While it may be a good language to teach first semester programmers how to program (since it is basically a scripting language), that doesn't mean it is a very marketable skill on its own. Learning Python as your primary scripting language is a great idea, but you better be very proficient in languages that are more commonly used.
I just got home from work and pulled up monster.com to see if Python actually was more commonly used than I thought. The results in the Chicago area when searching for Python was 43, 64 for C++, and 117 for C#.
But that isn't the whole story. I looked at all of the jobs on page 1 for each skill (20 per page). Below are the number of actual developer jobs (not general IT) which listed the searched for language as the primary development langauge.
Python: 1 - 5% C++: 14 - 70% C#: 18 - 90%
By assuming the first page is representative of the rest of the search results, the number of open jobs right now for each language are as follows:
C#: 105 C++: 45 Python: 2
Looks like Python is a niche language to me. It is a quite useful skill, since about half of the search results for Python were for C++/Java/C# developers who needed strong scripting skills. But using it as your primary development language is unlikely to open many doors for your career. I agree that C++ isn't your best choice either, but it is still an order of magnitude more common than Python in the workplace.
I think that if a language is being used to power sites like Reddit, Quora, Pintrest, Instagram, Disqus, Mozilla, and various bits of Google, it's disingenuous to call it "niche" and suggest learning C.
He didn't say they were bad languages (although he did provide a small criticism of Python), he just said they were niche. Since when does calling something a niche product/market/industry imply that it is inferior? Lamborghinis are definetly part of a niche market, but I sure would trade in my current mainstream car for an exotic sportscar. That said, if I was going to choose to specialize in fixing either Lamborghinis or Fords, it would probably be an easy choice.
(I am not claiming that Python or Ruby are superior languages either, I am just stating that saying something is a niche language does not imply it is bad)
You might want to look up the definition of niche, cause I don't think it means what you think it means.
I am pretty sure he is correct in using 'niche' as a way of describing a small segment of the programming market.
Languages such as Java, C/C++, C#, PHP, and Visual Basic are FAR FAR FAR more commonly used than Ruby or Python. Those two are niche languages by almost anyone's definition.
If the marketability of your skillsets is your primary concern, learning languages like PHP, Java, Javascript, or C# is clearly the best way to go. I sure wouldn't want a language like Ruby or Python to be the only one I am proficient with.
I can see where the original poster is coming from. I recently had to upgrade my SSD to 240 GB from 120 because I was having to delete applications to install new ones. Sometimes I could easily find something I wasn't going to use anymore, like an old game, but it was becoming tricky. Applications like Visual Studio, Office, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, etc. seem to keep getting bigger (maybe not all of them, but most of them).
Luckily I was able to buy the newest Intel 240GB SSD for the exact same price that I bought my last Intel 120GB drive just a little over a year ago.
For decades, productivity and compensation rose in tandem. Their bond was the basis of the social compact between the economy and the public: If you work harder and better, you and your family will be better off
This is still true today. If your productivity rises because of actions you take then your income will rise. This can come from simply working harder, gaining education, or by finding a way to innovate.
Productivity is rising handsomely, but compensation of workers isn’t keeping up
This is because productivity is rising today primarily because of the actions of employers, not employees. If employees are more productive because of computers or robotics paid for by their employers, then they are not going to be rewarded with increased wages. Instead they will usually see their wages reduced because their work may no longer require as much skill. The employees that see their wages increase are those who learn to build and design these computers and robots. Individuals who find innovative ways to use these new technologies can become very wealthy.
But those who sit back and and take no initiative to make themselves more productive will not see any increase in wages, if they are lucky enough to have a job at all.
They exchange their work for the same fixed wages no mater how well the company goes. You may argue that means they have a lower risk, but that again is false if a company goes badly chances are the employees will be cut. So in a way he is taking even greater risks than the investor.
An employee takes far less risk than an investor. If a shareholder loses his investment, that money is gone. If an employee loses his job, his capability to perform labor is not gone.
Even though the employee takes less risk by simply taking a job, he is still probably in a riskier situation than any investor who can afford to lose their investment. But that risk is a result of their financial situation, not their role as an employee. The fact that they can lose their job is not much of a risk, it is their lack of savings or possibly even a lack of skillsets if they are fearful of getting a new job.
One way to try to avoid it would be by forcing employees to pay part of the wages with shares, as I suggest.
How is that any different than just giving them wages? Every employee has the opportunity to use their pay to buy shares in the company they work for. If you are referring to giving them stock on top of their current wages, that is no difference than just giving them a raise (a raise where you force them to spend it a certain way).
If both things are equally important and there are many laws to enforce the rights of shareholders regarding the share of the profits
I don't know of any laws that enforce the rights of shareholders regarding the share of profits. Companies can decide if they are going to pay out dividends.
Laborers are paid with wages. Shareholders are paid with profits (in the form of dividends or possibly in increased share price). Shareholders are not given a paycheck every other week regardless of the company's success, and laborers are generally not given a portion of profits.
Providing work is every bit as important as providing money. Without work there is no result, period.
