30 Dollar Minimum Wage

[Gloominary]

We should have a more socialist government.
Minimum wage should be 30 dollars Canadian an hour.

If small businesses have trouble paying 30 dollars an hour, than government should either reduce taxes on small businesses, and increase taxes on big businesses and/or print money debt free to compensate, or give small businesses enough money so they can pay their workers more, and increase taxes on the rich and/or print money debt free to compensate.
Alternatively, government could give the working poor money directly, and increase taxes on big businesses and/or print money debt free to compensate.

Some might ask why 30 dollars an hour, how did you come up with that figure, why not 40 dollars an hour, why not 400 dollars an hour?
Because according to this: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Ottawa a parent could support a four person family working full time while their partner stays home, or alternatively, both partners could work part time, and either take turns looking after their kids, or look after them together.
A few decades ago, families could afford to do this, they can't now, they should be able to.

What good is economic growth if it only benefits the rich?
If working and 'middle class' (if there is such a thing as the middle class anymore) families aren't seeing their wealth grow, in a 'democracy', than that's actually economic decline.

As for single people, they'd be able to save some money, for if and when they do decide to have a family.
Or they could just use their money to enjoy life more and/or work less.

Working less might hurt the economy, but so what?
Good.
Economic stagnation, or better yet, recession, is what our economy and environment actually needs.
The more a society produces, the more it has to extract from nature, the heavier the toll nature must pay.

What I'd like to see happen is wealth grow a little for working and middle income people, but decline a lot for the rich.
We can achieve something like this if we start voting for the NDP and/or the Green Party in Canada, and stop voting for liberals and conservatives.

[Gloominary]

The economy should decline...scratch that, the economy must decline, or we're all going to die.
Many-most of the things we produce, are either wasted, or frivolously consumed.
We don't need both mothers and fathers working full time, or single people working full time, they should have the option to work less.
If we produced half the amount of say cosmetics, clothes, toys and so on, we'd be just fine, and people would still have the option to work full time if they wanted to, so they could consume more, but few people probably would, and that's critical, as scientists are telling us we're on the verge of another mass extinction event, something that's supposed to have only happened several times during earth's history, all because of human ingenuity.
Human industry and innovation are no longer the solution, they're the scourge.
No amount of more efficient, greener techs alone are going to save us, we need to power down our economies, and re-wild the planet.

[Urwrongx1000]

You should take an economics class.

There is no way 30-dollar minimum wage is feasible without massive inflation. A gallon of milk would cost $5 or $10.

Although I'm not saying this is a good or bad idea. It could very well be a good-idea, but you haven't proved your case. You need to demonstrate economic wisdom, how it would be realistic to expect such an increase, and demonstrate what "benefits" there would be for average or poor people. Poor people would still be poor. There's always an element of humanity that wants to drop out of the system, be lazy, not try, beg borrow steal. They'll never be middle class no matter how you rig the system.

The best such an increase of inflation would do, is make it easier for people to move up (and down) the economic ladder. It could potentially increase the size of the middle class. But that's not necessarily a good result either.

[Silhouette]

Gloominary, I assume you're fairly young or at least new to arguing about this kind of thing. You won't have to look far to find someone with many counters to the things you've said.

I'm very much on the left, economically speaking, but I know that increasing minimum wage addresses a symptom of deeper issues, rather than cures things. The deeper issue at work here is a self-fulfilling power imbalance between employers and employees, in that employers have money to lose before they agree to deals with things like hiring employees or giving them a pay rise. But employees have less time before their money runs out and have to take what they can get - moreso the more unskilled the work they are able to perform:
The more money an employer has, the longer they can hold out before giving in to employees, the more likely employees are to give in to a worse deal just to get something rather than nothing at all, the more money the employees get and so on.

In this way, employers are much more "price makers" and employees are much more "price takers". Of course this isn't black and white, as highly skilled and/or usefully skilled employees are rare and will be able to make employers much more money due to the lack of competition from other similarly skilled employees working for the competition. So the employer can charge more for the rarer product or service that is offered, although there are much fewer employees around to offer a lower wage to get the job instead, bringing down the market value of their skill, so these employees are therefore able to offer to sell their skills only for a higher wage. This is just one of the many natural distortions of the Classical Liberal ideal of "perfect competition" that contributes to (growing) inequality.

Employers as more price makers than price takers will react to minimum wage increases by hiring less workers to decrease their expenses and/or raising their prices to increase their revenues, in order to maintain the same level of profit that they feel entitled to, if any at all. They are the ones who make the decisions, and anything like minimum wage increase will just contribute to unemployment and/or inflation in the way I just described. The rich maintain their dominance and the poor end up losing by the very policy intended to help them. The same happens when taxes rise - and it's the working class who get labelled as "entitled" when they protest(!)

You have to think proportionally rather than absolutely: if you want higher wages for the poorer, this has to be relative to the income of the richer - think maximum wage for example. Though the argument against this is that the rich can also afford to travel and move around much more freely - they'll just move away to an area that doesn't impose higher wage laws or higher taxation. Without their money in the local economy, deflation can occur: anybody who owns anything loses out because there are less people around with money enough to afford to pay the former value of your property anymore. Nobody wants to invest in capital if the assets they buy are going to drop in value and a spiral can occur where nobody can afford or wants to afford to pay people to work for them, to produce the wealth that keeps up the standard of living in the area. Cash flow decreases, loss aversion rises, you get a recession.

That's the theory anyway, and this natural "pareto-like" distribution seems to happen in any free system. Unfortunately the alternative to a free system tends to stifle creativity and increase bureaucracy because you can't just set up a venture outside the plan just because you can - because now you're not allowed. The cost of time, effort as well as any money goes into maintaining the system and away from the system just working for us rather than for itself for its own sake. It doesn't really matter who you vote for, they're not going to be able to escape these things so easily, though some at least try.

I am throwing all of this at you because I would prefer if the left argued better for their cause due to being more informed and prepared for counter arguments. Now you have to try and find a way around all of this

[WendyDarling]

What about FC's idea of doing away with personal income taxes found here:http://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=193409#p2682025 that would free up each individuals money lost to bureaucracy, but would the corporate greed skyrocket against individuals charging individuals higher costs and offering less wages to make up what the companies now have to pay out?

