Is Labor a Commodity?

LaughAtTheWorld · Sep 11, 2011

haymarket said:
The difference being something that seems to escape you
1) rightist libertarians thrive and embrace selfishness and their own self interest above society and wear it upon their chests like a Miss America sash in Atlantic city
2) I know of no progressive who subscribes to the message that is constantly broadcast here of buying votes with other peoples money

#1 is a sad reality.
#2 is a Frankenstein monster perversion of a ludicrous strawman

You're overgeneralizing when you insult all rightist liberatarians being selfish. Such overgeneralization is one of the root causes of racism, sexism, and such discrimination. It's like saying that all poor people are criminals. Discrminatory, harmful, and ignorant.

haymarket · Sep 11, 2011

Proud South Korean said:
You're overgeneralizing when you insult all rightist liberatarians being selfish. Such overgeneralization is one of the root causes of racism, sexism, and such discrimination. It's like saying that all poor people are criminals. Discrminatory, harmful, and ignorant.

Perhaps you should read a bit more. This author is hardly a progressive leftist handing out Leon Trotsky T shirts at a commune

Ayn Rand’s adult-onset adolescence - The Washington Post

a very small selection

Many libertarians trace their inspiration to Rand’s novels, while sometimes distancing themselves from Objectivism. But both libertarians and Objectivists are moved by the mania of a single idea — a freedom indistinguishable from selfishness. This unbalanced emphasis on one element of political theory — at the expense of other public goals such as justice and equal opportunity — is the evidence of a rigid ideology.

If I had a dollar for every libertarian I have encountered over the years who defends their won self interest over society I could do some real good with that stack of cash.

This is written by a former libertarian.... he hits the nail firmly upon its head

http://madmikesamerica.com/2010/09/american-libertarianism-stupid-selfish-and-mean/

here is a selection

The infantile selfishness of American libertarianism should be obvious to anyone with a brain. It is so much about the welfare of the individual that the collective is the baby thrown out with the bath water. Like all philosophies doomed to failure, American libertarianism doesn’t recognize the whole of which it is a part. Life is a balancing act and calls for checks and balances to keep it healthy. Some times call for a focus on the individual to effectuate the greatest good. Other times call for a bolstering of the health of the collective to keep things humming in the general direction toward progress. Make one the ultimate master of the other and disaster will follow.

American libertarianism is just plain mean. It is a philosophy of heartlessness at its core, and ruthlessly promotes division between the haves and have-nots. The only welfare offered by the quintessential American libertarian is that in times of need, pray harder and good luck. Economically it is survival of the fittest, and ignores the fact that humanity is endowed with more than a lizard’s brain. Love and compassion for humanity and our planet don’t fit into the libertarian rubric from what I can tell.

atrasicarius · Sep 11, 2011

Kandahar said:
I'm not opposed to any of that. But what does it have to do with automation or my previous post?

The point is, there aren't enough jobs to go around anymore, in large part due to technology, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It just means we need to make some changes.

TurtleDude · Sep 11, 2011

haymarket said:
Perhaps you should read a bit more. This author is hardly a progressive leftist handing out Leon Trotsky T shirts at a commune

Ayn Rand’s adult-onset adolescence - The Washington Post

a very small selection

If I had a dollar for every libertarian I have encountered over the years who defends their won self interest over society I could do some real good with that stack of cash.

This is written by a former libertarian.... he hits the nail firmly upon its head

American Libertarianism: Stupid, Selfish and Mean | MadMikesAmerica

here is a selection

Randians are not exactly libertarians and the rants of one person means nothing. We know how many deaths communists, socialists and other collectivists have committed. And nothing is more selfish than demanding other people pay so you can claim you are being charitable and reap the benefits from those who are given the the moneys others were forced to pony up.

haymarket · Sep 11, 2011

TurtleDude said:
Randians are not exactly libertarians and the rants of one person means nothing. We know how many deaths communists, socialists and other collectivists have committed. And nothing is more selfish than demanding other people pay so you can claim you are being charitable and reap the benefits from those who are given the the moneys others were forced to pony up.

