as long as all reall wages and GDP continue to rise than inflation is not a problem,and is instead held in check by these two things. When wages are stagnant though what may happen is that prices may began to decrease in order to meet demand. Demand is generated by those who are willing to spend there money on real assests,and a majority of consumers are wage earners.
No, it's still a problem. Some of the negative consequences are just offset, to an extent.
-Jon
To darkness I condemn you...
Lisa Hayes: as long as all reall wages and GDP continue to rise than inflation is not a problem,and is instead held in check by these two things. When wages are stagnant though what may happen is that prices may began to decrease in order to meet demand. Demand is generated by those who are willing to spend there money on real assests,and a majority of consumers are wage earners.
Explain to me how this is a justification of unionization and we'll be getting somewhere.
Mises Community Natural Rights Discussion Group
To whom it may concern:
The possessive form of the pronoun "they" is "their."
"There" is a location.
This concludes Lesson 1 of English as a Second Language for Trolls.
I don't think it's constructive to label Lisa as a troll simply because she may be unfamiliar with certain lines of thinking and clearly betrays an internalization of some popular mischaracterizations of our positions. She seems, in many ways, completely normal; she sounds like a good number of people I've spoken to who very much were not trying to bait me into getting upset or anything like that.
But Lisa, it might be helpful to try to make clear exactly what you're hoping to establish, and what sorts of evidence you believe you have to support your position. The idea that capitalism is inherently bad because employers exploit people doesn't really hold up to scrutiny, and I don't think that you're trying to make that argument. But it's not really clear argument you are trying to make. And because of that, it's really difficult to respond effectively. A few pages back, I tried to make a case in favor of non-intervention in labor markets in spite of the potential for suboptimal treatment of workers, but that doesn't seem to have been attacked or accepted. So I'm wondering what you're trying to argue, because if what I said then was correct, it does seem like the conversation should be over. And if there was something wrong with it, I'd very much like to know.
http://libertarian-left.blogspot.com/
Burton Folsom
Haha thanks for the plug! Burt's lectures were pretty awesome. Sheldon Richman's lecture on labor economics was also pretty good, if I remember it correctly. Scineram, were you here this summer?
Nonono, just listened to podcasts.
Lisa Hayes:Why should i trust someone who has consistently made many errors in his writings?
Ha ha! Have you read your own writing? I've scarce seen so many consistent spelling and logic errors. It's really incredible. They aren't even typos, you're just only semi-literate.
Lisa Hayes:in any event i am going to claim that you are making an appeal to authority.
...says the girl who links to Wikipedia to prove a point.
scineram:Burton Folsom
Good old Uncle Bert! Okay, not really.
I think the bottom line here is that, aside from actual violations of an employee's property rights, the terms "exploitation," "mistreatment," "unfair," and so forth, are not susceptible of any sort of objective definition. People want to blame the inconvenient realities of existence onto others. Yes, switching jobs and employers imposes a difficulty on a worker. The reverse is also true: Replacing an employee imposes costs and difficulties on the employer.
There is nothing that the state, through the use or threat of force, can do to mitigate those difficulties without creating new and greater ones. As Mises noted, all interventions into the market produce results which are unsatisfactory even from the point of view of those advocating them. Placing restrictions on employers in the name of helping workers imposes costs on the employers, which drives those at the margin out of business and prevents others from ever entering the market. The result is a smaller pool of employers competing for the services of labor (and for the custom of the consumer.) The intervention, no matter how sincerely it was intended to help workers (or consumers,) ultimately weakens their position in the market and strengthens that of the businesses which survive it.
The phenomenon of the "robber baron," insofar as it actually exists, is a product of government intervention, not of the free market. The figure of the robber baron must be held separate and distinct from the free market entrepreneur. The latter makes his profit entirely through voluntary interactions with both his customers and employees. The former is a rent-seeker (I remember the term "political entrepreneur" being applied to him as well) who gains and maintains his position by petitioning the government to intervene on his behalf, either granting him favors or harming his competition. I would object strongly to Lisa's opening assertion that such persons are to be considered "Captains of Industry," or that such means are primarily responsible for the production of capitalist economies. While they may enrich a few rent-seekers, those methods are a hindrance to economic productivity. They should not be credited with creating the "wonders" referred to in the opening post, but with stifling the creation of even greater ones.