Doing away with personal income taxes is a way to allow individuals to have more discretionary income and that 10%-40% freed up would help many folks.

Also the numbeo site did not make clear how they arrived at their calculations. I guess I need to see exactly how they filled out the calculator aspects for the $900+ canadian/$700+American for a single person seemed awfully low (but I suspect that cars expenses were not included, nor healthcare costs). Also, I was bummed that it didn't cover any smaller communities expense sheets.

[Gloominary]

You should take an economics class.

There is no way 30-dollar minimum wage is feasible without massive inflation. A gallon of milk would cost $5 or $10.

Although I'm not saying this is a good or bad idea. It could very well be a good-idea, but you haven't proved your case. You need to demonstrate economic wisdom, how it would be realistic to expect such an increase, and demonstrate what "benefits" there would be for average or poor people. Poor people would still be poor. There's always an element of humanity that wants to drop out of the system, be lazy, not try, beg borrow steal. They'll never be middle class no matter how you rig the system.

The best such an increase of inflation would do, is make it easier for people to move up (and down) the economic ladder. It could potentially increase the size of the middle class. But that's not necessarily a good result either.

Of course I have a lot to learn about economics.
It seems to me, that if raising the minimum wage a few dollars would or might be worth the inflation, than raising it 10 or 20 dollars would or might be worth it.

I don't think people who don't work should be middle class.
Everyone who can work should work some at least.
Everyone who can't work should have a, 'livable income', so long as they don't use it to pop out 5 or 10 kids.
There should be a 2 child policy for people on income assistance, so they can't abuse the system, or for people in general, to reduce population.
Most people in the 1st world aren't having many kids, if any, but immigrants are.

[Mimisbrunnr]

So Gloominary, what do you think the people who are currently making $30 an hour will think about this? Sure, you may not care what they think but do you think that someone who has worked hard and probably spent a lot of money to get themselves trained to a point where they have the skill sets to make $30/hr is going to continue to see the benefit of doing so?

Do you know that a lot of jobs at that wage are jobs that require licensing, certifications, regular testing and training? Do you know a lot of jobs at that wage are subject to regulations and laws specific to their industry that for example could see them fined or land them in jail for simply forgetting to do X or write down Y? Do you know there are a lot of dangerous jobs at that wage that could easily injure or kill people with a small error or slip in focus, or jobs that over time are dangerously unhealthy for a person? Why the hell would anyone work in a mine if they can just ask you if you want fries with your Burger Supreme combo? And then what happens to those jobs that only a fool would take at that point, and what happens when all the french fry artist positions are full?

Livable wage? What is that? Does that get you a detached house, cars, 50mb/s internet and a dishwasher; how about drugs, fast food, trips to the movies? Who decides what is livable? Why can't they pop out kids? How will you enforce this, certainly not by kidnapping and forced abortions? It's good you are thinking, but I'm not sure you understand the full ramifications of arbitrarily raising minimum wage.

[Gloominary]

@Silhouette

I assume you're fairly young or at least new to arguing about this kind of thing. You won't have to look far to find someone with many counters to the things you've said.

Actually, I'm familiar with most of the counterarguments people are going to make, I just don't care.
Two people having to work full time to support a small family is a bad economy, by any sane definition of a bad economy.
Climate change and resource depletion are seriously threatening the survival of thousands of species, and our species.
It's like people are on fire, and we're having a debate about what's the best way to put the flames out or if anything can be done.
The point is something has to be done immediately, we should all, already be agreeing to that at least, and whatever the consequences are, so long as our economy completely imploding isn't one of them, we'll just have to endure and manage them as we move forward.

Employers as more price makers than price takers

I think part of the problem is immigration, the more people (most of them use to a lower standard of living, and having large families to support) you have lined up to take your job for less, the less bargaining power you have.
That's why I don't think we should have any immigration period, zero.

will react to minimum wage increases by hiring less workers to decrease their expenses

This can be accomplished in some circumstances, to some degree, but not many.
If employees are being paid double what they are in many cases, I don't think corporations could fire half the population to compensate, and still run their corporations, and I don't think you can work the average employee much more than they already are without breaking them.
As for the employees who are laid off and can't find work, just give them welfare until they can, or permanently, and increase the welfare given, so it's above what the unemployed get today, but still below what the employed will make, so the employed still have an incentive.

and/or raising their prices to increase their revenues,

Solution: government freezes the prices for essential goods and services like food and housing, or reduce them.

in order to maintain the same level of profit that they feel entitled to, if any at all. They are the ones who make the decisions

Well we, as a democracy, just have to start incrementally taking things over, and making more of the decisions.

That's the theory anyway, and this natural "pareto-like" distribution seems to happen in any free system.

There's nothing free about this system, even a purely capitalist economy with no corporatism or socialism, the kind so called 'libertarians' are arguing for, is still intrinsically unfree.
For example, under a capitalist system, I can pay government to reserve and protect a piece of land for me, privatize it, a piece of land say I myself never physically set foot on.
That's not freedom, that's robbing people the opportunity to come to or go from that piece of land as they please, or claim it for themselves.
It's a kind of monopolization of what ought to be no man's land, belong to no one, everyone or potentially anyone.
You should have to routinely, physically occupy or possess something in order to claim it, otherwise no one can steal it from you, because you never had it in any meaningful way to begin with in the first place.

Unfortunately the alternative to a free system tends to stifle creativity and increase bureaucracy because you can't just set up a venture outside the plan just because you can - because now you're not allowed. The cost of time, effort as well as any money goes into maintaining the system and away from the system just working for us rather than for itself for its own sake. It doesn't really matter who you vote for, they're not going to be able to escape these things so easily, though some at least try.

