Help: Does Libertarian economic philosophy result in a race to the bottom?

[JohnCifelli1]

If minimum wage laws were repealed in an environment with high unemployment and there was a surplus of low skill workers, what would prevent their exploitation? More so, if the legal benchmarks for worker safety and consideration- 40 hour work week, 9 to 5, sick days are taken away, what prevents employers from abusing low-skill low-wage employees?

[Zippyjuan]

In a completely free, unregulated market businesses are free to exploit the workers as much as they can get away with. The 40 hour week, sick days, vacations all came about because unions forced the companies to start offering them.

[timosman]

In a completely free, unregulated market businesses are free to exploit the workers as much as they can get away with. The 40 hour week, sick days, vacations all came about because unions forced the companies to start offering them.

BS. You get more out of the slaves if they are well taken care of. Most of the social progress is driven by economic factors - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordism

[TheCount]

If minimum wage laws were repealed in an environment with high unemployment and there was a surplus of low skill workers, what would prevent their exploitation?

Collective bargaining. The problem is that many of people who say that they are "anti regulation" are actually only anti corporate regulation but are okay with regulating the actions of workers.

Competition among employers is also a factor depending on the level of unemployment.

[Zippyjuan]

BS. You get more out of the slaves if they are well taken care of. Most of the social progress is driven by economic factors - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordism

Ford was an exception. At the turn of the 20th century, the average work week was 60 hours and pay low.That was actually down ten hours from what it was in the 1880s before unions started to emerge (70 hours of course is ten hours a day, seven days a week). There was no "middle class".

[timosman]

Ford was an exception. At the turn of the 20th century, the average work week was 60 hours and pay low.That was actually down ten hours from what it was in the 1880s before unions started to emerge (70 hours of course is ten hours a day, seven days a week). There was no "middle class".

You proved my point. All progress is made by "exceptions".

[CaptUSA]

If minimum wage laws were repealed in an environment with high unemployment and there was a surplus of low skill workers, what would prevent their exploitation? More so, if the legal benchmarks for worker safety and consideration- 40 hour work week, 9 to 5, sick days are taken away, what prevents employers from abusing low-skill low-wage employees?

First of all, in a free market, there are two parties to every transaction so it's a little one-sided to say that employers will exploit the workers. More appropriately, you could say that the employers will exploit the market. But this also happens in low unemployment when employees can exploit the market.

I'm not sure we need a government to come in to save employers during those periods. Why would we think we need a government to do it on the other side?

[luctor-et-emergo]

In a completely free, unregulated market businesses are free to exploit the workers as much as they can get away with. The 40 hour week, sick days, vacations all came about because unions forced the companies to start offering them.

Correct.

However, I think we vastly disagree on how this would play out in a truly free market.

[otherone]

In a free market, more individuals would be self-employed, and there would be no gray market.

[Ronin Truth]

No!

http://www.capitalism.net/Capitalism...M_Internet.pdf

[The Gold Standard]

If minimum wage laws were repealed in an environment with high unemployment and there was a surplus of low skill workers, what would prevent their exploitation? More so, if the legal benchmarks for worker safety and consideration- 40 hour work week, 9 to 5, sick days are taken away, what prevents employers from abusing low-skill low-wage employees?

Assuming we are talking about a free market, not the current U.S. economy, if minimum wage laws were repealed, there wouldn't be high unemployment. If there was a surplus of low skill workers, their value would be driven down until many of them decided they had better add some skills or they will starve. If this low skilled, cheap labor was so abundant that it was dirt cheap, you would have companies pop up to utilize that until there was no more surplus and competition would again put upward pressure on their wages and conditions. The problem would solve itself. I don't see what that has to do with exploiting anyone though.

[hankrichter12]

If minimum wage laws were repealed in an environment with high unemployment and there was a surplus of low skill workers, what would prevent their exploitation? More so, if the legal benchmarks for worker safety and consideration- 40 hour work week, 9 to 5, sick days are taken away, what prevents employers from abusing low-skill low-wage employees?

Those two words are your problem. They are vague and meaningless. Everyone will define them a different way.

Unions - without govt intervention - are the means to bargain for wages and such, or acquire better skills that are more valuable to the employer. Only problem now is you have public sector unions would should be abolished and never should be legal in the first place, and even in private sector unions you have govt giving out special privileges to unions and obviously we all know of the auto bailout which was BS.

Demand all you like, get all you like, but just know there is a limit, and if you price yourself out of the business, you take your medicine, you don't get to rob your fellow citizens.

[Lucille]

In a completely free, unregulated market businesses are free to exploit the workers as much as they can get away with. The 40 hour week, sick days, vacations all came about because unions forced the companies to start offering them.

Collective bargaining. The problem is that many of people who say that they are "anti regulation" are actually only anti corporate regulation but are okay with regulating the actions of workers.

Oh look. Marxist goons once again smearing all employers as evil exploiters of the glorious worker.

