[PLUG-TALK] Re: Inflation Sounds good to me ;)

Jeme A Brelin jeme at brelin.net
Mon Jun 24 05:22:42 UTC 2002


On Sun, 23 Jun 2002, Russ Johnson wrote:
> So? If the work performed won't support a higher wage, that's how the
> cookie crumbles.

So the only value is commercial value.  Is that what I'm to understand?

> If they aren't happy shovelling shit, then they need to do what it
> takes to find a different job. That's another beautiful thing about
> this system. No one is REQUIRED to do any particular job.

But SOMEBODY is required to do some jobs.  And unless you have security
(wealth or social support), you don't have the opportunity to leave your
job or obtain training.

> If they don't like what they are doing, nothing is stopping them from
> trying something different.

Except starvation... or maybe just the fear of starvation.

But you're cool with that.

> > I'm working within the constraints of your system, here... not imposing
> > one from outside.
> 
> I don't believe I accused you of that, either.

Well, you asked me what I thought should happen.  I'm just exploring this
system from inside.

> > I'm just wondering if you think that it's reasonable for people to work
> > all day to do things that are necessary for society and still not make a
> > living wage.
> 
> Is it fair? Probably not. But I'm a firm believer in setting wages
> based on supply/demand and what the market will bare.

That's what I'm coming to understand.

You believe in your system even though it's probably not fair.

This begs the question:  Why support an unfair system?

So the fact that profits are skyrocketing and wages are dropping is, to
you, "the way the cookie crumbles"?


> > > If one works, one is compensated for that work (assuming we're not
> > > volunteering..) and one gets to pursue happiness with that
> > > compensation.
> > 
> > I'm asking about compensation that isn't adequate for survival, let alone
> > pursuits beyond that.
> 
> Again, maybe this fictional character needs to seek other employment.

And you don't believe there are forces that prevent a person from doing
so, right?

> > I'm trying to get at the fundamental disconnect between the societal and
> > the commercial value of labor.
> 
> Well, I'm not sure I see a big problem...

Do you not see the disconnect or do you not see the problem with the
disconnect?

>> I'm wondering if you think that a person who works all day to meet a 
>> fundamental need of society (like farm labor) is entitled to support 
>> from the society he supports.
> 
> If we have more food than we need, then there's a problem. Too much
> corn, then the price goes down. Not enough, the price goes up. We
> don't need to price fix. We need to figure out what the supply should
> be to support the system.

Then we have an interesting paradox because the purpose of industrial
capitalism is, theoretically, to maximize productivity and decrease cost.  
What happens when productivity increases and cost decreases so much that a
person doing the labor cannot afford to survive?  Do we then decrease our
productivity and increase the cost of food?

Economics is the study of scarcity.  When you have abundance, economics no
longer applies.  You're suggesting re-implementing scarcity where there is
abundance so that we can have commerce, even if that means scarcity,
poverty, and slavery.

> Then ask yourself this... How much "support" do you provide?

To improving the lot of man?  I like to think I provide quite a bit, but
none of it is commercial and, therefore, valueless in your system.

Instead, I must work to benefit the wealthy few in order to put food on
the table.

> Who decides (in the existing system, not the system we've discussed
> previously) what is "support" and what is "extravagance"?

I don't understand that question.

> > Are you asking what I think SHOULD happen?  I think trade shouldn't
> > come into it.  I think that the concept that a person has the ability 
> > to determine what another person "deserves" is obscene, inhumane, and 
> > barbaric.  But we're not discussing what I think.  We're trying to 
> > understand the effects of the system you support.
> 
> But even in the system you've put forward before, someone else is
> deciding what that person deserves. He has it. I can ask for it, but
> he can say no. He's deciding if I deserve it or not.

I didn't write anything like that.  I wrote that a person should decide
whether or not they need a thing.  Whether or not the other person
deserves it doesn't come up.  If you need a thing, keep it.  If you don't
need it, give it away when asked and do whatever you want with it until
then.  That's the only value judgment that should be made.

Perhaps a person might find themself in a situation where a thing is
needed by both and they feel it's necessary to make a comparison of
relative needs, but DESERVING has nothing to do with that.  The idea of
"deserving" is a judgment of the value of the other person.

