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At 4/4/10 06:33 PM, poxpower wrote:
Again here we're talking about children doing jobs sometimes comparable to men with lower pay.

Neither of us are expert historians on early 19th century Britain. That children were paid less than adults, under the presupposition that their work was comparable (And assuming the managers knew that at the time) requires some form of explanation, but that managers and capitalists had some special power to pay children lower than their marginal revenue product is not vindicated by the fact that as children got older, their pay increased. If managers could control what their workers would pay in the manner i think you are alluding to, it doesn't make sense why they would injure themselfs by paying children MORE as they got older. That is my point. My guess is, even if children were expected to perform the same task as an adult, which is unlikely, but even if they were expected to, they probably did not complete those tasks with the same experience.

See what you did there?

I said that if everyone jointly believes that women are inferior to men, it would make sense that no act of Law could possibly change it since everyone holds on to the common fantasy, I didn't mean that it was impossible for that notion to change. You seemed to have been claiming that political action (Laws) are what improve societal outlook. I did not say that voluntary actions by people cannot solve the problem, they necessarily have to because the laws are not put into place before people start to change their mind.

Economic forces, as well as an atmosphere of intellectual freedom, and the decentralization of such things as communication and education, are what drive people to change their mind. That it is uneconomical to discriminate against minorities as an employer, and that employers that value their workers on a basis of merit and not on irrelevant biological factors means under free conditions people will TEND to tolerate one another more for mutual economic benefit.

The same thing applies to ideology. Freely competing ideas are allowed to be put forward, and ultimately you get ideas that are more socially permissive. When one is considered right is centralized, the dominant ideology is not that ideology which is most objective and factually based but whichever ideology suits those with power.

That is why you saw movements for social reforms in places like England and the united States BEFORE you saw them in socially backward countries like Russia, because free association is TOLERATED. and in this way you can say that the free market is a victim of it's own success.

That was in the 1700s as far as I can tell. You still have 100 years of PRIVATE child labor after that to explain which was not centered around housing orphans.

You misread the article. The parish officials sent the children to the factories in large numbers starting in 1767. So what had been going on with the parish officials was only for 30 years, the mills of the late 18th century, were those very same mills the social reformers complained about.

We're not talking about a poor country here.

These countries were poor by our standards. Every country was. There was no way the parents could have afford to not have their children work, let alone send them to a school.

As for Driving down wages, restricting the supply of laborers will increase wages for SOME laborers, but it will not make the families of those children any wealthier. Number one, restricting supply increases the price of any factor input, including labor, but it does not increase the actual abundance of goods for consumption. Raising wages by restricting supply will only result in higher prices for the very goods those laborers produce.

Or, just think about it logically. If what you say is true, we could Abolish Dual income earners for families and thus raise wages, and one of the two parents could continue to pay for their children. It's complete nonsense.

You do not make people wealthier by restricting their ability to produce, you enhance their ability to produce more in fewer hours so they can work less or not at all (And let their highly productive parents feed them and send them to school)

No laws? No unions? No strikes? Just the invisible market forces at work?

Yes. You only look at wealth in terms of wages. Unions may be able to make their work force more productive, but the primary function of the union is to raise wages of their workers by restricting the supply of other workers, or by making their businesses cartelized, then having the businesses charge higher prices

But society as a whole does not become wealthier in this way.

Think about it this way, if everyone on the planet at the same time demanded twice the pay, without any increases in productivity, no one would be better off. Every good would more or less just cost twice as much and we'd earn twice as much.

Raising wages without increases in productivity, simply means SOMEONE is getting paid more, but someone else is paying higher prices and is poorer for it.

This is why workers in the US were paid more in real terms than in Europe but were less unionized, entrepreneurs were freer to invest in new capital equipment.

Seriously guys don't try and defend that coal mining wasn't as bad as farming. It's like.. a LEGENDARY dangerous and shitty job.

Coal mining was terrible, but if you're upset that people have to do dangerous things in order to produce the things they want, by that logic we would have been better off never inventing fire. building skyscrapers was also incredibly dangerous, I know, my Father used to build them. You can say that children working in coal mines is bad and i would agree with you, but making it illegal fails to ask, 1 - Why were they working their in the first place and 2- what will they do now that they are out of a job.

The point of me talking about farming was that LIFE on a farm was incredibly difficult, and because income was lower than that of a factory, (Sustenance farmers are less productive than laborers) you saw in the United States

And a world where children don't have to work (legally or no) to survive was not made possible by laws.

