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Should we celebrate Cesar Chavez?

Is Cesar Chavez someone we should celebrate?

  • Yes

    Votes: 5 35.7%

  • No

    Votes: 5 35.7%

  • Jimmy Hoffa

    Votes: 4 28.6%
  • Total voters
    14
Ajay said:
1. Farms grew under the system of rights for farm workers. Farms produced more not less. There's your evidence. You used a hypothesis with no basis in reality, and reality is available to you.
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Because demand grew! I could just as easily say that they grew despite the controls and that they would have grown more if not for the union. In other words, we would have had a cheaper price for grapes.

Mexicans are not guaranteed a job on American farms. btw, more than Mexicans worked on farms and got better lives because of CC's work.
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No one is guaranteed a job. This does not excuse ignoring their plight.

I wonder why so many Mexicans and others who are farm workers loved CC? I guess that weren't as concerned as you are for others and they aren't as smart as you are, eh?
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They just ignored unintended consequences. Most people do this.

2. Prove that more Mexicans worked? I have no idea where you are coming from here. Do you? Is there something implied that I missed? Did you have an issue comprehending this part of my statements: "btw, more than Mexicans worked on farms and got better lives because of CC's work."?
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Sorry, I misread. You said more THAN Mexicans. That's great. But look at the people who now lost their jobs because of this. They went from some money to no money. Look at everyday people who had to pay more for food. I don't see a net positive.

3. Higher unemployment of migrant workers? Where in the world do you get this idea? You keep stating things that come across as part of a fabulous big lie.
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Higher costs mean higher prices. Higher prices can only come about through decreased production. Look up decreasing marginal utility.
 
phattonez said:
It was an extreme analogy, obviously, but if I can't justify that then how can I justify what Chavez did?
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Chavez wasn't given the choice you lay out. Chavez was concerned with actual workers working under miserable conditions. Chavez's actions may have unintended consequences as all actions do, but that is never the best argument for doing nothing. If you are arguing that more of these imaginary people should have worked for poverty wages and under miserable conditions as a benefit as opposed to the ones actually working forming a union, then you truly need to go back and revisit the facts of life during Chavez's time as an activist.

You keep laying out a scenario that is at odds with reality. What might, could and maybe be is an exercise in intellectual boredom
 
phattonez said:
Or is there something wrong with violating one's ownership of self?
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What a ridiculous concept! Did you make yourself? Did you earn yourself? Of course not. You were given yourself, and you owe everything you are to the people that made you. You don't owe anything to random strangers living in a random city that you might randomly enslave.
 
phattonez said:
Does it really matter? You're basically arguing that there must be a perpetual number of people who are forced out of work. It's still nonsense.
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Yes it does matter, especially since you're trying you're smarmy "lump of labor fallacy" thing which I had not violated any premise of. This is history. There were long lines to get jobs, the population was exploding and there were not enough jobs to go around just yet. In fact, the same is true now; it's why we have unemployment.
phattonez said:
Real mature of you.
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Well don't make stupid claims or try to claim fallacy when one doesn't exist.

phattonez said:
Okay, I've had enough of this. Show me the actual numbers.
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This was during an era where there were literally long lines for jobs that employers could draw from. There was extreme competition for jobs due to the vastly expanding population; particularly in the developed areas and cities where many of the major industrial companies were founded. There was total saturation of the labor market. Meaning that at the time there were well more people looking for jobs than jobs to be had. Work conditions were horrible, but companies could make a lot of money while maintaining poor and dangerous work conditions since there was no oversight on it.

phattonez said:
If what you're saying is true, then a company could have made a ton of money with safer working conditions. They would have gotten all the labor. Since they didn't, there can only be two reasons: it was prohibitively expensive and it really just wasn't that big of a deal. If it was a bigger deal, then the cost would have been worth it, but the benefits obviously did not outweigh the costs.
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You have to keep in mind time scales. It seems that you almost think this stuff poofs itself into existence. But it's not true. There is plenty of up front costs; and those costs would prevent a company from implementing changes such as safer work conditions and investment into innovation. A company can get caught in a local minimum; but that doesn't mean it necessarily inhabits the global minimum. A company makes money. If there is no outside force; they will do whatever it takes, by whatever means necessary to do so. If it takes investment and time to reap benefits, many companies will not go that route. That's because they are unwilling to take the short term loss for the long term gain. Not when they have to compete against other companies. The only way to elicit change such as safer work conditions is to have an agency which can uniformly apply rules and a system of oversight to ensure that the rules are enforced. This happens to be the government. Some amount of regulation is necessary. You're taking a well too simplified and generalized overview of the dynamics of economics and the time scales involved to produce positive change. It's like the people who use classical arguments to say that matter cannot spontaneously generate but ignore all the quantum fluctuations and measurements which tell us that energy conservation can be violated on small time scales.
 
