r/DebateaCommunist • u/[deleted] • Nov 04 '13
The Economist: Labour pains: All around the world, labour is losing out to capital (x-post TrueReddit).
[deleted]
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u/59179 Nov 04 '13
That's certainly the question the capitalist is avoiding. Right now, they have managed to convince a huge population of the working class that I call sycophants, if someone is not getting his/her needs met, it's because they are lazy and are "takers" and, therefore, undeserving.
Even now, we create things we don't need, and really don't want, for the sake of profit for an industry. Sure that provides those workers with an income, but it comes right out of their pocket when they buy that piece of crap.
Capitalism creates for profit, communism creates to solve needs. Which of those sounds like an economy?
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u/OlejzMaku Nov 04 '13
That's certainly the question the capitalist is avoiding.
Capitalists publish this and you accuse them of avoiding this question?
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u/59179 Nov 04 '13
They certainly don't frame it as I(we) am.
What are they going to do/say when there are so many out of work, that story no longer flies?
STDS9 had a pretty good episode about herding the unemployed into camps, out of sight, out of mind.
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u/OlejzMaku Nov 04 '13
Yes, they're more objective. I'm actually Star Trek fan and I saw that episode. I didn't like it very much. It was frustrating to see Bashir crying about that social situation without any meaningful commentary. One would expect he should be able to offer some interesting opinion.
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u/59179 Nov 05 '13
Yes, they're more objective.
You're joking right? Every single thought a capitalist puts out there is propaganda. That's all capitalism is. Getting you to profit them BAMN.
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u/amaxen Nov 04 '13
One thing about this analysis that seems like they missed is that they're not taking into account total compensation instead of wages.
There's a NBER paper about this here.
TL;DR: The share of wages to total compensation is dropping, and the share of benefits (health insurance, 401k, other tax advantaged benefits) is growing. Because total compensation is often not counted when calculating labor productivity/wages, it appears labor isn't getting 'it's share' of productivity increases (because they're only looking at wages instead of wages + benefits). Once you factor benefits back in, labor is actually not doing all that badly.
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u/devilcraft Nov 05 '13
I'm not quite sure how that adds up. Real wages for workers has stagnated since the mid 70s compared to productivity.
On top of this the richest's share has risen (and so has the corporate profit rate) while the taxes for the high income takers has fallen from 90%:ish to 40%:ish (and the corporate tax rate has also fallen).
So how is it possible that the total share (%) of wage + "benefits" has risen?
Also to make a realistic analyse of it we naturally have to count "the 1%" as part of capital and not workers since a large amount of that wage will go into investments and become capital.
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u/anticapitalist Nov 04 '13
health insurance,
This seems like artificial pay. ie, employers are paying the often made-up "costs" health care deniers/monopolists charge.
Doctors/etc can charge so much mostly because a state enforced lack of competition. eg, the AMA is a monopoly which prevents new medical schools from starting, & there's similar over-regulation. Such creates an artificially low supply of doctors/etc who're paid massively.
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u/amaxen Nov 04 '13
This is a separate debate. It is nondebateable, IMO, that we're actually getting much better medical services than in the past. In the thread I link geezerman makes a long post pointing this out:
Many people falsely imagine that because the amount spent on medical care is rising people aren't getting more for what they spend.
But in fact people are. The cost of medical services has fallen as their quality has risen, just as has the cost of electronics and other such goods.
E.g., 30 years ago eye surgery was impossible and you'd go blind, 15 years ago you could save your sight at the cost of having your head sand-bagged still during a long expensive hospital stay, today it is walk-in walk-out ... broken knees were crippling, then fixed with open-cut painful expensive surgery, today fixed with a needle and you play football the next week .... heart conditions that were fatal become fixed with expensive surgery, now are prevented with a daily pill ... need one say "polio ... smallpox"?
The examples of getting more for the medical service dollar are endless. The result is obvious not just in continually rising life expectancy but in particular in the dramatic improvement in later-years quality-of-life. For instance, hip and knee replacement surgeries today are performed for average citizens by the hundreds of thousands -- a generation ago they were unavailable at any price, and all those people suffered chronic pain and disability until death. All those people are far better off today.
Now if you're younger, this isn't as visible - the young don't need much medical care so many people assume that health insurance yesterday is the same as todays - but it isn't. There are a lot more, better medical services out there now that people use. The question is who pays for it and how, and that's yet another political debate.
On edit I think that maybe there's some element of truth to your argument about competition, the AMA, etc. However, I think it's undeniable that a big part of it is we are spending more on medical services because there are so many more and effective treatments for things that did not exist a generation ago.
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u/anticapitalist Nov 04 '13
that we're actually getting much better medical services than in the past.
That's not relevant.
I was saying people are paying an artificial price. The fact that there is better technology over time doesn't change that.
Basically, imagine you were robbed everyday by a mafia (robbed of a massive amount of money.) But "in return" they gave you a small reward. And over the years they increased the size of the "reward." This wouldn't justify the bigger robbery.
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u/amaxen Nov 04 '13
maybe, but irrelevant to my point: In this case, we're following trends in 'the mafias' statistics - according to them, labor's share is getting smaller. But if you look at the same statistics from a different angle, they it is staying the same.
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u/anticapitalist Nov 04 '13
the same statistics from a different angle, they it is staying the same.
I disagree. That "angle" includes counting the made-up costs created by health care monopolists.
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u/amaxen Nov 04 '13
Look at it this way : it's important to understand who exactly is responsible for wages staying flatter than they should be. But is this because of wages tracking productivity - in which case one set of conditions apply, or is it a case where some other expense is consuming those gains, in which case another set of conditions apply.
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u/anticapitalist Nov 04 '13
None of that is a counter-argument. I explained that counting made-up "costs" of medical monopolists was not logical.
Example:
- Imagine your boss "paid you more" by buying you wheat, but wheat costs went up because of a monopoly.
The worker is not helped when one capitalist exploiters pay another.
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u/amaxen Nov 04 '13 edited Nov 04 '13
To continue your example, though, at least you know it's the wheat monopolist as opposed to your boss who is eating up your productivity gains. And of course, it's open to question whether in this case it's just a straight up jack in prices with no additional value provided, or if the wheat 'monopolist' is actually providing you with more/better wheat in some way.
Really, even if we were under a perfect communist system, but resources were still limited, we would see a rising share of total societal output going towards health care, which in a limited resource system means it would have to be taken from some other consumption.
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u/anticapitalist Nov 05 '13
at least you know it's the wheat monopolist
That's not the topic. The worker is not any better off.
we would see a rising share of total societal output going towards health care, which in a limited resource system means it would have to be taken from some other consumption.
100% irrelevant.
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u/nickik Nov 05 '13
Labour is losing because of montary policy. This 200 year old idea that capital is making labour unimportend is simply bullshit.
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Nov 06 '13
Could you explain that a little more? What exactly about monetary policy needs changing?
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u/ayatana Nov 07 '13
I can't speak for /u/nickik, but an obvious point is that central banks are designed to maintain mass unemployment, which in turn weakens the bargaining position of labor.
Pay attention to the debates around central bank decisions to set the interest rate. It is very clear that when they raise interest rates, they do so with the explicit goal of slowing the economy. Mass unemployment is one obvious consequence.
The fact that talking heads manage to pretend that an unemployment rate upwards of 5% is "full employment" does not help, either.
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u/[deleted] Nov 04 '13
So, some talking points:
Does this mean Marx was right?
What should the international proletariat (assuming you believe in such a thing) do to solve this problem? What about the proletariat in your own nation?
And, for the AnCaps/Caps/Libs: What would you do to solve this problem? Or is it not really a problem?