> > I'm wondering if, in your idea of a functioning society, a person who
> > works a full day's labor to provide for the needs of society should have
> > not enough to provide for his own survival.
> 
> Define survival. I do not know of a single paying job in the US that
> does not provide enough money for someone to get food.

And I would argue that without minimum wage laws, we'd see that end almost
instantly.

> Water is free in a stream, and living under a bridge gets one out of
> the rain. That could be termed "survival".

But the water's been privatized, so even taking it out of a stream is
stealing, and it's illegal to live under a bridge.

If you want to talk pure survival, we could just pillage our way through.  
Is that an option, too?  If so, then survival is just a matter of being
strong and well-armed.  I think that's the basis of U.S. foreign policy
and the rich worldwide.

But anyway, let's say that it's OK to take water from streams and live
under bridges (even though both are illegal because of the privatization
of water and land).  Is that a good and right thing?  A person works a
full day's labor meeting the needs of society by providing food to common
people and they cannot afford to live like the people they support and if
they don't like it, they should give up their work and find something more
commercially viable, i.e. more desirable to the wealthy?

> > What if you're working full-time at a job you enjoy and provides for the
> > basic needs of others, but that job doesn't pay enough to put food on the
> > table, provide shelter and adequate clothing, minimal health care, and
> > even a hint of future security?  Should that person go out and get a job
> > that pays better that perhaps just provides for the wealthy and isn't
> > nearly as enjoyable?  Is that a desired effect of your ideals?
> 
> That depends. Most folks that enjoy one type of work have other areas
> they enjoy equally. It's not up to me to find them a job.

That's not what I asked.  I asked if that's a desired effect of your
ideals.

> Well, that's also why most strawberry pickers are kids earning money
> to buy a bike, or older folks picking to bake a pie.

You have a false understanding of that industry.

Most strawberry pickers are migrant workers who follow crops from season
to season.

> Picking fruit just isn't a viable career.

That's my whole point.  It's a necessary role in society, but a person
can't make a living doing it.

> > > I did pick strawberries one summer in my youth.
> > 
> > I picked strawberries EVERY summer in my youth.
> 
> One summer was enough for me to figure out that I didn't like it. I
> found something else to do. I delivered newspapers for several years.
> Didn't like it much, but it paid for my first two cars, with enough
> extra to go cruising on Friday and Saturday nights.

You're lucky to have other options.  I lived in a rural area where there
was no newspaper delivery.  There were really three jobs: picking berries,
catching chickens, and cleaning horse stalls.

The first two are vital agricultural work that puts food on people's
tables and are dependent on illegally low pay and a fair amount of child
labor to maintain the profits to which the landowners have become
accustomed.  The last was a service to the wealthy, as common people have
no more than a handful of stalls and cannot afford the luxury of servants.

> > > Backbreaking work. But it's not a career. I'd also turn this around...
> > > Why should we pay a living wage for picking strawberries?
> > 
> > Because we need strawberries.
> 
> But the work is not worth the wage you are proposing.

Strawberries aren't worth it.  I see.  In fact, no fruit is worth paying
someone a reasonable wage to have it picked.  But it's worth a servant
class of impoverished farm workers toiling all day to keep the prices low.

That's what you believe?

> > So you think the commercial value is the sole determination of the value
> > of labor.  Is this correct?
> 
> Not the sole determination, but that's a big part of it.

What else impacts the value of labor besides commerce?

What non-commercial forces drive up a laborer's value?

How is a laborer's value determined, if not solely by the trade he can
receive for it?

> If you can't sell strawberries for $25 a pint, then you can't pay your
> workers much either.

You're making up numbers.  What assurance do you have that the price of
strawberries is related at all to the compensation given to the workers in
the strawberry field?

> > Being poor denies you adequate access to the means of survival.  Working
> > all day to provide for the needs of others does not guarantee adequate
> > access to the means of survival.  So what does?
> 
> I don't know.

So you don't know how a person can guarantee adequate access to the means
of survival in this society.

> However, I do know that paying someone $100 a flat for strawberries
> would end up bankrupting the grower, and the picker would have no
> where to pick next year.

Again, you're making up numbers.

But your point is taken.  Your system requires and impoverished working
class to provide the basic needs of society.  A living wage is not viable.

> So how does this system work where we all have "adequate access to the
> means of survival"? Who pays for the doctors and the housing, and the
> food?

Well, that's really changing the subject.  However, I can say that you
have a very poor chance of understanding such a system or giving it any
credibility at all when you're hung up on the concept of "pay" as if it's
some kind of requirement that a person receive metered compensation for
their participation in society.

Throw out all of your notions of trade and commerce and compensation based
on external valuation of work.  Stop thinking about what a person deserves
or what a person should get for this or that.  No trade.  No money.

Dismiss all of the superficialities and artifices in modern society.  
And, as you suggested, but with a completely different understanding of
what it means, concentrate on our basic animal nature... but as a social
animal, not a wild, barbaric beast.

There is no "should", but there is a "should not":  A person should not
let another person suffer.

Give what you don't need, work when you can.  Don't think about whether
you're getting what you deserve or whether someone else deserves what
they're getting.  That kind of thought only leads to frustration and
corruption.

You don't think that way about love, do you?  Or family or climate?  Do
you think "Ah, those people in Hawaii don't deserve all that fruitful land
and fine weather!  They don't work hard enough for it!"?  Do you think
"Bah, my neighbor does not deserve the loving wife he has while I sit here
lonely!  I am ten times more loving than he is, he should have his wife
stripped of him and I should be awarded a wife in his stead!"?  No, not at
all.  It's absurd.  And people who DO think like that are considered
pretty sick.  But that's the kind of thought that people harbor about food
and shelter and healthcare.  "He doesn't work hard enough to have a
sandwich every day!" or "That is far too much warmth and comfort for a
person who does not work as hard as I think I work!  I work harder, I
should have a better home than he has!"  And it leads to frustration and
corruption.  It leads to some believing they can say what others should
have.

Instead of this hurtful nonsense, we could have a world where people
simply worked because work needed to be done and ate what was available to
eat.

Use resources based on your determination of need and your respect for
others' needs, including the unborn.  If all people simply show proper
respect for all of the effected parties (other people, other living
things, and the generations to come) instead of working for only
themselves, their own security, and the false notion of independence, we
will restore the natural balance in our systems.

I'm not sure what kind of details you need, as any description would be
incomplete and no modern society has been able to implement non-commercial
structures on a whole-society scale because the capitalists have already
claimed the land, corrupted the people by appealing to their greed or
other undesirable impulses, or simply applied force of violence.

We have amazing productivity.  Worker productivity is the highest it's
ever been at any point in history.  In the first world, there is so much
food that perfectly good farmland can be left to go wild.  (This is done
to increase the price of food so that the private farmers can make more
money because our productivity has surpassed the ability of our economic
structures to handle it, and outside of agriculture, the quality of goods
and services are actually decreasing for the same reasons as the
dismantling of working farms, but that's not at all relevant to this
hypothetical.)  It is possible, today, for fewer labor hours to support
more people than at any time in history.  (Yet, again, as productivity
increases, so are working hours and pay is decreasing... but I digress.)

I think it's thoroughly possible for our needs to be met simply by letting
people do what they do best and enjoy most.  Those needs that are not
immediately met in this "first pass" ordering of society will be met in
the second pass because the priorities of the people will be changed by
their unmet needs.

Imagine a farmer's syndicate where a group that enjoys working in the sun
and managing horticulture produces food and keeps what they need, then
brings the rest into the towns for distribution.  They could simply fold
down their truck and let people take; first come, first served.

But what if there is not enough food?  Well, then more people are going to
have to go out and work the fields next season or somebody's going to have
to go out and assess the plantation to see if they can't improve the
output.

Would some people take more than they need?  Perhaps.  But that's why we
teach our children the difference between right and wrong.  What if
someone comes and takes the whole truckload of, say, corn?  Then there is
no corn.  But I promise that the next truckload will be well-guarded by
the right-thinking people who respect others and want to see an equitable
distribution.

The central desire here is to meet the needs of civilization as a whole.  
You work to make food for others because you know that others are working
to write books for you and your progeny or loved ones to read or houses
for people to share in shelter or clothing for people to wear.  You work
because work needs doing and people are worth it.  You work out of love,
not fear.

J.
-- 
   -----------------
     Jeme A Brelin
    jeme at brelin.net
   -----------------
 [cc] counter-copyright
 http://www.openlaw.org





More information about the PLUG-talk mailing list