There is a very strong overlap and intercourse between randroids and libertarians. To deny it is to deny reality. To deny that is to commit intellectual fraud.

Just go to lewrockwell.com - the modern libertarian clearing house and you will find passionate defenses of Rand, the randroids and the ideas that libertarians absorded into their 'ideology'

http://www.lewrockwell.com/block/block172.html

It’s Ayn Rand bashing time once again. Our "friends" on the left are on the warpath for a change, and have Miss Rand in their crosshairs. See here, here, here and here.

What, pray tell, are the charges? It would appear that Ayn Rand, one of the greatest libertarian minds as far as I am concerned in the entire history of mankind, is, wait for it; no, you had better be sitting down when you read this or I won’t be responsible for your doctor bills, is, yes, a socialist! And a hypocrite to boot. And why is this? It is because while she railed against Social Security and Medicare, she availed herself of payments from these funds.

and more

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard252.html

But the Randian creed still remains as a vital influence on the thinking of libertarians, so many of whom were former adherents to the cult.

and yet more showing that Rand is often the gateway drug to addiction to libertarianism

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0502a.asp

My very first exposure to libertarianism was provided by Ayn Rand, whose 100th birthday is being celebrated today.

One afternoon in the fall of 1974, I was sitting around watching television. At the time, I was temporarily working as a waiter in Dallas, having just completed three months of infantry school in Georgia to fulfill my Army Reserves active-duty commitment, before returning to finish law school in Austin the following semester. An afternoon movie quickly engrossed me, becoming my first exposure to libertarianism — The Fountainhead, starring Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal. The credits stated that the movie was based on Ayn Rand’s novel by that name and so I ran out at once, bought it, and read it. Howard Roark and Dominique Francon quickly became my heroes!

Perhaps instead of simply pontificating about your own personal theories about selfishness resulting in charity you can actually go into the real world and the historical record and sow us with verifiable evidence just who it is that you are talking about?

lpast · Sep 11, 2011

Proud South Korean said:
Another complaint about the rich. Stop sucking every thread that remotely concerns economics about how the rich is always bad, and the poor is always good, and how the rich should be taxed 110% for being rich. Not only off-topic, but flaming.

On the topic, labor can and can't be defined as a commodity. It is unique and can't be defined as such. From Wikipedia: A commodity is a good for which there is demand, but which is supplied without qualitative differentiation across a market.
Labor is bought, sold, traded, like any other commodity market. As one can see, there is a labor market, so it has some basic characteristics of a commodity. However, labor is very diverse, from factory to agricultural to corporate labor. It also has qualitative differentiation unlike commodities such as the laborer's strength, education, record, etc...

Simply put, labor has many basic characteristics of a commodity, but cannot be defined as such

Not about the rich...about what the rich have done to the bulk of americans and to the country..out of GREED....

DaveFagan · Sep 11, 2011

atrasicarius said:
The point is, there aren't enough jobs to go around anymore, in large part due to technology, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It just means we need to make some changes.

High labor rates in the USA priced us out of competitive world markets. Many countries have booming manufacturing and export markets. In this country we gave tax breaks to companies moving equipment overseas to cheap labor markets. We heard politicians talk of the emerging service economy. Now we've had great growth in McD's, Subway, BK, ad infinitum. Unions squeezed labor rates too high as a backlash against old time sweatshop factories. Bound and rebound, too much in each direction. Labor rates must go down and the country has to shift to a paradigm that is proactive against Global Warming, energy conservation, species endangerment, alternative and renewable energy and make jobs rebuilding the infrastructure embracing teh paradigm. Easier said than done. Notice it doesn't do much for banksters, Wall Street, and big energy. I wonder if there could be organized opposition?

teamosil · Sep 11, 2011

These debates over definitions are a waste of time. We can define words however we want.

Occam's Razor · Sep 11, 2011

teamosil said:
These debates over definitions are a waste of time. We can define words however we want.

No.. you can't. Well, you could, but often would just be making yourself look ignorant. The Moon - green cheese. You can define it that way if you want, but it is in fact not green cheese.

Communication and the understanding of such is based in specific definitions for words. That's why we have dictionaries... so that everyone is more or less on the same page.

