Why is Labor different from any other Commodity?

A legitimate duty of government is to protect the public from fraud, monopoly, and illegal force. Some work laws are in line with these duties. Price fixing, that is minimum wage, is not and actually puts people out of work that could otherwise find something to do and skews the value of products.

 

When the 16th Amendment was written, it should have been thrown in the fire.

 

Right over your head. The point was that the items themselves have no interest in their own condition, a very unique characteristic of labor. All you've done is describe the thoughts/actions of the cookie dealer, but what of the cookies themselves? Should we have safety standards so that their protected in case of a fall? Should the cookie take a vacation if he's been on the shelf too long.

Not the question at hand, the question is why is labor different from other commodities, I've demonstrated that quite handily.

Why is it different? Because it's humans not inanimate objects.

 

That is absurd. I am a worker, and I would never suggest an owner should run a company for the sake of the employees, vs their own profit. People have always worked to get ahead, not for the sake of working. Your wannabe owner class point of view is on the verge of fanatical. I want to be an owner one day as well, but not to the point it blinds me from reality. The American market place is so lopsided in the owner's favor it is ridiculous. If there ever was a class war, it is safe to say who won. One can't blame business owners because they can buy politicians. Of course they are going to if the opportunity presents itself. The fact that everything going on is perfectly legal just puts an exclamation point on the fact our system is broken. Completely, undeniably, broken.

I can't help but be reminded of Atlas Shrugged. Many people think that novel was about the ills of socialism, but at no point in the book was labor in control of the state. The ills of the novel were directed at crony capitalism. Rand was seriously ahead of her time. A prophet of sorts. It is all coming true.

I love how you talk about how you were working poor until you "got your break". And now cast generalizing, derogatory remarks at the working poor who haven't "gotten their break" with more zeal and venom than the business men I'm sure you are hoping to impress.

Things can always go south and "breaks" can be undone. Only the connected can claim otherwise, and the connected don't need "breaks" to begin with. You could always end up "back in the 'hood". If you don't possess the wisdom or empathy that it takes not to be a poor winner, than at least learn to cross bridges without burning them. For practical purposes.

If you think working poor are the only ones laughing at you, think again.

 

I am going by the words he wrote. Since I am new here, that is the only thing I have to go on. If he is doing as you say, he is a very clever manipulator.

Not necessarily good work ethic but it is certainly being a sheep.

Back in the 90s when the economy was churning, Greenspan used his power in the fed to slow down it down. Why would he do such a thing? The economic cycle was such that inflation was being caused by a tight labor market.

By ending that part of the cycle early, it stopped workers from getting a bigger piece of the pie through free market means. How is that not a contributor to a workers crappy attitude especially when it seems the fed is doing all in its power to extend this recession as long as it can.

At the time that your grandfather was working, it was roughly the same time that unions were becoming more powerful. Additionally, there was a tight labor market.

Those were also were the years where businesses treated their employees with respect and valued them. Workers were loyal to the businesses for whom they worked. Businesses were loyal to their workers.

It wasn't until the downsizing fad of the 80s did this change. Businesses started to treat their workers as a disposable resource which in turned destroyed any loyalty that workers had towards their employers. Without that loyalty, people are going to look out for themselves and get the best deal they can. They certainly not going to accept the crap that workers in the 40s accepted.

This is a forum for debate? I thought it was for people to yell at each other and trolls to egg them on. Yeah, I'm being cynical.

Let me get this straight, the peon need to take only a pittance that an employer deems that he is worth and not question it and the whole country will go to hell if he stands up for himself and ask for what he thinks he is worth? Sounds like you want a nation of sheep.

 

Collective bargaining in the private sector - subject to the disciplining effect of competition is perfectly acceptable.

Collective bargaining in the public sector where there is no competition is a pure rip-off of the taxpayers.

 

There is public sector competition. Those public sector employees still compete with others for their positions. It is coercive government interference that is the source of the problem.

 

Throughout our history, it has always been accepted that a government employee trades a little lower pay for more security. Now with public unions they are getting higher pay and still have the security.

I am not against public unions but they should be held to the same standard as federal public unions are. If not, then they are a ripoff of taxpayers.

No collective bargaining
No strikes
No coerced dues

 

Good to see you've come a ways on this. Still got a ways to go, but at least you're not complaining any more that every person should have to negotiate everything individually any more (guess that would have made corporations kinda difficult).

I've seen no evidence of any of this, let alone an entire generation.

The market is a mob.

 

The problem with public union is fundamental and indirect, which is why it's not obvious to everyone. The point of a union is to aid the labor market in coordinating market balance with business over wages, benefits, etc. When you take the need for efficiency (profit incentive) out of the equation, there is no longer a natural balance, and it either shifts toward the state abusing its power by holding wages below market value (allowing private wages to depress) or holding them too high (providing unfair competition with private employers).

The economy a complex system but like any mathematical function every part depends in some way, great or small, on every other part. As Hayek insisted, unlike civil laws, a economic policy of compromise cannot satisfy anybody, and production suffers even more than in a functional, but more extreme one.

 

There is still a place for public unions in workplace representation, protecting against problems in the workplace like a bad boss. In federal jobs, that is all they do and cannot coerce dues. Members cannot strike and wages are determined by legislation, as it should be.

