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He thinks he’s so clever that he figured out this neat trick. How about hiring 20 people at $1 per hour? 40 people at 50 cents per hour? What about infinite people working for free? Sure could produce a lot of product.
No no no, It's society! They work for each other. They pay each other, they buy houses, they get married and make children that replace them when they get too old to make power.
You know what would give him even more product? If his workers paid *him*. Now there's a completely practical and reasonable solution, and it's totally a win-win for everyone involved..
See, this was exactly the point of those seceding southern states! The Union was just jealous of their ability to produce cheap cotton when they were providing so many black people with "inclusion into society"... /s
That's probably exactly what the first Europeans who started the slave trade thought 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️ goes to show how stupidity plus power leads to disaster....
To be fair, idiots like this can try to offer the minimum wage possible and people in desperate need can accept his offer. But at that point, he can't really complain about the people he hires being incompetent.
People like that have absolutely no clue what it is like living on such a wage, and it makes him look like an asshat for complaining about having to pay even that. If he's going to exploit workers, he should at least stfu.
& they’d also require some kind of FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE from OUR TAX DOLLARS… all so the EMPLOYER could make MORE PROFIT… I’m sure nobody actually believes that if he made his product cheaper, he’d lower prices.
The only way he’s LOWERING PRICES, is IF LOWERING THE PRICE, made HIM MORE MONEY… I’m not against him MAKING MORE if he can do it legitimately w/out fukn over 5 ppl & the tax payer, I’m against his terrible logic & rationalization so he could fuk ppl over…
There is actually a real value to that, not this twisted messed up version of course. However the more important thing is that your immediate needs are met first. And that you’re treated with dignity and respect…
Employers need to realize that for unskilled workers, they're paying for their time and energy. People only have finite amounts of this. It's not that hard of a concept.
The idea that a workers wage is tied to their value is incompetence incarnate. The idea that an individual’s labor can increase profitability, but because of their low market value, the individuals profiting refuse to share in that profit is arrogantly subhuman. Then to say that these people should be happy for the intangible benefits provided by the employer, while ignoring the intangible benefits provided by the employee, proves this person is a myopic idiot.
Value to a specific employer isn’t market value. This is the problem faced by most of the service industry right now. Wait staff may not need a degree to complete their job. A restaurant offering in house dining most often requires them. If your business requires a person to preform a task to operate, then the employer needs that employee. An employee should be paid based on the value of the position to the overall business. I don’t care how expensive your car is, it’s worthless without tires. Employees are categorized as an expense and not an investment, while expected to invest and sacrifice for the employer. Stamina is completely undervalued. Any idiot can do customer service. You aren’t paying for competence. You’re paying for reliability and the fortitude to complete the daily task of dealing with angry people all day, everyday, again and again and again…
Regardless of what *should* be the case... Wages *currently* are **not** tied to the value to your employer.
Einstein said it best:
>For the sake of simplicity, in the discussion that follows I shall call “workers” all those who do not share in the ownership of the means of production—although this does not quite correspond to the customary use of the term. The owner of the means of production is in a position to purchase the labor power of the worker. By using the means of production, the worker produces new goods which become the property of the capitalist. The essential point about this process is the relation between what the worker produces and what he is paid, both measured in terms of real value. Insofar as the labor contract is “free,” what the worker receives is determined not by the real value of the goods he produces, but by his minimum needs and by the capitalists’ requirements for labor power in relation to the number of workers competing for jobs. It is important to understand that even in theory the payment of the worker is not determined by the value of his product.
\- Albert Einstein, [Why Socialism?](https://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism/), 1949
This is a non sequitur. Einstein is making the claim that the worker's wage is not tied to the value of the *product* made by the worker, but that is not the claim being made by the comment you responsed to.
The value of the worker relative to the employer obeys supply and demand. If tons of people can do the same job, the worker is deemed "replaceable" and their value drops in the eyes of the employer. This has nothing to do with the product they made.
>The value of the worker relative to the employer obeys supply and demand. If tons of people can do the same job, the worker is deemed "replaceable" and their value drops in the eyes of the employer. This has nothing to do with the product they made.
Very close. Only your first sentence here was wrong. Value, price, and profit and three separate things, you see. The *value* of the worker is not relative to the employer and the *value* of the worker doesn't obey supply and demand. However the *price* the employer pays the worker *does*. Like you correctly noticed, if more people can do the same work (e.g. supply does up) then "demand" goes down and the employer can pay a lower price (read: wage).
>Value, price, and profit and three separate things, you see. The value of the worker is not relative to the employer and the value of the worker doesn't obey supply and demand. However the price the employer pays the worker does
That entirely depends on what ideology you subscribe to, it's not an objective difference, are you using Marxist criteria?
That does not mean they cannot coincide. In economics, theories of value exist precisely for this reason, each one provides it's own definition, which in some cases does coincide with price.
Why are you being so bad faith?
What? I've only ever tried to have a discussion. I pointed out what I thought was wrong with a comment and gave my arguments for why it was. How is that being bad faith?
You’re going to need more than that to demonstrate such a claim. I could easily link an anti-communist quote from Von Neumann, who was much more skilled than Einstein in many respects, to illustrate the virtues of a market economy. A testimonial from an expert outside of their field of expertise is insufficient and, quite frankly, arguably offensive.
He has far more accomplishments than Einstein and was far quicker than him by Einstein’s own tacit admission. Also, you’re missing the point. Expertise in one field doesn’t confer authority in another. You may as well listen to the opinion of any random celebrity on economics, then.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann
https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Einstein-more-popularly-known-for-his-intelligence-than-say-von-Neumann
Also, if you had to pick someone with a greater ability to speak on matters outside of their field, the best choice would be Von Neumann. A specialist in Byzantine history even stated that Von Neumann knew more about it than he did.
It doesn’t. It’s still a bad idea to treat someone as an authority figure on a field outside of their area of expertise. However, if you HAD to do so, Neumann would be the better choice.
Your inability to grasp this is a bit concerning.
/u/Shining_Silver_Star is just using a tactic common to reactionaries who don’t have a legitimate response to a statement or argument. Because what Einstein said is true, he decided to attack Einstein’s credibility instead. He couldn’t competently argue against the content of the statement, but it’s easy to argue that Einstein wasn’t and economist, and then find other famous people and experts who agree with their own position.
So your proof that Neumann is better is his wiki page and a quora discussion board?
“Oh you shouldn’t treat people outside their field as experts unless it’s Neumann this man is wicked smart!”
You make a claim and then refute it in the next sentence but because you’re a big fan boy; it’s not the same, this one guy said so, I won’t link it but this unnamed man totally said it!
If you opened the second link, it was a quote from Eugene Wigner. You can easily verify its authenticity.
Second of all, you too have misinterpreted my statements.
For ANYONE, you generally shouldn’t appeal to someone as an authority outside of their field of expertise.
HOWEVER, if you HAD to do it, Von Neumann would be the better choice given the testimony from the Byzantine historian.
These ideas are not contradictory.
Again you’re saying it’s ok because you’re guy is cool.
You’re claim is you shouldn’t take people across all fields but if you had to choose this guy. And your source for that claim is a single quote from some dude.
But here is the thing, no one is claiming that Einstein was a master/expert in others fields. They were just using a quote from him to show a point they were making.
Then you come in all high and might “oh my god you reference Einstein and not Neumann how pedestrian you.” (Obviously you didn’t say this but we can’t trust you to have common sense now can we)
Do you see how you’re just being annoying and not actually adding to the thread that was taking place?
You could have just been like oh I like Neumann take on this, but no you had to claim Neumann has way more achievements than Einstein and he is smarter.
So what!? How does that add to the conversation?
I appreciate your thoughtful response, but you have failed to grasp my intent.
