Part of Sanders’ argument relies on the belief that there is a possible free lunch, here : they believe WalMart could raise wages significantly without causing the company to explode, either not harming people in ways that count to the progressive movement (decreased profit to corporations) or by arguments of comparison to CostCo, Trader Joe’s, or other stores that have different structures. I’m pretty sure the math doesn’t work out that way, and the realistic event chain is likely to be drastically different, but it’s a very common belief. From that perspective, it’s more the concept that WalMart’s low wages are a bad equilibrium point established by existing laws, and because it is less costly to the state for WalMart to directly pay more at a different equilibrium, the state should force them to change their actions.
If it helps, almost all of the people opposing WalMart on this tactic have called for increase welfare states of the type compatible with what you’ve suggested. It’s likely to complicate getting interest from the right-wing in the United States, but since the right consider work requirements one of its biggest successes there are some much more pressing issues with trying to get them to accept a basic income guarantee.
((On the flip side, I think there are some issues with BIG or BIG-like systems that make them poor solutions to gwern’s concerns, but these probably exist outside the scope of this thread.))
but since the right consider work requirements one of its biggest successes there are some much more pressing issues with trying to get them to accept a basic income guarantee.
You just have to make an argument that would appeal to a conservative, which I think Paine’s would. Amusingly enough, Bill O’Reilly basically bought Paine’s argument with respect to the guaranteed payments from Alaska’s oil fund, saying “It’s our oil”. Paine’s argument was “It’s our land.” It’s really not a great leap.
Conservatives reject liberal arguments because they’re not based in anything Conservatives recognize as justice. Your need for food does not justify your stealing my dinner. They may wish to give to charity to help the poor, but they reject having their money taken by force by the government to help the poor. It’s the difference between giving a gift and being robbed.
Is that really an adequate steelman of conservative or libertarian thought? It sounds only one stepped remove from “Low-wage workers are just lazy!” and two steps from “Low-wage workers are racial untermenschen!”.
With educated, intellectual-level conservatives I find common ground quite often, since they tend to have fairly elaborate value systems that leave a lot of space for common ground. With libertarians—ie: pure proprietarians who value only private property at a political level—no, there can’t be any common ground. They have One Single Rule, and I believe more things than that matter.
It isnt even a question of deep pockets. Require walmart to pay each employee twice as much, and they will probably fire half of them, train the remainder better, and have customers bag their own groceries. Same total labor cost. This is generally considered better on the grounds that the people fired by walmart in this situation are not really worse of—any other employment they come by is as least as good because their current employment situation verily doth sucket hose—and the people still working there would then have actual jobs.
Require walmart to pay each employee twice as much, and they will probably fire half of them, train the remainder better, and have customers bag their own groceries. Same total labor cost.
I see no reason to believe this would happen. May I recommend a post on the subject?
the people fired by walmart in this situation are not really worse of
Oh really? Do you think Wal-Mart employees agree with you on that point? You’re basically saying that there is no reason for anyone to work at Wal-Mart. This is… empirically wrong.
This is what one tends to hear from Wal-Mart employees and former employees, yes.
Given that Wal-Mart is the biggest private employer in the world and employs over 2m people (source) I think you’re wrong as a matter of empiric reality.
Is that a very good argument though? To believe that there is a reason to do something simply because lots of people do so, sounds like a bias to me...
Well, Lumifer did just say “reason”, not “good reason”—but in the reply to Izeinwinter only the latter is relevant. I initially assumed he meant the latter, but had forgotten that when reading his reply to eli_sennesh. Retracting my upvote to the latter.
Good points. The second link is excellent, may incorporate into a revised version of the post.
But in addition to the points it makes, there’s what seems to be a questionable moral assumption here: even if Walmart could pay employees more by taking a hit in profits, why should they bear that burden alone, as opposed to spreading the cost of improving those people’s lives over the wealthy as a whole through taxes? That’s where the anti-Walmart crowd seems to assume something like, “hiring someone creates a (fairly) strong moral obligation to look after their welfare, above and beyond things like not cheating them.”
