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Is Labor a Commodity?

Is Labor a Commodity


  • Total voters
    28
It is a commodity, but if a person can't make enough to support his family, that doesn't help anybody. No extra money = no purchases, which drives the economy downward. Plus, not enough money to buy food increases demand on charities and welfare programs. Not enough to pay rent results in more homelessness. None of which is helpful to anyone.
 
Yes they did. I did not include it because I - as i assume most parents - had a very different level of involvement in their K-12 education as opposed to their college education.

fair enough-that makes perfect sense
 
Workers without work to do are pointless. Workers without direction have nothing to do.

The above is PRECISELY why I rejected the current system as inherently flawed as a little kid. The fact that peoples lives were utterly dependent on a completely artificial system.

I have actually spent my life collecting skills so that I WON'T be dependent on said system, so your above statement does not apply to me.

And this is the heart of my concerns with our current expression of capitalism.

That the economic system so many venerate ITSELF creates and depends on an unacceptable degree of dependence on entities that are amoral by nature.

I understand you come from a practical and realistic place, pleas don't take this as a personal attack. I also understand what you MEANT, and you are correct.

That first part was one of those bubbles up and must come out things, and was more in response to the words you chose themselves. They evoked an unintended emotional response from me. But I ain't mad or anything!
 
Sure, they'd rather be home playing video games or hanging out with their friends. Hell, I'd rather be doing that than going to work every day, but everyone has to be instilled with a sense of responsibility to do what they're supposed to do, whether they like it or not. Who cares if you like it? Who cares if it's fun? It's part of growing up. Too bad so many people never do.

What's the point in living if you're not having fun? I don't know what you believe, but I'm not trying to impress anyone so I can get rewarded after I die. I'm here to enjoy myself. Aside from that, students learn a lot better if they're actually enjoying and engaged in the lesson. There are a lot of teaching video games out there, and I think there's even more potential. And of course, if school projects are designed right, you can do them while you hang out with your friends. You're never going to make everything in school fun, but you can definitely do enough to shift school to a general positive instead of a general negative.
 
I'm just going to say it. This is an absolutely idiotic discussion. Yes, labor is a commodity. No, it is not slavery to sale your labor/time....you own the time and you chose to sell it...do we not know what slavery is?

And why do we need someone else to provide for us? You aren't skilled enough to garner wages that aren't a "living wage" and some how that's the employers problem? Societies problem? Why isn't that your problem?
 
I'm just going to say it. This is an absolutely idiotic discussion. Yes, labor is a commodity. No, it is not slavery to sale your labor/time....you own the time and you chose to sell it...do we not know what slavery is?

And why do we need someone else to provide for us? You aren't skilled enough to garner wages that aren't a "living wage" and some how that's the employers problem? Societies problem? Why isn't that your problem?

Because responsibility is a bad word for liberals. It's never their fault. Society is always to blame.
 
Because responsibility is a bad word for liberals. It's never their fault. Society is always to blame.

to get rid of rights you have to get rid of responsibilities as well
 
Because responsibility is a bad word for liberals. It's never their fault. Society is always to blame.

i am now and always have been on the left side of politics. I live my life extremely conservatively in terms of life style, habits, values and all those sort of personal behavior components. I view responsibility as being essential to both individuals and to all of society.

You are making broad statements which are simply unsubstantiated.
 
Because responsibility is a bad word for liberals. It's never their fault. Society is always to blame.

Conservatives, on the other hand, believe that people are completely independent of their society, and that a black kid from the projects has just as much chance to succeed as a rich white kid with private tutors.
 
Conservatives, on the other hand, believe that people are completely independent of their society, and that a black kid from the projects has just as much chance to succeed as a rich white kid with private tutors.

find one post that comes close to justifying that
 
Just to be clear, I'm speaking of labor provided by individuals, not labor as jobs offered by companies.

What is the essence of labor? Is it a commodity, or is it a the product of commodities invested by an individual such as time and energy?

Or maybe you have another view or philosophy you'd like to share on the subject of labor.

