to give you a better deal than any other entity in society (including government which is also an employer)? How is it not the “fault” of the non-employers of the minimum wage earners that they make so little?
Because the employers benefit.
I don’t claim that’s necessarily a reasonable reaction, but you certainly ought not be as surprised by it as you are signalling here. If I’m suffering, Sam is ignoring my suffering, and Pat is benefiting from my suffering, it’s a pretty common reaction to judge Pat worse than Sam.
OMG, you essentially agree with me but don’t like your reading of what you think I am signaling about the unreasonable reactions?
What are your priorities here?
Is being surprised at this sort of deep meta- wierdness also not to your taste? If so feel free to interpret my feelings as appalled, disappointed, or frustrated if that seems to you more appropriate.
Because the Third Option is being left out: independent living off the commons. This is what disappeared with the Enclosure Movement and thus signalled the rise of capitalism. Wal-Mart is the entity withdrawing this worker from subsistence on the commons, and also partially responsible for the elimination of the commons, therefore they are responsible for “beating” the Commons Offer.
I have to concur with Ms Lebovitz here; what do you mean living off the commons?
Talking about enclosure strongly implies farming/herding on public land, but that seems like an unlikely argument for you to make. What common goods have been privatized by Walmart in this situation, and how were people living off of them before?
Edit: Oops, replied to wrong comment. Was meant for the parent.
Ok, let’s see. Firstly, the enclosures were a completely English, not even Anglo-American, phenomenon; nobody else even had any commons. Secondly, the commons were just about sufficient to support something like 10% of a population of around 10 million. Thirdly, wow, I would much rather have a Walmart wage than try to scrape together meals from the land that nobody cares about enough to claim for themselves. To suggest that this is a viable alternative all over the world and in industrial times is silly.
What do you mean by living off the commons?
That doesn’t resemble any reality I’m familiar with.
It is exactly the pre-capitalist norm. You cannot discuss the iniquities of capitalism without reference to what happened before and outside capitalism.
Is Wal-Mart drawing its workers from pre-capitalist societies?
My impression is that in medieval and ancient Europe, the bulk of the population were serfs or slaves with very limited legal rights—the opposite of independence. They also had well defined land holdings—they did not “live independently off the commons”.
I have the impression that there are hunter-gathering or herding societies where the population “lived independently off the commons”—but are there examples of societies with farming and cities where this was a routine or comfortable way of life?
To find a society “before and outside” capitalism in the relevant sense, requires going very far back in the history of our civilization. Are there examples from other parts of the world that you have in mind?
Well, “outside” of capitalism was pretty thoroughly explored in the 20th century and while they produced some really splendid music the 200 million dead by the hands of their own governments was admittedly a bit of a bummer. But maybe “before” has a better answer?
Well, capitalism’s immediate predecessor, mercantilism, was a pretty sweet setup all told (although I doubt it would seem particularly appetizing to you). Divine right of Kings and the virtues of a natural aristocracy is admittedly a tough sell, but the results were pretty phenomenal; each of the great golden ages of the European empires, one after another, for centuries. But still, going a bit further back couldn’t hurt.
Well now we’re in pre-Renaissance times, pretty good for our third bullet point, but the results aren’t so encouraging. Manorialism was a pretty inefficient system even in it’s own time; it’s probably for the best that the serfs were emancipated and all those usury laws got repealed, that would really put a damper on a post-industrial society. Still you can’t argue that all those Castles and Gothic Cathedrals weren’t a blast, and you could still find some un-enclosed Commons to farm if you wanted them. Put that one in the “maybe” column then.
Before that we’re into the Classical era and they didn’t even have a proper economic system, not to mention the way slavery choked off incentives for developing labor-saving technology. And the way masters choked off the slaves, er, literally… maybe best to just slide past that one too.
Maybe go all the way back to the Bronze Age; they must have had to have had something really interesting if they were cool enough to convince aliens to help build all those monuments. Well there was a lot of collective farming, that sounds right up your alley, although the whole Pharaoh thing seems like a bit of a drag. At least you get lots of nice pyramids and ziggurats, that’s pretty bad-ass.
Well what about if we go Full Environmentalist; leave the neolithic behind and embrace the hunter gatherer! There’s certainly something to be said about it nutritionally, that’s to be sure, and there does seem to be a bit of truth to the idea that it builds a man’s heroic character. Still, that doesn’t seem likely to scale well for 10 billion people and there’s that whole “no internet or penicillin” thing to consider too. I’m still a bit attached to looking at cat pictures and not dying of diarrhea, makes it hard to get into the back-to-the-earth spirit.
So I guess you were right; a little look at history really does put “the iniquities of capitalism” into perspective. Thanks!
So every possible system other than capitalism leads to genocide? Surely you can’t actually believe that.
Out of all alternatives to capitalism that have actually been tried in practice during the last several centuries, is there one which you like and which you think is clearly superior to capitalism?
Yes: social democracy.
Social democracy does not involve capitalism? Sweden (or whatever your favorite example is) is not a capitalist country?
Very astute of you to notice that.
No, I’d go so far as to say that out of the six non-capitalist systems I mentioned only four were unarguably guilty of democide (the case against the mercantile powers relies on a stubborn refusal to understand how epidemiology works) and one of them is wholly innocent of murder on anything greater than the scale of a village.
The case for hunting and gathering just gets better and better.