I never said that labor is not valuable, but any blanket statemen saying that labor is more imporant, just as important, or less important than money is just silly. A year of my labor is far more valuable than a 1990 Ford truck. But it is far less valuable than a 4000 square foot home (in my neighborhood at least), or a 400 acre farm.
While it is true that without work there is no result, the exact same thing can be said for capital. My programming ability is useless without a computer. My ability to cook is useless without food. If I don't have the ability to claim land to even forage for food, or don't own or rent land with access to water, then I will die very quickly.
Still you seem to think that the people who provided money deserve increasing compensations while the people providing work do not.
I clearly said that I think laborers deserve their wages. I just believe those wages should be determined based on their actual value to their employer. Society can decide to provide them extra income based on their value as a human being separately.
In my view people should see their pay, at the very least if it's minimum wage, increase at the same rate as inflation across the board. This is the only way you can keep substantial portions of your citizenry from slipping into the crushing poverty you see.
I disagree with this both because I don't think it is the only way, and I don't think it is sufficient.
Minimum wage does not take into account household composition, so a wage that provides a good life for a single person is different than for a dual income family, a single father, etc. Are we to make minimum wage high enough that a single earner can support a family of 6? Minimum wage would have to be very very high (probably close to $20/hour) to have it do away with poverty. And that doesn't even start to deal with the crippling effect that such a high minimum wage would have on an economy.
Also, anything that separates wages from worker productivity is dangerous. Whether it is minimum wage laws, union strong arming, or any other tactic that feels good but ultimately results in someone being paid more than they are worth by their employer. This is a primary reason that jobs have been pushed overseas (obviously not the only reason, so don't use that statement for a strawman argument).
If a society wants to provide income for its citizens that is above their economic value because of their value as a human being, I am all for that. But it should be given out by the government or other institutions whose duty it is to look after people, not a company whose goal is to make money. Many of the 12 million unemployed in this country could get jobs if there was no minimum wage. Much of the money the government now spends on unemployment insurance could then be spent on welfare payments to these employees that are making so little. Similar amounts of money would be spent by the government, but in this case actual work is being done in this country instead of being shipped overseas.
Or they the land was taken by force by an ancestor and inhereted. This argument stand as long as capital is the fruit of one's work. This might be the case, but no so aften I think...
It doesn't take work to take land by force? Warfare has done a pretty good job of ensuring that land is in the hands of more productive societies, since wars are generally won by the society that can fund a better army.
But like I said in my post, if they keep their argument purely based on morality then it is at least intriguing. I still disagree, but if you are a pacifist and believe that property taken and kept by force is not deserved, I do believe that is a valid point to be made.
And what does inheritence have to do about anything? So now you are saying I can spend money on myself, but not to make life better for my descendents? Is the fruit of my labor worth less because I inherited a high level of intelligence from my mother?
Is upward mobility through generations not to be allowed? Shame on all those immigrants that toiled in thankless jobs to provide a better life for their children.
I was impressed with the parts of the article that deal with moral arguments about the ownership of capital, but all of its attempts to actually discredit the value of capital are just silly. For instance:
it should be noted that neither the capitalist nor the landowner actually engages in anything that might be called a productive activity
This statement ignores that at some point that capital (I don't understand why they separate the concepts of capital and land ownership) was purchased with the results of productive activity. Instead of buying food, or theatre tickets, or going on a vacation, the capitalist bought something that holds value. All value that this capital holds for its owner is still the result of productive activity.
It also ignores that activity is not the only factor in producing something. The decision to use that land productively (to grow crops for instance) instead of just building a lavish garden or other luxury, is just as important. This is also ignored in the article's argument.
Almost the entire argument is built upon the concept that no contribution has value until actual physical labor is used. Business decisions such as how to best use a piece of land, what types of machinery to buy, or hiring someone to make these decisions for you are not given any value at all. I was so surprised to see how weak their actual argument was after reading their very well written introduction.
But what is this "contribution" of capital and land? Without any labourers there would be no output.
Without the land there would be no output either. This is probably the most ridiculous statement in the entire article.
In addition, in physical terms, the marginal product of, say, capital is simply the amount by which production would decline is one piece of capital were taken out of production.
This is not completely accurate. The value of the capital is also determined by the difference between the productive output of different options. The fertility of the land contributes to its value just as much as its acreage. The same holds true for laborers. The quality of the labor provided, compared to the quality of labor that could be obtained from different workers, is primarily what sets the value of that labor.
Suppose our ten workers had cultivated the five acres as a worker collective. In this, they would receive the entire product, all one hundred bushels, instead of sixty. Is this unfair? To whom should the other forty bushels go? To the land, for its 'contribution'? Should the collective perhaps burn forty bushels as an offering to the Land-God?
Okay, maybe this is actually the most ridiculous part of the article. If the workers own the land as a collective, then the other 40 bushels (the value assigned to the landowner in an earlier example) are split amongst them because they are the land owners.
This article should really just stick to moral arguments, because from a purely economical standpoint its arguments are just silly. But then again, if you are just trying to persuade people who already have anarchists leanings, you probably don't have to spend much time making your arguments stand up to much scrutiny.