For example, the definitions of slavery and subjugation are very important... as is commodity. Because one word can entirely change the context and meaning of a sentence of even a paragraph, it is far from a waste of time.

What if...? · Sep 11, 2011

Kandahar said:
No. Technology creates new jobs, and enables the mass production of things that were impossible or expensive to make before. What you are suggesting is often called the neo-luddite fallacy: It assumes that machines will simply replace workers and production will carry on the same as before. In actuality, the history of our technological development has been such that on the whole, industry uses automation to increase production rather than decrease labor. In fact, the number of jobs in America today is STAGGERINGLY higher than the number of jobs in America 50 years ago despite all of our technological progress...and the jobs today offer more pleasant conditions.

Ok, I hear what you're saying. But what I was referring to was not the neo-luddite "robots are replacing wotkers thing, but another phenomenon I've run across in "hard" speculative fiction, and essays by the scientist authors. So fictional expansions of actual theories. I believe there's actually a term, it was discussed here so I can see if I can find it, but in a nutshell its this:

We have already exceeded the "carrying capacity" of the planet, and technological solutions are actually keeping mankind alive. An observable factor in technological developments is that they almost always allow fewer people to accomplish more work. While new tech often creates new jobs, the trend is for less and less "useful work" over time with big increases in production. Computers have reduced many office jobs while massively increasing overall output. Agriculture becomes less labor intensive every year.

This phenomenon, coupled with population growth, will eventually lead to a situation where everything that needs to be done IS being done, but MANY will simply have nothing to do.

Its a take off on the idea that technology would free man from labor. Freeing us to pursue being human. All that sci fi utopian stuff.

This is a global phenomenon, and there's a number of folks much more educated than I that are taking it seriously as something that needs to be addressed BEFORE it becomes a serious problem.

Its where Astrasicarius gets the "everybody works half time for full time pay, which is one of the solutions I've seen kicked around. Another is cradle to grave "welfare". Expansion into space. Etc. But basically some way of addressing too many people and not enough "useful work".

lpast · Sep 11, 2011

DaveFagan said:
High labor rates in the USA priced us out of competitive world markets. Many countries have booming manufacturing and export markets. In this country we gave tax breaks to companies moving equipment overseas to cheap labor markets. We heard politicians talk of the emerging service economy. Now we've had great growth in McD's, Subway, BK, ad infinitum. Unions squeezed labor rates too high as a backlash against old time sweatshop factories. Bound and rebound, too much in each direction. Labor rates must go down and the country has to shift to a paradigm that is proactive against Global Warming, energy conservation, species endangerment, alternative and renewable energy and make jobs rebuilding the infrastructure embracing teh paradigm. Easier said than done. Notice it doesn't do much for banksters, Wall Street, and big energy. I wonder if there could be organized opposition?

Unions have nothing to do with it....Greed is greed wanting more is more....When obama was doing his save GM thing...the gop railed on and on about the auto workers and that TOYOTA and HONDA dont have GMS problems because they arent unionized.....Toyota the NON UNIONIZED car company is building a huge plant in MEXICO....its greed and wanting more...no matter if theres unions or not...

teamosil · Sep 11, 2011

Occam's Razor said:
No.. you can't. Well, you could, but often would just be making yourself look ignorant. The Moon - green cheese. You can define it that way if you want, but it is in fact not green cheese.

Communication and the understanding of such is based in specific definitions for words. That's why we have dictionaries... so that everyone is more or less on the same page.

For example, the definitions of slavery and subjugation are very important... as is commodity. Because one word can entirely change the context and meaning of a sentence of even a paragraph, it is far from a waste of time.

By "we", I mean all English speakers, not just one individual. Bickering over whether a particular thing should be called a particular word is pointless. If we want to debate, we should debate about the substance. Like instead of "is labor a commodity?" we should be asking "is the value of labor set by the market?" or whatever the substance of the topic is. Otherwise you just get into useless disagreements about what the term means or whatever.