There's nothing creative about this system.
Fewer and fewer corporations are running more and more of the economy, stifling creativity and diminishing diversity, freedom of choice.
And even so, creativity is a luxury, if you want to be creative, go paint a picture.
We've had enough of this kind of creative anti-creativity to last us thousands of years.
What really matters is the environment, and that working people can live comfortably, aren't reduced to servants or slaves for the benefit of the usurpers and their destructive vision.
We will have true creativity, equality and freedom when we democratize, and individualize the economy, from the bottom up via collective bargaining or revolution, or from the top down via state democracy (preferably direct democracy), not when a handful of corporations own and control 80% of the wealth and resources.

[WendyDarling]

I agree.

[Gloominary]

I agree.

Right.

When someone hits you, which's what the rich are doing, beating us and the environment to death, do you think to yourself: 'gee, if I hit him, he's just going to hit me again'?
No, you just hit harder, faster and more accurate than him, you keep hitting and hitting until your opponent is subdued, or dead, surrender isn't an option.

[Gloominary]

The economy is only getting worse for working people, it's not going to get any better.
It's been getting worse for decades, as government lowers taxes for the rich, reduces social services and protections from the poor, as manufacturing is being replaced by machines on the one hand, immigrants and jobs being shipped overseas on the other, as the poor are failing to organize themselves in this new economic climate.
Increasingly our labor is being devalued, we're becoming more and more expendable, but big business never seems to run out of excuses to lay us off, and rehire us to perform increasingly meaningless work, anything to keep from paying us a decent, fair wage.

[Gloominary]

What about FC's idea of doing away with personal income taxes found here:http://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=193409#p2682025 that would free up each individuals money lost to bureaucracy, but would the corporate greed skyrocket against individuals charging individuals higher costs and offering less wages to make up what the companies now have to pay out?

Doing away with personal income taxes is a way to allow individuals to have more discretionary income and that 10%-40% freed up would help many folks.

Also the numbeo site did not make clear how they arrived at their calculations. I guess I need to see exactly how they filled out the calculator aspects for the $900+ canadian/$700+American for a single person seemed awfully low (but I suspect that cars expenses were not included, nor healthcare costs). Also, I was bummed that it didn't cover any smaller communities expense sheets.

I'd like to see income taxes reduced for the middle and working class, increased for the upper class, more of that money being used to expand social services and protections, and less being spent on war, and exploiting the environment.

[Mimisbrunnr]

Gloominary, not sure if you missed it or decided not to reply to my post or haven't had time yet, but would you care to address these points?

So Gloominary, what do you think the people who are currently making $30 an hour will think about this? Sure, you may not care what they think but do you think that someone who has worked hard and probably spent a lot of money to get themselves trained to a point where they have the skill sets to make $30/hr is going to continue to see the benefit of doing so?

Do you know that a lot of jobs at that wage are jobs that require licensing, certifications, regular testing and training? Do you know a lot of jobs at that wage are subject to regulations and laws specific to their industry that for example could see them fined or land them in jail for simply forgetting to do X or write down Y? Do you know there are a lot of dangerous jobs at that wage that could easily injure or kill people with a small error or slip in focus, or jobs that over time are dangerously unhealthy for a person? Why the hell would anyone work in a mine if they can just ask you if you want fries with your Burger Supreme combo? And then what happens to those jobs that only a fool would take at that point, and what happens when all the french fry artist positions are full?

Livable wage? What is that? Does that get you a detached house, cars, 50mb/s internet and a dishwasher; how about drugs, fast food, trips to the movies? Who decides what is livable? Why can't they pop out kids? How will you enforce this, certainly not by kidnapping and forced abortions? It's good you are thinking, but I'm not sure you understand the full ramifications of arbitrarily raising minimum wage.

[Gloominary]

@Mim

So Gloominary, what do you think the people who are currently making $30 an hour will think about this?

Hopefully that will balance itself out in time, that gradually they'll be paid more money to compensate them for their more dangerous or difficult job, but if that process is too slow, than perhaps government measures can be taken to make sure they get paid a better wage...but I'm just as, if not more concerned about corporate CEOs giving themselves a raise at working peoples expense, just because they can.
CEOs who make millions of dollars to do a job that isn't dangerous at all, that's cushy, that's no more difficult than what many skilled white collar workers do.
Working people, who can barely afford to put food on the table, who subsist by and large on egg noodles and ketchup.

Livable wage? What is that? Does that get you a detached house, cars, 50mb/s internet and a dishwasher; how about drugs, fast food, trips to the movies?

No it just means you can afford to rent an apartment, take the bus and eat at least some fresh, whole foods as opposed to exclusively consuming KD, boxed, canned, frozen and packaged foods, without having to bag, borrow or steal on top of their meager, measly welfare or disability check.
So they don't have to live in their vehicles, shelters or on the street, many of them currently have no choice.
And drug abuse should be treated as a disease issue, not a criminal one, drugs should be decriminalized.
Of course some of them are going to spend much-most of their money on drugs, but at least they won't have to steal.
However most people on welfare or disability spend most-all of their money on their needs.
Once their conditions improve, once they can see and feel that society actually gives a shit, maybe then many of them will be able to get off the drugs and contribute something, give back.

Who decides what is livable?

We as a democracy by having thoughtful discussions about it.

Why can't they pop out kids? How will you enforce this, certainly not by kidnapping and forced abortions?

Government gaining custody of the third child or forced abortions are options, another is putting the mother, and the father, if he's an accomplice, in jail.
If they don't like it, they can get off the dole, and if they can't, too bad.
Just as people who subsist on the dole shouldn't be permitted to live a life of luxury, just as they shouldn't have much more than the basics, they shouldn't be permitted to have all these kids they don't need to have, can't care for, and expect society to care for them, especially in the middle of an overpopulation crisis.

[Mr Reasonable]

Unless 30 dollars accurately represents in the market the value of what you contributed to society/humanity/etc, then it's immoral to take it as pay. So if all the breadmakers of the world make all the bread that they can, and then there isn't enough for everyone in the world to have bread, then first the breadmakers and wheat farmers and so on should get some bread and then after that the people who contribute things of value that benefit the breadmakers should get some, then after that the people who contributed less should get a little, and if there's some left then they should maybe hand it out to the people who didn't do anything that was worth a loaf of bread just because they're hungry I guess.

But if everyone thinks that there's some set rule that everyone is going to get some bread then they're just being naive about how the economy works. It's not like there's some warehouse somewhere full of bread that's enough to feed everyone forever. People have to make that shit and it takes time out of their lives and takes their effort. Rich people with a lot of money could hand it all out and the grocery stores would run out of bread because everyone would buy it up and then not only would there be no bread, but all the money would go right back to the rich. The reason that they don't hand out money equally to everyone in the world is that there would be no incentive for breadmakers to make more bread than they themselves needed to eat, and because rich people hoarding money makes it so that people who don't want to farm wheat and help make bread either have to get off their asses and help out, or not get to share in as much bread. At a certain point when you have enough money to buy everything that you want, you buy that shit. Then the money that you have leftover you use to help society by at least trying to be sure that you don't make incentives for people to just lay around on Earth sucking up resources and not doing anything to help out in procuring them.

Some people simply don't want to have to earn what they need, any they don't want to have to sacrifice things that they want. They just want it handed to them. I'm not talking about the disabled, or the mentally challenged or those who are truly unable to care for themselves. If those were the only people wanting welfare then welfare wouldn't cost as much as it does. I'm talking about the ones who spend money on pet food, and who buy video games and who drink sodas when water is cheaper and healthier. The guys who smoke 2 packs a day and complain that they can't afford healthcare when the cigarettes would cover the insurance and on top of that make them healthier. They don't want to be healthy, they want to win some perceived class war and they want something for free. What kind of parent would allow a child to grow up being placated under this frame of mind? A culture of dependence happens when you think that all your problems are someone else's fault/responsibility. I feel like I'm living in a world of people who got picked up and patted on the back every time they cried as a baby and every time they fell down as children. Emotional cripples who just cannot, and who simply will not accept that there's only 1 person who should be looking out for each person in the world and that it's themselves.

When I'm looking out for myself and I'm doing ok, that's how it's supposed to be. When someone else isn't and then they want my help, that means that I'm going to have less than I deserve because someone else isn't cutting it. It may be that I'm luckier, or smarter, or have found more opportunities. Who cares? People should have the right to benefit from their luck and their intelligence and their opportunities without others coming along and wanting a piece of something that they feel entitled to. Just because something bad happened to you, or because you're unfit for the task of supporting yourself in the world doesn't mean that someone else should be obligated to take care of you. No one has a right to nice things and to a sense of economic security just for standing around at some job or another for 40 hours a week. A lot of jobs are already charity in and of themselves. A cashier making 15 bucks an hour is a joke. It's not even necessary to have someone do that job and yet companies pay people all the time to just fucking stand there and do something a customer could do themselves. Then the asshole charity cases have the nerve to say they're underpaid. Ridiculous. Not everyone is as smart or as lucky as everyone else, and so if everything is distributed equally, then it's not really fair. Intelligence and luck are like lotteries. If you're born dumb and unlucky, then you have to work harder and you get less out of life. It isn't right to put the burden of raising up all those people on the ones who are born smart and who are lucky. It's also bad for natural selection. The longer we hold up the dumb and the unlucky artificially, then the longer we have to deal with the problem of people not participating in advancing humanity.

[Gloominary]

@Mr Reasonable

Unless 30 dollars accurately represents in the market the value of what you contributed to society/humanity/etc, then it's immoral to take it as pay. So if all the breadmakers of the world make all the bread that they can, and then there isn't enough for everyone in the world to have bread, then first the breadmakers and wheat farmers and so on should get some bread and then after that the people who contribute things of value that benefit the breadmakers should get some, then after that the people who contributed less should get a little, and if there's some left then they should maybe hand it out to the people who didn't do anything that was worth a loaf of bread just because they're hungry I guess. But if everyone thinks that there's some set rule that everyone is going to get some bread then they're just being naive about how the economy works. It's not like there's some warehouse somewhere full of bread that's enough to feed everyone forever. People have to make that shit and it takes time out of their lives and takes their effort. Rich people with a lot of money could hand it all out and the grocery stores would run out of bread because everyone would buy it up and then not only would there be no bread, but all the money would go right back to the rich. The reason that they don't hand out money equally to everyone in the world is that there would be no incentive for breadmakers to make more bread than they themselves needed to eat, and because rich people hoarding money makes it so that people who don't want to farm wheat and help make bread either have to get off their asses and help out, or not get to share in as much bread. At a certain point when you have enough money to buy everything that you want, you buy that shit. Then the money that you have leftover you use to help society by at least trying to be sure that you don't make incentives for people to just lay around on Earth sucking up resources and not doing anything to help out in procuring them. Some people simply don't want to have to earn what they need, any they don't want to have to sacrifice things that they want. They just want it handed to them. I'm not talking about the disabled, or the mentally challenged or those who are truly unable to care for themselves. If those were the only people wanting welfare then welfare wouldn't cost as much as it does. I'm talking about the ones who spend money on pet food, and who buy video games and who drink sodas when water is cheaper and healthier. The guys who smoke 2 packs a day and complain that they can't afford healthcare when the cigarettes would cover the insurance and on top of that make them healthier. They don't want to be healthy, they want to win some perceived class war and they want something for free. What kind of parent would allow a child to grow up being placated under this frame of mind? A culture of dependence happens when you think that all your problems are someone else's fault/responsibility. I feel like I'm living in a world of people who got picked up and patted on the back every time they cried as a baby and every time they fell down as children. Emotional cripples who just cannot, and who simply will not accept that there's only 1 person who should be looking out for each person in the world and that it's themselves. When I'm looking out for myself and I'm doing ok, that's how it's supposed to be. When someone else isn't and then they want my help, that means that I'm going to have less than I deserve because someone else isn't cutting it. It may be that I'm luckier, or smarter, or have found more opportunities. Who cares? People should have the right to benefit from their luck and their intelligence and their opportunities without others coming along and wanting a piece of something that they feel entitled to. Just because something bad happened to you, or because you're unfit for the task of supporting yourself in the world doesn't mean that someone else should be obligated to take care of you. No one has a right to nice things and to a sense of economic security just for standing around at some job or another for 40 hours a week. A lot of jobs are already charity in and of themselves. A cashier making 15 bucks an hour is a joke. It's not even necessary to have someone do that job and yet companies pay people all the time to just fucking stand there and do something a customer could do themselves. Then the asshole charity cases have the nerve to say they're underpaid. Ridiculous. Not everyone is as smart or as lucky as everyone else, and so if everything is distributed equally, then it's not really fair. Intelligence and luck are like lotteries. If you're born dumb and unlucky, then you have to work harder and you get less out of life. It isn't right to put the burden of raising up all those people on the ones who are born smart and who are lucky. It's also bad for natural selection. The longer we hold up the dumb and the unlucky artificially, then the longer we have to deal with the problem of people not participating in advancing humanity.

Yea just because you're rich, doesn't mean you're contributing.
You might've inherited your money, you might've won it gambling or dealing 'pharmaceutical' (people 'depend' on) or 'recreational' (people are 'addicted' to) drugs.
You might be rich, through your own hand or someone or something else's, and your renters or employees poor, so you can charge and pay them practically anything you want, overwork them, lay many of them off as soon as you can replace them with cheaper computers/machines, immigrants or ship their jobs overseas, even tho they might've collectively contributed just as much or much, much more than you to the company over the years, rather than keeping them, increasing their pay and reducing their hours like you ought to.
You might not even contribute anything to your company, you might just own it, while you let others manage it.

Humanity is hundreds of times more productive today than it was centuries ago, thanks to modern science, social engineering and tech, that's why so many people no longer need to be involved in the production of essential goods and services: food, clothing and shelter, and so many people can be involved in producing toys and such.
In the preindustrial economy, only approximately 1% of the population wasn't involved in food production, today it's 99%, that's how far we've come in some ways, but in others, things never seem to change.
While the poor today have some flashy appliances, toys and better medicine (better medicine, we think, I'm not so sure our health has collectively improved all that much, if at all, but for the sake of argument and not derailing my own thread, we will assume temporarily assume it has), we really haven't seen all this tech progress translate into better wages, more leisure and fundamentally, more control over our own destiny.
Now the wealth and resources are there, they're just being hoarded by the rich.
The rich just keep investing more and more of their surplus in producing increasingly frivolous goods and services they by and large make the money off and consume, instead of giving people a fair, decent wage so they don't have to work so much, and so we don't have to pilfer as many resources from the earth to make all this crap.

Furthermore, as I was saying earlier to Silhouette, the capitalist conception of property is a kind of theft from what ought to belong to no one, everyone or potentially anyone, to begin with.

Furtherurtherrmore, in our economies, corporations, 'too big to fails', receive corporate welfare, and of course there's all kinds of tax breaks and loop holes.
We don't even have pure capitalism, we have corporatism, and a little bit of socialism, throw the peasants a few crumbs while individuals and 'identities', like races, religions and sexes fight over them.
Identity politics by/large keep us distracted from genuine problems.

Now I myself am not demanding the moon, I don't think, I'm demanding a 'livable income'.
Of course not every economic injustice committed can be corrected, that'd require too much bureaucracy and tax, but there are broad injustices in economy that need to be, and that's why I recommend everyone who's effected or cares about these issues, vote for a third party, vote NDP, Green Party or independent, and write about these issues, become an activist.

There are systems to protect people who can't work and people who're underpaid already in place, they're just arguably insufficient.
I'm not suggesting people who can, but don't work should get anything, should be plenty of checks and balances to make sure that doesn't happen, that the system doesn't get abused, and those checks and balances are now adequately in place in my estimation.
I'm just arguing that these systems don't pay enough, that the cost of living has been dramatically rising for decades, and is continuing to rise, while wages stagnate, even as the economy continues to steadily grow.
Of course that's no accident, it's by design.
It's not going to correct itself, it's been getting worse and will only continue to.
Doesn't matter which of the two dominant parties get elected, both are demonstrably owned and controlled by big business.
If people want to see real change, they're going to have to either do it themselves, or vote for parties and individuals who don't get any media coverage, precisely because they don't get any media coverage.

[Mr Reasonable]

Just opt out and take care of yourself.

[Silhouette]

Actually, I'm familiar with most of the counterarguments people are going to make, I just don't care.
It's like people are on fire, and we're having a debate about what's the best way to put the flames out or if anything can be done.

Right, so an argument from pathos rather than logos. Prepare to be dismissed by those who can just as easily and authentically say they equally don't care about your concerns - but like you said, you don't care. Communication breakdown.
Personally though, I would prefer a solution that actually worked in reality and didn't make everything worse, which requires reason. Jumping the gun due to an emotional response - no matter how justified - could just as easily ruin everything.

Two people having to work full time to support a small family is a bad economy, by any sane definition of a bad economy.

A sane definition of a good economy might be one that maximises contributions from as many people as possible, including both parents of families of any size (potentially even their kids and retirees too), in order to supply all their respective needs to an even greater extent, utilising all the types and degrees of talent available for the provision of the best possible goods and services. This individualism disintegrates the biological family entirely except by coincidence, or arguably it expands the concept of family to encompass the entire economy. Whether or not you prefer this vision is arbitrary, personally I wouldn't prefer it, but I don't think it's necessarily insane.

Climate change and resource depletion are seriously threatening the survival of thousands of species, and our species.

And as long as we can keep on top of it and continue to innovate our way around such problems, our species will persist. The vast majority of species that have ever existed are already extinct, and newer ones are being discovered all the time. Natural selection is topping up everything we're losing.

I think part of the problem is immigration, the more people (most of them use to a lower standard of living, and having large families to support) you have lined up to take your job for less, the less bargaining power you have.
That's why I don't think we should have any immigration period, zero.

And the other side of the same coin is that immigration allows access to new perspectives and non-local talent that can be combined with local talent in order to achieve better results than we could from the utilisation of just local talent.
And of course, the lower the wages, the more employees can be hired and/or the products or services can be sold cheaper. Thus you don't need as large a wage in order to afford the same stuff you always bought before.
Honestly, I think the immigration argument is rubbish.

If employees are being paid double what they are in many cases, I don't think corporations could fire half the population to compensate, and still run their corporations, and I don't think you can work the average employee much more than they already are without breaking them.

You'd be surprised what you can take as an employee: if you've ever been one of the remaining employees after punishing numbers of redundancies are imposed on the workforce of the company you still work for - as I have - you might assume it's all over and your new challenges insurmountable - as I did - yet somehow find yourself still above water. This is especially so if you're desperate to keep your job as some source of guaranteed income as opposed to risking an unknown period of none.

As for the employees who are laid off and can't find work, just give them welfare until they can, or permanently, and increase the welfare given, so it's above what the unemployed get today, but still below what the employed will make, so the employed still have an incentive.

This is what I am in favour of: a living wage for all those not in work so they aren't forced to accept a low wage out of fear of being given even less in benefits or nothing at all to live on. The problem is how to fund this as, for one, it's probably far more expensive than you might guess, and if too many opt for it instead of working, there are less opportunities to tax everyone to fund it and the provision of currently expected levels of goods and services may decline with less people employed to offer them. This would require even higher welfare to afford what you were previously used to, which may now have inflated in price as well as what you're used to is now more rare with less competition, and with demand for it much higher - the resulting spiral here ought to be clear to see.

However, tax always happens at the point that money changes hands, and the money is still in the economy so the taxation could surely just be restructured to extract the same levels of government income. As to what this money corresponds to in real wealth terms, it's debatable that productivity would actually decrease if people had a viable option not to work. Apparently experiments with universal basic income have worked out pretty well - I think if anything, the types of things offered in the market might change, but the basics and the amount of business would be sustained.

Solution: government freezes the prices for essential goods and services like food and housing, or reduce them.

Unfortunately you might have a great deal of home owners and landlords not wanting their property to drop in value to much less than they paid to buy it. They've already contributed to the problem by resisting further housing being built near theirs as it might reduce the value of their property if it's unsightly as low cost housing is usually seen to be. And without the incentive that your property will increase in value, less houses will be privately built anyway. Those who fund the building of a house will have to offer builders much less or it will have cost them much more to fund the building of the house than to sell it, making it even less appealing to get into construction leaving fewer people to actually do the building. Also, the fact that most people can't afford to own a property and are forced to rent gives them much more freedom to move house - it's a lot easier.
But honestly I do despise the disproportionately high cost of living, it's not like renting arrangements or other alternatives couldn't be made if houses were cheaper to buy like they used to be not even that long ago. Socially funded housing is fine by me, but again, there is the problem of increasing tax revenues to afford it.

Well we, as a democracy, just have to start incrementally taking things over, and making more of the decisions.

That's what government is supposed to be for, in theory. If those in charge become too oppressive and conditions imposed by them too harsh, those near the top are supposed to overthrow and replace them - this is what happens to smaller extents in socially developed species naturally, and historically it has happened plenty of times with humans to much larger extents. The problem is that things have to get much much worse than they currently are to motivate such a revolution. If people aren't literally starving they tend not to be motivated to such extremes that they will resort to drastic action. Our government is meant to represent our collective wishes and provide a greater power over our capitalist masters as a mechanism to overthrow them to the kinds of scales we see today. But in practice, they are paid for by the masters so....

There's nothing free about this system, even a purely capitalist economy with no corporatism or socialism, the kind so called 'libertarians' are arguing for, is still intrinsically unfree.
For example, under a capitalist system, I can pay government to reserve and protect a piece of land for me, privatize it, a piece of land say I myself never physically set foot on.

Decentralised then. Granted that there is nothing free about any system in a deterministic universe where everything is determined to do what it does by prior things since long before you even existed. Further, everything you do effects everyone else at least minimally and indirectly. And even a weaker definition of freedom has a dual nature: one man's freedom in a finite space is another man's restriction as you say. The super rich even intentionally buy several houses in an area just to live in the most secluded one for more privacy. They're free to do that, but nobody else is free to live in or even enter the grounds of these unused houses.

And even so, creativity is a luxury, if you want to be creative, go paint a picture.

Absolutely disagree. We need to be creative to get around this seemingly naturally emerging inequality that is just going to grow until only one person has all the wealth. I agree that the environment is an issue, but its destruction is only really a natural consequence of free "decentralised" markets. The problem is that the ideology, based around self-interest, has enough people competing on equal enough grounds so as to mutually keep everyone else in check. But with growing inequality, this Classical Liberal ideal just gets further and further out of wack and the environment and the poor pay for it.

[Fixed Cross]

Every child man and woman should have bread to eat
we should have cafeterias where you can get a daily meal with an iris scan.
Problem solved.

I mean people can be homeless, but not starving. A lot of great people were homeless at one point.

[Fixed Cross]

Money is really a luxury.

[Fixed Cross]

But you'll see people will try to sell their daily bread for a snippet of fake gold so they can die holding it close.

"Fake Wage"

[Gloominary]

@Silhouette

Right, so an argument from pathos rather than logos. Prepare to be dismissed by those who can just as easily and authentically say they equally don't care about your concerns - but like you said, you don't care. Communication breakdown.

It's not that I don't care at all, or I wouldn't've been busy trying to rebut peoples arguments against mine here, or propose counter, countermeasures for dealing with how capitalists and the economy might react to significant socialist reforms, it's that in all likelihood, nothing anyone is going to say to me is going to change my mind about needing a major minimum wage increase, or some combination of substantial socialist reforms or an anarchist revolt.

A sane definition of a good economy might be one that maximises contributions from as many people as possible

No a sane definition is one that, minimizes, contributions from as many people as possible.
Humanities biggest problem is humanism, that it overvalues its own industry and innovation.
Productivity is not a good, or if it is, you can have too much of a good thing.
Infinite growth on a finite planet is a recipe for annihilation.

And I find the notion we're going to someday colonize, farm and mine other planets for their resources anytime soon, if ever, profoundly absurd.
It would cost quadrillions of dollars, preposterously more money than we have to attempt such a feat, and it'd be just that, an attempt, we have no idea if such things are even possible.
I mean sure, that's what they said about landing on the moon, that it was impossible, but supposedly we did (I'm not sure that we did, but I'll leave that for another thread).
But it was also said God himself couldn't sink the titanic.

On top of that resources like oil, gas, uranium and so on are getting harder and harder to come by.
There's talk about massive soil erosion and water shortages on the horizon.
We don't even have the resources or tech to even attempt such a thing, and we need to power down our economy and reverse population growth immediately.

We've already made such a mess of our own planet: thousands of species extinct, and thousands more to come, our own species, life as we know it on the verge of annihilation, climate change, world war 3 over the now dwindling resources, and on and on.
No combination of more efficient or greener techs is going to permit us to continue to grow forever.

Not only do we face collective destruction, thanks to modern science, social engineering and tech, but I'm not sure we're any happier or healthier as individuals as well.
We're certainly not any, freer, modernity is a double edged sword.

I'm pro economic sustainability...scratch that, I'm pro economic stagnation, if not outright recession.
We need to learn much more about how to live in harmony with the world and ourselves before we even dream about spreading our civilization to other worlds.
As it stands, our civilization is cancerous.

Humanity should by and large only produce what it needs to survive, and not a whole lot else.
There's far too many toys, too much crap, junk and waste, and too many people.

Of course humanity probably won't heed the warnings some sensible economists, scientists, thinkers and writers are making, we're going to continue on this path of self-destruction until it's too late.
The bulk of us are just goin to have to learn these lessons the hard way, if we're around to learn them, that is.

Study history, civilizations, like individuals and species, come and go, many of them because of things like climate change, or political, economic and ecological overexpansion.
What makes you so certain ours is on solid footing?
To me it looks more like quicksand.
Modernity has only been around for a couple of centuries, a tiny blip in human history, itself likely a tiny blip in the history of the world.

Arguably only A few civilizations have been around for millennia, remained roughly intact, but incrementally declined until they were shadows of their former selves, and only few of them were able to re-ascend, like China.
Even if we are fundamentally progressing as a species, civs often take a few steps back after taking several steps forward anyway and we're long overdo.

Innovation comes and goes, I think we're less innovative now than we were in the early 20th to mid 20th century, I mean other than the internet and phones, little else has had a revolutionary impact on our day to day lives.
Perhaps most or all of the low hanging fruit sort of speak have been plucked at least for now, and it'll be centuries or millennia before we're able to get seriously innovative again.

The first civilizations on record Egypt and Sumer were very innovative, they gave us the wheel, courthouses, metallurgy and professional armies, so many firsts within just several centuries.
Ironically the Giza Pyramids were far more impressive than the pyramids that came afterwards, but then it took civilization perhaps till now before it saw as many or more firsts as it did then.

In summary innovation and progress aren't givens, far from it, we're taking it all for granted.

(potentially even their kids and retirees too)

I find that abhorrent, putting kids and retirees to work, like they're just machines, their lives only valued for their utility.

And as long as we can keep on top of it and continue to innovate our way around such problems, our species will persist. The vast majority of species that have ever existed are already extinct, and newer ones are being discovered all the time. Natural selection is topping up everything we're losing.

It's modern scientific and tech innovation that generated the problems in the first place.
Human extinction wasn't a serious possibility in the pre or early industrial era, now it is.
Perhaps the solution is to slow science and tech innovation down to a crawl, so potential threats can be ascertained beforehand, rather than afterward, if not stop innovation altogether.
Test major innovations on smaller scales over longer periods of time, before we even consider implementing them ubiquitously.

And the other side of the same coin is that immigration allows access to new perspectives and non-local talent that can be combined with local talent in order to achieve better results than we could from the utilisation of just local talent.

And the flipside of this is that some immigrants and their way of life may not be compatible with western civilization.
It was German immigrants who brought the Roman Empire down.
Of course by then their civilization was weakened, but so has ours arguably.
I want to protect our environment, the last thing I want is for Canada to have millions of more mouths to feed.

And of course, the lower the wages, the more employees can be hired and/or the products or services can be sold cheaper. Thus you don't need as large a wage in order to afford the same stuff you always bought before.

No products won't be sold cheaper, that's why prices almost always incline while wages almost always stagnate.
Instead capitalists will use the increase in profits they make to buy lots of shit and have fun with it at our expense, or invest it in more needless productivity for its own sake, and they will almost exclusively benefit monetarily and materially from it, or no one really benefits either way more of our precious resources are squandered.

a living wage for all those not in work so they aren't forced to accept a low wage out of fear of being given even less in benefits or nothing at all to live on.

Maybe we should scrap min wage altogether, and put the poor to work 12-16 hours a day like they do in China, making more gadgets, gizmos and toys for the rich, maybe that further increase in economic growth and environmental decay will somehow innovate us into saving the environment, kind of like borrowing yourself out of debt.

Universal welfare?
I think many-most people are too selfish, and would abuse the system you propose.
I mean for someone who criticized me earlier for proposing a big min wage increase and supposedly not being prepared for counterarguments, what you propose here seems much less feasible.
And if a lot of people abuse and take advantage of it, inflation will soar and skyrocket.

I think everyone that can work should, there needs to be some challenge and growth in life, and some shouldn't work hard to feed others who refuse to feed themselves, it's just that challenge should be proportionate to resources available, rather than this artificial scarcity we have now thanks to capitalism.
While increasing min wage and the amount welfare pays, if anything I'd put more checks and balances in place, to make sure only people who genuinely need it are receiving it.

Unfortunately you might have a great deal of home owners and landlords not wanting their property to drop in value to much less than they paid to buy it.

Whatever has to be done, if government has to take over a large portion of the food and hosing industries to ensure people have inexpensive food to eat, so be it.
It can be done, and already has been done in Canada to an extent.
It may just be better to do this, than increase minimum wage, or it may be better to do both in conjunction.
Government will just have to print money or tax the rich, and when this causes inflation, so be it, really all that matters is essentials like food, housing and healthcare are inexpensive.
Or government can fund these industries with the revenue it makes from selling these inexpensive goods.
It may not make a lot, but once these industries are taken over, the value of a dollar will dramatically change.

The problem is that things have to get much much worse than they currently are to motivate such a revolution.

Unfortunately working people don't have much of a spine anymore, if they ever did, the establishment has them completely bamboozled.
Indeed sometimes conditions have to get really bad, before they get good.
There are genuine socialist parties in Canada, the US and the UK, but conveniently for the cryptocrats no one gives them the time of day.

Decentralised then. Granted that there is nothing free about any system in a deterministic universe where everything is determined to do what it does by prior things since long before you even existed.

I'm not sure the universe is entirely deterministic, but that's neither here nor there.
That's a metaphysical question, we're talking about sociology, politics and economics here, the meaning of the word free radically changes depending on the context you're using it in.
Your needs and desires may be completely determined by genes, social conditioning, the environment, but some systems have fewer sociopolitical and economic restrictions on your needs and desires than others.

Also, just because your society is decentralized, doesn't mean it's free, case in point: feudalism.
And also, you could conceivably have both a state, and a free market, but a different conception of property than the capitalist one, where either there are limits to how much real estate you can own/government will protect for you, but you can still do anything with your property that you wish, like pay someone 1 dollar an hour to work on it, or build unsafe housing and charge people an arm and a leg to live there.

Myself I never agreed to the rulers or rules our economy is governed by, many of us never did, and so I have very little loyalty to this system.

Further, everything you do effects everyone else at least minimally and indirectly.

Right, that's why when it comes to the economy and the environment I think there should be some basic restrictions on what people can get away with, unless we did away with the state and/or the capitalist conception of property altogether (which gives you the right to own as much stuff and land as you can pay government to protect for you) for the aforementioned alternative conception of property, than I think we could have a free market, we probably wouldn't need much-any coercion.

And even a weaker definition of freedom has a dual nature: one man's freedom in a finite space is another man's restriction as you say.

And the more finite the space, the less free you are, which's the flipside of urbanity and high population density, in many ways society was freer when it was more rural.

Absolutely disagree. We need to be creative to get around this seemingly naturally emerging inequality that is just going to grow until only one person has all the wealth. I agree that the environment is an issue, but its destruction is only really a natural consequence of free "decentralised" markets. The problem is that the ideology, based around self-interest, has enough people competing on equal enough grounds so as to mutually keep everyone else in check. But with growing inequality, this Classical Liberal ideal just gets further and further out of wack and the environment and the poor pay for it.

Capitalism isn't based on self-interest really, at least not entirely.
It's a certain way to do an economy, its rules and regulations permit people insane amounts of wealth, or none at all, depending on their luck, talent, tenacity, or how much corruption they can get away with.
It also tends to benefit the haves more than the have nots, hence rich get richer poor poorer.
In the beginning of capitalist economies, when the gap between rich/poor was relatively slight, and there were a lot of frontiers, low hanging fruit, there were lots of opportunities for poor people to strike it rich, or at least middle class.

But overtime, frontiers have shrunk, disparities have grown tremendously, and classes have become more deeply entrenched and virtually impossible to challenge within the limitations of the system.
For the people it hasn't benefited much, or at all, it's a kind of altruism on their behalf to continue supporting it.
And of course the system has become monstrously corrupt, megabanks and corporations form cartels, receive welfare/propped up by government so they can never be challenged/held accountable, tax breaks, loopholes...
It's only a matter of time before it completely collapses, catapulting us into a new dark age, or there's a revolution, either one.

But even if there is a revolution, of course it doesn't mean things are going to get any better, for example a military dictator may rise to power in the USA or Europe to seemingly challenge the establishment, he may promise the poor some relief, and he and his immediate successors may deliver on some of those promises, for a while, but in exchange for most of the democracy and freedom they have left.
Eventually he/his successors will form an absolute dictatorship, and then people will be totally enslaved.

I think it's a combination of capitalism, science and tech that's allowed us to threaten the environment as much as we have.
Capitalism without modern science, without the technological revolutions of the 19th and 20th century: planes, trains and automobiles, electricity, the green revolution and so on, certainly wouldn't've given us climate change or anywhere near as much overpopulation, pollution, deforestation and so forth as we have now.
It's not just capitalism that's the problem, it's technology itself, especially when it's in the wrong hands. If you have a 'communist' dictatorship that only cares about furthering its own power in the short term, then it may start nuclear war, or a series of events leading to nuclear war, expand itself both politically, and/or economically, with no regard for who or what gets in its way.

[Urwrongx1000]

Everyone who can work should work some at least.
Everyone who can't work should have a, 'livable income',

You're a naive socialist.

First of all, it's against personal "Freedoms" to force people to work against their will. Perhaps you are pro-slavery then too???

Secondly, people who don't work, don't deserve income. Money doesn't appear from nowhere. If you are want to give-outs to lazy people then are you doing so in your personal life? Do you give $100 to every homeless person you see? Nope, you don't, because you probably don't have a job, and are probably living under your parent's roof, or somebody else is footing your bills.

Prove me wrong. I dare you.

[Gloominary]

@Wrong

First of all, it's against personal "Freedoms" to force people to work against their will. Perhaps you are pro-slavery then too???

By forcing people to work, I just meant not giving people money who clearly just don't want to work, I thought we'd at least be in agreement on that.
If they want to beg, fine, if they want to steal, I could care less, I don't respect this economy enough to care if people steal from corporations.

Secondly, people who don't work, don't deserve income.

People who can't work deserve income, people who won't work don't deserve income.
But everyone who can't work or works deserves a livable, decent income, we don't have that now, for reasons I've already covered extensively.

Money doesn't appear from nowhere.

Neither do houses and boats, nature has to be cut down to supply them, that's why our economies need to shrink, that's why we need to begin greening and localizing, rather than globalizing.

you are want to give-outs to lazy people

That's not what I said, how much of what I said did you read, 5%?

then are you doing so in your personal life?

I occasionally give a few dollars to the homeless, even tho I'm poor myself.

because you probably don't have a job, and are probably living under your parent's roof, or somebody else is footing your bills.

I'm a janitor and I pay my own bills.

[Urwrongx1000]

Everyone who can work should work some at least.
Everyone who can't work should have a, 'livable income',

This is what you said, "everyone who can work should work"

So you're contradicting yourself already.

Do you want to take back "everyone who can't work, should have a livable income" too?