Lifestyle > Train of Thought
Where the Conservatives are Right
virtuoso:
"I really disagree with your argument. I don't believe for a minute that there will be no "losers" if the minimum wage was eliminated. In fact, I am certain that certain jobs would be offered at lower rates if the minimum wage was abolished. I'm trying to be fair in my analysis. But to be equally fair, we have to recognize that there are losers in the current system".
Ok let us get this first point into perspective, the point about small businesses struggling under the weight of the minimum wage does have some sense of credence in theory. However the national audit commission and the UK Business trade association both had to admit that following the implementation of the minimum wage that it has not had the negative impact on businesses which they claimed it would have.
"You can't look for one case of people "losing" and use that to prove that value of a minimum wage. Instead, to be fair, we have to consider the net effect of a minimum wage and I strongly believe the net effect is negative".
I am sorry "one case"? that seems an ill thought out point to make, when the supermarket sector is one of the biggest employers in this country. Therefore the purpose of using this sector was to illustrate with an actual example of how the minimum wage has been effective. Improve society by abolishing it? when such a vast number of people rely upon low paid jobs to pay their bills.
"Your post singles out a very specific situation as justification for a minimum wage. Again, this is an unfair tactic, but a closer look at your example I feel further justifies my argument." I'll explain...
You criticize Tescos and Sainsbury for "decimating" the competition using "ruthless" pricing strategies. And you go onto claim:
"Not only was the threat to genuine competition coming from pricing strategies, but also from acquisitions, which in turn leads to downsizing."
"You claim these companies threated "genuine competition" but you completely neglect to consider that these companies are introducing "genuine competition" into the market place".
No you have misinterpreted what I have said, I have used just one example, ok let me clarify my point here, Tesco and Sainsburys have used a number of pricing strategies, you may argue that using economies of scale is just, but in reference to ruthless pricing strategies I was talking about destruction pricing. A tactic I am sure you are familiar with so I do not need to explain it. Secondly I think you have chosen to distort the point I am making with this, those are smart tactics employed by the businesses, when did I say they were not. However I should add there are of course other dirty tactics they play, like purchasing a piece of land and signalling their intention to build upon it, but never following through with this intention. You can argue that these strategies are showing a company getting it's marketing mix right, however they now make a mockery out of the notion of competition because the barriers to entry are now so high, that is the point i was making.
"With competition so stifled and a select few corporations able to wield such ridiculous power, then it is only right for a minumum wage to be imposed."
"But competition wasn't stifled, it was fiercer than every. And I'm really unsure of what reason supports your arguement at this point. The claim that it is "only right" is pure subjective conjecture".
I am sorry but you are missing the point, the knock on effect of these strategies is that competition became extremely stifled and you only need to look at the humungous market share of Tesco and Sainsburys for my point to be validated. As for me saying "its only right" in my opinion it was downright necessary then.
"They weren't paying whatever they could get away with. They were paying the rate at which they felt their business would maximize productivity. You said yourself, the work is "unskilled" and even more damaging to your argument you mention that "the suppy of such labor far outstripped demand."
"Maximise productivity" no there was no incentive for the supermarkets to increase workers wages because yes the work is unskilled. If anything the market forces are moving towards a greater number of new supermarket stores so forr me to say that things would not alter is not pure conjecture at all. This is all about the supermarkets wanting to make astronomical profits and protect these astronomical profits. Finally in this paragraph I should point out that Tesco recorded a profit of 1 billion pounds last year in the UK.
"Indeed, we can all see in which direction this country is heading, the outsourcing of I.T jobs continues unabaited and so the role of groceries becomes ever more prominent."
"This is a little looney. I find it hard to believe that the english economy is becoming dependent on groceries. If that is the case, then I'd suggest your reliance on minimum wage to save everyone is completely misplaced. For society to have a reasonable standard of living you need to raise the skills of your population. Higher skilled people earn more money".
Until you know how many people are employed with the low paid service sectors then to address my point as looney is totally laughable. If you are suggesting that it is looney that high skilled jobs are now being outsourced then you must be writing with blinkers on, I can present you with many sources from here in the UK if you like, illustrating just that. Slowly for example I.T jobs are seeping away to India, this is going to continue as well under this wonderful umbrella they call globalisation. This is something you chose to ignore in your retort, jobs are going to india because there are lots of indians who are equally well educated and of course are paid for less, however in Indian terms their standard of living is excellent.
"Pure conjecture, and avoid using words like "whilst" they sound elitist. I don't mean to be so critical, but if you really care about poverty you need to have an open mind. Instead of being ideolistic and saying "if only we could force businesses to pay people more" you have to be more open minded and realistic. Right now, I get the impression that your stuck on your beliefs. I thought thru both sides for a long time before leaning in this direction. I could refute your final comments as well, but this is getting lengthy".