Please try to support your positions with quotes, links, citations, historical precedent, etc... Personal opinions are little more than anecdotal without knowing how and why you draw the conclusions you do.

From an economic standpoint, labor behaves like a commodity in some ways. On a micro level, higher salaries will usually draw more qualified people, and lower salaries will usually draw fewer qualified people. Furthermore, monopolization of labor markets (i.e. unions) tend to cause inefficiencies, just as monopolization of other commodities do. But there are many ways in which labor is NOT like a commodity: It isn't interchangeable (i.e. you can't replace Bob's labor with Joe's labor and expect exactly the same results), you usually don't know the quality of what you're buying until after the fact, and lowering wages may paradoxically cause existing workers to work MORE (whereas with most commodities, a lower price REDUCES the quantity supplied).

However I can't answer the poll question because you posed two completely separate and unrelated questions. Whether or not labor is a commodity has nothing to do with whether or not a certain wage should be paid. To answer that question: No, I don't think the government should mandate a minimum wage. Let the market determine the prices, then provide assistance via social programs for the poor and offer subsidized training/education to help people move up the income ladder if they want to.
 
find one post that comes close to justifying that

Okay.
spare me the psychobabble. The market sets wages. If someone has skills that only bring 7 dollars an hour

1) whose fault is that

Not as amazing as the idea that people ought to be responsible enough to get an education, training and learn job skills that will allow them to make the living they'd like to make. The very idea that people ought to LEARN anything... imagine that!

2) not the fault of society or the employer or especially the market

And why do we need someone else to provide for us? You aren't skilled enough to garner wages that aren't a "living wage" and some how that's the employers problem? Societies problem? Why isn't that your problem?

Want me to start looking through other threads to find a few dozen more, or is that good?
 
complete fail there dude, try again
 
complete fail there dude, try again

Right, let me explain this very slowly and carefully: It's not someone's fault that they can't get an education if educations aren't being offered in their area. And that's exactly what most inner city schools amount to, whatever excuses you might try to make. Every time you blame someone for not having an education, you're completely disregarding the society that surrounds them.
 
From an economic standpoint, labor behaves like a commodity in some ways. On a micro level, higher salaries will usually draw more qualified people, and lower salaries will usually draw fewer qualified people. Furthermore, monopolization of labor markets (i.e. unions) tend to cause inefficiencies, just as monopolization of other commodities do. But there are many ways in which labor is NOT like a commodity: It isn't interchangeable (i.e. you can't replace Bob's labor with Joe's labor and expect exactly the same results), you usually don't know the quality of what you're buying until after the fact, and lowering wages may paradoxically cause existing workers to work MORE (whereas with most commodities, a lower price REDUCES the quantity supplied).

However I can't answer the poll question because you posed two completely separate and unrelated questions. Whether or not labor is a commodity has nothing to do with whether or not a certain wage should be paid. To answer that question: No, I don't think the government should mandate a minimum wage. Let the market determine the prices, then provide assistance via social programs for the poor and offer subsidized training/education to help people move up the income ladder if they want to.

Ok, but do you acknowledge that technological solutions are more and more often eliminating useful work, creating a situation where there isn't enough actual useful work that needs to be done to provide all those able to work with full time employment?

I see this as a problem that is beginning to manifest now, and that is going to get worse fast.

A genuine 800 pound gorilla.
 
Right, let me explain this very slowly and carefully: It's not someone's fault that they can't get an education if educations aren't being offered in their area. And that's exactly what most inner city schools amount to, whatever excuses you might try to make. Every time you blame someone for not having an education, you're completely disregarding the society that surrounds them.

You are not addressing the claim you made about conservatives
 
Conservatives, on the other hand, believe that people are completely independent of their society, and that a black kid from the projects has just as much chance to succeed as a rich white kid with private tutors.