The methods for increased productivity weren't invented by the current CEO or shareholders either. Why are they entitled to the extra profits?
For one thing, actually doing the inventing isn't even the most important task performed for most accomplishments. It is providing money. There are plenty of products I could create if I had enough money to pay a twenty man development team for three years. No matter how smart or skilled I am, the 10 million dollars would probably be far more responsible for the success of the team than my paltry 6000 hours of work (obviously there are rare exceptions, it is hard to quantify Isaac Newton's contributions for instance).
The shareholders provide the money necessary for the operation of the company. Even though most shareholders aren't original shareholders, without the promise of selling shares for more money in the future, companies could not get nearly as much money from selling initial shares. And all shareholders are responsible for increasing the value of any shares the company still controls, which provides additional capital to the company.
If I invest money in a company, I am doing that because I expect a return on my investment. Employees get a paycheck, but all I get is either dividends or the increased valuation of my stock. Employees agree to their compensation when they take their job. They can choose to only work for companies that provide profit sharing if they so choose. This of course assumes they are worth enough to convince a company to share profits, but then again if they are not then they obviously aren't worthy of a share. If they think companies are being stupid by not offering profit sharing, these employees could just start their own company. And if they don't have enough money for that, they have learned first hand why money is usually more important than talent or good ideas.
CEOs are a different story. I completely agree that most highly paid CEOs in the US make too much money. But just because CEOs make too much money does not mean that employees should get more (something about two wrongs not making a right). If it is determined than any individual CEO does not deserve his/her pay it is the shareholders that deserve that money.
they're labor cost are still inadequate compared to production
Unless Union members are the ones responsible for the increased productivity (as opposed to the robotics engineers, business process analysts, etc.), how could you possibly think they are due any increased pay based on their increased production? Even if Union members are responsible for some of the increases in productivity, if they were being paid by the company while they were devising ways to improve productivity then they are still not entitled to increased pay (other than raises based on merit, but Unions are generally against that).
If Unions were doing their own productivity research based on money obtained from Union dues, then I completely agree that Union members should share in the extra profit that comes from the increased productivity.
Things must have changed in the last 8 years, because when I worked at Walmart theyhad sections of storage that correlated with departments in the building. If I was restocking the Sporting Goods department, I went to the Sporting Goods section of the docking area. These sections could shrink or grow a little based on need, but they were always in the same general area.
Did you mean this is how Walmart distribution centers work? Or was the store I worked at uncommon for Walmart Supercenters?
Sharing out the wealth that society as a whole has created and which you have contributed to is not charity.
You cannot honestly believe that all contributions are always equal, regardless of actual impact of that contribution? When I was 8 I started working for neighbor farmers to help with tasks such as bailing hay, along with other kids in the area. I definetly contributed to the resulting crop, but far less than the 18 year old boys, or the farmer who actually owned the land the hay was growing on. I did not deserve a "living wage" just because I worked my ass off (or even the hourly wage equivalent of a living wage, since I probably only worked 100 hours per year).
Charity isn't reserved just for the unemployed. It comes from kindness and the respect for human decency. We provide charity to the less fortunate because we as a society respect them as human beings, not because of their actual worth to society or the economy. In my opinion this is the right thing to do, which is why I support a wide range of safety nets.
If someone is consuming more input than they are producing in output, then they are receiving charity of some kind from someone.
I'm sorry, but you're full of shit. Common laborers don't deserve a nice life?
Common laborers are by definition common. If you are unable to differentiate yourself in a significant way, then your labor is not worth much. Laborers can still make a very good living if they learn a rare trade. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. are all laborers and they all make very good money.
But as a laborer, it is your responsibility to be useful to those with the assets to pay you. You either need to useful to companies if you are an employee, or to your clients / customers if you are self-employed. The more useful you are compared to others that your employers / clients could have hired, the nicer life you will have. If you cannot differentiate yourself, and therefore become common labor, your life will be as good as your society is capable of providing for you through charity. That charity can take the form of welfare, subsidized services / loans, minimum wage laws, etc. The developed world has been able to provide quite a bit of this charity over the past 50 years by exploiting the developing world and plentiful cheap sources of energy, but those gravy trains are running out.
It isn't callous to simply point out the harsh truth that the US is unlikely to provide such a high quality of life to common laborers.
Why the "of course" in your last sentence? The link between equalization among nations, yet a countervailing trend of redistribution towards the rich (and also the old, at least in the US) is not obvious to me.
Those who have money make their income from investment on their capital. Cheap labor allows them to produce similar output with far less input, thus making it easier for their investments to make money. Also, the developing world provides greater opportunity for growth because they have so much further to go. This means that the value of having money is increased by the availability of cheap labor.
Average people make their income from their labor. In this case, the availability of cheap labor reduces the value of their primary asset (labor). Low-skilled labor is the hardest hit, because cheap labor is predominantly low-skilled. But even average skilled workers in the developed world are being hurt as education levels in the developing world is increasing. Highly skilled laborers are actually helped out because their skills are still quite rare and emerging markets increase the demand for their abilities. This is why the upper middle class is doing very well even as the middle class is struggling.
