RedPhoenixxx wrote:
gbaji wrote:
First off, while people are using the term "Marxism", it's hard to define what we're talking about there.
It's not hard at all. "Marxism" is the doctrine that Karl Marx laid out in The Capital. It really is that simple. It's an old doctrine that could apply to late 19th Century England, but which has little direct relevance in the modern Western world. When Knox calls Obama a "Marxist", it's like when a lefty calls Bush a "****". It's just as accurate and relevant.
/whoosh!
I didn't say it was hard to define Marxism. I said it was hard to define "what we're talking about here". Specifically, when Knox uses the term, what does he really mean? Since, as you stated, actual Marxism doesn't really apply directly to the modern world, it's obvious that he's really talking about something else, but just using the label "Marxist". Way to miss the point though! ;)
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I think the reference to "brainwashed you good" is to the idea that socialism actually benefits "the worker".
Of course it does. Every single entitlement the "worker" has gained has been because of leftist doctrines: Minimum wage? Socialism. Paid annual leave? Socialism. Health and safety rules? Socialism. The end of child labour? Socialism. Paid maternity leave? Socialism.
No. Those have been the result of worker rights movements. Individuals acting to improve their lot in life is *not* socialism. A labor union is *not* socialism. Do I need to link you to a definition of the word? Socialism is when the government controls the industry. The degree to which it does this is the degree of socialism present in the country.
If a group of workers organize and strike for better conditions, higher wages, etc, that's a true labor movement. When the government steps in and regulates whole industries in order to enforce the conditions of that union, *that* is socialism. You do get that the specific result isn't what defines socialism. It's the method used to get there...
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What you guys seem to constantly miss is that these benefits were fought over and won by trade unions and leftist political parties. If it wasn't for them, workers would still be paid a pittance, would have no holidays, no job security, would work in dangerous and unhealthy conditions, and would still be treated like whining machinery. That was the situation before, from the rise of industrialism to the welfare reforms post WWII, and this is the situation you guys are arguing we should go back to.
Again. Those movements by themselves do not require socialism. What happened is that the socialists of the day piggybacked their agenda of greater government intervention onto the labor movements of the day and in the process provided a "quick path" to success. Afterall, government intervention on behalf of those unions makes it easier for them to succeed.
That's led many to assume that the two are integrally combined, but that's simply not the case. A true labor movement is an exercise in free market forces. If labor has sufficient numbers and strength, it can bargain for better terms, just like any other group in the market can. There is *zero* need for the government to actually get involved except to enforce anti-trust laws, and prevent violence that may artificially impact the results. At the end of the day, if a majority of the workers in a given field demand some benefit, they'll get it, whether there's a government helping them or not. Assuming that what they want doesn't cost more than the cost to replace them that is...
I've had family members who organized union activities back in the 30s and 40s here in the US. They absolutely can succeed with out the government making a single regulation or law.
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We had 200 years of unregulated workers, and please read Dickens or Zola if you want a taste of how life was back then. Being unregulated brought them zero benefits or improvement. Generation after generation had to fight, physically and mentally, to obtain those rights that most of us take for granted today, and that some of you want to cut back on.
Nope. You still miss the whole point of what I said.
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I suppose if you don't think that the government having more control over everything you do is bad, then you wont see this as a problem. The rest of us do though...
I know this is hard to understand for you, but someone always has control. The choice is whether you want that control to rest solely in the hands of your employer, or if you want some of that control to rest in the hands of the people you elect. That's what the choice boils down to.
There's a difference. There are many employers in the market. There is only one government. Employers have to compete for labor just as much as labor has to compete for jobs. Where the problems occur is when one or the other gets out of balance. It's also pretty silly to compare economic conditions in the 1830s to the economic realities of today. Let me let you in on a little secret. The industrial revolution didn't make working conditions worse. It made them better. But it took a while to do that, and in the meantime focused the labor in the cities where it was harder to ignore large numbers of people working long hard hours under difficult conditions. We can also talk about the second generation effect, where those who went to live in the cities to look for better jobs (Imagine that!), had children who then grew up in an environment that couldn't support them. Prior to the industrial revolution children worked on the farms and fields from the day they could walk and carry a hoe. When all those people moved into the cities for industrial jobs, the demand just couldn't keep up with supply, causing the types of conditions that ******* and other describe.
Um... The conditions living in large cities prior to the industrial revolution weren't exactly wonderful anyway. So let's not paint this as a problem of the industrialist/capitalist. They just happened to be the thing that was happening at the time. Funny thing is that over time, things did balance out, as the market tends to do if you let it.
