There was talk about renaming the Krugman thread for this purpose, but that seems to be going nowhere. Besides which, I feel the Krugman thread should be left to discuss Krugman while this thread can be used for more general economic discussion.
Discuss:
- The merits of competing theories.
- The role of the government in managing the economy.
- The causes of and solutions to our current economic woes.
- Comparisons between the economic systems of different countries.
- Theoretical and existing alternatives to our current market system.
edited 17th Dec '12 10:58:52 AM by Topazan
There’s actually a Wikipedia article on prostitution amongst animals.[1]
Damn, this thread is moving fast today. Going back to the previous page:
Like, the whole deal was "I pay you to build me a factory, and at the end of the project, you have money and I have a factory". They built it, I paid them for it, so now the factory is mine by mutual agreement. The workers no longer have any claim to ownership of the factory — or the proceeds of using it in future economic activity. That's how property works.
Both parties knew this when they agreed to the terms of the money-for-factory deal. How is this exploitation of the workers?
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.Because, in a perfectly fair system, the construction workers wouldn't get paid by the factory owner (who wouldn't exist), they would get paid directly by the workers who created the surplus that is being used to build the factory. The idea here is that owners of means of production are acting as useless middlemen, siphoning off a percent without adding anything.
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.And now you're just begging the question. You can't justify "all capitalist profit is stolen from worker labor" by declaring "workers should be the ultimate recipient of all economic benefit" as a first principle. My whole argument revolves around the fact that capitalists do add something to the equation — capital — without which workers would be less productive, so therefore capitalists are justified in earning profits in proportion to the increased productivity they provide.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.It's the "in proportion" part that notably seems AWOL in every walk of modern life. But the point is that by induction, capitalists only provide have the concentration of capital to provide capital by this exploitation of workers, and in a capitalist system it's structured such that they will continue to accrue more capital at the expense of the workers, who are given as little of the rewards of their labour as feasibly possible.
Exactly how much more important this system makes being wealthy and owning things is the entire reason the industrial revolution lead to labour movements.
@Jovian: To be clear, I do not make this claim, certain socialists do. In socialist theory, "providing capital" is simply transfering wealth from the people who made it to the people who need it, and charging everyone for the service. If people could exchange surplus wealth directly, without the capitalists, then they would obviously save a certain amount of wealth.
My claim in this discussion is that a large group of specialized workers are incapable of exchanging wealth with each other in the absence of a market, which has to be organized by someone. In Communist regimes, the "market" took the form of state ownership of all means of production, and all means of distribution as well. We all know how exploitative that turned out to be. In laissez faire societies, the market takes the form of financial transactions measured in currency, which is facilitated and managed by laws that protect private property at the expense of public property. "In-between" systems, or mixed economies, regulate private exchanges in the interest of the public good. In all cases, elites inevitably form and perpetuate themselves, which leads to exploitation. How to manage this exploitation is the question of the current moment of history.
Edited by DeMarquis on May 19th 2020 at 6:32:32 AM
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.The fact that they produced something of value, of very high value.
Yes it is, and that’s why the system is considered unjust, because the capitalist gets to enjoy the fruits of the labour (a shiny new factory that can be used in conjunction with other labour to product great value) while doing minimal labour and providing those who did the labour with minimal amounts of the value they created.
Also let’s note that most of the time the capitalist doesn’t pay the people who built the factory, he pays another capitalist who then takes a big share of that money and uses the rest to pay the people who do the labour.
Because the labourer is denied a full choice, he is often constrained by poverty or simply the fact that capitalists have take control of all the means of labour (in this case the viable land to build factories upon) and will not allow the labourer to carry out labour without getting a cut.
The labourer has no option to opt out the way the capitalist does, the capitalist can always as a last resort carry out their own labour upon their property so as to generate value, the labourer can either work for one capitalist or work for another, but they have to work for someone, until they can gain property and become the capitalist.
Which does raise a big possibility, that MBI would break the cycle, if the labourer does not need to sell their labour to survive then the power dynamics change massively, suddenly the building crew can realistically say “No, we want a 70% share of the factory or we’re not building it”.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranMBI would help, but the main challenge is that all or nearly all developed economies would have to adopt this policy, at more or less the same level. Otherwise, global finance would simply move capital to those regions where labor is cheaper.
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.Not all labour is mobile, though I admit I’m sure they’d try, I can imagine construction sites without humans, instead it’s just robots being remotely piloted by people in a country where labour is cheep.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranAgain, the labor is being compensated. They're getting paid for their labor. They're not being forced to work by feudal lords or rent-seeking monopolists that force them to work for a pittance or starve. The assumption in this example is that they're being paid a fair market wage consummate with the value of their labor. You're arguing that they're entitled to more than that because... profit is inherently exploitative since it doesn't go to workers? The argument is circular.
Because
The value of their labour, as determined not by their productivity or the value produced by the labour, but by the market's judgement of what that worker's labour is worth.
The huge disconnect between the value produced and the market value of their labour, which becomes the capital that starts this scenario and propagates it, can be described as "the exploited value of the labour".
If the fair market wage reflects the value produced accurately, then there shouldn't be such a huge imbalance as to have this capital in the first place.
It’s a philosophical belief, which I think is where we are butting heads.
Yes, they’re getting paid the minimum the capitalist can pay them while retaining the right to their labour.
In the end this isn’t actually an economic debate, it’s a philosophical one, should the value ascribed to a person’s labour (and thus the compensation they receive for that labour) be based on the abundance of supply of similar labour, or on the value that said labour produces?
Should a wage/compensation be based on how replaceable you are or on the value you produce? Should increased efficacy via automation boost the value of my labour (because I now produce more value with the same amount of labour) or decrease it (because I’m now easier to replace)?
What is a fair wage? That’s the philosophical question we’re actually disagreeing over, the communist case that I’m explaining/making is that a fair wage is one that reflects the value a person generates, not one based on the availability of other people able to do the same labour, which is how a capitalist society calculates wages.
Edited by Silasw on May 19th 2020 at 11:25:55 AM
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

NANIIIIIII!?!??!
Anyways, for examples of economic systems developing on other societies (yes, it's possible), there's that experiment were monkeys were taught to use currency, and well, long story short they ended up discovering they could use it to trade for food, or sex.
Fun story.
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes