A Stable Economy

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
1

If employers are free to pay less than minimum wage, they can spread the amount they allocate to wages over more people. This decreases unemployment.

This is the same as any managerial decision on costs. Costs depend on negotiated agreement between all parties involved - if your total costs exceed your total revenues, you make a loss and unless you turn it around before you go bankrupt, you will go out of business.

For example, if a raw material is no longer available for as little as it was before, and costs rise too much compared to revenues, you can and should go out of business.
Likewise, if workers are only willing to accept more for their labour and wage costs rise too much for the employer relative to his revenues, he can and should go out of business.

Companies provide a voice for the employer to drive down costs to run his business more profitably, when the employer would not be able to run his business as well or drive down costs as much on his own.
Trade union and State action provides a voice for workers who are no longer willing to accept wages and working conditions being as deficient as they are, when workers would not be able to bargain for more acceptable wages and conditions on their own.

With a certain amount of company power and worker power, a balance is reached that allows the economy to run more stably.

ANOTHER way to decrease unemployment than decreasing wages is to decrease profits.
The same allocation of business outgoings can be spread more in favour of employees than employers.
This, instead of decreasing worker employment will decrease the number of businesses and their growth.
Employers will face “unemployerment” instead of employees facing unemploy(ee)ment.

If both demand for employer and employee takings is too high, they each devalue each other if inflationary action is taken to give the illusion of each getting their wish, but the balance is the same - only in accordance with the balance of power between employer and employee.

The degree of unemploy(er)ment/unemploy(ee)ment that is chosen is down to politics - what do you want out of your society and at what cost?
Do we face too many social problems from lack of production and service provision or too many social problems from worker poverty and lack of quality of life?

At the moment, the answer is clear.

The reason that we have such an abundance of business at the expense of workers is because the balance of power is in favour of business over workers.

Employers are generally the type that prefer power and responsibility, and employees are generally the type that prefer their life to be simpler.
The less power to the state and trade unions, the more power to employers - the balance is tipped too much in favour of the richer.
The more power to the state and trade unions, the less power to employers - the balance is tipped too much in favour of the poorer.
Either version of imbalance is tyrannical and/or not optimal for quality of life in work AND consumption of the products of work.

2

these things bear repeating.

3

I have no idea what you mean.

An employer who is taking in more than he is paying out on materials, up-to-date capital, bills and maintenance can either put the extra cash towards employee wages and numbers, or himself.

He has and uses the power to do the latter for short term benefit at the expense of his business and the economy.

The better you treat your human and non-human ingredients of your business and society, the better quality produce you get out of them. Not a difficult realisation.

Further, if it was business growth that was compromised rather than employee numbers and wages, maybe we would lose some of the many extraneous businesses that don’t run as well and make choice confusing rather than welcome, putting their workers into the businesses that run better.

There, I’ve repeated it.

4

Silhouette,

all i meant was that they were good points worth emphasizing - i was repeating them myself by quoting them, thus the assertion that they “bear repeating”

5

Ah, thank you.

I wasn’t sure if you were mocking - you never know with all the Capitalist sympathy that goes on around here. It’s good to know that you’re not part of that - if you were, you would be condoning a system that results in the attitude that worker wage cuts are the only way to increase employment instead of acknowledging alternatives. Even the mention of compromising short term profit maximisation is blasphemy for them. Clearly there is more to an optimal economy and life itself than letting things degenerate into a constant strained scrabble for even the smallest short term competitive advantage.

6

Capitalism has its merits and its flaws, and the obsessive focus on profits certainly fits in the latter category.

7

Anyone here actually ever owned an ran a successful business?

8

Its merits are:
that it attempts some sort of freedom in trade, which is more efficient than going through authorities in setting up appropriate trade to the market environment,
that private ownership allows more concentration on the subtlties and nuances of the market environment in maintaining appropriate trade,
that its basis in intense competition has caused many technological innovations to have been created to advance the market environment, and…

…well that’s about it.