Labor unions certainly helped, but those aren't by nature fighting against the free market or anything, they *are* a part of the free market. I'm talking specifically about when the government intercedes in that process to ensure a non-market result. That ends out actually sustaining the exact sort of market imbalance that causes problems. Of course, the socialists will just use more government manipulation of the market and business to fix the very problems they are causing, and think that they're solving things.
Gotta love consistency. Again. Labor is not automatically Socialist. That was my original point, which you somehow managed to completely miss. Thus, Socialism does not automatically help labor. It's just socialism. It can mandate regulation that hurts the worker just as easily as it can mandate regulation that helps it. You just associate the two because socialists used labor movements as a lever to get much of their power. There's nothing inherent in socialism to require that they continue helping labor though. Nothing at all...
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Of course, if you're a business owner, you want that control to rest in your hands. From a business point of view you want cheap labour, you want a workforce that you can fire quickly, you don't want to take too much holidays, or sick leave, or maternity leave, you don't wanna pay insurance, etc... It makes sense, because all these rights hurt the one thing that matters to you: productivity and profits.
Of course. The guy buying a good or service wants to pay the minimum possible while getting the best possible product he can get. The seller wants to provide the minimum good and/or service while getting the highest price possible. This is economics 101 and *isn't* a problem.
Employers will want to get the most work possible while paying the least price for it. They are the buyer of labor. Workers are the sellers of labor. They want to do the least work possible while getting the highest pay and benefits. Again. Nothing wrong with this. It's the exact same market force that prevents the stores from pricing a can of pineapples at $100. They know that if they charge that much, no one will buy it. It's also why you can't walk into the store and expect to pay 20 cents for that same can. No one will sell it for that little. Somewhere in between the real cost and value of that can will be found.
We see that market force work properly every single day, yet you seem to think that in the case of one type of good it magically fails? Of course it doesn't.
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Your theory, which boils down to the concept that improvement in profits lead to improvements in worker's conditions is either incredibly cynical or incredibly naive. If you have 10 competing business in a field, with no legal obligation to do anything whatsoever, what reason could a business possibly have to increase his costs through an increase in salary for his workers? Or through an increase in annual leave? Or through paying for maternity leave? How long would workers have to wait before these benefits are given to them voluntarily?
The same reason those businesses spend millions of dollars each year on advertisement, and the same reason why gas stations don't charge 10 times more than they do for gas. Because if I want an advantage on my competitors, I might want to hire the best workers. To do that, I'll pay a bit more salary, or provide slightly better benefits. If my competitors see me do that, they will almost certainly raise their wages and benefits to match, and perhaps exceed mine. This process will repeat until a point is reached at which the businesses are paying essentially the maximum amount that the labor is really worth in terms of productivity and profit generation. There is no need for regulation for this to happen.
Yes. If all laborers are exactly the same, then there's no reason for me to increase their wages. But clearly, that isn't the case, right? And interestingly enough, even those less skilled laborers benefit from this process. The employer can't know beforehand whether he's really getting the "best" workers or not. He can only increase his wages and assume that this means that the best will try to work for him. In all likelihood, his competitors will have followed suit long before he's actually able to figure out who are the best and to remove the rest. As long as there is the potential to get a more effective workforce, the wages will continue to go up until a parity point is reached.
The only real factor is the supply of laborers in a given field. It's a classic supply/demand issue. The desire to obtain the "best" workers will ensure that the wages rise to the correct value based on supply and demand regardless of whether any single employer actually gets more of those "best" workers. If there is a large pool of workers, I don't have to do that though, since I can pay low wages and sort through looking for the good ones and tossing the crappy ones. It's a buyers market, and the employer is the buyer.
Interestingly enough, socialist systems (specifically protectionist government policies) tend to maintain the supply of labor in a given field at a level higher than the demand. This eternally keeps the power of the individual laborer to find the best price for his services at its lowest point. More significantly, it ensures that labor is "weak" and can only gain the benefits it wants through yet more socialist intervention in the system.
Allow labor to adjust to the market naturally, and wages will rise and be competitive, and the workers will benefit. The actual workers have more power in that situation since the employers are competing for their labor instead of them competing for jobs. The marriage of socialism and labor unions has really hurt labor in the long run, not helped it. Sure. They're able to get the benefits they want, but the price is eternally continuing to be beholden to the very government they've given power to control the industry they're working in to.
It's a Faustian bargain IMO.
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Because historically they waited roughly 150 years, and nothing happenned.
No. Much happened. Labor diversified over time as industrialism expanded, and it gained power over that time. Again. You are falsely viewing this from an assumption that socialism and labor movements are one and the same. They aren't.
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Until they made it happen.
Yup. And then the socialists hijacked their movements and made them slaves again. See how that works?