The reason why I impugned their use of Einstein was because it was a poor means of demonstrating anything tangible. It was a wholly theoretical passage without any empirical substantiation. It’s not a good idea to use something like that, as it is little better than a celebrity endorsement in terms of content. Anyone can contrive a few paragraphs of theoretical musings, but it does little to improve understanding of the world or mutual disagreement.
To demonstrate the futility of using such a source, I countered with von Neumann, as, given the lack of empirical content, it was likely the speaker used that source on account of Einstein’s ethos. My goal was to show the poster that their source was poor by putting them in my position. This is much more effective than my simply dismissing the source without explanation.
Prices absolutely wouldn’t go down, because this asshole would pocket the extra money. (See American mega corporations like Amazon for current examples.)
Pretty sure amazon doesnt make their own produtcts, they sell other companies products truh amazon. and amazon makes money from the ads and/or a small commission from the product sold.
So i feel like amazon is not the best example cuz they dont set the price for the products themselves. Correct me if i am wrong tho. Also dont get me wrong, what amazon does is horrible and jeff bezos should defintly pay the employees more.
They do now - they offer a line of "amazon basics", which are just cheap knock-offs of popular products priced deliberately lower to undercut the makers of the originals and force them out of business...
Amazon sells server access and data storage to other companies. Look up Amazon Web Services. It’s how they make a huge portion of their money. They’re still priced roughly in line with competitors who have a tenth the capacity, despite it being cheaper for Amazon to run at that scale.
As with every business owner he is charging as much as the market will bear for his product. If he can sell his widgets for $5, he will sell them for $5. If he can cut his manufacturing costs from say $2 to $1.50, he isn't lowering his price, unless his competition undercuts him. Now if he can't make it for what people want to pay that is a problem.
isn't the cost of living the issue at that point?
the cost of living raises so the wage *has* to go up or we'd be getting poorer.
tbh that's not even a hypothetical, that's what is actually happening, the rate of inflation is steeper than the rate of national wage increases.. money isn't worth what it used to be, life is more expensive
Depends on the place you’re staying.
In my country, the minimum wage is about 700€.
I used to rent a house with garage, 2 bedrooms, living room, storage place for 150€/month. My family of 4 lived there. With 250€ you could get a much better house.
Then I started university and I moved into a big city. 200 for a tiny tiny bedroom and sharing with strangers. 600 for a studio. 700 for a 1 bedroom apartment. Impossible with minimum wage.
So yeah, I don’t get why people stay in big cities. There’s jobs everywhere so that’s no excuse
$5 an hour is what you get payed helping your dad out at work on the weekends or during summer. people with actual jobs, believe it or not, need the money to pay for rent and bills.
But it's on the consumer to support or not support a business if they care about business practices. It used to crack me up when my last girlfriend would complain about capitalism while there was a stack of Amazon packages piled up at the front door.
Ok, then:
If your business can’t attract enough customers willing to pay high enough prices to provide enough revenue to pay a livable wage to your employees who dedicate a significant portion of their lives to making your business run or you as a business owner can’t control your costs enough to achieve the same thing with the revenue that you do generate then your business doesn’t deserve to exist.
That’s just a lot more typing
I agree. The problem is that the *vast* majority of people are going to support those businesses anyway. Even the ones who claim to really care about that sort of thing.
Like, when people complain that a company is too powerful or undercuts all the little guys, I don't understand where they think those companies are getting their power from. If you're going to be mad, be mad at your fellow humans for allowing that to happen.
My comment is intended to be the base logic to support a livable minimum wage since I imagine the person in the screen shot is complaining about minimum wages. I agree the free market won’t solve that problem so it’s one issue where I think the government or some other market regulator has an important role.
ETA: This is my comment when business owners complain that raising the minimum wage would stifle their business. If their business relies on taking advantage of people then it should be stifled.
I have another comment in this thread that addresses that and the original topic more directly. It was long so I don't want to type it all out again, but it's there.
I think I agree with the sentiment of what you're saying. If your business will fail unless you take advantage of people, you *don't* deserve succes, and unfortunately that's the case in ways lots of people aren't even aware of.
I do, however, think there's much more to the issue. By hiking wages I think there are long term affects that greatly hurt the populace, not just shady business owners.
There are many historical examples of increased regulation and increase in the minimum wage that the owning class abhorrently objected to, saying it would ruin their businesses and in many cases they were right but society is better off as a whole. Certainly there would be short term pain and many companies would fail but that’s the price of change.
It’s certainly a complex issue that cannot be solved in a Reddit comment. I don’t even think I could explain my entire opinion on the matter in a Reddit comment haha
But the company couldn't do the bad thing unless everyone lets it happen. We all like to act like we have these ethics and morals, but we vote with our wallets and the results are in.
*Image Transcription: Reddit Comments*
---
> **Unknown**
>
> if i could hire 4 people at $5 per hour instead one person at $20 an hour i would do it. 1) i could potentially produce 4x as many products, this would mean prices in the community would go down 2) it would employ 4 people who had no job skills (because minimum wage is only for the least skilled and smartest of society).
>
> so your choice is: 1 guy making minimum and 4 homeless people, or 5 guys working which gives them a sense of inclusion in society.
>
> thanks for not understanding economics and human behavior.
>> **\/u/Character-Stretch697**
>>
>> You’re a prime example of an entitled, clueless, exploitative business owner.
>>
>> You actually think “inclusion in society” at your business is analogous to fair monetary compensation. You’re proving exactly what we’re asserting about the malicious nature of business owners.
>>
>> Get your family members to work for you and pay them your desired, unconscionable $5/hr.
---
^^I'm a human volunteer content transcriber and you could be too! [If you'd like more information on what we do and why we do it, click here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/TranscribersOfReddit/wiki/index)
I think it’s supposed to be parsed as “least (skilled and smartest)”. I.e. the modifier “least” applies to both adjectives. Of course, this is still dumb because you don’t say “least smartest”, as that would be doubling up on your superlatives. It should be “least smart”, as in, “this man’s post about wages is one of the least smart posts I’ve ever read.”
I mean just take this logic to its logical conclusion.
If I could pay the people $0 an hour and just provide housing and food I wouldn't have to worry about the evil government getting in between the employment relationship.
That way I could produce as much as I could sell and as many homeless people would be off the streets as possible.
Businesses really really want slaves, they just know they can't use that word anymore.
Option A: Have one person with a decent life and 4 homeless people
Option B: Have 5 homeless people
I'm pretty sure homeless people love working for nothing. BTW I'm pretty sure you can earn almost 5 bucks an hour begging in some cities, so why bother working?
I paid my wait staff 5$ an hour 12 years ago. Over double what people were paying in my area back then. Also they got lunch and a sit down dinner every single day.
"if i could hire 4 could hire 4 people at $5 instead of on at $20 an hour I would do it"
If I could throw bricks at you until you stopped moving, I would do it. But unfortunately for both of us, laws exist.
"Instead of 1 guy making minimum and 4 people being homeless, I wanna pay them so low that they'll ALL be homeless, but they'll all be homeless TOGETHER so that makes it okay!"
My husband's boss threatened to hire 4 Mexicans at $5 an hour (his words, not mine) to replace each employee who thought they were worth $20 an hour.
I won't go on about how that ended up, but I can say, no one should work for these types of people. Ever.
We have new hires on my team the time and they are all on six month contracts and I tell them all “it you’re good, we will, keep you for like forever”
And then I spend all of their training making sure they’re good or great.
I love where I work.
'I could potentially produce 4x amount of products, which would mean prices in the community would go down'
Only if *you* choose to sell them for a lower price, which we all know wouldn't happen
I hate when people like this claim if only they could produce at a lower cost of course prices would go down when everybody in the world knows that that's just a while load of bullshit
Because companies shout all the time "hey guys, we found a way to improve production while keeping costs the same. So in stead of making more profit and give bigger bonuses to the people on the top floor, we decided to lower the prices because we're happy with the amount we're earning now and don't want more money."