It’s allowed lots of very rich people to not have to work,
it’s satisfied workaholics, and
it’s allowed workers to decide between the best of a bad bunch of jobs…

…but those aren’t exactly merits - they play at being merits and flaws in a kind of grey area.

The definite flaws are endless.
The point is that the merits are easily replicable by instigating a public-led, transparently democratic economy, and the huge number of flaws are eliminated. Why doesn’t anyone go for this?!!!

I’ve not, I’ve worked for a massive, matured private company that went bankrupt, a franchise of it that went bankrupt causing the owner to lose his house, I just quit a fairly young private company who are crap to work for and I currently work for a public service that would be great to work for if it weren’t for private pressures that are progressively making an otherwise pleasant job into something really rather unpleasant.

My dad is self-employed in a so-far successful finance-related business, kept afloat by immense ability combined with 36 hour days and the like. It seems, however, that at every turn the business is in more real danger of impending collapse.

Come to think of it, I don’t know anybody who works for a successful business who enjoys their work in the slightest.

9

I have been self employed for 27 years. I was employed by government for 5 years. I have worked for private corporations only part-time. Private enterprise can be really great. Government operation can be great. But nothing can be great without rules and consequences. No stable economy without rules limiting unwise behavior(recent bubbles). No stable economy without enforcement. Even then there will be ups and downs.

10

I agree Turtle, and Sill, a successful business is one that keeps afloat some how some way by doing just what your Dad does, 36 hour days most likely its 7 days aweek.
I hear people complaining about owners taking home company profits and I realize that most just don’t understand what actually goes on. A company may show profits but that does not mean it goes into pockets of the owners most profits are run back into the business. Owners may take, may, I must emphasize may, take home more pay but, they get all the headaches 24/7. Employees get weekends off , holidays off and get to leave after 8 or 12 hours. Many small business owners take home less than their employees per hour. I know we did, Our employees made average salary of 30g per year, we pulled in 14g, all net profit went back into the business. It would be nice to enjoy your job but, it also would be nice to not have to work. We all start out loving our work, but when you find its become a part of you it tends to wear out its welcome. Corporation CEOs tend to have the same headaches as do small business owners. 24/7 attached at the hip with the corporation, its their life. How much is that worth? I know I would not trade my freedoms of being an employee now for being a business owner. been there done that. Now if there were no overhead or employees to worry about , then sure. I still would not quit my day job.

11

i’m not sure what this means. what would such a thing look like?

12

What I have in mind is actually not too different from what we have today, on the surface. But there are some major fundamental differences.

Capitalism comes up with huge surpluses and vast amounts of replication due to all the many businesses competing in the exact same fields. There is also a great deal of business in curing the damage that such unharnessed excess causes. But most jobs are in areas that cause minimal added value and aren’t essential to a good quality of life and standard of living in the slightest - they just give an excuse for money to be passed around to more and more people because they work - giving each business a larger consumer market. Larger markets lead to growth etc.

All of this excess labour can be rooted out, or “streamlined” if you like your business-speak, but without any change to what’s available.
There would be the same amount of knowledge, choice and quality available but without the excess in labour needed to provide it in such excess.

So there would be much less need for employment, but no restrictions on keeping employment low for competitive advantage. So all the population can be employed in much less demanding roles because the work is spread out, keeping everyone adequately recuperated and therefore at peak performance.

How though?
The extra labour-power/labour-time consequently available could be used towards providing direct feedback to publically elected and monitored officials at however many levels are needed to co-ordinate an entire society. This skips out the medium of the price mechanism that is supposed to do the exact same thing, but which can be easily misinterpreted due to the limitations in communicating solely through numbers.

Inequality is NOT rooted out.
There are still boons for more demanding roles, being monitored can be very stressful. But the entire country is available to share such burdens towards a shared benefit. Likewise you will receive less for contributing less, but the drawback for not contributing - even on a wide scale - will neither cause damage to anyone else (like it would under Capitalism), nor result in personal detriment to health. Technology today requires extremely little manpower to provide all we have today, the onus isn’t on punishing anyone who doesn’t contribute - it’s on rewarding those who do. If you want to contribute less, you need merely contribute toward innovations that will help this - so much time will be freed up that time for education will be in abundance. It will not be mandatory, just rewarding.