What if...? · Sep 11, 2011

atrasicarius said:
Imagine if the restaurant takes two hours to bring the guy his food, and when it does, it's half the size of the portion that was advertised. Of course the guy is going to walk out hungry. I understand personal responsibility much better than you seem to think, but it's irrelevant in a situation where the odds are stacked so badly against someone. For success to be determined by personal responsibility, you need equal opportunity.

Do you really think that the people in low income neighborhoods are inherently less capable than those born in rich neighborhoods? Do you really think that if you switched them, the ones originally from the low income neighborhood would still fail on average, and the ones originally from the high income neighborhood would still succeed? And you guys say we're the naive ones.

Now we agree on this subject, but I think you should include natural ability in your arguments. Many people just are not genetically equipped to compete for all those new high tech jobs. We all know people that no amount of education is ever going render competitive. Most who have "settled out" into menial, low demand jobs will NEVER become computer programmers, no matter how much money is spent trying to train them to do so.

There's a LOT of what I refer to as the "fallacy of the faster *****cat"on this board (in fact, i think i'll start a thread). I learned the hard lesson long ago that just because its easy for me does NOT mean it's easy for everyone. People are VERY different in intellect, drive, natural charisma, ability to learn new things,etc. So "go to school and quit whining" isn't a realistic, "global" solution.

I really like the half time work for full time pay thing. Its a pretty common solutiin seen in spec fiction to the issue. Addressing the problem while still giving people the sense of being useful that they need.

DaveFagan · Sep 11, 2011

What if...? said:
Ok, I hear what you're saying. But what I was referring to was not the neo-luddite "robots are replacing wotkers thing, but another phenomenon I've run across in "hard" speculative fiction, and essays by the scientist authors. So fictional expansions of actual theories. I believe there's actually a term, it was discussed here so I can see if I can find it, but in a nutshell its this:

We have already exceeded the "carrying capacity" of the planet, and technological solutions are actually keeping mankind alive. An observable factor in technological developments is that they almost always allow fewer people to accomplish more work. While new tech often creates new jobs, the trend is for less and less "useful work" over time with big increases in production. Computers have reduced many office jobs while massively increasing overall output. Agriculture becomes less labor intensive every year.

This phenomenon, coupled with population growth, will eventually lead to a situation where everything that needs to be done IS being done, but MANY will simply have nothing to do.

Its a take off on the idea that technology would free man from labor. Freeing us to pursue being human. All that sci fi utopian stuff.

This is a global phenomenon, and there's a number of folks much more educated than I that are taking it seriously as something that needs to be addressed BEFORE it becomes a serious problem.

Its where Astrasicarius gets the "everybody works half time for full time pay, which is one of the solutions I've seen kicked around. Another is cradle to grave "welfare". Expansion into space. Etc. But basically some way of addressing too many people and not enough "useful work".

You seem to be defining the "proletariat" perception of the problem. The greedy, and that might be the wealthy, would say that we have too many people and just need a few wars to rectify this problem and perhaps make a tidy profit with armanents or war supplies. Money can make a very nice "bubble" or sanctuary during the hostilites. Perhaps even "Champagne" units for those who want to generate patriotic perceptions for future political use. We're so lucky that the very wealthy that control the world are always thinking about us.

ksu_aviator · Sep 11, 2011

haymarket said:
Yup - they believe that being selfish and self centered somehow someway as if by magic makes society as a whole better.

No one said selfish. There is a difference between acting in your own self interest and being selfish. Acting in your own self interest includes clothing yourself and your family, feeding yourself and your family and maintaining shelter for yourself and your family. Being selfish would imply that you have wronged others to garner wages or commodities beyond what is necessary. There is nothing inherently wrong with acting in your self interest.

Now, if each and every individual is allowed to act in their own self interest, the majority will not require assistance to meet their basic needs. Those that do have wants, will generally be cared for by the same people you termed selfish to some extent or another. The same is not true if the government forces charity. When the government forces charity, government charity becomes the best self interest of many. That is why government charity raises the number of the poor. Liberalism raises the number of poor.

The sheer stupidity of that dwarfs the largest mountain on earth.

Only to be outdone by the stupidity of the belief that government charity helps people.