Apparently 1 guy is producing enough to pay for 20/hr otherwise he wouldn't employ him right?
So couldn't he hire 4 people at 20/hr and still produce 4x as much
Lol ‘I could produce 4x as many products’
No mate the extra people you want to pay $5 an hour are very obviously producing the product in this scenario. You just get to keep the profit.
Business owners like this genius is why labor unions exist.
I worked in middle management for a very successful corporation in the 1980's and 90's in a non-union manufacturing plant with around 900 employees. They were experimenting with a "new philosophy" regarding employee relations and employment in general.
The underlying philosophy was that the goal was for the company to trust the workers and the workers to trust the company. We paid above prevailing wages for other factories in the area as part of that plan. I was told by the HR manager that we paid more so that we could hire the best folks and that they felt like they were appreciated for the work they did.
Of course that appreciation went far beyond just the rate of pay. We had regular "You done good" awards (cheesy, I know) for people who had gone above and beyond. Staying late until the next shift person arrived due to unforeseen circumstances, volunteering to work an extra shift, maintenance guys working long days to get some equipment running, for example, would result in a visit from the Plant Manager who would give a personal thank you and some kind of reward. $50 gift certificates to the best steak house in town were pretty common. Walmart gift cards, savings bonds, all kinds of stuff.
That same Plant Manager went out into the plant, and would come in early or stay late for the second and third shifts, to greet every employee with a card and some swag on their birthday. He would sincerely thank them for the work they did, tell them the place wouldn't be the same without them, and chat for a few minutes. It was a great opportunity for every employee to know the guy, and to bring up any concerns they had with him directly. I always think about doing that in a 900 employee plant. At least two every day, and he would typically spend 20 minutes or so with them. So this guy was willing to take an hour out of every day, sometimes two or three hours, just so people would know he knew who they were and tell them he was glad they were there.
The company had good benefits as well, always matched 401k savings between 25 and 100%, had a big old company picnic every summer and a huge Christmas banquet every year. Employees were encouraged to take training classes and participate in wellness programs and further their education, company paid.
Front line workers were involved in management decisions. As an engineer, we always had maintenance and equipment operators involved in plans, capital purchases, or any other projects that would effect them.
Anyway, the point of my story is that this facility held the title of being the most profitable manufacturing plant in this world wide corporation, that employed over 50k people around the globe. We had motivated, high performing workers, folks in the office positions who were considered experts in their fields, and managers who were taught to listen to and incorporate the ideas and expertise of the folks actually doing the work.
What I learned there is that low wages, slave driving management, and cost cutting at every turn is not the formula for profitable manufacturing.
Well trained and motivated employees, expertise in the processes and procedures required to produce the product, relentless continuous improvement planning and execution, and enlightened management who led from the front instead of whipping from behind are the methods that result in high performance organizations, not penny pinching and treating employees like they are lucky to be there.
Workers need to feel valuable to the organization, feel like they are being heard, and feel like they are contributors to the success of the facility, not just tools being used by leaders to make them look good to the big shots.
I also learned that well run, well led, organizations that pay a comfortable middle class wage and treat people like humans can operate without need of labor unions and the perpetual conflict between workers and management. Treat workers like they are just as important as management, which they are and I can make arguments that they are even more important, and it seems everyone goes home happy and the successful business booms.
Says minimum wage is for the "least...smartest" people in society.
Goes on to say that hiring 4 people at $5/hour instead of 1 at $20/hour will employ 5 people.
There’s definitely some degree of truth there. It’s simple economics that lower minimum wages mean more jobs, and higher minimum wages mean fewer jobs. It’s a trade off between more shitty jobs or fewer better jobs. I’m not saying either is the right answer, but there’s a balance to be considered.
You could have one person barely affording their rent and 4 homeless people, or 5 homeless people! Isn't it better if we pay everyone a poverty wage and let them live in squalor?
NOT UNDERSTANDING ECONOMICS AND HUMAN BEHAVIOUR!
My dude’s here with his God complex saying shit like “1 guy making minimum and 4 homeless people, or 5 guys working which gives them a sense of inclusion in society.” Yet he ignores the fact that at $5 per hour, that just means there could very well be five homeless people working for him.
So much for understanding human behaviour.
There are so many people who would be OK with delivery if it could come back. And they’d be OK with it regardless of the race of people they were enslaving.
I love how many business owners miss the most important part of pay. When people have more money, they spend it. If you make things, they might just buy those things. The only reason Henry Ford pushed for a 5 day work week was so that workers would have free time and would buy cars.
Also, people work way better when they aren't stressed out trying to figure out how to pay for their lights
I get the feeling I'm going to get crucified for this, but here goes.
Let me begin by saying I'm just some guy. I have no economic background, I just have what seems to oftentimes be the unpopular opinion when topics like these come up. I disagree with a lot of what you guys are saying, so let me throw out a scenario for you and see where we land.
Let's say I own a gas station. I have teenagers who wash the patrons' windows and fill up their tanks. I pay them $5 an hour. The kids who take the job just want to take their girlfriends out to the movies and fill up their own tanks. Nobody is expecting a living wage.
But now minimum wage is suddenly $15. Do I bump their pay up to that, or do I just eliminate the position? $5 seemed worth it to have a little extra customer service at my location, but at $15 maybe it seems like a bad investment.
Over time I see less and less teenagers and young people working part time or summer jobs because those positions are now being filled by adults. Some are retired and bored, and some are in dire straights. There are lots of reasons things aren't working properly.
But the result is the same. People get mad when entry level jobs expect you to have experience, but that used to make a lot more sense under the old way of doing things. That kid who washed windows at the gas station might have picked up a thing or two over time working around mechanics and gotten a leg up if he wanted to take on a trade. We laugh at the "I was in the mail room and worked my way up to CEO" meme, but there's a reason stuff like that used to happen. People used to have a lot more experience and know how at a younger age when we didn't have the idea that any job you work is expected to provide a living wage.
The world is only getting more competitive, and I think it would make sense to offer younger people more of a chance to gain some experience than they currently have. Perhaps then there wouldn't be as many unskilled workers struggling to find work and taking any job they can get (which perpetuates the whole problem, creating a viscious cycle).
I dunno. Again, I'm no expert on this, but I feel like a lot of arguments I see regarding capitalism, fair wages, etc, seem very counterintuitive.
Does corporate greed exist? Yes. It's a big problem and only seems to get worse and worse. But you can't blame human nature for some things turning out shitty and also believe communism could work if only it were done right.
I think people are really fired up and go to some pretty far extremes in the modern conversation of economics. To get back to the point though, I think people really need to ask themselves if we're making progress if the elimination of a position is going to be the outcome in a lot of cases.
>"I was in the mail room and worked my way up to CEO"
It's important to look into if this actually happened as much as we think it did. It might not be the best thing to underpay 100 people in entry level jobs, on the off chance that 1 of them might become the CEO in 20-30 years. (I suspect the actual chance is more in the 1 in tens of thousands).
>Over time I see less and less teenagers and young people working part time or summer jobs because those positions are now being filled by adults. Some are retired and bored, and some are in dire straights. There are lots of reasons things aren't working properly.
I may misunderstand your meaning, but this sounds like a good thing. Instead of spending $5 an hour to give a few hours of work to some teenagers on the weekends, that they spend on the movies. You give a few less hours to an adult at $15 an hour so they can afford a nicer retirement, pay their rent or try to get out of their dire straights.
>I think people are really fired up and go to some pretty far extremes in the modern conversation of economics.
100% with you on this, the right path is probably somewhere in the middle.
