With all due respect, this is quite a long rant, but these are my frustrations with living in a Capitalistic society. Oh, and I have been on here for a little more then a year now, so I know pretty well of the ideas that is passed around Mises readings.
Now, I understand that CEO's are responsible for a company's profits, and that the entrepreneur is someone who sacrifices a stable job lifestyle for risking his personal savings. However, while this is true with small business', I have no problem with CEO's of small business. Though, if someone needs to find a job, they have no choice but to employ themselves at a crappy job where they will be exploited. My definition of exploited meaning no pay for overtime, keeping you overtime, no vacation, and taking money off of your paycheck for breaks. You can't control when an employer decides to keep you overtime to get more work done, but its ****ing bullshit when you have school and a life to maintain as well. People at low-income jobs barely make enough to even be worth all this stress, where someone with a BA in even Communication gets to work for an above average salary and sit in the comfort of his cubicle on a computer. Jobs shouldn't be a privilege, and if someone has to work for low income, they shouldn't be slaving a lot more then someone with an education earning a median-above average salary. This is exploitation. You know, the only reason someone working at McDonalds is getting ****ed in the ass is because CEO's don't want to cut their erroneous salary so that they can continue golfing on their private island, while hiring less people so that they themselves, who don't even do much with the Corporation they are the head of, can get higher salaries.
Do I think the honest ones, i.e. small businessmen, do so? No. In fact those types of CEO's live it like its a lifestyle, not just a job, they DO work their asses off.
Novus Zarathustra:Because I was never able to live my life the way I wanted do, I end up at the age of 40, with kids and having to spend his entire life working at a place Wal-Mart or Target if I get lucky enough to even get the job there and be paid decently. ALl the money I'm earning will go toward paying for my bills and feeding my kids because I was never able to go to school, never able to try to make it as an artist since I couldn't afford my tools so I could be making a better salary. Instead I work my ass of, am miserable, and will never be an artist. gg.
Only in a rich, formerly free country could one, in the midst of a horrific depression, think that working in a large store, earning just enough to pay bills and feed kids, is a bad thing. Try explaining to a resident of Tanzania that you are upset that you will stand in a building full of things and earn enough to eat for pressing buttons on a computer.
The Tanzanian works harder than you do, much harder. He spends all day carrying heavy things, and he just watched two of his children starve. So he won't stand for your whining. If you want to be consistent, at least complain on his behalf, not your own.
But it's not about work, it's about what you produce. You might think it is harder to press buttons than to do what a CEO does. But anyone can do your job, and you produce very little. You're only necessary at all because we have division of labor and such massive production that we can have stores. The CEO is an organizer. Without him, your labor would produce even less, because you would not have in front of you a computer to press buttons on. What you're doing is only valuable because of a huge supply chain and the related actions of thousands of people - and the people who bring it all together.
The Tanzanian doesn't have this kind of organization. He has no capital structure, and so has to produce directly from the earth. That is hard.
Now, I agree with a lot of your points, believe it or not. I would like to see more equity, I'd be happy with a lower standard of living with less organization, smaller organizations - and in addition, I think, with Kevin Carson, that in a free society organizations would be smaller with higher production anyway, so its a moot point. But those are my preferences, and I have no right to inflict them on you - to decide for you that production should be smaller and lower so that I can have more free time, or shop at smaller stores, or whatever. I have to find a like-minded group of people and build what I want. If you want a commune, build one. That's a task as hard as what a CEO does, for less pay - but it's building the world you'd like. Just don't demand that people who don't want what you want build it for you.
I sense unrelenting, unthinking envy as the motivation behind much of this.
Honestly, how could anyone disagree with any of this? I dunno - easily? Our economy is a lot less regulated then economies in Scandinavia and Europe. In Sweden its tightly regulated. And you know this, how? Scandinavian countries are comparatively less punitive next to the US when it comes to small businesses. The US is massively regulated, not sure why anyone would deny this... Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society... | Post Points: 35
Our economy is a lot less regulated then economies in Scandinavia and Europe. In Sweden its tightly regulated.
And you know this, how? Scandinavian countries are comparatively less punitive next to the US when it comes to small businesses. The US is massively regulated, not sure why anyone would deny this...