Part of Sanders’ argument relies on the belief that there is a possible free lunch, here : they believe WalMart could raise wages significantly without causing the company to explode, either not harming people in ways that count to the progressive movement (decreased profit to corporations) or by arguments of comparison to CostCo, Trader Joe’s, or other stores that have different structures. I’m pretty sure the math doesn’t work out that way, and the realistic event chain is likely to be drastically different, but it’s a very common belief. From that perspective, it’s more the concept that WalMart’s low wages are a bad equilibrium point established by existing laws, and because it is less costly to the state for WalMart to directly pay more at a different equilibrium, the state should force them to change their actions.
If it helps, almost all of the people opposing WalMart on this tactic have called for increase welfare states of the type compatible with what you’ve suggested. It’s likely to complicate getting interest from the right-wing in the United States, but since the right consider work requirements one of its biggest successes there are some much more pressing issues with trying to get them to accept a basic income guarantee.
((On the flip side, I think there are some issues with BIG or BIG-like systems that make them poor solutions to gwern’s concerns, but these probably exist outside the scope of this thread.))
You just have to make an argument that would appeal to a conservative, which I think Paine’s would. Amusingly enough, Bill O’Reilly basically bought Paine’s argument with respect to the guaranteed payments from Alaska’s oil fund, saying “It’s our oil”. Paine’s argument was “It’s our land.” It’s really not a great leap.
Conservatives reject liberal arguments because they’re not based in anything Conservatives recognize as justice. Your need for food does not justify your stealing my dinner. They may wish to give to charity to help the poor, but they reject having their money taken by force by the government to help the poor. It’s the difference between giving a gift and being robbed.
Is that really an adequate steelman of conservative or libertarian thought? It sounds only one stepped remove from “Low-wage workers are just lazy!” and two steps from “Low-wage workers are racial untermenschen!”.
If that’s what “Don’t rob me” sounds like to you, then you’re unlikely ever to have any common ground with conservatives or libertarians.
With educated, intellectual-level conservatives I find common ground quite often, since they tend to have fairly elaborate value systems that leave a lot of space for common ground. With libertarians—ie: pure proprietarians who value only private property at a political level—no, there can’t be any common ground. They have One Single Rule, and I believe more things than that matter.
That doesn’t match my idea of what a free lunch is. I believe a better descriptive term would be the deep pockets theory.
It isnt even a question of deep pockets. Require walmart to pay each employee twice as much, and they will probably fire half of them, train the remainder better, and have customers bag their own groceries. Same total labor cost. This is generally considered better on the grounds that the people fired by walmart in this situation are not really worse of—any other employment they come by is as least as good because their current employment situation verily doth sucket hose—and the people still working there would then have actual jobs.
I see no reason to believe this would happen. May I recommend a post on the subject?
Oh really? Do you think Wal-Mart employees agree with you on that point? You’re basically saying that there is no reason for anyone to work at Wal-Mart. This is… empirically wrong.
What counts as one?
This is what one tends to hear from Wal-Mart employees and former employees, yes.
Given that Wal-Mart is the biggest private employer in the world and employs over 2m people (source) I think you’re wrong as a matter of empiric reality.
Is that a very good argument though? To believe that there is a reason to do something simply because lots of people do so, sounds like a bias to me...
Well, Lumifer did just say “reason”, not “good reason”—but in the reply to Izeinwinter only the latter is relevant. I initially assumed he meant the latter, but had forgotten that when reading his reply to eli_sennesh. Retracting my upvote to the latter.
Good points. The second link is excellent, may incorporate into a revised version of the post.
But in addition to the points it makes, there’s what seems to be a questionable moral assumption here: even if Walmart could pay employees more by taking a hit in profits, why should they bear that burden alone, as opposed to spreading the cost of improving those people’s lives over the wealthy as a whole through taxes? That’s where the anti-Walmart crowd seems to assume something like, “hiring someone creates a (fairly) strong moral obligation to look after their welfare, above and beyond things like not cheating them.”