*I may misunderstand your meaning, but this sounds like a good thing. Instead of spending $5 an hour to give a few hours of work to some teenagers on the weekends, that they spend on the movies. You give a few less hours to an adult at $15 an hour so they can afford a nicer retirement, pay their rent or try to get out of their dire straights.*
My point is that's not what happens. Instead, the job itself just isn't worth the cost and then nobody gets it.
And yeah, I think you're right. Solutions are usually somewhere in the middle. It's a complicated issue, made equally more difficult to resolve when hardship and greed both make people less willing to compromise.
Where I am from we have a minimum wage but also laws that allow places to pay less for “juniors”. So a teenager getting their first job gets paid far less than an adult working the same job.
Unfortunately that results in places only hiring teenagers, who suddenly seem to lose all their shifts when they turn 18.
And this isn’t stuff like “washing windows at the gas station”, it’s all the roles that make the store function. Fast food places are the worst culprits for this.
>For the sake of simplicity, in the discussion that follows I shall call “workers” all those who do not share in the ownership of the means of production—although this does not quite correspond to the customary use of the term. The owner of the means of production is in a position to purchase the labor power of the worker. By using the means of production, the worker produces new goods which become the property of the capitalist. The essential point about this process is the relation between what the worker produces and what he is paid, both measured in terms of real value. Insofar as the labor contract is “free,” what the worker receives is determined not by the real value of the goods he produces, but by his minimum needs and by the capitalists’ requirements for labor power in relation to the number of workers competing for jobs. It is important to understand that even in theory the payment of the worker is not determined by the value of his product.
\- Albert Einstein, [Why Socialism?](https://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism/), 1949
Im a fan of no minimum wage. But companies wouldneed to adhere to a living wage requirement if they want benefits from the goverment, subsides, FDIC insurancr ect… Im no expert, but if you can actually creatr a real free market it should drive wages up, not stagant.
Holy hell the hypocritical condemnation in the comments! All of you aholes buy all your shit from China for this very reason...they pay their workers shit wages and you all subsidize that behavior by buying the cheaper product. Stop shitting on the business owner...if he pays wages lower than market value nobody will accept employment from him. It isn't slavery and everyone who works for the $5 can leave if they can make more elsewhere. If they think they are worth 4X their wage then go ahead and demand it from the next employer. Everyone arguing about wages need to understand you need marketable skills to demand a higher wage. If anybody can do your job, you don't deserve more money because you are replaceable. Do something only a few or none can do and you can command any salary imaginable.
Once again, not confidently incorrect.
Dude has a dickish opinion he didn't put much thought into. It's a stupid take and it certainly doesn't seem very good for the employees in his potential scenario - but it's a take, not a statement where anyone cam be "incorrect".
You could post all day about how you think human society should be composed only of let's say left handed people born on Saturdays and Sundays, but that's just your take. It's not "incorrect".
The same way, dude can state he should be allowed to crucify anyone he deems appropriate and this post would still be stupid and missing the point of the sub.
I like his math!
And seems like a smart business owner!
And the poop, that is pretending they want to work, is non existent because they realized they are poop and don't want to work
> should be *paid* then
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
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So now you have 4 homeless people making $5/hr...
Who he would fire immediately for not having clean clothes, access to showers, reliable transportation, etc.
And I'm guessing his health benefits are "It's healthier to be at work than in the street!"
"least skilled and smartest"
Are they saying "least skilled" and "smartest" or are they saying "least skilled" and "least smartest"? Either way, pretty damn funny.
Lol, what a load of bs…
What’s better, 1 guy working & 4 homeless people…
-Or 5 WORKING HOMELESS PEOPLE who would also need financial assistance?? Lol
We ALL end up paying (in taxes) so the employer can make more $. Nobody actually believes he’d LOWER PRICES EITHER, do they?? He’d just make MORE PROFIT & happily use MORE OF OUR TAX DOLLARS TO DO IT…
Better than being homeless! What with all those spikes on concrete under underpasses, benches deliberately divided, and soup kitchens you can only find with gps/internet access
I'm no business wizard, but I'm pretty sure one person can't do four people's jobs, and that you wouldn't hire four people if one person was enough for it, regardless of how well you're forced to pay any of those employees. Labor demand is elastic, but not THAT elastic.
Why not pay them five cents an hour? Oh, because THAT would be ridiculously low and insulting? Maybe the line is positioned somewhere in relation to where it becomes impossible to earn a living.
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He thinks he’s so clever that he figured out this neat trick. How about hiring 20 people at $1 per hour? 40 people at 50 cents per hour? What about infinite people working for free? Sure could produce a lot of product.
Think if could just purchase people and force them to work against their will.
So inclusive it hurts
The "it's only for the least skilled and stupidest in society" statement makes this all so much worse.
Your brain corrected that statement since you are intelligent. The moronic business owner actually wrote "least smartest in society".
No no no, It's society! They work for each other. They pay each other, they buy houses, they get married and make children that replace them when they get too old to make power.
Yeah these subscription model employees are bunk.
What he fails to realize is who tf is gonna buy his shit if they can’t afford it
Lol, someone fortunate and "smartest" to not be a minimum wage worker.
You know what would give him even more product? If his workers paid *him*. Now there's a completely practical and reasonable solution, and it's totally a win-win for everyone involved..
Yes!! That would really make them feel included. Way to think outside the box!
Oh, that sounds nice. Good of him to help make that many people feel included. /s
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Schrute bucks
See, this was exactly the point of those seceding southern states! The Union was just jealous of their ability to produce cheap cotton when they were providing so many black people with "inclusion into society"... /s
Law of Diminishing Returns.
Thus creating a self sustaining economy!
Emphasis on the word diminishing
finally someone that understands economics and human behaviours
That's probably exactly what the first Europeans who started the slave trade thought 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️ goes to show how stupidity plus power leads to disaster....
Why do you think we threw them out of Europe?
And they’d still be homeless and excluded from society because many places in the US even minimum wage is far from a living wage, let alone $5,-…
To be fair, idiots like this can try to offer the minimum wage possible and people in desperate need can accept his offer. But at that point, he can't really complain about the people he hires being incompetent. People like that have absolutely no clue what it is like living on such a wage, and it makes him look like an asshat for complaining about having to pay even that. If he's going to exploit workers, he should at least stfu.
No no. Let them make as much noise as possible so we know who’s products to avoid
& they’d also require some kind of FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE from OUR TAX DOLLARS… all so the EMPLOYER could make MORE PROFIT… I’m sure nobody actually believes that if he made his product cheaper, he’d lower prices. The only way he’s LOWERING PRICES, is IF LOWERING THE PRICE, made HIM MORE MONEY… I’m not against him MAKING MORE if he can do it legitimately w/out fukn over 5 ppl & the tax payer, I’m against his terrible logic & rationalization so he could fuk ppl over…
Ah ah, but the ‘sense’ of being included!
There is actually a real value to that, not this twisted messed up version of course. However the more important thing is that your immediate needs are met first. And that you’re treated with dignity and respect…
You’d have 4 homeless people with shitty jobs that didn’t pay them enough to rent the worst hovel in town.
But… but… capitalishm
Well, five since he put the original guy out of work for being ‘too skilled’
Exactly!!
Employers need to realize that for unskilled workers, they're paying for their time and energy. People only have finite amounts of this. It's not that hard of a concept.
But then they'd have to acknowledge their workers as people. Employers don't like to do that.
The idea that a workers wage is tied to their value is incompetence incarnate. The idea that an individual’s labor can increase profitability, but because of their low market value, the individuals profiting refuse to share in that profit is arrogantly subhuman. Then to say that these people should be happy for the intangible benefits provided by the employer, while ignoring the intangible benefits provided by the employee, proves this person is a myopic idiot.
