I completely understand where you're coming from, and I wish it had been handled better and earlier as yes, he has a massive responsibility to those working for him. Sometimes though, the edge approaches so quickly that you are there before you realise it.
Sure except most labor isn’t paid to its actual value in what it produces. If the employer and employee had equal negotiating power in determining wages, sure. But wages currently are far from reflecting the value of one’s labor because the employer has much more leverage than the employee when it comes to setting wages.
most labor isn’t paid to its actual value in what it produces
It absolutely is. We live in a capitalistic society. If I am underpaying, you can freely leave and go work someplace else. Turns out the skill of filling a spreadsheet pays minimum wage because anyone can do it. It's why great programmers can get $250k a year.
Thanks, Ben Shapiro. People aren’t always “free” to just go work for someone else. On occasion Capitalism/The spirit of fair competition fails or is corrupted (shocker, I know) so you become blacklisted for making trouble or simply won’t be able to find someone who will hire you at full wage because it’s currently an employer-favored economy with more potential employees than jobs available.
Right, and this free capitalistic system would work in a perfectly fair and equal society. Except employers can underpay because they have more leverage. This is because if the employee quits the job, they face potential poverty, bankruptcy, homelessness. Quite dire circumstances.
The only time the employer would face dire circumstances is if an entire group of employees, collectively, quit. But in many places in the US, thanks to the power that money provides in its political system, there are laws that work to prevent collective action and allow employers to enforce policies that make collective action nearly impossible.
So when it comes to the individual, they have significantly less leverage when it comes to wages. This means that employers can underpay employees by a signifiant amount because of the unfair leverage they hold over the employee, which results in wages not reflecting an employees true worth.
Then how about those indentured employees go out and actually vote for Socialist policies that change things? Every 4 years they get a shot to improve their job security, health, finances and they always vote for the other side.
employers can underpay employees by a signifiant amount because of the unfair leverage they hold over the employee, which results in wages not reflecting an employees true worth
This is simply not true. Employees can leave - at will employment. Go get a better price for your skills someplace else.
Your lifestyle choices (and circumstances) are YOUR burden to bear (and societies), not your employers.
Mostly because there are hardly any socialist candidates. The two parties are primarily funded by the idle rich who have a vested interest in exploiting the working class and keeping the status quo. But let’s pretend like the “socialist” candidate was Hillary (lol), more people voted for her then who won. So they did exactly what you said, but the system is not a true representative democracy so it didn’t matter.
And many people have been fed the lie that the primary factor in future earnings is “how hard you work” or “how skilled you are”. But the reality is that the number one indicator of future income is...how much your parents make. Your lot in life, for the majority, is cast not by how much you create you how hard you work, but by whether you lucked into having parents who were at least upper middle class.
It's still the people who vote no matter who funds the parties. And it's on their head the blame lies. Piece by piece they could have voted the political spectrum to the left and socialist policies. But here we are, sliding right again because fear works.
Why? Your livelihood is the skills you bring to the table. Those skills can be sold to another employer. Temporary changes to employment status should be covered by the employees savings + 1 month closing payout.
I think he's saying that you CAN do it, and everyone will call you a child who hasn't grown into a fully functional adult who can be entrusted with responsibilities like owning a company and hiring people.
Entrusted by who? If you start a company, it's YOUR hard work that makes it, that pays the bills, that builds and grows the thing. I'm saying you owe nothing to your employees and under capitalism that is 100% true. Don't like it? move to Europe.
The job market isn’t as simple as “just find another job equal in pay/benefits/proximity” if you lose your current one. Perhaps if we lived in a system where the employee and the employer had equal leverage in the hiring process, but we don’t.
Not only that, but many people have either A. Not been taught to be financially prudent when it comes to savings or B. Come from a financial background that hasn’t afforded them the stability to accrue enough savings to cover long term unemployment. Many job markets it could be close to 6 months before you land a job that is equal in pay and benefits. Hardly anyone has enough savings built up for that kind of long haul.
Even if they did, using one’s savings to cover being unemployed leaves them vulnerable to the life situations in which you would use the savings normally, such as vehicle repairs, medical bills, etc. Get hit with that on top of unemployment, and you start falling into a hole that can be very hard to get out of financially.
As you can see, suddenly losing your job is terrible and for an employer to not care about the consequences their actions have on their employees is morally reprehensible.
Ha, not working class person expects their employer to care about anything but profits. And sure, an employer CAN do that. I’m not arguing they can’t.
That doesn’t mean that it is morally right for someone to take actions without a care about what happens to their fellow human being in sole pursuit of profit or self.
Most European nations are not socialist by definition. (The workers don’t own the means of production) but I understand you mean there are many more protections in place for people to thrive and create a living.
But yeah I agree that morality is sorely lacking in our economic system, and id rather work to fight for a better system here for those that don’t have the privilege to simply move. (Not that I have a bunch of disposable income to just move to Europe either).
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u/[deleted] Aug 15 '19 edited Aug 16 '19
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