People generally make money based on the rarity of their assets. Western companies still have very rare assets even while developing countries are emerging. As global markets increase, those rare assets become even more rare based on the larger consumer market. Labor, on the other hand, is becoming far less rare.
But, in the US, our living standards have been decreasing for over a decade.
In my opinion this is primarily because the living standards of the middle class rose to absurd levels in the mid to late 1900s. Those levels of wealth for common laborers was never sustainable unless we kept most of the world at third world levels forever. What we are witnessing now is a drastic reduction in wordwide inequality. This inequality is mostly being erased because the poorest countries are getting richer, but a small amount of the equalization is caused by the rich countries becoming poorer.
Of course those whose income is based on their capital and investments instead of labor are making out like bandits regardless of if they live in poor or rich countries.
Are you saying that robotics engineering is the path to job security?
No, it is still just one of many careers with a bright future. Being well educated, hard working, intelligent, and using those attributes in a creative way will continue to be the path to job security. Until singularity that is, and I don't think anyone can credibly predict what will happen after that.
Just take a look at manufacturing jobs that have stayed in the United States to see the result of manufacturing done in an area with high wages. [Almost] Everything is done by robotics. The only reason they use less robotics in third world and developing countries is because their labor is still cheaper than machines. Robotics keeps improving while global wages keep equalizing, and at some point the use of robotics will be even cheaper than cheap labor is today.
Developing countries know they need to take advantage of this period in time, and use the money they are funneling from developed countries to improve their workforce so they can perform more skilled labor once this shift takes place. The US and other developed countries took advantage of the 1900s to do the same thing, and developing country's have much less time to advance than we did (but they have the advantage of riding our coattails). Unskilled laborers making decent wages will be a thing of the past on a global scale in the near future, just like what is happening in the US right now.
I work for a contracting company, and I cannot imagine taking a full time job at one of the companies that hires my firm. It was my company's marketing that gathered that contact, and for me to snake that out from under them just seems wrong.
But then again, legally I can't really see any difference between this and and what eBay is being accused of. I honestly cannot figure out what my opinion on this is.
The poor hold money - dollars. Those only go one direction during inflation: down.
But the poor don't hold dollars. They don't hold much of anything of value. They may own a house (that generally increases in value during inflation) and are promised social security benefits (where payments increase based on inflation). I don't see how the poor are punished almost at all by inflation. In fact it seems to help them.
Stagflation is worse, of course, but that isn't what anyone in this thread has been talking about.
That same NCES report says, "...the average salary was about 3 percent higher in 2010–11 than in 1990–91." That really seems to contradict the "...4.6% yearly raises..." for 30 years.
Are you serious? The average teacher salary isn't going up 4.6% per year, the pay of individual teachers are going up by 4.6% per year. Do you really not understand the difference or are you just trolling? And that 3% higher is 2011 statistic is certainly inflation adjusted (the 4.6% raise isn't).
Professions should rarely see a significant increase in their inflation adjusted pay unless there is a major shift in the industry (such as needing a Bachelor's degree when previous workers were uneducated).
Yes, 80k with teachers' benefits is great pay for someone who is average at their job, even when living in New York City. With teachers' pensions, extra time off, and other benefits, that amounts to more like 120k-150k in the private sector (depending on how you value about 15 paid weeks off per year). That is plenty of money for New York City (not much for a single income family, but very few careers offer enough salary for that).
I do agree that this salary doesn't match what a truly exceptional employee with a Masters degree could make, but that is the teacher unions' fault. I would love for the top 10% of teachers (not based on years of experience) to average $150k in salary, but that will not happen any time soon. Until the unions get out of the way, you can only pay teachers based on what an average teacher is worth.
And forget about comparing salaries to people in other careers with a Masters degree. With only one exception, every person I know that got a Masters degree in teaching just found a diploma mill so they could easily bump their salary 12k per year. They didn't have to worry about the school's credentials or wonder if their degree would actually help further their career. Just pay $30k for a degree, and get back a guaranteed $350k in inflation adjusted lifetime earnings and an extra $10k on top of your pension. (the one exception I mentioned earlier was an SLP, and she was underpaid because her pay scale was tied to the same average teachers that went to diploma mills)
Also, it is rediculous to tell people they should just be a teacher if they think the job is so great. For one, this is tax money paying for teachers' salaries. As long as the government forces people to pay taxes, people have a right voice grievances over how that money is spent. And secondly, being a teacher only really pays off if you start at the age of 22. Their pay is based on years of experience, not competence. I shaped up my career when I was 29, and doubled my salary in less than two years. Someone in their 30s cant just switch over to teaching and enjoy the same benefits as everyone else, as opposed to most other professions where after a few years of experience it doesn't really matter if you have 5 years or 20. Oh, and third, starting a career in education right now is really really tough. Even those who aren't just in it for an easy career can't find jobs because school districts are still paying the outrageous salaries of more tenured teachers.