No one has argued that

1) people are COMPLETELY independent of society

2) that a black kid in the projects has just as much chance to succeed as a rich white kid etc
 
From an economic standpoint, labor behaves like a commodity in some ways. On a micro level, higher salaries will usually draw more qualified people, and lower salaries will usually draw fewer qualified people. Furthermore, monopolization of labor markets (i.e. unions) tend to cause inefficiencies, just as monopolization of other commodities do. But there are many ways in which labor is NOT like a commodity: It isn't interchangeable (i.e. you can't replace Bob's labor with Joe's labor and expect exactly the same results), you usually don't know the quality of what you're buying until after the fact, and lowering wages may paradoxically cause existing workers to work MORE (whereas with most commodities, a lower price REDUCES the quantity supplied).

However I can't answer the poll question because you posed two completely separate and unrelated questions. Whether or not labor is a commodity has nothing to do with whether or not a certain wage should be paid. To answer that question: No, I don't think the government should mandate a minimum wage. Let the market determine the prices, then provide assistance via social programs for the poor and offer subsidized training/education to help people move up the income ladder if they want to.

Thank you for an actual and serious answer that doesn't shy away from the role human psychology makes actions deviate from a strict supply and demand model that many here seem to rely on. I wish more people would realize reality is always more complicated than a simple model or principal would predict, meaning that simple rules about society never work well.
 
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No one has argued that

1) people are COMPLETELY independent of society

2) that a black kid in the projects has just as much chance to succeed as a rich white kid etc

OK, in the interests of fairness, you can replace "completely" with "almost entirely." I will stand by that position, though. If you're looking for more evidence, here's one of my favorites that I managed to dig up:

I missed nothing. I showed where pointing out one person proves nothing. There have been far more presidents to come from humble beginnings than that came from a Kennedy or Bush lineage. Are you disagreeing with that?

You've shown no obvious examples.



There are tons of people who are from a poor background that get a good education. I'll cede the point that there are a lot of poor parents that do not care whether their kids get a good education or not.



Because you say so? I say poor choices are a far higher up the list as opposed to actually being poor.
 
OK, in the interests of fairness, you can replace "completely" with "almost entirely." I will stand by that position, though. If you're looking for more evidence, here's one of my favorites that I managed to dig up:

He is right, many people from poor backgrounds get good educations. Poor choices are a major reason why people are poor-you stay in school, don't breed before you are married and don't do drugs you have less than 5% chance of being in poverty
 
A liberal definition I kind of liked:


I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves.

I believe also in the United States of America, in the promise that it contains and has contained throughout our history of producing a society so abundant and creative and so free and responsible that it cannot only fulfill the aspirations of its citizens, but serve equally well as a beacon for all mankind. I do not believe in a superstate. I see no magic in tax dollars which are sent to Washington and then returned. I abhor the waste and incompetence of large-scale federal bureaucracies in this administration as well as in others. I do not favor state compulsion when voluntary individual effort can do the job and do it well. But I believe in a government which acts, which exercises its full powers and full responsibilities. Government is an art and a precious obligation; and when it has a job to do, I believe it should do it. And this requires not only great ends but that we propose concrete means of achieving them.
A Liberal Definition by JFK
 
He is right, many people from poor backgrounds get good educations. Poor choices are a major reason why people are poor-you stay in school, don't breed before you are married and don't do drugs you have less than 5% chance of being in poverty

As I said. You always fail to consider people as products of their society.
 
As I said. You always fail to consider people as products of their society.

Uh another completely idiotic claim.

why do you make so many excuses for destructive pathologies?
 
A liberal definition I kind of liked:


I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves.

I believe also in the United States of America, in the promise that it contains and has contained throughout our history of producing a society so abundant and creative and so free and responsible that it cannot only fulfill the aspirations of its citizens, but serve equally well as a beacon for all mankind. I do not believe in a superstate. I see no magic in tax dollars which are sent to Washington and then returned. I abhor the waste and incompetence of large-scale federal bureaucracies in this administration as well as in others. I do not favor state compulsion when voluntary individual effort can do the job and do it well. But I believe in a government which acts, which exercises its full powers and full responsibilities. Government is an art and a precious obligation; and when it has a job to do, I believe it should do it. And this requires not only great ends but that we propose concrete means of achieving them.
A Liberal Definition by JFK

I like this. I have always wondered, if people have no dignity, than what is the point of having a society to live in?
 
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