Steve Jobs was a child labor using, idea stealing, piece garbage

Ditch digging is extremely hard, it is extremely hard to condition the body to handle it, and very few want to do it.

I couldn't dig ditches all day if it payed as well as a nuclear physicist... nor would I choose to do it.

This is a truly bizarre conversation.

 

Of course you wouldn't choose it, you don't have to. You have other skills that allow you to do other jobs, but if you didn't have any skills, then you would have to take whatever was available for whatever price that they set. This is basic capitalism.

 

Firstly, a collective agreement that is mutually beneficial is more likely to
be adhered to without the need for outside intervention. It's the whole point of collective bargaining.


Secondly workers must always be involved in any collective bargaining or it's, by definition, not bargaining.

 

Subjective or not, the concept of fairness exists. Humans have a lot of subjective principles that guide us. Heck just about the whole of ancient philosophy was dedicated to inquiring into subjective concepts that humans use all the time. Fairness and unfairness exist in various sets of circumstances.


My definition of fairness has nothing to do with a majority agreement.


Is it fair for a film actor to be paid more for one film than a scientist may earn in a lifetime?

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The twin laws of supply and demand?

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But of itself I mean, is sweated labour and child labour acceptable?

 

And that point is missed by so many. If all one has is one's labour to sell then it's going to economically very rough. Intellectual labour is, by definition, more rare than physical labour, so it will always be ahead when it comes to rates of pay. It's a simple calculation, somewhat brutal perhaps, but it rules in capitalist society.

 

Source???

 

The concept of God exists... that doesn't mean God and the devil exist in different circumstances.

Then what the hell is this?

Still assuming fairness exists... this is my exact point. Is it fair that a guy who drives a portapotty sucker trucks makes more than soldiers or first responders who risk their lives? You keep saying that the scientist SHOULD make more than the manual laborer. Why should their merit not be based on the importance of the application of their work? Considering fair is a completely arbitrary concept.

 

Anyone would take a job as a ditch digger in this economy if it paid a quarter million a year, they would tough it out and be motivated by the money.

Steve Jobs and everyone like him in business are overpaid for the amount of work they do because of patents, people in their garage could make Iphones and other devices but it would be illegal if they made a living from it. Most of these big companies were started out of garages and only expanded through big money investments and monopolies ....

The business system is set up to give privileges to those with the means to get there first, not the talent.

 

As I said, yes. Same with normal labor - as long as it's voluntary.

Poor working conditions & child labor = fine as long as the worker consents.

 

What do you count as consent? If, for example, imagine a whole area was filled jobs in unsafe conditions. In fact don't imagine, there are places in the world where this is the reality. If people have no reasonable means to find a job with better conditions, do you count them as consenting to bad conditions if they go to an employer and 'sign-up' for bad conditions?

 

One is never in the wrong for not providing enough of something. If your employer used coercion to achieve that set of circumstances, then I think the worker is justified in creating "take your AR15 to work day" Basically, if they use coercion to mess you over, then the fault is in that initial coercion, not them offering you a job afterwards. Retaliatory force should be directed at the individuals responsible for the initial coercion, and the business owner - if he ordered/participated in it.

However, just creating a bunch of sweatshops is not coercion. If you don't like their job - don't accept it.

 

But if for example an area where people have low access to transport and every factory is a sweatshop, is it not coercion for employers to maintain horrible conditions? Surely the workers in that situation would have a right to better their positions.

 

It's fine for employers to give them nothing and leave, it should be fine for them to give them marginally more than nothing.

 

In your opinion do the workers have a right in this situation to violent takeover, or at least collective bargaining?

 

Not unless the situation was arrived at coercively.

Going into a country with very few opportunities and offering opportunities - no matter how terrible they seem to you or I, if the worker chooses this over the alternative, that's fine. They should be able to have this voluntary association.

 

So in your opinion no for forceful takeover, yes for collective bargaining?

 

No for either, unless the conditions I listed above are met.

 

Isn't it any person's right to withdraw their labour?

 

Unless they've agreed otherwise, of course.

 

Do you disagree that there is such a concept as "fairness"?

Consensus isn't majority.

Fairness isn't arbitrary. It's either present or it isn't in a given social relationship. It's easily identified by anyone who has a cultural understanding of the embedded concept of "fairness".

 

It is thanks to entrepreneurs like Jobs that the Chinese are developing a robust middle class.

In point of fact, wages are rising so quickly in China that jobs are moving back to the U.S.