Why do some businessmen resort to rent-seeking and outright force? For the same reasons that some workers do. They see it as a way to strongarm others into meeting demands to which they would not voluntarily accede. They believe they are entitled to take the property of others. Indeed, unions and most other forms of pro-labor activism are nothing more than the flip side of political entrepreneurship. They're every bit as much rent-seekers as the businessmen they oppose, and their motives are no more pure or noble.
Donny with an A:I don't think it's constructive to label Lisa as a troll simply because she may be unfamiliar with certain lines of thinking and clearly betrays an internalization of some popular mischaracterizations of our positions.
That she simply refuses to think and continues with her emotive pleas, though, is evidence that she is a troll. Constructive or not: this is what she is.
Check the other thread where she (if it is a she) wanted to "discuss" monetary economics. I am sorry, but this is a characteristic troll, much like Nathyn was, who only ever wanted to "discuss" things. If she came here to learn, her attitude should be modified accordingly.
Ok, I'll bite.
They did not have to provide a place of work for their employees, and their employees did not have to go there. They voluntarily invested in the construction of their firms, and their employees went there because there was no better alternative. While it's true that the working conditions could have been better, or the wages higher, it is also true that the business owners could have refused to operate their firms at all, and the workers would have recieved nothing from them.
Do you suggest that if the "robber barons" had decided not to open their factories at all, that the government could have forced them to do so? If so, I hope you are aware that you are advocating slavery. If not, then how does the dichotomy that they have the choice between not opening the business at all (and not benefiting the workers at all) or offering an arbitrary level of comfort and wages obtain?
Pro Christo et Libertate integre!
Robber barons: cruel exploiting employees use their bargaining power to force up the price of labour and up its cost.
Lisa Hayes: You must be confusing communism with the non-communist countries such as the USSR,China,and Cuba. Perhaps you should actually read up on communism.
You must be confusing communism with the non-communist countries such as the USSR,China,and Cuba. Perhaps you should actually read up on communism.
Lisa Hayes: Free Market Fundamentalists have a very convient way of promting there veiws. The First thing they do is say what is not the free market,and the second thing they do is rarely define it.
Free Market Fundamentalists have a very convient way of promting there veiws. The First thing they do is say what is not the free market,and the second thing they do is rarely define it.
"As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable."
You may have noticed that LvMI has an entire website dedicated to defining the free market.
ChaseCola: Communist Body Count: 149,469,610
Communist Body Count: 149,469,610
Only 149,469,610?
The following estimates represent citizens killed or starved to death by their own Communist governments since 1918. These numbers do not include war dead.
http://www.digitalsurvivors.com/archives/communistbodycount.php
Lisa Hayes: <Full employment cannot be achieved because unions, minimum wages, and regulations keep the cost of hiring artificially high. In other words, there would be no involuntary unemployment in a free market.> The effects of unions and Minimum wage can be offset by the employment of labor saving devices. what do you think of underemployment? <Yes. That happens when you choose between employer A and employer B. You can choose between the conditions they provide you.> This does not mean the Conditions that you have to choose between are that great.
<Full employment cannot be achieved because unions, minimum wages, and regulations keep the cost of hiring artificially high. In other words, there would be no involuntary unemployment in a free market.>
The effects of unions and Minimum wage can be offset by the employment of labor saving devices. what do you think of underemployment?
<Yes. That happens when you choose between employer A and employer B. You can choose between the conditions they provide you.>
This does not mean the Conditions that you have to choose between are that great.
It works like this: desirable workers get desirable jobs; undesirable workers get undesirable jobs.
Lisa Hayes: For example in columbia Coca-Cola has often times hired thugs with guns to assinate labour leaders,or get rid of workers who are attempting to unionize.
For example in columbia Coca-Cola has often times hired thugs with guns to assinate labour leaders,or get rid of workers who are attempting to unionize.
Wow. You actually believe this?
Ludwig von Mises Institute | 518 West Magnolia Avenue | Auburn, Alabama 36832-4528
Phone: 334.321.2100 · Fax: 334.321.2119
contact@Mises.org | webmaster | AOL-IM MainMises
Mises.org sitemap