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
I work at a Regal theater, and I make 7.50 an hour. I don't have a problem with my managers (I actually really like the 7 managers I have), and I have no problem with the way the company is run. The only problems I do have are a) minimum wage laws that cut back everyone's hours once it went up from 6.50 to 7.25, and b) that you must get over time pay for more than 80 hours (which cuts us back). Before our theater switched from Consolidated to Regal you were able to work as many hours you wanted without overtime, and everyone preferred it. I don't hate the CEO's, nor would I in any situation. If you don't like how a company is run, work for another or start your own. It's not like the CEO's (or any owner) is ripping you off because you make minimum wage when they live in luxury. I don't believe I'm exploited in any way since I signed a contract, and it's mutual between management and I.
Why is it that the minimum wage jobs are the ones that always take the heat?
Smiling Dave:How could an employer get away with doing this to you? Could you not quit and leave him high and dry? I guess the answer is you can't because SOMEONE ELSE will walk right in the door and HAPPILY work under those conditions. In other words, you have that crapppy job because you are easily replacable.
Thats not freedom at all, they're only choice is to work under those conditions. They have to either starve or be exploited.
Smiling Dave:And yet they don't quit, do they? So it must be worth it, bottom line.
They work their hands until they bleed just so they can support their kids, and they COULD be getting paid more. That CEO hardly works as hard as the single parent with 4 kids with a low-income. I just don't think that is moral.
Smiling Dave:What should they be? A right? So someone should have the right to march into your house and say "I'm your new housekeeper. You have to pay me a decent wage."
You know, its not a bad idea. It would be nice if you could earn $10 an hour at McDonalds, and they can't get away with only hiring 3 people either to adjust to it.
Smiling Dave:Why should they want to cut their own salaries? And of course they pay only what they absolutely have to. Why is this wrong or unfair? It's THEIR money. They did not steal it from you.
Did they earn it? Thats a better question, did they earn it?
Smiling Dave:To believe the 500 U.S. billionaires "deserve" to pay themselves more than they could ever use of those ill-gotten gains
All I'm saying is, if the worker has to enslave himself and work his/her ass off to death just so that they can live a normal life, they shouldn't get fucked in the ass for it, or even be fired when they didn't do anything illegal or against their contract, but simply because it was profitable for the company to not pay for his services, but yet has enough to buy private jets for all the top executives.
Smiling Dave:Let us put aside the hypocrisy in yelling that rich people have comitted crimes, and then turning round and saying you want a piece of the action.
Its not about getting a piece of ass, its about getting what you deserve and SHOULD get for hard work. Compared to the "work" that CEO's of Corporations or millionaires do.
Smiling Dave:C'mon Novus, all this is laid out in great detail and with strong historical and logical proof on this very site. How could you have missed it?
Because I believe in non-aggression, which satisfies being libertarian. If capitalist property is illegitimate by natural law standards regarding ownership, and should belong to the workers themselves (seeing as how they produced it), then it doesn't violate the libertarian injunction against initiatory violence.
That being said, I can empathize with both socialists and ancaps.
Bert: I work at a Regal theater, and I make 7.50 an hour. I don't have a problem with my managers (I actually really like the 7 managers I have), and I have no problem with the way the company is run. The only problems I do have are a) minimum wage laws that cut back everyone's hours once it went up from 6.50 to 7.25, and b) that you must get over time pay for more than 80 hours (which cuts us back). Before our theater switched from Consolidated to Regal you were able to work as many hours you wanted without overtime, and everyone preferred it. I don't hate the CEO's, nor would I in any situation. If you don't like how a company is run, work for another or start your own. It's not like the CEO's (or any owner) is ripping you off because you make minimum wage when they live in luxury. I don't believe I'm exploited in any way since I signed a contract, and it's mutual between management and I.
Do you have to pay bills? Sorry, but this is just the same old rhetoric sung by people who aren't actually in those situations, but are sitting around and musing. Here's a question, what are you going to do about all this? People are working their asses off out of starvation and to make a living, and everyone else on the internet are just blogging and musing.
Novus Zarathustra: Smiling Dave:C'mon Novus, all this is laid out in great detail and with strong historical and logical proof on this very site. How could you have missed it? Because I believe in non-aggression, which satisfies being libertarian. If capitalist property is illegitimate by natural law standards regarding ownership, and should belong to the workers themselves (seeing as how they produced it), then it doesn't violate the libertarian injunction against initiatory violence. That being said, I can empathize with both socialists and ancaps.