What if...? · Sep 11, 2011

DaveFagan said:
You seem to be defining the "proletariat" perception of the problem. The greedy, and that might be the wealthy, would say that we have too many people and just need a few wars to rectify this problem and perhaps make a tidy profit with armanents or war supplies. Money can make a very nice "bubble" or sanctuary during the hostilites. Perhaps even "Champagne" units for those who want to generate patriotic perceptions for future political use. We're so lucky that the very wealthy that control the world are always thinking about us.

I actually think the "problem" is pretty "organic". While I have seen some pretty amoral behavior on the part of some of the wealthy I've known, its not the dominant factor. "Going with the flow" leads to something that LOOKS like conspiratorial, exploitive behavior but really isnt. There isn't a conspiracy to subjugate the lower classes. No "plan" to effect public support for things against that publics interest. Just a lot of individual entities building on what exists for their own ends giving that appearance.

There's all this talk about "30 years" ago being a point where the trajectory of America changed. I believe that was the point when the world "filled up". The point at which every readily available "teat" on the planet had somebody attached to it. No unexploited resources of significant size still untapped. This caused our "expansionist" form of capitalism to have nowhere else to expand into, which caused it to become "parasitic". MUCH of the wealth being "created" today is "extractive" in nature obtaining capital without adding much real value to the economy as a whole. Not productive in the classic sense. Too much stuff like speculation that just creates artificial limits of supply instead of lubricating the wheels of commerce as it was originally intended.

Cephus · Sep 11, 2011

What if...? said:
I actually think the "problem" is pretty "organic". While I have seen some pretty amoral behavior on the part of some of the wealthy I've known, its not the dominant factor. "Going with the flow" leads to something that LOOKS like conspiratorial, exploitive behavior but really isnt. There isn't a conspiracy to subjugate the lower classes. No "plan" to effect public support for things against that publics interest. Just a lot of individual entities building on what exists for their own ends giving that appearance.

I've seen much more amoral behavior among the poor than among the wealthy. People who breed like rabbits and cannot afford to care for the kids, people who drop out of school, do drugs, get involved in crime and gang activity, who get on welfare and have their hands out for everything... that's seriously amoral.

There's all this talk about "30 years" ago being a point where the trajectory of America changed. I believe that was the point when the world "filled up". The point at which every readily available "teat" on the planet had somebody attached to it. No unexploited resources of significant size still untapped. This caused our "expansionist" form of capitalism to have nowhere else to expand into, which caused it to become "parasitic". MUCH of the wealth being "created" today is "extractive" in nature obtaining capital without adding much real value to the economy as a whole. Not productive in the classic sense. Too much stuff like speculation that just creates artificial limits of supply instead of lubricating the wheels of commerce as it was originally intended.

I'd place it back farther, back to the late 60s/early 70s. It may not have been until the early 80s that it got into full swing though. I call it the "liberalization of America", where people stopped recognizing that with every right comes responsibility to exercise said right correctly. People started acting like they deserved the world just for bothering to get up in the morning, that they ought to get things delivered to them on a silver platter and not have to actually earn them.

We do have lots of places we can expand into, the problem is, we've shipped those responsibilities overseas where production is cheaper and consumer costs are reduced. Where the U.S. was a world-leader in innovation, today we're simply a consumer society which buys from everyone else and only keep those jobs which are impossible to outsource. We import far more than we export, we buy far more than we sell and the economy has only expanded in the past several decades by preaching the "keep up with the Jones'" mentality. Buy more than you can afford, it's what keeps the economy going!

It's no wonder we're in the mess we're in.

atrasicarius · Sep 11, 2011

What if...? said:
Now we agree on this subject, but I think you should include natural ability in your arguments. Many people just are not genetically equipped to compete for all those new high tech jobs. We all know people that no amount of education is ever going render competitive. Most who have "settled out" into menial, low demand jobs will NEVER become computer programmers, no matter how much money is spent trying to train them to do so.

There's a LOT of what I refer to as the "fallacy of the faster *****cat"on this board (in fact, i think i'll start a thread). I learned the hard lesson long ago that just because its easy for me does NOT mean it's easy for everyone. People are VERY different in intellect, drive, natural charisma, ability to learn new things,etc. So "go to school and quit whining" isn't a realistic, "global" solution.

