bahbah is just using oversimplified examples and arguing a philosophy. There's elements of truth to everything he's saying ldo but the problem is it's just theory. And just because a market demands something doesn't mean it's what's best for everyone in it.

Market forces are great and all, but the market is distorted. That's the point. A philosophy meant to maximize utility for all involved is clearly not doing so. And even if it were, that implies a moral impasse that pure capitalists either conveniently ignore out of sheer arrogance and/or callous indifference, or don't want to solve out of pure greed/lack of moral integrity...

Now obviously we have a mixed economy. But again, it's not maximizing utility for all. And it certainly seems to have no interest in rising to a respectable level of moral cognition. The world isn't fairy tales and unicorns, I'm not impervious to greed, and I'll never pretend I don't want riffraff on my lawn, but I'm also never going to pretend we as human beings don't willfully choose to live in a massive cocoon of "blissful" ignorance and cognitive dissonance.

Maybe my degree of empathy is pathological based on the way I talk. I dunno. But I have an extremely hard time accepting that people understand market forces and simultaneously don't understand that other people get ****ed by them, ubiquitously and indefinitely. I also reject that a society can't function more optimally by conceding a modicum of productivity for the comfort of our fellow man, strange or familiar. Just because the moral argument isn't always the most economically productive one doesn't mean it can't be. It can actually be superior in many ways imo, people just need to get over themselves and not be so insecure.

1. Laws are wasteful at best and harmful at worst when they are unnecessary and/or ineffective.

2. Many political issues hinge on falsities that are fabricated, perpetuated, or exploited because it allows politicians to campaign on the narratives that exist in people's minds.

This isn't a matter of empathy.

The choice isn't between minimum wages and complete apathy.

It's that minimum wages and unions are a terrible way to help.

Let's even pretend that somehow there were no job losses (which is obviously insane but whatever).

You still create a bubble where desirable jobs become gifts that're bequeathed to people on the basis of personal relationships. A union, for instance, negotiates salaries for it's members well above market rates which is fantastic for people who're already in the union and it seems to on the surface come primarily at the expense of the big, faceless stakeholders so you might see it as a win. But when it comes time to decide who gets in on the entry level jobs , you better believe the people at the front of the line will be people with personal connections to people in management.

It depends on exactly what the job is as sometimes there are legitimate shortages of people with any given skillset and of course there will be some meritocratic hires mixed in, but in many cases it really does just end up being a nepotistic gift. I've seen it first hand many times wrt government and union jobs. Effectively they're far, far, lower than welfare in terms of their net impact on society, and the worst thing is, these are often people who don't even really need the jobs because they have parents who're fairly well off to begin with.


This effect is slightly less pronounced in the case of minimum wage jobs but it still happens, because not all jobs that pay minimum wage are equally undesirable. Internships or entry level positions that offer room to grow become gifts, and the people who don't have some kind of an in are relegated to dead end jobs. It's nice that financially destitute people are making more to do those crap jobs but there're ways to help people without creating this culture of corruption.

Just provide basic food and housing for people. If people aren't desperate for money, companies have to pay people more to do stuff.

Well of course unions are a problem in some cases, but necessary in others. Owner class oppressing worker class is real, ergo some unions necessary. However, as power is conceded, some unions have gained too much power and actually damage productivity. Same logic applies to tax and regulations...

I don't know how I feel about min wage.

It's argued as a moral necessity and a mechanism to keep the economy healthy, flowing, and recycling properly so as to maintain its perpetuation, but if things like welfare practice, UBI, and taxation were all managed optimally, then, optimally, there should be no minimum wage. Market forces would be given full reign and entitlements would be the backstop.

But I dunno which is better. No min wage = more money going to owner class, more and better productivity, high tax receipts which redistribute to the population and fund the functions of gov't. The kicker is the last part. More money to the gov't does not always mean better for the people.

But then with min wage = more money to worker/middle class, a drop in productivity, but tax receipts drop? Stay the same? Higher? Then there's the whole multipliers thing which I'm familiar with but don't entirely understand. But the point being money in the hands of the people, directly, is more efficient than money in the hands of the gov't.

I don't know which scenario is better, can't tell, and I'm guessing it's possible it doesn't matter which route is taken, just that corruption doesn't gobble up the ceiling of utility either path could achieve.

Totally agree that ideally there would be no need for a minimum wage. Maybe one day there wont be - UBI combined with socialised healthcare etc is a much better approach imo - maybe one day. On the same lines, most worker protections could be made completely unnecessary which is a very worthy political aim.

But until then we have a situation where there is no convincing economic case for or against minimum wage. It's about fairness and equality which is straight forward politics.

This recent study is still pretty relevant I think, even if the strongest conclusion is just "historical minimum wage increases have been too small to negatively impact employment" (as I put it in that thread).

I wonder how UK minimum wages look on that basis.

But, I'm going to be annoying and declare that such studies are looking in the wrong place. The only factor that matters (assuming minimum wages that aren't stupidly high) is how they impact the advance of automation.