This is the result of reading here for a year?
Let's try it the other way round. Why don't you summarize the AE position of why people socialism will leave EVERYONE impoverished and hungry. Then you can refute it. Then we can discuss your refutation.
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It's easy to refute an argument if you first misrepresent it. William Keizer
Novus Zarathustra: Do you have to pay bills? Sorry, but this is just the same old rhetoric sung by people who aren't actually in those situations, but are sitting around and musing. Here's a question, what are you going to do about all this? People are working their asses off out of starvation and to make a living, and everyone else on the internet are just blogging and musing.
I pay for my classes and my phone, once I buy a vehicle (looking for a Jeep for months) I'll be paying for insurance, etc. Yet, what I wonder is, why is someone working a minimum wage job if they actually have to pay bills as if they are living on their own? Not my concern if their life isn't in order, but they should have planned ahead. What am I going to do about this? I'm going to college so I don't end up in my 30's working minimum wage jobs.
You act as if it's the CEO's fault that people from their mid-twenties and older are working minimum wage jobs usually held by high school and college students. Maybe they should have worked harder earlier on, or got into a trade. My brother is one of the hardest working people I know, and he worked two jobs while living on his own right when he got into college, and now he has his own office at an engineering firm at age 28.
Also, to make it seem that I'm not un-sympathetic, before I got a job I helped out with a local chapter of Food Not Bombs feeding the homeless.
Novus Zarathustra:Do you have to pay bills? Sorry, but this is just the same old rhetoric sung by people who aren't actually in those situations, but are sitting around and musing.
What, being poor automatically makes you some kind of authority? So stealing is justified if you're paying your own bills, I see.
Novus Zarathustra: Here's a question, what are you going to do about all this? People are working their asses off out of starvation and to make a living, and everyone else on the internet are just blogging and musing.
No one starves in America. Do you want to know where millions starve? Check your socialist utopias.
Novus Zarathustra:everyone else on the internet are just blogging and musing.
So get your ass off of the internet and start doing some charity. Here's an idea: sell your fancy bourgeois computer and give the money to charity.
"If we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion."
Bert: I pay for my classes and my phone, once I buy a vehicle (looking for a Jeep for months) I'll be paying for insurance, etc. Yet, what I wonder is, why is someone working a minimum wage job if they actually have to pay bills as if they are living on their own? Not my concern if their life isn't in order, but they should have planned ahead. What am I going to do about this? I'm going to college so I don't end up in my 30's working minimum wage jobs.
Why do you expect going to college or working hard will land you a job that pays more than minimum wage? There has to be a capital good that matches your training for you to be employed at that level of productivity, and there are no investments in capital goods going on these days.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
Smiling Dave:Let's try it the other way round. Why don't you summarize the AE position of why people socialism will leave EVERYONE impoverished and hungry. Then you can refute it. Then we can discuss your refutation.
I'm not aware of it, and haven't read it. You know, Mises' ideas are appealing, but they don't do people any good who are working and trying to survive in the real world. Tell me why people send out 20 applications, and don't get hired, or on the offchance they do, they make $30 a week which is hardly enough for their investments as they had hoped.
Esuric:So get your ass off of the internet and start doing some charity. Here's an idea: sell your fancy bourgeois computer and give the money to charity.
Thanks, now I know what to tell arrogant philanthropists who use the same logic on me.
Stranger: Bert: I pay for my classes and my phone, once I buy a vehicle (looking for a Jeep for months) I'll be paying for insurance, etc. Yet, what I wonder is, why is someone working a minimum wage job if they actually have to pay bills as if they are living on their own? Not my concern if their life isn't in order, but they should have planned ahead. What am I going to do about this? I'm going to college so I don't end up in my 30's working minimum wage jobs. Why do you expect going to college or working hard will land you a job that pays more than minimum wage? There has to be a capital good that matches your training for you to be employed at that level of productivity, and there are no investments in capital goods going on these days.