It is contrary to human nature to assume that, if given the chance, ALL men will laze if given the chance.
This is an attitude towards people due to the poverty of stamina inflicted on men under Capitalism.
Humans desire activity when they are not exhausted - you just don’t see much of that today.
The potential availablity of this today is more than is enough to keep an economy of an even greater scale than today going - simply using the technology we have available to us already.

In summation:
there is still management, but it is public - not private,
there are businesses that must flexibly adapt, but ones that are public - not private, and
there is inequality and competition, but not to devastating extents, and communication in words and numbers instead of just numbers.

The freed-up manpower is put towards running things, communication and replacing unsatisfactory management who are there because they have the ability, not just because they are rich and have a removed education and understanding of real life - if needed. This allows flexibility (the freedom that free market Capitalism definitively does NOT supply) and makes consenting humans into masters rather than embittered slaves.

Capitalism was always meant to only be an intermediary measure - even in the original enlightenment theory.
We are well past the point where we could have chosen to move on.

The currently rich lose nothing.
The currently poor gain everything, including the chance to benefit themselves and everyone else in continued and improved growth.

13

how are those who dont work paid for?

14

by subtracting the cost of those who don’t work, in risk analysis, with a focus on those non-working, unattended to affects on a working society’s abilty to to continue work and to conduct affairs with as much civility as can be afforded.

15

You have to remember, this isn’t Capitalism.
A fetish isn’t to be made out of money: “everything must be quantified in terms of money rather than what the money signifies”.

The necessity to go through money as though it where the final arbiter of permission is no longer there.
All there is is the fact that there are so obviously so few people who are needed to produce and distribute modern valued goods and services to those who want them - due to the amazing technology we have today.
This number is easily achievable amongst the no-longer-fatigued population who desire activity now they are not exhausted by the Capitalist necessity for extreme excess. Anybody further, who desires to get involved can do so - voluntarily sharing out the workload amongst willing contributers.

There is no longer any need to have a system that demands work from everyone, as though under a nameless totalitarian tyrant, in such a population-dense and technologically-rich society - like we have today.
Those who don’t work voluntarily make their lives boring and uninvolved. They are free to get involved because there is a great deal of fun and stimulation in learning and offering ideas - something that is beaten out of kids by the supposedly “harsh realities of the world that can’t be avoided in reality”.
They are equally free to not get involved, and because they don’t need to be ‘paid for’ (there simply is enough for everyone from the contribution of the willing) - their absence is no longer detrimental to the economy.

It’d formerly be about the more people working, the more lubricated the cash-flow (growth). Now it’d just be about what we actually want and need rather than simply the quantity of work/produce.
You simply have to realise just how rich we really are today - as a society.

16

Sounds utopic but unreal. It would fail

17

That is not the assumption behind expecting people to work for a living to make a viable economy/society.

The assumption is that people will avoid work that they don’t find directly fulfilling, given a chance.

Artists may continue to produce works of art, because, I am assuming, the primary motivation for their work is self-fulfillment rather than the material benefits they derive from their work.

Miners may not. Janitors may not. Night time security may not. The list is endless.

Unless the incentive to work is high enough, many services that are highly available today are unlikely to be available to the same extent. If that happens the society/economy will nose dive. This is especially true of services that require a high degree of organisation and have a heirarchical structure. Working in a heirarchical structure is anything but self-fulfilling, since it requires that one work under the directions of someone else often disagreeing with or unable to appreciate the meaningfulness of decisions handed down.

18

Noone wants to work in the sewers for free.

19

yes, all those professions where people are not currently paid as much as they are worth - perhaps if the obscene wealth of those at the top were to be redistributed fairly downward, there might be more incentive for people to fill those jobs, even though, in Silhouette’s system, their survival may no longer depend upon it.

no doubt such a plan would spell disaster for society, however - at least according to the obscenely wealthy and those that toe their line.

20

Nor does any doctor want to attend to patients in the night for free.