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While it may be a good language to teach first semester programmers how to program (since it is basically a scripting language), that doesn't mean it is a very marketable skill on its own. Learning Python as your primary scripting language is a great idea, but you better be very proficient in languages that are more commonly used.
I just got home from work and pulled up monster.com to see if Python actually was more commonly used than I thought. The results in the Chicago area when searching for Python was 43, 64 for C++, and 117 for C#.
But that isn't the whole story. I looked at all of the jobs on page 1 for each skill (20 per page). Below are the number of actual developer jobs (not general IT) which listed the searched for language as the primary development langauge.
Python: 1 - 5%
C++: 14 - 70%
C#: 18 - 90%
By assuming the first page is representative of the rest of the search results, the number of open jobs right now for each language are as follows:
C#: 105
C++: 45
Python: 2
Looks like Python is a niche language to me. It is a quite useful skill, since about half of the search results for Python were for C++/Java/C# developers who needed strong scripting skills. But using it as your primary development language is unlikely to open many doors for your career. I agree that C++ isn't your best choice either, but it is still an order of magnitude more common than Python in the workplace.
I think that if a language is being used to power sites like Reddit, Quora, Pintrest, Instagram, Disqus, Mozilla, and various bits of Google, it's disingenuous to call it "niche" and suggest learning C.
He didn't say they were bad languages (although he did provide a small criticism of Python), he just said they were niche. Since when does calling something a niche product/market/industry imply that it is inferior? Lamborghinis are definetly part of a niche market, but I sure would trade in my current mainstream car for an exotic sportscar. That said, if I was going to choose to specialize in fixing either Lamborghinis or Fords, it would probably be an easy choice.
(I am not claiming that Python or Ruby are superior languages either, I am just stating that saying something is a niche language does not imply it is bad)
You might want to look up the definition of niche, cause I don't think it means what you think it means.
I am pretty sure he is correct in using 'niche' as a way of describing a small segment of the programming market.
Languages such as Java, C/C++, C#, PHP, and Visual Basic are FAR FAR FAR more commonly used than Ruby or Python. Those two are niche languages by almost anyone's definition.
If the marketability of your skillsets is your primary concern, learning languages like PHP, Java, Javascript, or C# is clearly the best way to go. I sure wouldn't want a language like Ruby or Python to be the only one I am proficient with.
I can see where the original poster is coming from. I recently had to upgrade my SSD to 240 GB from 120 because I was having to delete applications to install new ones. Sometimes I could easily find something I wasn't going to use anymore, like an old game, but it was becoming tricky. Applications like Visual Studio, Office, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, etc. seem to keep getting bigger (maybe not all of them, but most of them).
Luckily I was able to buy the newest Intel 240GB SSD for the exact same price that I bought my last Intel 120GB drive just a little over a year ago.
For decades, productivity and compensation rose in tandem. Their bond was the basis of the social compact between the economy and the public: If you work harder and better, you and your family will be better off
This is still true today. If your productivity rises because of actions you take then your income will rise. This can come from simply working harder, gaining education, or by finding a way to innovate.
Productivity is rising handsomely, but compensation of workers isn’t keeping up
This is because productivity is rising today primarily because of the actions of employers, not employees. If employees are more productive because of computers or robotics paid for by their employers, then they are not going to be rewarded with increased wages. Instead they will usually see their wages reduced because their work may no longer require as much skill. The employees that see their wages increase are those who learn to build and design these computers and robots. Individuals who find innovative ways to use these new technologies can become very wealthy.
But those who sit back and and take no initiative to make themselves more productive will not see any increase in wages, if they are lucky enough to have a job at all.
They exchange their work for the same fixed wages no mater how well the company goes. You may argue that means they have a lower risk, but that again is false if a company goes badly chances are the employees will be cut. So in a way he is taking even greater risks than the investor.
An employee takes far less risk than an investor. If a shareholder loses his investment, that money is gone. If an employee loses his job, his capability to perform labor is not gone.
Even though the employee takes less risk by simply taking a job, he is still probably in a riskier situation than any investor who can afford to lose their investment. But that risk is a result of their financial situation, not their role as an employee. The fact that they can lose their job is not much of a risk, it is their lack of savings or possibly even a lack of skillsets if they are fearful of getting a new job.
One way to try to avoid it would be by forcing employees to pay part of the wages with shares, as I suggest.
How is that any different than just giving them wages? Every employee has the opportunity to use their pay to buy shares in the company they work for. If you are referring to giving them stock on top of their current wages, that is no difference than just giving them a raise (a raise where you force them to spend it a certain way).
If both things are equally important and there are many laws to enforce the rights of shareholders regarding the share of the profits
I don't know of any laws that enforce the rights of shareholders regarding the share of profits. Companies can decide if they are going to pay out dividends.
Laborers are paid with wages. Shareholders are paid with profits (in the form of dividends or possibly in increased share price). Shareholders are not given a paycheck every other week regardless of the company's success, and laborers are generally not given a portion of profits.
Providing work is every bit as important as providing money. Without work there is no result, period.