"Avoid using words like whilst they sound elitist" lol i had to laugh at that, I will use whatever words I like there is nothing elitist about my views on poverty, nothing elitist about my views on anything, its part of the english language so I will use it. I am not being idealistic I am being realistic the minimum is extremely low as it is, the level of suffering would be much worse without it. As for refuting my final comments referring to the american government, you can not refute that 3 trillion dollars is unaccounted for, when the figures were laid bare in congress, it's not a difficult to reach the conclusion that america is being hollowed out by a bunch of criminals.
Ant:
A few things:
1) I don't really care what's happening in America. It has little to do with this discussion. If anything, your point that the US is being controlled by criminals strengthens the traditional conservative argument for small government and minimal government intervention. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Its a nice fantasy to think "if only good natured, intelligent, compassionate individuals ran the government" but its never going to happen. Sorry, but Plato's philosopher kings never materialized and never will. Tradtional conservatives rightly believe we need to stop criticize the people in charge, and start criticizing the nature of government itself.
2) You contradict yourself in regards to your critcism of Tescos. You make the following claims criticizing Tescos: 1) their pricing strategies are ruthless 2) they are using destruction pricing 3) they make a mockey of competition by creating enormously high barriers to entry 4) tesco's makes "astronomical profits. But then again, you also admit that smaller companies cannot compete because tesco's prices are so low. If this is the case, there is an obvious contradiction in your argument. If competition is so stifled, if tesco's is practicing destructive pricing strategies, and exploiting workers to reap astronomical prices THEN why are they passing on extraordinarily low costs to consumers? The whole point of competition is to increase the purchasing power of consumers. Companies compete for market share and struggle to find way to cut costs and improve services to win customers. But in your opinion, competition is something completely different. It seems, in your opinion, competition is when there are lots of "competitors" but absolutely no improvements are occuring. In reality, the very fact that prices have been driven so low that no one can compete with tesco's is evidence that fierce competition exists. Competition has little to do with how many competitors there are, it has to do with the intensity of their rivalry.
3) You are still completely ignoring the fact that many people are hurt by minimum wage increases. Like all minimum wage advocates, you want to believe this is a completely one-sided argument. It incredibly easy to support a policy that has no downside, but this just isn't the case. You really need to spend some time contemplating the negative aspects of a minimum wage hike. If you dwell all day on the people being helped by a minimum wage, and never think about the poeple being hurt, of course your going to advocate the position you currently do. My guess is, to date you have thought only minimally about the harm you will cause by raising the minimum wage. It's a point of fact, if you push a policy onto society there are always going to be winners and losers. The losers are not just rich people.
4) If minimum wage hikes have not hurt businesses, and therefore have not hurt workers, then why are most labor intensive jobs performed overseas? These jobs migrated for some reason.
5) You still refuse to comment on the possibility that certain individuals in society do not offer enough value to be worth the minimum wage. This is the truth. Its fun to believe that the rich are all evil and the poor are all good. But I said before, there are rich assholes and there are poor assholes. There are a lot of poor people that are virtually unemployable at the prevailing minimum wage.... meaning, they suck so bad, that an intelligent manager can not afford to hire them period. I'm sorry, but people who make minimum wage aren't all poor hard working folk that are trying hard to get by and raise a good family. A lot of people who earn minimum wage are degenerate losers that do drugs, gamble to much, have kids with multiple partners, don't even care enough to brush their teeth on a daily basis, and have pure contempt for any form of work. It's a liberal fantasy that the poor are all good people. Ironically, many of the idealized poor person struggling to work hard and raise a good family, you know, the type of person that liberals think every poor person is like, well for some reason, all of the people I know who are like this have nothing but contempt for the lazy poor people who rely on the government for hands outs like the minimum wage, unemployment, workmans comp, etc.
Ironically, I know quite a few once poor people, usually immigrants, that came to the US, started at the very bottom and pulled themselves into othe middle class and in many cases into the higer end of the middle class. These people can't stand government hand outs. And I'll guess that a large part of their success was their ideology of personal responsibility. In fact, as strange as it may sound, I've seen these people be forced by their employer to even accept things like workmans compensation when they were hurt on the job. Hand outs hurt their pride... they want to show they can do things on their own. That's the attitude of the once poor who moved up in society.
virtuoso:
We can go back and forth about this continually. but the crux of it is this most economies have now been fully explored by corporations and so they are now in a period of wanting to consolidate their riches. They are not happy with making billions, no, the ante has to be upped each and every time. The way in which they are going about this, is to drive down their costs, inevitably this leads to the outsourcing of labour, much easier to exploit a very countries people. Now, this is occuring as I mentioned before in the skilled sector also, its a worrying trend and one that shows no signs of stopping, if anything there should be stricter regulations in place, to prevent this from occuring. The crux of it is this, corporations have such dominance of market sectors now, that the minimum wage is there to ensure that workers don't become complete slaves, the abolition of the minimum wage, would lead to much lower wages in these sectors.