 

human labor is more valuable than commodies like gold because it is responsible for all of our worldly accomplishments and pleasures

the only reason it is priced cheap is because wealthy people are immoral and would rather pay more for gold than someones hard labors

 

You certainty don't understand economics or supply and demand.

"Feeeeeeliiiiiiings, nothing more than feeeeeliiiings."

 

Yes....just continue putting in hours working, being a good little corporate lemming, and you too can be downsized, outsourced, or simply eliminated for profit, or other fat cat perks. They certainly do appreciate it. Keep at it and they'll show you personally!

 

Then he should fit right in here, this thread is chocked full of non-economic prattle.

 

C'mon, Anikdote. It doesn't take a scientist coming along and coining the term "gravity" to know stuff falls. I've lived long enough to see academics prove as many home remedies right as they have proven urban myths wrong. Remember when margarine was healthier than butter? LOL. Anything one hears should be taken with a grain of salt, regardless of credentials. The important thing is getting everyone to think for themselves. And we are a long way out. Only considering academia worthy of truth is an 'appeal to authority' fallacy is in its own right.

 

"Why is it different? Because it's humans not inanimate objects."​

Both assumptions are incorrect. First off, unlike soylent green labor isn't humans. Labor is a service. It's something humans provide. One human might provide a business with labor, another might provide it with cookies. Your other assumption is also wrong. Commodities are not necessarily inanimate objects. Parakeets are a commodity.

The other stuff is just noise. Sure cookies have no self interest, but neither does the labor workers offer. Businesses have safety regulations whatever is happening there. If humans are making their own cookies or laboring at a job for someone else or even if the company is just storing parakeets, the government is likely to regulate it. And yes, cookie makers take vacations just like folks who sell their labor.​

 

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Really? I wouldn't have thought so.

 

Live and learn. Earthworms also seem like a good example of "something that has economic utility or satisfies an economic want" but "whose wide availability typically leads to smaller profit margins and diminishes the importance of factors (as brand name) other than price" -- but is not inanimate.​

 

My grandparents used to raise and sell parakeets.

 

In 18th Century England the judges refused to criminalise frauds, they reasoned that if A deceived B then that was B's fault. There were common law offences regarding cheating and these were upheld because cheating, such as where a shopkeeper knowingly used incorrect weights, represented a threat to the general public. The judges had to change their attitudes because parliament changed its attitude toward fraud in light of the increasingly complex nature of the English economy. Legislatures are able to recognise when things need to change, such as making frauds criminal matters instead of private matters. Wage fixation is an example of where legislatures should act to reflect contemporary needs.

Minimum wage isn't price fixing, it's a simple policy position and a necessary one. There is a minimum rate for labour, fixed by law. It's socially necessary and useful. Minimum wage should, as I indicated before, be set for entry-level positions and getting out of entry-level positions should be the default position for every worker. Society should have in place ways that workers can move up in terms of wage rates.

 

Collective bargaining is a means of wage fixation through negotiation. The public sector could probably either have a formal method of wage fixation through tribunals (in my country politicians salaries are fixed in this manner) or there can be collective bargaining. Public sector collective bargaining allows for the employer and workers to make some good progress in work practices and in wage fixation. Where a tribunal is in place there isn't a great deal of initiative applied, they merely measure incidental work value changes rather than look to construct and apply useful changes such as are achieved through collective bargaining.

 

Try building a baseball without labor.

Labor is required in each and every commodity you can't make it without labor and you can't sell it without labor.

If everyone had baseballs to sell baseballs would be nearly worthless. That's not how it works. The people with baseballs to sell pool their resources to form corporations and these corporations limit the supply of baseballs which increases their market price.

If it's OK for people with money to pool their resources to form corporations to control commodity supply why is it bad for people with labor to sell to do the same thing?

This is the fallacy and hypocrisy of small 'c' "conservatives." They fail to take time to educate themselves on the platitudes they echo mindlessly and the damage their dedication to a false ideology causes.

 

Too many posters here confuse people with labor.

Labor is the product of people's efforts, not the people themselves.

If there is a lot of competition, prices go down.

A good example is daycare. By no means easy work, but every woman at least imagines she can do it so you have roughly half the population competing for a finite amount of work. So daycare workers garner low wages.

In the US public sector collective bargaining is not done by taxpayers vs unions. Elected officials bargain with the unions. But unions have resopurces to elect the officials they bargain "against." This cozy arrangement has persisted in the US for about a half century and you see the widespread abuses in places like California and Illinois. Elected officials profit. Unions profit. Taxpayers are hosed.

Taxpayers are on to this scam. Hence the tension seen in places like Wisconsin, Indiana, and Ohio. Taxpayers are rising up against the cozy relationship between non-competitive unions and officials elected with help from unions.

Again, if the market is competitive there can be no complaint about negotiated wages. If the market is non-competitive because of government, collective bargaining becomes objectionable.

Looks for Indiana, which already has the nation's largest charter school program, to move toward full voucherization of the K-12 educational system. Full voucherization will make the K-12 educational system completely competitive and that will remove the objective to collective bargaining.

Higher education is competitive. Why not K-12?

 

Spot on! I would say.

Everyone is a pontential supplier of labour, and in most cases it's the only thing an individual has to "sell" in order to get an income. So the wage, i.e. the price of labour, is clearly more important than the price of baseballs.