Minimum Wage Solution

Sigh. Communism is a political ideology in which libertarian anarchy prevails with a socialist economy. Socialism is a system of economic organization. The 2 are not the same thing nor are they necessary related for while all communists are socialists, not all socialists are communists.

 

And what if all the businesses close down for a month. Will you see their value?

There are no businesses with guaranteed incomes or profits. No guaranteed price for their products. No unemployment compensation if they go under. Business owners that pay half of th employees social security- pay all of their own, double the rate you pay. They have many obligations, such as being an unpaid tax collector for all governments. They get no guarantees of any kind.
Their survival depends on their customers approval of their product, it's price and their services- and their ability to manage their affairs wisely. These are the people who create the entities without which there would be no jobs at all.

Are you not willing to let your customer- the employer who is buying your service- have the same rights you do?
Of course you aren't. That's different. The fact that you have loads of government support and your employer has none is different.
This difference in perception is totally self-serving. Has nothing to do with fairness, or what is deserved. It has to do with grabbing all you can, and in some cases- doing as little as possible in return.

Tell us again how you are entitled, but those who have built the machine that gives you a job, those who have none of the guarantees you benefit from, don't deserve equal treatment from you.

 

What you're missing re: socialism is that the concept requires that the entire society has ownership of the means of production, not just people involved in the production. Your worker co-op doesn't take orders from the entire society. It only takes orders from within the hierarchy of the business itself.

Under socialist ideology, people who have no involvement in the production also have a say in the process of production. For example, people who have no involvement in the health industry, under socialism, have a say in the distribution and production of health care. That's one of the reasons why socialism fails, because the ideology of production doesn't match the realities of production.

The Holodomor teaches us that under socialism the people who want food have a say in who gets food despite their inability to actually produce food. It turns out that that people who produce food actually need food too. The socialist distribution system ignored this reality, and the consequence that followed was obvious.

 

Here. This is right from the horse's mouth:

https://www.dsausa.org/about-us/what-is-democratic-socialism/

It says workers AND consumers. The consumers don't make the product. They consume it. Their self interest will be entirely contrary to the self interest of the people involved in the production of the consumable good. In your grocery example, do your consumers get a vote at the board meetings regarding what each of your salaries should be? Do they get a say about which farmers their carrots come from? Should they have control over your hours of operation, or how much organic kale should be ordered for next week?

 

According to this website: https://www.usinflationcalculator.com
$7.25 in 2009 calculated for inflation should be $8.72 today. A second inflation calculator gave the same answer. IMO $15/hour was pulled directly from someone's ass! And no matter since a one-size-fits-all MW won't solve any problems! You can pick any MW number you wish but if commerce cannot increase their consumer prices in order to offset higher expenses...it's a bust. And don't forget that 50% of American workers, about 75 million, have median incomes of $16.75/hour or lower! When you try to FORCE MW higher you will also need to increase the wages of 73 million other Americans, and this will FORCE the other 50% of workers to have their wages increased as well.

 

As I said before. Money is not value. You don't change any value by changing the tool you use to measure it. Things don't get longer when you add lines to a ruler. Things don't get heavier when you change the number on your counterweight. It doesn't get hotter outside when you change the boiling point of water to 800 degrees.

It's the same with dollars. You can't suddenly change the dollar value of the least amount someone is allowed to work for, and have any direct effect at all on the value that person produces to earn that dollar value. All you're doing is re calibrating the scale you use to measure that value.

Complicating things is the fact that no two people use the tool can get exactly the same measure of value. People value things differently. Value is an approximation.

 

Bottom line; raising MW today is 100% political and arbitrary. MW should be increased in parallel with inflation. Part of the reason MW is not a big deal is I think there's less than 2 million Americans who actually work for minimum wage. And this could be many jobs in remote rural America with very low cost of living. The political idea that raising MW will make it possible for anyone to live and work in our major cities, major employment areas, is a joke! And like I said, I could care less if MW was $50/hour as long as it fits within our economy...

 

There are versions of socialism where that is true. But that's not true of democratic socialism (which calls for workplace democracy and applies only to active employees) or the school of thought I personally subscribe to.

 

I quoted the dsausa website which contradicts you. Are you saying they are wrong about what they think?

 

They don't know what the **** they are. Their members include everyone from gun hating neo-liberals that don't like the direction the DNC is taking the Party to hardcore Communists that very reluctantly support them becuase it looks like the best path to the mainstream for the far left. It's an incoherent group that has to exist as a parasite within the Democratic Party (which they openly acknowledge) becuase they're too unstable to stand on their own.

 

So if the Democratic Socialists of America don't get to define what Democratic Socialism is...who does get to define that? You?

 

~100 years of economic theory? Holding up the DSA (an American political organization) as the definitive authority on democratic socialism (an economic school of thought) is as absurd as me holding up the Tea Party as standard bearers for Austrian Economics. Democratic socialism is workplaces being managed via direct democracy by labor. Whatever political agenda those who subscribe to that school of thought may have is independent of the economics. The DSA are (in theory becuase like I said, the org is a mess) economically democratic socialist and politicly a social liberal/social democrat coalition. If you want to conflate economics and politics, I can call all capitalists fascists and I'd be on the same logical footing as yourself.

 

Point missed.

As a system it is defined democratically. You don't get to exclude the DSA, or the radical communists, or the fringe gun hating neo liberals. They all feel that trade must be controlled by Democratic decree.

 

When did I ever dismiss them? My point is that the DSA is a political org, not an economic org. You can't bring up a political org and then use it to define an economic policy. The DSA =/= democratic socialism, the DSA agrees with democratic socialism. You can't make a logical argument without making that distinction.

 

Democratic policy is defined democratically. You don't get to define it. It's constantly under review, and it has to be enforced politically. It requires a legal framework to function universally. It is a political economic theory.

The dsa have a completely different view of the definition of socialism, and there are more of them then there are of you. Not to mention the number of people who aren't members because they aren't socialist enough...

You're talking about a system that exists as a perfect Lego kit in your mind.

I'm talking about a system that exists in practice.

Your contention that consumers won't want to exercise Democratic control of privately held socialist work groups flies in the face of every proposed policy by any establish socialist leader. They all want to take over energy production, education, and healthcare at minimum. One they get it in their head they can control Amazon, Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc you think someone is going to step up and wave your economic theory in people's faces?

 

The left has a long and illustrious history of disavowing other people's socialism. The only true socialism is the socialism of the individual liberal speaking.

What could be more hypocritical than the claim, "If I were the dictator of the democracy, a socialist society would work"?

You don't get to be the dictator of a democracy.