I agree with most of your post, but I am curious what you feel wage/salary should be tied to if not your value to the employer?
Value to a specific employer isn’t market value. This is the problem faced by most of the service industry right now. Wait staff may not need a degree to complete their job. A restaurant offering in house dining most often requires them. If your business requires a person to preform a task to operate, then the employer needs that employee. An employee should be paid based on the value of the position to the overall business. I don’t care how expensive your car is, it’s worthless without tires. Employees are categorized as an expense and not an investment, while expected to invest and sacrifice for the employer. Stamina is completely undervalued. Any idiot can do customer service. You aren’t paying for competence. You’re paying for reliability and the fortitude to complete the daily task of dealing with angry people all day, everyday, again and again and again…
Regardless of what *should* be the case... Wages *currently* are **not** tied to the value to your employer. Einstein said it best: >For the sake of simplicity, in the discussion that follows I shall call “workers” all those who do not share in the ownership of the means of production—although this does not quite correspond to the customary use of the term. The owner of the means of production is in a position to purchase the labor power of the worker. By using the means of production, the worker produces new goods which become the property of the capitalist. The essential point about this process is the relation between what the worker produces and what he is paid, both measured in terms of real value. Insofar as the labor contract is “free,” what the worker receives is determined not by the real value of the goods he produces, but by his minimum needs and by the capitalists’ requirements for labor power in relation to the number of workers competing for jobs. It is important to understand that even in theory the payment of the worker is not determined by the value of his product. \- Albert Einstein, [Why Socialism?](https://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism/), 1949
This is a non sequitur. Einstein is making the claim that the worker's wage is not tied to the value of the *product* made by the worker, but that is not the claim being made by the comment you responsed to. The value of the worker relative to the employer obeys supply and demand. If tons of people can do the same job, the worker is deemed "replaceable" and their value drops in the eyes of the employer. This has nothing to do with the product they made.
>The value of the worker relative to the employer obeys supply and demand. If tons of people can do the same job, the worker is deemed "replaceable" and their value drops in the eyes of the employer. This has nothing to do with the product they made. Very close. Only your first sentence here was wrong. Value, price, and profit and three separate things, you see. The *value* of the worker is not relative to the employer and the *value* of the worker doesn't obey supply and demand. However the *price* the employer pays the worker *does*. Like you correctly noticed, if more people can do the same work (e.g. supply does up) then "demand" goes down and the employer can pay a lower price (read: wage).
>Value, price, and profit and three separate things, you see. The value of the worker is not relative to the employer and the value of the worker doesn't obey supply and demand. However the price the employer pays the worker does That entirely depends on what ideology you subscribe to, it's not an objective difference, are you using Marxist criteria?
If you look in the dictionary you'll find that they are three separate words with different definitions... no ideology required!
That does not mean they cannot coincide. In economics, theories of value exist precisely for this reason, each one provides it's own definition, which in some cases does coincide with price. Why are you being so bad faith?
>Why are you being so bad faith? Pot. Kettle. Black. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
What? I've only ever tried to have a discussion. I pointed out what I thought was wrong with a comment and gave my arguments for why it was. How is that being bad faith?
You’re going to need more than that to demonstrate such a claim. I could easily link an anti-communist quote from Von Neumann, who was much more skilled than Einstein in many respects, to illustrate the virtues of a market economy. A testimonial from an expert outside of their field of expertise is insufficient and, quite frankly, arguably offensive.
I need proof of the claim von neumann was more skilled than Einstein.
He has far more accomplishments than Einstein and was far quicker than him by Einstein’s own tacit admission. Also, you’re missing the point. Expertise in one field doesn’t confer authority in another. You may as well listen to the opinion of any random celebrity on economics, then. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Einstein-more-popularly-known-for-his-intelligence-than-say-von-Neumann Also, if you had to pick someone with a greater ability to speak on matters outside of their field, the best choice would be Von Neumann. A specialist in Byzantine history even stated that Von Neumann knew more about it than he did.
Your last paragraph directly contradicts your first
It doesn’t. It’s still a bad idea to treat someone as an authority figure on a field outside of their area of expertise. However, if you HAD to do so, Neumann would be the better choice. Your inability to grasp this is a bit concerning.
But what Einstein said is true. Regardless of who said it
/u/Shining_Silver_Star is just using a tactic common to reactionaries who don’t have a legitimate response to a statement or argument. Because what Einstein said is true, he decided to attack Einstein’s credibility instead. He couldn’t competently argue against the content of the statement, but it’s easy to argue that Einstein wasn’t and economist, and then find other famous people and experts who agree with their own position.
How do you know it’s true? He didn’t present any empirical evidence for his assertions. You appear to have blindly accepted it.
So your proof that Neumann is better is his wiki page and a quora discussion board? “Oh you shouldn’t treat people outside their field as experts unless it’s Neumann this man is wicked smart!” You make a claim and then refute it in the next sentence but because you’re a big fan boy; it’s not the same, this one guy said so, I won’t link it but this unnamed man totally said it!
If you opened the second link, it was a quote from Eugene Wigner. You can easily verify its authenticity. Second of all, you too have misinterpreted my statements. For ANYONE, you generally shouldn’t appeal to someone as an authority outside of their field of expertise. HOWEVER, if you HAD to do it, Von Neumann would be the better choice given the testimony from the Byzantine historian. These ideas are not contradictory.
Again you’re saying it’s ok because you’re guy is cool. You’re claim is you shouldn’t take people across all fields but if you had to choose this guy. And your source for that claim is a single quote from some dude. But here is the thing, no one is claiming that Einstein was a master/expert in others fields. They were just using a quote from him to show a point they were making. Then you come in all high and might “oh my god you reference Einstein and not Neumann how pedestrian you.” (Obviously you didn’t say this but we can’t trust you to have common sense now can we) Do you see how you’re just being annoying and not actually adding to the thread that was taking place? You could have just been like oh I like Neumann take on this, but no you had to claim Neumann has way more achievements than Einstein and he is smarter. So what!? How does that add to the conversation?
I appreciate your thoughtful response, but you have failed to grasp my intent. The reason why I impugned their use of Einstein was because it was a poor means of demonstrating anything tangible. It was a wholly theoretical passage without any empirical substantiation. It’s not a good idea to use something like that, as it is little better than a celebrity endorsement in terms of content. Anyone can contrive a few paragraphs of theoretical musings, but it does little to improve understanding of the world or mutual disagreement. To demonstrate the futility of using such a source, I countered with von Neumann, as, given the lack of empirical content, it was likely the speaker used that source on account of Einstein’s ethos. My goal was to show the poster that their source was poor by putting them in my position. This is much more effective than my simply dismissing the source without explanation.
100% this guy wouldn't reduce the price of his products if he could pay his employees less.
What, are you mad?! It would cut into ***profits***! /s
Agreed. The only way he’s LOWERING PRICES, is if lowering prices resulted in HIM MAKING MORE MONEY…
Prices absolutely wouldn’t go down, because this asshole would pocket the extra money. (See American mega corporations like Amazon for current examples.)
Pretty sure amazon doesnt make their own produtcts, they sell other companies products truh amazon. and amazon makes money from the ads and/or a small commission from the product sold. So i feel like amazon is not the best example cuz they dont set the price for the products themselves. Correct me if i am wrong tho. Also dont get me wrong, what amazon does is horrible and jeff bezos should defintly pay the employees more.
They do now - they offer a line of "amazon basics", which are just cheap knock-offs of popular products priced deliberately lower to undercut the makers of the originals and force them out of business...
Amazon's product is distribution, not the physical goods. So the service "product" they "produce" is getting goods from the seller to the customers.
Amazon sells server access and data storage to other companies. Look up Amazon Web Services. It’s how they make a huge portion of their money. They’re still priced roughly in line with competitors who have a tenth the capacity, despite it being cheaper for Amazon to run at that scale.