I know it doesn't guarantee anything, but it's a better chance than nothing. I'm majoring in engineering, and I can at least do basic drafting on AutoCAD if I get my associates. I'm contemplating on trying to get a welder's certificate with my associates so I can have experience in both. I took a fundamentals of welding class one semester and did better than the people who are actually trying to be certified.
A lot of people tell me to work at the shipyard for either welding or CAD, and I have no intention to, but welding is always in demand in some sector. The problem is I live in Hamton Roads, and we have the largest naval base in the world (correct me if I'm wrong). A lot of our revenue comes from that, and a lot of people end up working at Northrop-Grumman for either welding or design. I was actually trying to use this to my benefit as if everyone works for the shipyard I'd have less competition in the private sector (sounds like a loose plan, doesn't it?).
Regardless, one can make more than minimum wage depending on the job.
Bert: I know it doesn't guarantee anything, but it's a better chance than nothing.
I know it doesn't guarantee anything, but it's a better chance than nothing.
Nothing doesn't charge tuition and consume your time.
Stranger:Why do you expect going to college or working hard will land you a job that pays more than minimum wage? There has to be a capital good that matches your training for you to be employed at that level of productivity, and there are no investments in capital goods going on these days.
In High School we were all told by our guidance councilors that we could get good jobs when we graduate. However, that is no longer a reality. In College, we are told that we will get good paying salaries when we graduate, but now those days are disappearing.
This is a huge distortion in the market. I just dont think someone should have to be trapped in a recession they weren't a part of causing like a damn dog, and have to suffer from it, because they can't get out of its burdens no matter how hard they try. If they do, what are they rewarded with? This is the problem Socialism seems to replace. We won't have to rely on placing our destinies in the consent of others, like you do with Capitalism.
I for one specialize in the arts, in a community, I could be a cast member in a local theater and a writer. It would be my ability to contribute to the arts, that would be assessed in an economic plan. I could get what I need, as long as I continued to work and devote to the arts, which I do for enjoyment. If I had cancer, I wouldn't have to worry about the consent of the insurance companies as to weather I will live or not, I wont have to worry about the employer's consent of weather I will be working for him for eternity or not
In Socialism, someone who wants to be a teacher will be because each according to his need to his ability, in Capitalism, someone who wants to be a teacher, but can't will end up working at a register stand for their entire life and not earning enough to go to school, but enough to pay for their living.
HUGE difference, workers control is all about taking control of their destiny.
Novus Zarathustra:I'm not aware of it, and haven't read it. You know, Mises' ideas are appealing, but they don't do people any good who are working and trying to survive in the real world.
1. How do you know they are appealing if you haven't read them?
2. They do people in the real world a lot of good. Say there is a thirsty man in the desert. He sees a nice refreshing body of water, and is about to jump in head first, when Mises tells him, "Son, there are alligators in there."
In other words, many foolish people have dressed up their foolish ideas in ways that appeal to the ignorant. Socialism is one of them. Mises explains very clearly why it is a pool of alligators.
His ideas help in another way. To get a solution to the mess you so correctly say we are in, you have to know what is producing the problem. Mises tells you what is causing it, and therefor how to solve it.
The people sending out 20 applications are not getting hired because there are no new jobs. Where did the jobs go? Why did they disappear? How can we make them come back? Mises will tell you.
What good will it do you to know? Because you are a part of public opinion, and the support you throw to any idea gives it that much more chance of success. If you support the right idea, it has that much more chance. You can save us all from jumping in with the alligators.
Will it get you a job? That's not the goal of the site. It is to make sure you help rebuild this country the right way for us all.
Novus Zarathustra: In Socialism, someone who wants to be a teacher will be because each according to his need to his ability, in Capitalism, someone who wants to be a teacher, but can't will end up working at a register stand for their entire life and not earning enough to go to school, but enough to pay for their living.
You are gravely mistaken. Under socialism, someone who does not want to be a teacher will be. You may want to be an artist, but you will likely be made to work as a coal miner
Novus Zarathustra:This is a huge distortion in the market. I just dont think someone should have to be trapped in a recession they weren't a part of causing like a damn dog, and have to suffer from it, because they can't get out of its burdens no matter how hard they try.
It sucks, but we're all stuck in it. The only way out is to fight our way out. There won't be a magical socialist God coming to our rescue. That's superstitious belief.