“Men enslave themselves, forging the chains link by link, usually by demanding protection as a group. When business men ask for government credit, they surrender control of their business. When labor asks for enforced ‘collective bargaining’ it has yielded its own freedom. When racial groups are recognized in law, they can be discriminated against by law.”
–Isabel Paterson

[TheCount]

Oh look. Marxist goons once again smearing all employers as evil exploiters of the glorious worker.

I said that where, exactly?

[farreri]

In a free market, there would be considerable more competition and employers would find that treating employers unfairly, such as making them work too long, or paying them too little, will make it harder for them to attract good competent employees and harder to cut down on high turnover. It will also cause them to lose business by having a bad public reputation, putting them at risk of boycotts and such. It would also cause people to move out of the area to find better jobs. So in the long run, it won't make economic sense for employers to not treat their employees well.

[NorthCarolinaLiberty]

If you don't like the job, then don't work there. The "employer" is not obligated to you.

[Ronin Truth]

If minimum wage laws were repealed in an environment with high unemployment and there was a surplus of low skill workers, what would prevent their exploitation? More so, if the legal benchmarks for worker safety and consideration- 40 hour work week, 9 to 5, sick days are taken away, what prevents employers from abusing low-skill low-wage employees?

Most hypotheticals are just really silly, phony and boring. BTW, that includes yours. <yawn!>

-rep!

[DamianTV]

In on the fence on this, but what the hell. I get the feeling that to fully understand a libertarian economic philosophy, we must also understand the key differences between Keynsian and Austrian Economics. Libertarian would include a lot of Austrian economic philosophies, where we have a wealth based, not a debt based economic system. Keynes based everything on debt giving money the power, but there is no limit to how much debt can be produced, which causes currency to bleed out its value. The loss of that value is what causes many businesses to even start considering policies that screw over workers. It also depends on the rest of the socio-economic conditions. If conditions are well enough, people have a Right to simply quit abusive jobs, which creates an incentive for the employers to rethink their current policies in order to retain their better employees. Unions are really just a collective voice of workers, but when they also get involved in govt, things tend to go sideways. Basically its a balance between employers and employees. Things can go wildly out of balance. In hard economic times when there are no jobs to be found, employers seem to be able to take advantage of employees out of desperation and not base their working expectations on something that can be negotiated upon. That, has at least been my experience, and most of those have been non union jobs.

Welfare is also a major contributing factor. I think Libertarians would be opposed to Welfare, but not to Charity. There are situations that are way beyond any measure of control of an individual to cope with, such as Hurricane or other Natural Disaster. Those are supposed to be offset by insurance, but there are times the govt does step in for the extreme situations. That I dont think qualifies as Welfare. The problem with Welfare is it is the state / govt way of subsidizing low wages. Walmart is a perfect example of how welfare subsidizes low wages. Walmarx is also one of the most profitable companies in the world, but they pay their employees such low wages that the rest of that persons financial needs are met by a welfare system. That system prevents the natural systems from taking place. "You cut my wages / hours? I quit." But with welfare "You cut my wages / hours? I'll just ask for more welfare."

It also depends on the current value of the Minimum Wage, as well as the conditions that caused Minimum Wage laws to be considered to begin with. Back in 1960, one hour of minimum wage would afford a person about 22 candy bars. Today, one hour of minimum wage will only afford 5 candy bars. The value of the minimum wage has dropped because the value of the dollar has dropped because the price of goods and services has increased because the quantity of money in the money system has vastly increased. Inflation is basically an increase in the money supply. And our govt prints money like mad. The normal response to a devalued minimum wage is to increase that minimum wage, which puts an increased burden on the employers and that results in even worse working conditions and job losses. Basically, the natural response backfires because it doesnt address the real cause of the problem, which is a devalued money system caused by inflation and central banks.

Ideally, an employer and an employee would be able to negotiate and thereby agree upon a reasonable wage. If an agreement is not had, then no expectation of labor can be expected. Employers have an incentive to pay employees enough to keep them. Employers have an incentive to work hard to earn a pay increase for loyalty, longevity, or promotion. What we have today is Disposable People. Trash Employees. As soon as the employee is due for a raise, get rid of them and let someone else benefit by saying you wont be considered for a raise for a year. Likewise, that job opening can be filled by many desperate people. By constantly rotating employees between companies, the employees become disposable and employers can get all the labor they want out of the desperate person through coercion without being burdened with benefits or costs. But the real cause is and will always be inflation. The value of our currency has dropped so much that in order for companies to stay in business, they cant afford to have employees that earn more than minimum wage, or provide benefits. The value of the money that has been stolen by inflation has gone to those with the power to print money out of nothing, the banks and their ilk.

[NorthCarolinaLiberty]

Bump

[osan]

If minimum wage laws were repealed in an environment with high unemployment and there was a surplus of low skill workers, what would prevent their exploitation?