Ajay said:
Did Chavez enslave anyone? What are you talking about?
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It's an analogy. Of course he didn't enslave anyone, but there was a negative effect on those now out of work.
 
Ajay said:
Chavez wasn't given the choice you lay out. Chavez was concerned with actual workers working under miserable conditions. Chavez's actions may have unintended consequences as all actions do, but that is never the best argument for doing nothing. If you are arguing that more of these imaginary people should have worked for poverty wages and under miserable conditions as a benefit as opposed to the ones actually working forming a union, then you truly need to go back and revisit the facts of life during Chavez's time as an activist.

You keep laying out a scenario that is at odds with reality. What might, could and maybe be is an exercise in intellectual boredom
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The problem is that they're not imaginary and you have to justify the negative effects imposed on them.
 
Korimyr the Rat said:
What a ridiculous concept! Did you make yourself? Did you earn yourself? Of course not. You were given yourself, and you owe everything you are to the people that made you. You don't owe anything to random strangers living in a random city that you might randomly enslave.
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Then no one owns anyone except for an original creator. Because if you don't own yourself, then how can you own the products of yourself (your children)?
 
Ikari said:
Yes it does matter, especially since you're trying you're smarmy "lump of labor fallacy" thing which I had not violated any premise of. This is history. There were long lines to get jobs, the population was exploding and there were not enough jobs to go around just yet. In fact, the same is true now; it's why we have unemployment.


Well don't make stupid claims or try to claim fallacy when one doesn't exist.



This was during an era where there were literally long lines for jobs that employers could draw from. There was extreme competition for jobs due to the vastly expanding population; particularly in the developed areas and cities where many of the major industrial companies were founded. There was total saturation of the labor market. Meaning that at the time there were well more people looking for jobs than jobs to be had. Work conditions were horrible, but companies could make a lot of money while maintaining poor and dangerous work conditions since there was no oversight on it.
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I'm looking for actual proof, not just your feelings. You're basically just using anecdotal evidence.

And we have unemployment now because of minimum wage, a social security net, etc.

You have to keep in mind time scales. It seems that you almost think this stuff poofs itself into existence. But it's not true. There is plenty of up front costs; and those costs would prevent a company from implementing changes such as safer work conditions and investment into innovation. A company can get caught in a local minimum; but that doesn't mean it necessarily inhabits the global minimum. A company makes money. If there is no outside force; they will do whatever it takes, by whatever means necessary to do so. If it takes investment and time to reap benefits, many companies will not go that route. That's because they are unwilling to take the short term loss for the long term gain. Not when they have to compete against other companies. The only way to elicit change such as safer work conditions is to have an agency which can uniformly apply rules and a system of oversight to ensure that the rules are enforced. This happens to be the government. Some amount of regulation is necessary. You're taking a well too simplified and generalized overview of the dynamics of economics and the time scales involved to produce positive change.
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People take risks all the time for potential future profit! Your argument is illogical. If it was true, then there is no reason why Las Vegas hotels should exist. None at all.

It's like the people who use classical arguments to say that matter cannot spontaneously generate but ignore all the quantum fluctuations and measurements which tell us that energy conservation can be violated on small time scales.
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I didn't ignore it, I accepted it. I had other arguments as well, don't act like you have the trump card. And how nice of you to drag another conversation into this thread.
 
phattonez said:
Then no one owns anyone except for an original creator. Because if you don't own yourself, then how can you own the products of yourself (your children)?
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You don't. They are indebted to you, as you are indebted to your ancestors.
 