Please spare me the conjecture retort, it is not in the mandate of corporations to have morals they will pay whatever they like, as so many people are already struggling to abolish the minimum wage would be criminal. This situation was created by greedy corporations who only have one thing in mind driving their costs as low as possible. There needs to be much stricter laws in much restricting the ability of companies to outsource. It is the destruction of the manufacturing base, which is creating all of this hardship, the consequences of it happening in england are still felt to this day in places like Yorkshire. The answer does not lie in abolishing the minimum wage. as the minimum wage is barely enough anyway.
Ant:
At this point all I can say is you need to make a concerted effort to read literature that disagrees with your current world view.
I consider us to be much the same, in that we are both genuinely concerned with the well-being of people, but your views are single minded. It is quite obvious you spend most of your time reading literature that confirms your existing world view. I think I'm reasonable good at explaining things, but their are people who are far more eloquent than I.
I'll tell you, I seriously held similiar beliefs as you did, until I got past all the rhetoric. I used to fall for the myth that everyone who wants to do things like abolish minimum wage, shrink government, and decrease minimum wage were greedy capitalist. If you just listen to right wing pundits all day its easy to side against the conservatives. The pundits and the politicians are cynical pricks. But, eventually I woke up and realized, that there are lots of conservatives who genuinely care about the well being of society.
After listening to, and reading the thoughts of conservative thinkers like Milton Friedman, Greg Mankiw, Ben Bernake, Karl Popper, and others I feel strongly that these are individuals who are genuinely concerned with societies well being. They have an opinion different from your own, not because they are greedy capitalists, but because they think their ideas would do a lot to help society.
A lot of what you believe, in my opinion, is liberal propaganda. I know we all believe that only the other side creates propaganda, but the left creates disingenious arguments just like the right does.
You can say this argument will go in circles all day, and it certainly will, if you continually refuse to accept the plausibility of ideas that disagree with your current worldview. The difference is, I already understand your side, I spent plenty of time reading literature and listening to commentary that supported your world view. In contrast, you've spent relatively little time trying to understand why people who care as much about society as you do, come to such different conclusions.
These are the types of contradictions in liberal thought that I respect traditional conservatives for understanding:
1) You say government is corrupt, but you think the government needs to create regulations to protect workers. If government is corrupt, how can you trust it to create "fair" regulations.
2) You say big corporations are greedy and only care about reducing costs. But, don't the small businesses that you idolize care about the same thing? Why is it ok for the underdog to care about their self-interests, but once you get too big its suddenly "evil?" Liberals will at times go so far as to excuse immoral activity like stealing when the little guy does it, but when a corporation acts in its own best interests they are condemned.
3) You need to save all the workers from being exploited, but you refuse to consider that works also exploit corporations. I've pointed this out multiple times now, liberals want to live in a fantasy world where all the poor are good hard working people that were screwed by society. There are definitely poor people that got screwed by their circumstances, but there are also poor people who screw themselves. They choose to develop a poor work ethic, they choose to do drugs, and have multple kids with different partners, they choose to disrespect their employers, they choose to try cheating the system. Liberals can condone this type of immoral activity when its perpetrated by poor people, but when a big company does something immoral its a different story all together.
4) Outsourcing has been happening for ages, but the liberal hatred of outsourcing is diametrically opposed to their desire to help "all people." Liberals, and even many modern conservatives, fearing globalization have turned protectionist. But if you care so much about people, why do you support policies that attack other populations (i.e. the populations the jobs would be outsourced to). It really annoys me when the do-gooders turn protectionist. If they care so much, why don't they care about people in other countries that need jobs too. Why don't they care about ideas like "fairness." It's unfair to limit the freedom of other populations to compete for jobs. If indians can do a good job at IT, good for them. In your view, the countries with the jobs today should keep them forever, and the countries without them should live in poverty forever. Of course that isn't your view, but that is the sentence you impose other societies when you advocate protectionist policies.
I personally think liberal ideology does a lot of harm to the poorer among us for psychological reasons as well as economic. I see it at play all the time. Poor people get so influenced by liberal propaganda that they think every corporation is trying to exploit them even when this just isnt the case. There are companies that sincerely care about the well being of their employees, but because of people like you, some workers think even these well intentioned companies are taking advantage of them. What's the end result when this happens? These people end up not making it very long. You can say this is the fault of the company, but well-intentioned companies, that are trying their hardest to take care of their employees who realize "we're all in this together" cannot tolerate new employees that don't want to become part of the community and only want to spread dishonest propoganda to the rest of the company. Often times, the smart employees who realize their copmany is well-intentioned have no desire to work with these types of people and are happy to see them go. It's unfortunate, because I personally think everyone is a victim of circumstance, I don't get upset at people for being influenced by propaganda, but I'm realistic about their prospects for being a good employee.
I've said this before, but you need to stop judging policies by their intentions and start judging them by their results. Just because a policy sounds well intentioned doesn't mean it is helping. Likewise, sometimes policies that certain interest groups want you to believe are "bad" in fact are helping people. Either way, your comments are almost wholly about intentions and only minimal about results.
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