Firstly, you do not provide a specific definition of "exploitation". The term is far too open ended to be of any value, given your usage. This use is, in fact, rife with negative innuendo.

Next, the question can be readily interpreted to presuppose that exploitation is universally unwanted. This, I assure you, is anything but the case.

Without a lot of clarification, yourbquestion is effectively meaningless.

More so, if the legal benchmarks for worker safety and consideration- 40 hour work week, 9 to 5, sick days are taken away, what prevents employers from abusing low-skill low-wage employees?

Same problem here. Bei g a stranger to me, I would stand well either n good reason to wonder whether you were peddling a bill of goods.

[dean.engelhardt]

If minimum wage laws were repealed in an environment with high unemployment and there was a surplus of low skill workers, what would prevent their exploitation? More so, if the legal benchmarks for worker safety and consideration- 40 hour work week, 9 to 5, sick days are taken away, what prevents employers from abusing low-skill low-wage employees?

Your first question implies that the minimum wage prevents worker exploitation, and if repealed would increase worker exploitation. I believe that to be a false assumption. Unionization is one of the main methods to combat worker exploitation and has nothing to do with minimum wage laws.

The second question concerns 1)work place safety 2) 40 hour work week and 3) 9-5 schedule 4) sick days. Workers can deal with workplace safety abuses through unions if they are a member, or legal tort system as is happening now. OSHA or other government regulator workplace safety don't current have a heavy hand in making our workplace's safe. Companies are motivated to make their workplaces safe to save money and increase profit.

The 40 hour work week in a arbitrary relic. I will be glad when it is gone. It does not exist for salaried employees now.

A 9-5 work day is great if that is what make a company profitable, But most companies would not be viable keeping those hours. If the government regulated every workday to 9-5, our country would go into a depression overnight.

What are the legal benchmarks for sick days? I do not know any. I work for a large organization that did away with paid sick time years ago without legal ramifications.

If someone is looking for government to make the workplace better for low wage workers, That person is a fool. Government officials work for the wealthy that contribute to political campaigns. They do not care about the low wage worker, whom would be much better off in a free labor market.

[osan]

In a free market, there would be considerable more competition and employers would find that treating employers unfairly, such as making them work too long, or paying them too little, will make it harder for them to attract good competent employees and harder to cut down on high turnover.

This would be so only under certain conditions. In a buyer's market for employees, this would not necessarily hold, taken in vacuo. A better understanding comes where the greater totality of circumstances are taken into account.

It will also cause them to lose business by having a bad public reputation, putting them at risk of boycotts and such.

Certainly possible, but once again it assumes no buyer apathy - a dangerous assumption to make. In current times, people have tended not to give too much of a damn about workers where the hazards in question did not touch consumers directly. Perhaps the dawn of "social media" will alter this in some way or degree, but that is as yet unproven.



Free markets, in the context of free societies, would tend to work well because people would be faced with the reality of "get busy or die", every day. Free markets in a context of safety net societies are likely not to work as intended. Therefore, those who claim free markets fail, using those that operate in nations with social safety nets are reasoning from a fundamentally flawed premise, i.e., that those safety net structures have no effect on the markets, which of course they do, causing severe distortions of individual expectations and motivational drivers. Why be truly responsible for yourself when all you have to do is run off to the welfare office and have Themme make your booboos all better.

Freedom can be a bitch at times, and it is this truth that most people refuse to accept as part and parcel with being a Freeman. They are fond of calling themselves Freemen, or rather their own analog of that appellation, while wholly rejecting the full reality of freedom. Once again, people prove their corruption through their desire to get something for nothing, clumsily veiling their graft-spurred desire as that to which all men are entitled. They don't even display the most rudimentary art in their lies, but act as dogs copulating on the street for all to see, all the while denying they do so.

[LibForestPaul]

In a free market, more individuals would be self-employed, and there would be no gray market.

BINGO! WINNER!

Thank your state and international banking cartels for the mess we have now!

[r3volution 3.0]

No, it results in a race to the top.

One is paid the discounted marginal revenue product of one's labor.

That is partly a function of capital investments (e.g. farmer using tractor earns more than farmer using shovel).

But, ultimately, it is a function of personal ability, capital investments held equal - the ultimate meritocracy.

...race to the top.

[Zippyjuan]

No, it results in a race to the top.

One is paid the discounted marginal revenue product of one's labor.

That is partly a function of capital investments (e.g. farmer using tractor earns more than farmer using shovel).

But, ultimately, it is a function of personal ability, capital investments held equal - the ultimate meritocracy.

...race to the top.

Are they? As productivity has increased and revenues increased have wages increased? That is theory- what is reality? Yes, it is a race to the top, but only the select few are benefiting.

[r3volution 3.0]

Are they?

In a free market, yes. In the present situation, not quite.

The explanation lies largely in these charts:




Essentially, productivity gains were siphoned off by inflation and put in the pockets of those connected to banking/government.