Korimyr the Rat said:
You don't. They are indebted to you, as you are indebted to your ancestors.
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How could they be indebted to me? If I don't own myself then I have no right to my creations. As I said, logically, the only one then who owns anything is the one who owns himself. The only person who could own himself is someone who created himself.
 
You don't have to own something for it to be indebted to you.
 
Korimyr the Rat said:
You don't have to own something for it to be indebted to you.
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Then I morally owe nothing. Just because people chose to give me something does not mean that I am indebted to them. If someone on the street hands me $50 then I am not indebted to him. It was his choice. If he then wants me to give him the money back then I have no reason to. It wasn't stipulated at the time of the agreement and so I have no obligation to give it back.
 
phattonez said:
I'm looking for actual proof, not just your feelings. You're basically just using anecdotal evidence.

And we have unemployment now because of minimum wage, a social security net, etc.
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There is actual proof. These aren't unknown things. The labor pool during the times of least regulation were huge. Employers took advantage of that. They could fire anyone for any reason, including injury. Which they did, often. This was the reality of the time, maybe you should read up on labor conditions during the industrial revolution and such. Additionally, unemployment doesn't occur because of any of that. Unemployment is seen in every economics system. We had unemployment before we had minimum wage and social security. We have it now. I don't think anyone has ever had 100% employment of their population.

phattonez said:
People take risks all the time for potential future profit! Your argument is illogical. If it was true, then there is no reason why Las Vegas hotels should exist. None at all.
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Vegas hotels were money laundering schemes for the mafia. However, you're confusing things here. There are entrepreneurs and they will take risks to start a new industry or something. But in the established markets, sometimes risks don't work out. And if the main goal is making money then it becomes prohibitive to take certain risks which will net out short term losses because the time scales are not the same. It can take a bit of time to develop new technologies to increase efficiency and if another company is more profitable over that time scale, the investing company may not be there. Plus the incentive is short term gains which means that if you have a similar company as someone else and they are making tons of money by taking advantage of lack of regulation, you're going to do the same and not try to advance the technologies. We saw this with the banking industry recently when all the regulations were removed and we allowed the banks to leverage large amounts. People in the banking industry were making money hand over fist. Many knew the situation was not sustainable, but their goal is to make money for their shareholders and thus they also engaged in the behavior. Without the proper oversight and regulation, the system crashes; as it did spectacularly this last time.
 
I think we should. It has been over 1000 years since the Roman empire has gotten any reasonable holidays. I think it would be cool to have one day we can run around saying Hail Cesar! Oh wait... Never mind.
 
Ikari said:
There is actual proof. These aren't unknown things. The labor pool during the times of least regulation were huge. Employers took advantage of that. They could fire anyone for any reason, including injury. Which they did, often. This was the reality of the time, maybe you should read up on labor conditions during the industrial revolution and such. Additionally, unemployment doesn't occur because of any of that. Unemployment is seen in every economics system. We had unemployment before we had minimum wage and social security. We have it now. I don't think anyone has ever had 100% employment of their population.
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If there is proof then show it to me. Furthermore, stating that there was unemployment before SS and MW doesn't change the fact that they have a negative effect on employment.

Vegas hotels were money laundering schemes for the mafia. However, you're confusing things here. There are entrepreneurs and they will take risks to start a new industry or something. But in the established markets, sometimes risks don't work out. And if the main goal is making money then it becomes prohibitive to take certain risks which will net out short term losses because the time scales are not the same. It can take a bit of time to develop new technologies to increase efficiency and if another company is more profitable over that time scale, the investing company may not be there. Plus the incentive is short term gains which means that if you have a similar company as someone else and they are making tons of money by taking advantage of lack of regulation, you're going to do the same and not try to advance the technologies. We saw this with the banking industry recently when all the regulations were removed and we allowed the banks to leverage large amounts. People in the banking industry were making money hand over fist. Many knew the situation was not sustainable, but their goal is to make money for their shareholders and thus they also engaged in the behavior. Without the proper oversight and regulation, the system crashes; as it did spectacularly this last time.
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Small businesses usually aren't profitable for 2 years, yet they start up all the time. There is a huge up-front cost to the owner of such a business and they do sometimes fail. Yet it still happens. Explain.
 
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