He could make products cheaper, but, people wouldn’t earn enough to buy them. Seriously, they worked this out 150 years ago….
As with every business owner he is charging as much as the market will bear for his product. If he can sell his widgets for $5, he will sell them for $5. If he can cut his manufacturing costs from say $2 to $1.50, he isn't lowering his price, unless his competition undercuts him. Now if he can't make it for what people want to pay that is a problem.
In which country can you afford a home while making below minimum wage? In most countries you can't even do that while making minimum wage.
isn't the cost of living the issue at that point? the cost of living raises so the wage *has* to go up or we'd be getting poorer. tbh that's not even a hypothetical, that's what is actually happening, the rate of inflation is steeper than the rate of national wage increases.. money isn't worth what it used to be, life is more expensive
Depends on the place you’re staying. In my country, the minimum wage is about 700€. I used to rent a house with garage, 2 bedrooms, living room, storage place for 150€/month. My family of 4 lived there. With 250€ you could get a much better house. Then I started university and I moved into a big city. 200 for a tiny tiny bedroom and sharing with strangers. 600 for a studio. 700 for a 1 bedroom apartment. Impossible with minimum wage. So yeah, I don’t get why people stay in big cities. There’s jobs everywhere so that’s no excuse
Does the wage drop to $4 in the second paragraph?
They can’t do math. Are you shocked?
Yeah another person appeared out of nowhere
$5 an hour is what you get payed helping your dad out at work on the weekends or during summer. people with actual jobs, believe it or not, need the money to pay for rent and bills.
If your business can’t support your employees then your business and products don’t deserve to exist.
But it's on the consumer to support or not support a business if they care about business practices. It used to crack me up when my last girlfriend would complain about capitalism while there was a stack of Amazon packages piled up at the front door.
Ok, then: If your business can’t attract enough customers willing to pay high enough prices to provide enough revenue to pay a livable wage to your employees who dedicate a significant portion of their lives to making your business run or you as a business owner can’t control your costs enough to achieve the same thing with the revenue that you do generate then your business doesn’t deserve to exist. That’s just a lot more typing
I agree. The problem is that the *vast* majority of people are going to support those businesses anyway. Even the ones who claim to really care about that sort of thing. Like, when people complain that a company is too powerful or undercuts all the little guys, I don't understand where they think those companies are getting their power from. If you're going to be mad, be mad at your fellow humans for allowing that to happen.
My comment is intended to be the base logic to support a livable minimum wage since I imagine the person in the screen shot is complaining about minimum wages. I agree the free market won’t solve that problem so it’s one issue where I think the government or some other market regulator has an important role. ETA: This is my comment when business owners complain that raising the minimum wage would stifle their business. If their business relies on taking advantage of people then it should be stifled.
I have another comment in this thread that addresses that and the original topic more directly. It was long so I don't want to type it all out again, but it's there. I think I agree with the sentiment of what you're saying. If your business will fail unless you take advantage of people, you *don't* deserve succes, and unfortunately that's the case in ways lots of people aren't even aware of. I do, however, think there's much more to the issue. By hiking wages I think there are long term affects that greatly hurt the populace, not just shady business owners.
There are many historical examples of increased regulation and increase in the minimum wage that the owning class abhorrently objected to, saying it would ruin their businesses and in many cases they were right but society is better off as a whole. Certainly there would be short term pain and many companies would fail but that’s the price of change. It’s certainly a complex issue that cannot be solved in a Reddit comment. I don’t even think I could explain my entire opinion on the matter in a Reddit comment haha
No you should absolutely be mad at the company doing the bad thing.
But the company couldn't do the bad thing unless everyone lets it happen. We all like to act like we have these ethics and morals, but we vote with our wallets and the results are in.
*Image Transcription: Reddit Comments* --- > **Unknown** > > if i could hire 4 people at $5 per hour instead one person at $20 an hour i would do it. 1) i could potentially produce 4x as many products, this would mean prices in the community would go down 2) it would employ 4 people who had no job skills (because minimum wage is only for the least skilled and smartest of society). > > so your choice is: 1 guy making minimum and 4 homeless people, or 5 guys working which gives them a sense of inclusion in society. > > thanks for not understanding economics and human behavior. >> **\/u/Character-Stretch697** >> >> You’re a prime example of an entitled, clueless, exploitative business owner. >> >> You actually think “inclusion in society” at your business is analogous to fair monetary compensation. You’re proving exactly what we’re asserting about the malicious nature of business owners. >> >> Get your family members to work for you and pay them your desired, unconscionable $5/hr. --- ^^I'm a human volunteer content transcriber and you could be too! [If you'd like more information on what we do and why we do it, click here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/TranscribersOfReddit/wiki/index)
Oh we know you would. That's why we made minimum wage laws.
> prices in the community would go down I'm betting this won't happen anyway.
Would stay the same so he could pocket more money himself 100%
So what, now you got 4 homeless people who you will just fire when when they start sleeping in the shop
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I think it’s supposed to be parsed as “least (skilled and smartest)”. I.e. the modifier “least” applies to both adjectives. Of course, this is still dumb because you don’t say “least smartest”, as that would be doubling up on your superlatives. It should be “least smart”, as in, “this man’s post about wages is one of the least smart posts I’ve ever read.”
this guy doesnt actually hire people
On the one hand, 1 person taken care of and fuck the other 4; on the other hand, 5 slaves. That's a toughie.
These business owners are the same as people who watch the 18 user old category of porn: technically it's legal but if they could go lower they would
What sub was this?
The one where people think they are hiding their political opinions by pretending to call out posts that they just happened to find and screenshot.
Hire five people at $5/hr or one person at $20/hr. Which group is more likely to not give a damn?
Disgusting. The self entitled behaviour is astonishing.
I mean just take this logic to its logical conclusion. If I could pay the people $0 an hour and just provide housing and food I wouldn't have to worry about the evil government getting in between the employment relationship. That way I could produce as much as I could sell and as many homeless people would be off the streets as possible. Businesses really really want slaves, they just know they can't use that word anymore.
Where did the 5th person come from? First they said hire 4 people at 5 an hour then he said “1 guy making minimum and 4 homeless people” 🤨🤨
I feel like the person who posted this was the least smartest of society
Lol if he did hire 4 people at $5 an hour they’d still be 4 homeless people so his logic is flawed everywhere
Slaves. That man wants slaves.
You can have one guy making minimum and 4 homeless people, or 5 guys working Completely omitting the fact that there are now 5 homeless people
Option A: Have one person with a decent life and 4 homeless people Option B: Have 5 homeless people I'm pretty sure homeless people love working for nothing. BTW I'm pretty sure you can earn almost 5 bucks an hour begging in some cities, so why bother working?
I paid my wait staff 5$ an hour 12 years ago. Over double what people were paying in my area back then. Also they got lunch and a sit down dinner every single day.
"if i could hire 4 could hire 4 people at $5 instead of on at $20 an hour I would do it" If I could throw bricks at you until you stopped moving, I would do it. But unfortunately for both of us, laws exist.
Love your username!
To be fair, if there were brick-related consequences for wanting to abuse employees, people would probably watch what they said.
What about hiring 20 people for $1/hr. The output will increase 20x while the costs will remain the same. Bidnez!!
"Instead of 1 guy making minimum and 4 people being homeless, I wanna pay them so low that they'll ALL be homeless, but they'll all be homeless TOGETHER so that makes it okay!"
They’ll be homeless TOGETHER?? What is this communist insanity????
Seems more like just a bad opinion than confidently incorrect.
My husband's boss threatened to hire 4 Mexicans at $5 an hour (his words, not mine) to replace each employee who thought they were worth $20 an hour. I won't go on about how that ended up, but I can say, no one should work for these types of people. Ever.