I never said that labor is not valuable, but any blanket statemen saying that labor is more imporant, just as important, or less important than money is just silly. A year of my labor is far more valuable than a 1990 Ford truck. But it is far less valuable than a 4000 square foot home (in my neighborhood at least), or a 400 acre farm.
While it is true that without work there is no result, the exact same thing can be said for capital. My programming ability is useless without a computer. My ability to cook is useless without food. If I don't have the ability to claim land to even forage for food, or don't own or rent land with access to water, then I will die very quickly.
Still you seem to think that the people who provided money deserve increasing compensations while the people providing work do not.
I clearly said that I think laborers deserve their wages. I just believe those wages should be determined based on their actual value to their employer. Society can decide to provide them extra income based on their value as a human being separately.
In my view people should see their pay, at the very least if it's minimum wage, increase at the same rate as inflation across the board. This is the only way you can keep substantial portions of your citizenry from slipping into the crushing poverty you see.
I disagree with this both because I don't think it is the only way, and I don't think it is sufficient.
Minimum wage does not take into account household composition, so a wage that provides a good life for a single person is different than for a dual income family, a single father, etc. Are we to make minimum wage high enough that a single earner can support a family of 6? Minimum wage would have to be very very high (probably close to $20/hour) to have it do away with poverty. And that doesn't even start to deal with the crippling effect that such a high minimum wage would have on an economy.
Also, anything that separates wages from worker productivity is dangerous. Whether it is minimum wage laws, union strong arming, or any other tactic that feels good but ultimately results in someone being paid more than they are worth by their employer. This is a primary reason that jobs have been pushed overseas (obviously not the only reason, so don't use that statement for a strawman argument).
If a society wants to provide income for its citizens that is above their economic value because of their value as a human being, I am all for that. But it should be given out by the government or other institutions whose duty it is to look after people, not a company whose goal is to make money. Many of the 12 million unemployed in this country could get jobs if there was no minimum wage. Much of the money the government now spends on unemployment insurance could then be spent on welfare payments to these employees that are making so little. Similar amounts of money would be spent by the government, but in this case actual work is being done in this country instead of being shipped overseas.
Or they the land was taken by force by an ancestor and inhereted. This argument stand as long as capital is the fruit of one's work. This might be the case, but no so aften I think...
It doesn't take work to take land by force? Warfare has done a pretty good job of ensuring that land is in the hands of more productive societies, since wars are generally won by the society that can fund a better army.
But like I said in my post, if they keep their argument purely based on morality then it is at least intriguing. I still disagree, but if you are a pacifist and believe that property taken and kept by force is not deserved, I do believe that is a valid point to be made.
And what does inheritence have to do about anything? So now you are saying I can spend money on myself, but not to make life better for my descendents? Is the fruit of my labor worth less because I inherited a high level of intelligence from my mother?
Is upward mobility through generations not to be allowed? Shame on all those immigrants that toiled in thankless jobs to provide a better life for their children.
I was impressed with the parts of the article that deal with moral arguments about the ownership of capital, but all of its attempts to actually discredit the value of capital are just silly. For instance:
it should be noted that neither the capitalist nor the landowner actually engages in anything that might be called a productive activity
This statement ignores that at some point that capital (I don't understand why they separate the concepts of capital and land ownership) was purchased with the results of productive activity. Instead of buying food, or theatre tickets, or going on a vacation, the capitalist bought something that holds value. All value that this capital holds for its owner is still the result of productive activity.
It also ignores that activity is not the only factor in producing something. The decision to use that land productively (to grow crops for instance) instead of just building a lavish garden or other luxury, is just as important. This is also ignored in the article's argument.
Almost the entire argument is built upon the concept that no contribution has value until actual physical labor is used. Business decisions such as how to best use a piece of land, what types of machinery to buy, or hiring someone to make these decisions for you are not given any value at all. I was so surprised to see how weak their actual argument was after reading their very well written introduction.
But what is this "contribution" of capital and land? Without any labourers there would be no output.
Without the land there would be no output either. This is probably the most ridiculous statement in the entire article.
In addition, in physical terms, the marginal product of, say, capital is simply the amount by which production would decline is one piece of capital were taken out of production.
This is not completely accurate. The value of the capital is also determined by the difference between the productive output of different options. The fertility of the land contributes to its value just as much as its acreage. The same holds true for laborers. The quality of the labor provided, compared to the quality of labor that could be obtained from different workers, is primarily what sets the value of that labor.
Suppose our ten workers had cultivated the five acres as a worker collective. In this, they would receive the entire product, all one hundred bushels, instead of sixty. Is this unfair? To whom should the other forty bushels go? To the land, for its 'contribution'? Should the collective perhaps burn forty bushels as an offering to the Land-God?
Okay, maybe this is actually the most ridiculous part of the article. If the workers own the land as a collective, then the other 40 bushels (the value assigned to the landowner in an earlier example) are split amongst them because they are the land owners.
This article should really just stick to moral arguments, because from a purely economical standpoint its arguments are just silly. But then again, if you are just trying to persuade people who already have anarchists leanings, you probably don't have to spend much time making your arguments stand up to much scrutiny.