[I appreciate others may have a different view on how automation is going to take ~all the jobs].

Still deflecting. Thanks for playing.

Name some companies that actually do this please.

Just to make this point clearer. Target has significantly higher margins than Walmart. Why the scorn directed at Walmart and not Target which is a Walmart competitor?


Regarding minimum wage the number of people working at the national minimum wage is minuscule. That should indicate something about the labor market I would hope. Also the cost of living differs so widely in the USA I believe it as an issue that addressed at the state and local levels which is basically what is happening today. If some state/city wants to institute a minimum wage of $25 an hour go for it.

relevant article

https://nypost.com/2019/08/17/luxury...ich-americans/

LOL the writer of that is the same guy who wrote the Quillette article about white privilege that Kelhus linked. You really do think poor people are Republicans lol. Alright, good luck with that.

Why don’t you ask Bahbah. But, uh WalMart, Target, every company that fights unionization.

Yo, that’s not a deflection. It’s an admission that I can’t conjure up a quote of yours, nor do I feel like searching to see whether you ever said something explicitly along those lines. But also, I’m reframing the point in order to prove it’s essentially true. Now answer the question, do you believe owners should take a pay cut to pay their employees more?

Juan, weren’t you the one that posted that article about how Vox underhandedly uses causal signifiers to brainwash people into being latte-sipping low-t liberals? Remember when I replied and told you that using words like “therefore” is actually more ethical as it lets people know that the author is drawing a conclusion? It would actually be way worse if the author presented unsupported conclusions without any indication that they were reaching, like this passage from your article: It’s no surprise that JV comes in here touting an article full of egregious unethical writing. Because as was ever the case with the right, their attacks are always projection.

Some nobody assistant professor made a joke calling Bret Stephens a metaphorical bedbug and Bret emailed his provost over it. A solid third of Bret Stephens' professional output is being the anti-safe space campus free speech guy.

Perhaps the purest distillation yet of Re: Conservatives: What are your principles?

He's Bret "bedbug" Stephens forever now. Hilarious.

Bret "Free Speech - I have the right to offend" Stephens literally searched his own name (he wasn't tagged), found the innocuous joke post which had zero retweets and 9 likes, and notified the guy's supervisor about it.

Utter hypocrisy - complete par for the course for the right wing.

I think this business round table thing about a week ago is really relevant to this conversation.

Cliffs:

-a bunch of CEOs of US companies got together and made a non-binding pledge that said the companies they run would no longer treat maximize profit as their sole purpose
-the pledge went further to say they would serve all stakeholders (share holders, customers, employees, the community, etc) ethically, morally and fairly
-the managing partners of these companies are making a move to push their social agendas by seizing control of the corporate assets

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/19/inves...ity/index.html

The current way businesses run is to maximize profits and then let those that benefit donate to the charities of their own choices, but this way the company will be less profitable but they don't think the shareholders will mind because now the company is deciding which charities to donate to.

A clear admission that you made a gratuitous slam about me and can’t back it up.

Your question is too vague. Their are all kinds of business entities in the USA. Generally speaking, in privately held businesses that follow the law I really have no opinion on what they pay. If they want to run a business that pays their employees more than labor market rates I have no problem with that. As a shareholder in a publicly traded company I am looking at the valuation the market has put on the company.

Well, the natural followup argument is that if corporations' only ethical responsibility is the economy of their shareholders, the state should revise and regulate their rights as legal entities accordingly. After all, the state exists for its people, not abstract legal entities.

A natural way to go about it would be to roll back legal protection for actions undertaken by corporations and open up for increased personal liability and culpability.

I do not get why people use Wal-Mart, it's like the worse possible example you could use.

Wal-Marts profit margin, before taxes was 5%, now it's 2.5%. The left can never quantify how much profit is too much, or is okay. There is no meat left on that bone. And Wal-mart is not paying it's folks more, they just hired more people, and cut full-time work.

The idea that if you pay everyone more, somehow the world is better is just oversimplified ideological dogma. There two reasons why Wal-Mart dominates the brick and mortar retail space, it's becasue they offer the cheapest prices, and it's a one stop shop for most things. Their customers demand low prices, not higher wages. Wal-mart boomed becasue it passed profits on to customers, and operates on volume, rather than margins. If that's not the best case scenario for society, I do not know what is.

Grocery Outlet, Walmart, and WinCo were the price winners—where many families could save more than $2,000 per year.


Every successful company operates selfishly by offering a customer exactly what they want. They fill a demand. Else, we'd have a race to the highest priced widget.

“Gratuitous slam” lol, you poor thing.

WinCo foods is not the winning example for you that you think it is.

I think you look for too much in it. Some of us simply think it's a very good thing for workers to be paid decent wages.

It's only a tiny part of everything but in that respect we get to chose the world we think is better.


That is unlikely to be a simple truth as many of those same customers support minimum wage legislation.