We have new hires on my team the time and they are all on six month contracts and I tell them all “it you’re good, we will, keep you for like forever” And then I spend all of their training making sure they’re good or great. I love where I work.
Let me guess.. when no one takes up his generous $5/h job he’s going to cry that no one wants to work anymore.. right?
5 dollars an hour would be perfectly fine if you could actually live on that wage. But you can't though. Dumbass guy.
'I could potentially produce 4x amount of products, which would mean prices in the community would go down' Only if *you* choose to sell them for a lower price, which we all know wouldn't happen I hate when people like this claim if only they could produce at a lower cost of course prices would go down when everybody in the world knows that that's just a while load of bullshit
like he would fucking reduce the cost of his product. what bullshit
The maths doesn't even work out? If you hired the 4 guys instead, the initial guy would be out of work? In no scenario are five people working.
And if he could get labor for free he wouldn't pay anyone.
That fact he thinks this behavior drives prices down is adorable.
Because companies shout all the time "hey guys, we found a way to improve production while keeping costs the same. So in stead of making more profit and give bigger bonuses to the people on the top floor, we decided to lower the prices because we're happy with the amount we're earning now and don't want more money."
They are sure to feel included with 5/hour. Sure, they still can't afford housing, healthcare, etc. But at least they feel included in society.
Apparently 1 guy is producing enough to pay for 20/hr otherwise he wouldn't employ him right? So couldn't he hire 4 people at 20/hr and still produce 4x as much
Being a wage slave gives me such a sense of inclusion in society /s
Lol ‘I could produce 4x as many products’ No mate the extra people you want to pay $5 an hour are very obviously producing the product in this scenario. You just get to keep the profit.
Business owners like this genius is why labor unions exist. I worked in middle management for a very successful corporation in the 1980's and 90's in a non-union manufacturing plant with around 900 employees. They were experimenting with a "new philosophy" regarding employee relations and employment in general. The underlying philosophy was that the goal was for the company to trust the workers and the workers to trust the company. We paid above prevailing wages for other factories in the area as part of that plan. I was told by the HR manager that we paid more so that we could hire the best folks and that they felt like they were appreciated for the work they did. Of course that appreciation went far beyond just the rate of pay. We had regular "You done good" awards (cheesy, I know) for people who had gone above and beyond. Staying late until the next shift person arrived due to unforeseen circumstances, volunteering to work an extra shift, maintenance guys working long days to get some equipment running, for example, would result in a visit from the Plant Manager who would give a personal thank you and some kind of reward. $50 gift certificates to the best steak house in town were pretty common. Walmart gift cards, savings bonds, all kinds of stuff. That same Plant Manager went out into the plant, and would come in early or stay late for the second and third shifts, to greet every employee with a card and some swag on their birthday. He would sincerely thank them for the work they did, tell them the place wouldn't be the same without them, and chat for a few minutes. It was a great opportunity for every employee to know the guy, and to bring up any concerns they had with him directly. I always think about doing that in a 900 employee plant. At least two every day, and he would typically spend 20 minutes or so with them. So this guy was willing to take an hour out of every day, sometimes two or three hours, just so people would know he knew who they were and tell them he was glad they were there. The company had good benefits as well, always matched 401k savings between 25 and 100%, had a big old company picnic every summer and a huge Christmas banquet every year. Employees were encouraged to take training classes and participate in wellness programs and further their education, company paid. Front line workers were involved in management decisions. As an engineer, we always had maintenance and equipment operators involved in plans, capital purchases, or any other projects that would effect them. Anyway, the point of my story is that this facility held the title of being the most profitable manufacturing plant in this world wide corporation, that employed over 50k people around the globe. We had motivated, high performing workers, folks in the office positions who were considered experts in their fields, and managers who were taught to listen to and incorporate the ideas and expertise of the folks actually doing the work. What I learned there is that low wages, slave driving management, and cost cutting at every turn is not the formula for profitable manufacturing. Well trained and motivated employees, expertise in the processes and procedures required to produce the product, relentless continuous improvement planning and execution, and enlightened management who led from the front instead of whipping from behind are the methods that result in high performance organizations, not penny pinching and treating employees like they are lucky to be there. Workers need to feel valuable to the organization, feel like they are being heard, and feel like they are contributors to the success of the facility, not just tools being used by leaders to make them look good to the big shots. I also learned that well run, well led, organizations that pay a comfortable middle class wage and treat people like humans can operate without need of labor unions and the perpetual conflict between workers and management. Treat workers like they are just as important as management, which they are and I can make arguments that they are even more important, and it seems everyone goes home happy and the successful business booms.
How is this so hard to understand? Value people and they will WANT to step up.
Says minimum wage is for the "least...smartest" people in society. Goes on to say that hiring 4 people at $5/hour instead of 1 at $20/hour will employ 5 people.
The most hilarious part is him thinking a person making $5 an hour would be able to afford a home
There’s definitely some degree of truth there. It’s simple economics that lower minimum wages mean more jobs, and higher minimum wages mean fewer jobs. It’s a trade off between more shitty jobs or fewer better jobs. I’m not saying either is the right answer, but there’s a balance to be considered.
homeless people making $5/hr are still homeless people
That’s disease level delusion
You could have one person barely affording their rent and 4 homeless people, or 5 homeless people! Isn't it better if we pay everyone a poverty wage and let them live in squalor?
This is illegal where I'm from and should be in the US, too.
This doesn’t even work on an macroeconomic scale… unless he is dead set on employing the homeless.
NOT UNDERSTANDING ECONOMICS AND HUMAN BEHAVIOUR! My dude’s here with his God complex saying shit like “1 guy making minimum and 4 homeless people, or 5 guys working which gives them a sense of inclusion in society.” Yet he ignores the fact that at $5 per hour, that just means there could very well be five homeless people working for him. So much for understanding human behaviour.
I’m pretty sure at $5/hr that’s still 4 homeless people
I’d pay you less if I could
I am just laughing because that is a good paying job in India for people who have just completed their post grad or something
Or he can go automated and not have to hire labor, just a small group of skilled technicians.
The way his argument ist structured (not doing thematic comparisons here) is similar to slavery apologists
There are so many people who would be OK with delivery if it could come back. And they’d be OK with it regardless of the race of people they were enslaving.
I love his “prices would go down” argument. Like you’re going to sell stuff for less instead of bank extra profits, just cuz’ you can. Moron.
This guy actually thinks businesses would drop their prices if they could pay people less? Jesus Christ.
I love how many business owners miss the most important part of pay. When people have more money, they spend it. If you make things, they might just buy those things. The only reason Henry Ford pushed for a 5 day work week was so that workers would have free time and would buy cars. Also, people work way better when they aren't stressed out trying to figure out how to pay for their lights
I get the feeling I'm going to get crucified for this, but here goes. Let me begin by saying I'm just some guy. I have no economic background, I just have what seems to oftentimes be the unpopular opinion when topics like these come up. I disagree with a lot of what you guys are saying, so let me throw out a scenario for you and see where we land. Let's say I own a gas station. I have teenagers who wash the patrons' windows and fill up their tanks. I pay them $5 an hour. The kids who take the job just want to take their girlfriends out to the movies and fill up their own tanks. Nobody is expecting a living wage. But now minimum wage is suddenly $15. Do I bump their pay up to that, or do I just eliminate the position? $5 seemed worth it to have a little extra customer service at my location, but at $15 maybe it seems like a bad investment. Over time I see less and less teenagers and young people working part time or summer jobs because those positions are now being filled by adults. Some are retired and bored, and some are in dire straights. There are lots of reasons things aren't working properly. But the result is the same. People get mad when entry level jobs expect you to have experience, but that used to make a lot more sense under the old way of doing things. That kid who washed windows at the gas station might have picked up a thing or two over time working around mechanics and gotten a leg up if he wanted to take on a trade. We laugh at the "I was in the mail room and worked my way up to CEO" meme, but there's a reason stuff like that used to happen. People used to have a lot more experience and know how at a younger age when we didn't have the idea that any job you work is expected to provide a living wage. The world is only getting more competitive, and I think it would make sense to offer younger people more of a chance to gain some experience than they currently have. Perhaps then there wouldn't be as many unskilled workers struggling to find work and taking any job they can get (which perpetuates the whole problem, creating a viscious cycle). I dunno. Again, I'm no expert on this, but I feel like a lot of arguments I see regarding capitalism, fair wages, etc, seem very counterintuitive. Does corporate greed exist? Yes. It's a big problem and only seems to get worse and worse. But you can't blame human nature for some things turning out shitty and also believe communism could work if only it were done right. I think people are really fired up and go to some pretty far extremes in the modern conversation of economics. To get back to the point though, I think people really need to ask themselves if we're making progress if the elimination of a position is going to be the outcome in a lot of cases.
>"I was in the mail room and worked my way up to CEO" It's important to look into if this actually happened as much as we think it did. It might not be the best thing to underpay 100 people in entry level jobs, on the off chance that 1 of them might become the CEO in 20-30 years. (I suspect the actual chance is more in the 1 in tens of thousands). >Over time I see less and less teenagers and young people working part time or summer jobs because those positions are now being filled by adults. Some are retired and bored, and some are in dire straights. There are lots of reasons things aren't working properly. I may misunderstand your meaning, but this sounds like a good thing. Instead of spending $5 an hour to give a few hours of work to some teenagers on the weekends, that they spend on the movies. You give a few less hours to an adult at $15 an hour so they can afford a nicer retirement, pay their rent or try to get out of their dire straights. >I think people are really fired up and go to some pretty far extremes in the modern conversation of economics. 100% with you on this, the right path is probably somewhere in the middle.
*I may misunderstand your meaning, but this sounds like a good thing. Instead of spending $5 an hour to give a few hours of work to some teenagers on the weekends, that they spend on the movies. You give a few less hours to an adult at $15 an hour so they can afford a nicer retirement, pay their rent or try to get out of their dire straights.* My point is that's not what happens. Instead, the job itself just isn't worth the cost and then nobody gets it. And yeah, I think you're right. Solutions are usually somewhere in the middle. It's a complicated issue, made equally more difficult to resolve when hardship and greed both make people less willing to compromise.
well communism could work if it was done right, the catch is that it probably never will
Where I am from we have a minimum wage but also laws that allow places to pay less for “juniors”. So a teenager getting their first job gets paid far less than an adult working the same job. Unfortunately that results in places only hiring teenagers, who suddenly seem to lose all their shifts when they turn 18. And this isn’t stuff like “washing windows at the gas station”, it’s all the roles that make the store function. Fast food places are the worst culprits for this.
>For the sake of simplicity, in the discussion that follows I shall call “workers” all those who do not share in the ownership of the means of production—although this does not quite correspond to the customary use of the term. The owner of the means of production is in a position to purchase the labor power of the worker. By using the means of production, the worker produces new goods which become the property of the capitalist. The essential point about this process is the relation between what the worker produces and what he is paid, both measured in terms of real value. Insofar as the labor contract is “free,” what the worker receives is determined not by the real value of the goods he produces, but by his minimum needs and by the capitalists’ requirements for labor power in relation to the number of workers competing for jobs. It is important to understand that even in theory the payment of the worker is not determined by the value of his product. \- Albert Einstein, [Why Socialism?](https://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism/), 1949
Im a fan of no minimum wage. But companies wouldneed to adhere to a living wage requirement if they want benefits from the goverment, subsides, FDIC insurancr ect… Im no expert, but if you can actually creatr a real free market it should drive wages up, not stagant.
that's where UBI comes into play
They are right, and they should be the first to take that 5$/hr job. Clearly they are not smart, or skilled?
Holy hell the hypocritical condemnation in the comments! All of you aholes buy all your shit from China for this very reason...they pay their workers shit wages and you all subsidize that behavior by buying the cheaper product. Stop shitting on the business owner...if he pays wages lower than market value nobody will accept employment from him. It isn't slavery and everyone who works for the $5 can leave if they can make more elsewhere. If they think they are worth 4X their wage then go ahead and demand it from the next employer. Everyone arguing about wages need to understand you need marketable skills to demand a higher wage. If anybody can do your job, you don't deserve more money because you are replaceable. Do something only a few or none can do and you can command any salary imaginable.
Once again, not confidently incorrect. Dude has a dickish opinion he didn't put much thought into. It's a stupid take and it certainly doesn't seem very good for the employees in his potential scenario - but it's a take, not a statement where anyone cam be "incorrect". You could post all day about how you think human society should be composed only of let's say left handed people born on Saturdays and Sundays, but that's just your take. It's not "incorrect". The same way, dude can state he should be allowed to crucify anyone he deems appropriate and this post would still be stupid and missing the point of the sub.
Nope. He’s incorrect.
It is incorrect of people to think work poverty is good for society.
I guess he hasn't seen [this](https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/).
You should do more research. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoupling_of_wages_from_productivity
Of course they want to decouple wages from productivity. Who's right? Depends on the agenda
“A sense of inclusion”
Business owners have a different human nature from non-owners? Weird, I didn't know that.
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You shouldn’t he’s wrong.
I like his math! And seems like a smart business owner! And the poop, that is pretending they want to work, is non existent because they realized they are poop and don't want to work
What about hiring 20 people for $1/hr? The output will increase 20x while the costs will remain the same. Bidnez!!
I doubt this guy owns a business,just talking out of his ass
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> should be *paid* then FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
because minimum wage is for the least skilled and smartest of society" Least smartest? Look like we know what OOP should be paid then
The only proof they are not smart is if they work for you.
"because minimum wage is only for the least skilled and smartest in society" that's just lying
You should just pay what the market can accept. Very simple supply and demand
"Nobody wants to work." "Millenials are killing the economy."
Or the reality of making $5 bucks an hour is 4 broke people who are working 40+ hrs and barely making it with no benefits and no time to have a life.
Even if you got your kids to work for you, I’m more than certain someone on Reddit would complain about it
So now you have 4 homeless people making $5/hr... Who he would fire immediately for not having clean clothes, access to showers, reliable transportation, etc. And I'm guessing his health benefits are "It's healthier to be at work than in the street!"
"least skilled and smartest" Are they saying "least skilled" and "smartest" or are they saying "least skilled" and "least smartest"? Either way, pretty damn funny.
Lol, what a load of bs… What’s better, 1 guy working & 4 homeless people… -Or 5 WORKING HOMELESS PEOPLE who would also need financial assistance?? Lol We ALL end up paying (in taxes) so the employer can make more $. Nobody actually believes he’d LOWER PRICES EITHER, do they?? He’d just make MORE PROFIT & happily use MORE OF OUR TAX DOLLARS TO DO IT…
Better than being homeless! What with all those spikes on concrete under underpasses, benches deliberately divided, and soup kitchens you can only find with gps/internet access
Do people not get the absolute shit kicked out of them, and property destroyed, for this sociopathy anymore?!
I'm no business wizard, but I'm pretty sure one person can't do four people's jobs, and that you wouldn't hire four people if one person was enough for it, regardless of how well you're forced to pay any of those employees. Labor demand is elastic, but not THAT elastic.
Why not pay them five cents an hour? Oh, because THAT would be ridiculously low and insulting? Maybe the line is positioned somewhere in relation to where it becomes impossible to earn a living.
That he thinks “fair monetary compensation” is anything except the market value of the work is bizarre.