Ultimately, businesses offer poor compensation because they can get away with it and society has designed the economic model to support this. The economic model does not reward work, but rather ownership of assets, and this principle exists throughout every nation. It's a society modelled around protectionism of wealth, where the wealthy can hand wealth down to their children.
In the United Kingdom, a third of people claiming government assistance are in employment. Over 50% of those buying their first home get gifted money from their parents to do so. Starting from nothing means playing a rigged game. It's like playing Monopoly, where one player starts out with half of the cards and everyone else thinks they can win if they strategise well enough.
Many core economic theories that are taught about productivity and pay are wrong. Anyone living in the real world can see that marginal productivity and price theory are wrong. If the game was perfectly fair, these theories may have some weight, however there's a multitude of factors that skew the board. Poor compensation does have consequences, and they may be felt by individual businesses. However, by and large, these consequences are offloaded on to the rest of society.
The core theories aren’t necessarily wrong, I would say they are misapplied and misused to justify political stances. The science of economics does attempt to take in account as many factors as possible but that’s not the versions of the theories you will see discussed outside of the academic world because that becomes really complexe quickly and doesn’t paint a clear picture when we are looking for simple decisions. Just, don’t throw the baby, yada yada
Find a review of Dan Davies' The Unaccountability Machine and see what you think. I think that short term shareholder value may not be a good control variable given the state of the systems we navigate.
Neither of you mention creativity. The article too gives the impression that the world is made out of work (like turning a treadmill), and assets (inherently unfair). The point of it all is apparently to live, like a sessile sponge in the ocean, hence "living wage".
> Now at some point, the humans involved in handing out currency decided that too many people were living too nicely.
The origins of currency are mysterious. There were certainly some number of kings and tribal chiefs who minted coins and handed them out, mostly I think to soldiers. There were also traders using whatever coins and other small valuable objects. But I don't think anybody decided anything, except when messing around with taxes. I suppose company scrip comes closest to this vision, where your lack of money is determined by the mastermind who also creates it and hands it out and decides everybody's roles. That or communism. Generally no, it's not a rigged game, it's a messy brawl.
The core theories of economics seem correct, and in fact predict the current situation if used correctly. The problem is that the game has been systemicaly rigged. Employers have maximimized their legal leverage, while crushing all employee and subcontractor leverage. The central banks favors (and often rigs) the metrics that favor the rich (GDP, U3, CPI, etc), and ignore alteratives that favor labour. The government designs tax policy to favor integenerational wealth, and capital accumulation over income.
The new deal in America roughly got things correct, and was followed by the greatest expansion of the middle class in history. What we're suffering from today is the systematic destruction of that social contract.
The 1830's reform of the UK, which begrudging wrestled power from the Lords and distributed voting power more evenly over the UK (rammed cities like Manchester had almost no voting rights), only happened when some of the Lords houses were close to being burned down.
Thankfully the UK didn't follow France into the anarchy that was the French Revolution, and Earl Grey could make them see reason. But damn did we come close.
The threat of violence that the worker wielded against their employer was indeed a good incentive to keep things amicable.
Nowadays, we don't know where the Lords necessarily live, the size of the Lords private armies don't need to be more than a handful of security guards, and AI/Robotics is diminishing the need for that handful of guards at all.
This comes off as slightly on the entitled side. Yearly salaries at $100k+ is very high by Western European standards. I can only imagine what our Eastern European colleagues would feel about it. If you can live a comfortable life and send our children to school well fed perhaps broaden the horizons a bit before ranting off about how much better the world would be if you could be paid a bit more.
The point was that a $100k+ compensation for a software office work is among the highest in the world. If a comparison with another high compensation area falls flat, then maybe that says something.
Perhaps another US state would have been a better comparison. It might be hard for a software developer in Montana to identify with a Silicon Valley rant about salaries being too low.
It would not cross my mind personally to complain about low compensation for my skilled work, precisely because I know my collegaues from areas with lower compensation are just as skilled and earn less. In what way would the world be better off if I was better paid? If it helped my company increase their security posture then that would say more about the ineffective ways we organize work around here than anything else.
The pressures he describes seem correct and mirror what I’ve seen.
Think he’s wrong about this being close to blowing up. Think that’s coloured by his own personal situation. I suspect unfortunately the powers that be correctly read the situation as significantly more room to squeeze.
It might read as bad to usa ears but keep in mind there are people breaking down ships with zero safety, zero job security, low pay, bad equipment and certain heath impact etc. People will bear crazy stuff and still show up to work
In ancient times, slaves didn't revolt because they were oppressed by weapons and violence. Instead of paying workers, resources were used to pay and feed the military. Slaves were considered "war bounty" and tradeable goods.
When the incentives of workers favours burning buildings rather than working for wages, the next step is either to use force/control or to rebalance wages.
Ultimately, businesses offer poor compensation because they can get away with it and society has designed the economic model to support this. The economic model does not reward work, but rather ownership of assets, and this principle exists throughout every nation. It's a society modelled around protectionism of wealth, where the wealthy can hand wealth down to their children.