The methods for increased productivity weren't invented by the current CEO or shareholders either. Why are they entitled to the extra profits?
For one thing, actually doing the inventing isn't even the most important task performed for most accomplishments. It is providing money. There are plenty of products I could create if I had enough money to pay a twenty man development team for three years. No matter how smart or skilled I am, the 10 million dollars would probably be far more responsible for the success of the team than my paltry 6000 hours of work (obviously there are rare exceptions, it is hard to quantify Isaac Newton's contributions for instance).
The shareholders provide the money necessary for the operation of the company. Even though most shareholders aren't original shareholders, without the promise of selling shares for more money in the future, companies could not get nearly as much money from selling initial shares. And all shareholders are responsible for increasing the value of any shares the company still controls, which provides additional capital to the company.
If I invest money in a company, I am doing that because I expect a return on my investment. Employees get a paycheck, but all I get is either dividends or the increased valuation of my stock. Employees agree to their compensation when they take their job. They can choose to only work for companies that provide profit sharing if they so choose. This of course assumes they are worth enough to convince a company to share profits, but then again if they are not then they obviously aren't worthy of a share. If they think companies are being stupid by not offering profit sharing, these employees could just start their own company. And if they don't have enough money for that, they have learned first hand why money is usually more important than talent or good ideas.
CEOs are a different story. I completely agree that most highly paid CEOs in the US make too much money. But just because CEOs make too much money does not mean that employees should get more (something about two wrongs not making a right). If it is determined than any individual CEO does not deserve his/her pay it is the shareholders that deserve that money.
they're labor cost are still inadequate compared to production
Unless Union members are the ones responsible for the increased productivity (as opposed to the robotics engineers, business process analysts, etc.), how could you possibly think they are due any increased pay based on their increased production? Even if Union members are responsible for some of the increases in productivity, if they were being paid by the company while they were devising ways to improve productivity then they are still not entitled to increased pay (other than raises based on merit, but Unions are generally against that).
If Unions were doing their own productivity research based on money obtained from Union dues, then I completely agree that Union members should share in the extra profit that comes from the increased productivity.
Things must have changed in the last 8 years, because when I worked at Walmart theyhad sections of storage that correlated with departments in the building. If I was restocking the Sporting Goods department, I went to the Sporting Goods section of the docking area. These sections could shrink or grow a little based on need, but they were always in the same general area.
Did you mean this is how Walmart distribution centers work? Or was the store I worked at uncommon for Walmart Supercenters?
Sharing out the wealth that society as a whole has created and which you have contributed to is not charity.
You cannot honestly believe that all contributions are always equal, regardless of actual impact of that contribution? When I was 8 I started working for neighbor farmers to help with tasks such as bailing hay, along with other kids in the area. I definetly contributed to the resulting crop, but far less than the 18 year old boys, or the farmer who actually owned the land the hay was growing on. I did not deserve a "living wage" just because I worked my ass off (or even the hourly wage equivalent of a living wage, since I probably only worked 100 hours per year).
Charity isn't reserved just for the unemployed. It comes from kindness and the respect for human decency. We provide charity to the less fortunate because we as a society respect them as human beings, not because of their actual worth to society or the economy. In my opinion this is the right thing to do, which is why I support a wide range of safety nets.
If someone is consuming more input than they are producing in output, then they are receiving charity of some kind from someone.
I'm sorry, but you're full of shit. Common laborers don't deserve a nice life?
Common laborers are by definition common. If you are unable to differentiate yourself in a significant way, then your labor is not worth much. Laborers can still make a very good living if they learn a rare trade. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. are all laborers and they all make very good money.
But as a laborer, it is your responsibility to be useful to those with the assets to pay you. You either need to useful to companies if you are an employee, or to your clients / customers if you are self-employed. The more useful you are compared to others that your employers / clients could have hired, the nicer life you will have. If you cannot differentiate yourself, and therefore become common labor, your life will be as good as your society is capable of providing for you through charity. That charity can take the form of welfare, subsidized services / loans, minimum wage laws, etc. The developed world has been able to provide quite a bit of this charity over the past 50 years by exploiting the developing world and plentiful cheap sources of energy, but those gravy trains are running out.
It isn't callous to simply point out the harsh truth that the US is unlikely to provide such a high quality of life to common laborers.
Why the "of course" in your last sentence? The link between equalization among nations, yet a countervailing trend of redistribution towards the rich (and also the old, at least in the US) is not obvious to me.
Those who have money make their income from investment on their capital. Cheap labor allows them to produce similar output with far less input, thus making it easier for their investments to make money. Also, the developing world provides greater opportunity for growth because they have so much further to go. This means that the value of having money is increased by the availability of cheap labor.
Average people make their income from their labor. In this case, the availability of cheap labor reduces the value of their primary asset (labor). Low-skilled labor is the hardest hit, because cheap labor is predominantly low-skilled. But even average skilled workers in the developed world are being hurt as education levels in the developing world is increasing. Highly skilled laborers are actually helped out because their skills are still quite rare and emerging markets increase the demand for their abilities. This is why the upper middle class is doing very well even as the middle class is struggling.