I really like the half time work for full time pay thing. Its a pretty common solutiin seen in spec fiction to the issue. Addressing the problem while still giving people the sense of being useful that they need.

That's true when you're talking about individuals. Like I said, there will always be exceptional individuals from low income backgrounds who manage to make something of themselves despite their disadvantages, and there will always be **** ups from high income backgrounds who are completely incapable of succeeding no matter what their advantages. If you had equal opportunity, or near equal opportunity across the board, individual capability (including personal responsibility) would be the only factor in determining success. In that situation, the libertarian's philosophy actually works quite well. The problem is, getting to that point requires some things that definitely do not fit in with their philosophy.

TurtleDude · Sep 11, 2011

haymarket said:
There is a very strong overlap and intercourse between randroids and libertarians. To deny it is to deny reality. To deny that is to commit intellectual fraud.

Just go to lewrockwell.com - the modern libertarian clearing house and you will find passionate defenses of Rand, the randroids and the ideas that libertarians absorded into their 'ideology'

It’s Ayn Rand Bashing Time, Once Again by Walter Block

and more

The Left and Right Within Libertarianism by Murray N. Rothbard

and yet more showing that Rand is often the gateway drug to addiction to libertarianism

Ayn Rand Introduced Me to Libertarianism

Perhaps instead of simply pontificating about your own personal theories about selfishness resulting in charity you can actually go into the real world and the historical record and sow us with verifiable evidence just who it is that you are talking about?

Your allergic reaction to those who want more freedom is funny. But you really aren't an authority on either rand or libertarians so what is the point.

and why are you demanding I defend something I didn't write?

haymarket · Sep 11, 2011

TurtleDude said:
Your allergic reaction to those who want more freedom is funny. But you really aren't an authority on either rand or libertarians so what is the point.

You - and they - use the word FREEDOM as an all purpose hollow cliche devoid of any real meaning. To the libertarian right, FREEDOM is a bumper sticker and lapel pin... something that sounds good but means nothing without context and meaning around it.

You seem angry that your previous post to me on the randdroid/libertarian left you in the dust as I gave three different independent sources which proved you totally and completely wrong.

here is what your wrote that I asked you to prove with evidence that there was any truth or foundation to it

And nothing is more selfish than demanding other people pay so you can claim you are being charitable and reap the benefits from those who are given the the moneys others were forced to pony up.

It is merely a variation on the same thing I have asked to to prove time and time and time again in thread after thread after thread when you make such a claim of belief that is unsupported with specific facts and documentation.

TurtleDude · Sep 11, 2011

Freedom is good. Rand sure bothers those who think they are entitled to the wealth of others.

teamosil · Sep 11, 2011

TurtleDude said:
Freedom is good. Rand sure bothers those who think they are entitled to the wealth of others.

By those who think they are entitled to the wealth of others you mean rich investors who don't create wealth themselves, but feel entitled to it, right?

haymarket · Sep 11, 2011

TurtleDude said:
Freedom is good. Rand sure bothers those who think they are entitled to the wealth of others.

Rand bothers people who demand more than bumper sticker slogans and hollow self serving cliches and those obsessed with their own selfish interests over those of the larger society.

TurtleDude · Sep 11, 2011

teamosil said:
By those who think they are entitled to the wealth of others you mean rich investors who don't create wealth themselves, but feel entitled to it, right?

No that is a stupid comment. an investing does help create wealth.

are you mad at those who invest and make money? that you somehow equate that to being given money coerced from others by the government is rather sick

TurtleDude · Sep 11, 2011

haymarket said:
Rand bothers people who demand more than bumper sticker slogans and hollow self serving cliches and those obsessed with their own selfish interests over those of the larger society.

yeah your leftwing ideals are "complex" because you say so and we who oppose them are "simple" I suppose

you want your side to win elections. that is no more complex than we who want your dem masters to lose

Is Labor a Commodity?

Is Labor a Commodity

Yes, it's a commodity subject to the market of wages offered

No, it's not a commodity, workers should receive a living wage

Yes, fill in your own justification

No, fill in your own justification

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