In the United Kingdom, a third of people claiming government assistance are in employment. Over 50% of those buying their first home get gifted money from their parents to do so. Starting from nothing means playing a rigged game. It's like playing Monopoly, where one player starts out with half of the cards and everyone else thinks they can win if they strategise well enough.
Many core economic theories that are taught about productivity and pay are wrong. Anyone living in the real world can see that marginal productivity and price theory are wrong. If the game was perfectly fair, these theories may have some weight, however there's a multitude of factors that skew the board. Poor compensation does have consequences, and they may be felt by individual businesses. However, by and large, these consequences are offloaded on to the rest of society.
The core theories aren’t necessarily wrong, I would say they are misapplied and misused to justify political stances. The science of economics does attempt to take in account as many factors as possible but that’s not the versions of the theories you will see discussed outside of the academic world because that becomes really complexe quickly and doesn’t paint a clear picture when we are looking for simple decisions. Just, don’t throw the baby, yada yada
Find a review of Dan Davies' The Unaccountability Machine and see what you think. I think that short term shareholder value may not be a good control variable given the state of the systems we navigate.
One correction: if no more value can be produced organically, this doesn’t mean that society will stale and money is hoarded among a few families.
Rather, the powerful will turn on each other and start waging war eventually, and the expendable bodies used in that is everyone else.
Neither of you mention creativity. The article too gives the impression that the world is made out of work (like turning a treadmill), and assets (inherently unfair). The point of it all is apparently to live, like a sessile sponge in the ocean, hence "living wage".
> Now at some point, the humans involved in handing out currency decided that too many people were living too nicely.
The origins of currency are mysterious. There were certainly some number of kings and tribal chiefs who minted coins and handed them out, mostly I think to soldiers. There were also traders using whatever coins and other small valuable objects. But I don't think anybody decided anything, except when messing around with taxes. I suppose company scrip comes closest to this vision, where your lack of money is determined by the mastermind who also creates it and hands it out and decides everybody's roles. That or communism. Generally no, it's not a rigged game, it's a messy brawl.
The core theories of economics seem correct, and in fact predict the current situation if used correctly. The problem is that the game has been systemicaly rigged. Employers have maximimized their legal leverage, while crushing all employee and subcontractor leverage. The central banks favors (and often rigs) the metrics that favor the rich (GDP, U3, CPI, etc), and ignore alteratives that favor labour. The government designs tax policy to favor integenerational wealth, and capital accumulation over income.
The new deal in America roughly got things correct, and was followed by the greatest expansion of the middle class in history. What we're suffering from today is the systematic destruction of that social contract.
The 1830's reform of the UK, which begrudging wrestled power from the Lords and distributed voting power more evenly over the UK (rammed cities like Manchester had almost no voting rights), only happened when some of the Lords houses were close to being burned down.
Thankfully the UK didn't follow France into the anarchy that was the French Revolution, and Earl Grey could make them see reason. But damn did we come close.
The threat of violence that the worker wielded against their employer was indeed a good incentive to keep things amicable.
Nowadays, we don't know where the Lords necessarily live, the size of the Lords private armies don't need to be more than a handful of security guards, and AI/Robotics is diminishing the need for that handful of guards at all.
This comes off as slightly on the entitled side. Yearly salaries at $100k+ is very high by Western European standards. I can only imagine what our Eastern European colleagues would feel about it. If you can live a comfortable life and send our children to school well fed perhaps broaden the horizons a bit before ranting off about how much better the world would be if you could be paid a bit more.
Context suggests he’s in the US so not sure that sort of cross jurisdiction comparison is useful.
You could just as easily say Europeans are entitled because their salaries are high compared to an Ethiopian. It’s not a useful comparison
The point was that a $100k+ compensation for a software office work is among the highest in the world. If a comparison with another high compensation area falls flat, then maybe that says something.
Perhaps another US state would have been a better comparison. It might be hard for a software developer in Montana to identify with a Silicon Valley rant about salaries being too low.
It would not cross my mind personally to complain about low compensation for my skilled work, precisely because I know my collegaues from areas with lower compensation are just as skilled and earn less. In what way would the world be better off if I was better paid? If it helped my company increase their security posture then that would say more about the ineffective ways we organize work around here than anything else.
The pressures he describes seem correct and mirror what I’ve seen.
Think he’s wrong about this being close to blowing up. Think that’s coloured by his own personal situation. I suspect unfortunately the powers that be correctly read the situation as significantly more room to squeeze.
It might read as bad to usa ears but keep in mind there are people breaking down ships with zero safety, zero job security, low pay, bad equipment and certain heath impact etc. People will bear crazy stuff and still show up to work
In ancient times, slaves didn't revolt because they were oppressed by weapons and violence. Instead of paying workers, resources were used to pay and feed the military. Slaves were considered "war bounty" and tradeable goods.
When the incentives of workers favours burning buildings rather than working for wages, the next step is either to use force/control or to rebalance wages.
Hold on you can't be throwing around such perversely high numbers like 81,680$ for your European readers.
Today is international workers day and we are sharing a capuccino with my colleague.
Don't care, stocks are up
Signed, Anyone who you'd like to care