People generally make money based on the rarity of their assets. Western companies still have very rare assets even while developing countries are emerging. As global markets increase, those rare assets become even more rare based on the larger consumer market. Labor, on the other hand, is becoming far less rare.
But, in the US, our living standards have been decreasing for over a decade.
In my opinion this is primarily because the living standards of the middle class rose to absurd levels in the mid to late 1900s. Those levels of wealth for common laborers was never sustainable unless we kept most of the world at third world levels forever. What we are witnessing now is a drastic reduction in wordwide inequality. This inequality is mostly being erased because the poorest countries are getting richer, but a small amount of the equalization is caused by the rich countries becoming poorer.
Of course those whose income is based on their capital and investments instead of labor are making out like bandits regardless of if they live in poor or rich countries.
Are you saying that robotics engineering is the path to job security?
No, it is still just one of many careers with a bright future. Being well educated, hard working, intelligent, and using those attributes in a creative way will continue to be the path to job security. Until singularity that is, and I don't think anyone can credibly predict what will happen after that.
Just take a look at manufacturing jobs that have stayed in the United States to see the result of manufacturing done in an area with high wages. [Almost] Everything is done by robotics. The only reason they use less robotics in third world and developing countries is because their labor is still cheaper than machines. Robotics keeps improving while global wages keep equalizing, and at some point the use of robotics will be even cheaper than cheap labor is today.
Developing countries know they need to take advantage of this period in time, and use the money they are funneling from developed countries to improve their workforce so they can perform more skilled labor once this shift takes place. The US and other developed countries took advantage of the 1900s to do the same thing, and developing country's have much less time to advance than we did (but they have the advantage of riding our coattails). Unskilled laborers making decent wages will be a thing of the past on a global scale in the near future, just like what is happening in the US right now.
I work for a contracting company, and I cannot imagine taking a full time job at one of the companies that hires my firm. It was my company's marketing that gathered that contact, and for me to snake that out from under them just seems wrong.
But then again, legally I can't really see any difference between this and and what eBay is being accused of. I honestly cannot figure out what my opinion on this is.
The poor hold money - dollars. Those only go one direction during inflation: down.
But the poor don't hold dollars. They don't hold much of anything of value. They may own a house (that generally increases in value during inflation) and are promised social security benefits (where payments increase based on inflation). I don't see how the poor are punished almost at all by inflation. In fact it seems to help them.
Stagflation is worse, of course, but that isn't what anyone in this thread has been talking about.
There are still people out there who believe Einstein was religious?
That same NCES report says, "...the average salary was about 3 percent higher in 2010–11 than in 1990–91." That really seems to contradict the "...4.6% yearly raises..." for 30 years.
Are you serious? The average teacher salary isn't going up 4.6% per year, the pay of individual teachers are going up by 4.6% per year. Do you really not understand the difference or are you just trolling? And that 3% higher is 2011 statistic is certainly inflation adjusted (the 4.6% raise isn't).
Professions should rarely see a significant increase in their inflation adjusted pay unless there is a major shift in the industry (such as needing a Bachelor's degree when previous workers were uneducated).
Yes, 80k with teachers' benefits is great pay for someone who is average at their job, even when living in New York City. With teachers' pensions, extra time off, and other benefits, that amounts to more like 120k-150k in the private sector (depending on how you value about 15 paid weeks off per year). That is plenty of money for New York City (not much for a single income family, but very few careers offer enough salary for that).
I do agree that this salary doesn't match what a truly exceptional employee with a Masters degree could make, but that is the teacher unions' fault. I would love for the top 10% of teachers (not based on years of experience) to average $150k in salary, but that will not happen any time soon. Until the unions get out of the way, you can only pay teachers based on what an average teacher is worth.
And forget about comparing salaries to people in other careers with a Masters degree. With only one exception, every person I know that got a Masters degree in teaching just found a diploma mill so they could easily bump their salary 12k per year. They didn't have to worry about the school's credentials or wonder if their degree would actually help further their career. Just pay $30k for a degree, and get back a guaranteed $350k in inflation adjusted lifetime earnings and an extra $10k on top of your pension. (the one exception I mentioned earlier was an SLP, and she was underpaid because her pay scale was tied to the same average teachers that went to diploma mills)
Also, it is rediculous to tell people they should just be a teacher if they think the job is so great. For one, this is tax money paying for teachers' salaries. As long as the government forces people to pay taxes, people have a right voice grievances over how that money is spent. And secondly, being a teacher only really pays off if you start at the age of 22. Their pay is based on years of experience, not competence. I shaped up my career when I was 29, and doubled my salary in less than two years. Someone in their 30s cant just switch over to teaching and enjoy the same benefits as everyone else, as opposed to most other professions where after a few years of experience it doesn't really matter if you have 5 years or 20. Oh, and third, starting a career in education right now is really really tough. Even those who aren't just in it for an easy career can't find jobs because school districts are still paying the outrageous salaries of more tenured teachers.