See this is the crux of it. Your claim is that people got rich enough on their own that they no longer needed to send kids to work.

My claim is that children would have been put to work regardless as long as it was legal to do so.

A self interested parent would rather have their children become educated and get a higher paying job than work as a laborer, if they could afford it. No one is being PUT to work unless it is the guns of the state that is doing the putting. Children entered those factories because their other options were worse, now that they were wealthier, better options were available and that is why they took them. But since people do not get rich at the same rate, those of poorer families continued to work.

No, slavery today is about money.

Slavery is NOT economical without someone's tax money. You have to pay people to seize other people by force and then you have to pay them to keep a constant watch on slaves which undoubtedly outnumber the slave masters. You have to deal with run aways.

You have to earn your revenues by highly unproductive slaves (they have no incentive to work, they're not paid) And you have to feed and cloth and house them.

Now i don't know about all of the specific industries of slavery, but it seems to me that a private entrepreneur, offering the same service provided by slaves, would NOT have to hire guards, and would have far more productive workers, and would have international respect, and could easily out compete a slave master. And it seems to me that slavery persists in those industries where such competition is made impossible by political factors, for example, prostitution.

So yes there is also my case for legalized prostitution.

At 4/4/10 10:03 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: they probably did not complete those tasks with the same experience.

We're talking about really stupid jobs here sometimes like screwing the same bolt over and over on a machine or twisting a piece of metal in place etc.

I said that if everyone jointly believes that women are inferior to men, it would make sense that no act of Law could possibly change it

It's never everyone but even if a minority believes it, they can use the law to force the majority to pay women as much as men.

That it is uneconomical to discriminate against minorities as an employer,

No it's not since they can hire people to do the same job for 50% of the pay.
That's awesome if you own a business.

the free market is a victim of it's own success

Freedom of speech =/= free market.
And those ideals are backed by law. It's not an "idea" that slavery is bad, it's a LAW that it's illegal. It's not a freely arrived-at conclusion that is enforced by "free market of ideas" forces, it's enforced with a gun by the government.

You misread the article. The parish officials sent the children to the factories in large numbers starting in 1767. So what had been going on with the parish officials was only for 30 years, the mills of the late 18th century, were those very same mills the social reformers complained about.

Yeah that's when it STARTED but the reforms kept going for 100+ years and not only in England and not only in places where they'd put orphans to work in some shitty-ass mill.

These countries were poor by our standards. Every country was. There was no way the parents could have afford to not have their children work, let alone send them to a school.

Pff that's bullcrap. They were importing grains from the USA at some point, that's how much food they had to go around. They had plenty of resources to feed their people and THEN SOME. It was greed that drove wealthy industrialists to pay people shit money because they could get away with it. They weren't poor as a result of some horrible famine like people in Africa are but as a result of BAD REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH.

Number one, restricting supply increases the price of any factor input, including labor, but it does not increase the actual abundance of goods for consumption. Raising wages by restricting supply will only result in higher prices for the very goods those laborers produce.

Yes that is true but if you can send kids to school and make them better workers 15 years down the line, not only will they produce more but they will earn more.

Which makes everyone wealthier and society as a whole better.
Short-term loss for long-term gain.

The point of me talking about farming was that LIFE on a farm was incredibly difficult

Yes, life was, because it was random, but the work itself wasn't as bad.
Is what I'm saying.

Children entered those factories because their other options were worse

I'm pretty sure children didn't have the ability to decide that going to work at the cotton mill was in their best interest. Most likely they'd get the strap if they dared talk back. This is victorian society we're talking about here, those guys handed out ass beatings like the Pope DOESN'T hand out condoms.

Slavery is NOT economical without someone's tax money. You have to pay people to seize other people by force and then you have to pay them to keep a constant watch on slaves which undoubtedly outnumber the slave masters. You have to deal with run aways.

You just need a handful of guards with guns, a barbed wire fence and a shack for them to live in.
Much cheaper than actually paying someone, not to mention they can't strike, stop working or say anything.

If they don't do what you want? Shoot them and replace them. That's how it works in those areas.
The average cost of a slave is something like 100$ I think it said in the video.

Slavery has NEVER BEEN CHEAPER.

At 4/4/10 10:39 PM, poxpower wrote:

At 4/4/10 10:03 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: Slavery is NOT economical

Slavery has NEVER BEEN CHEAPER.

I was going to say something about the slavery-not-being-economical, but I couldn't have said it better. Slavery may not be civil, but it sure is economical.

At 4/4/10 07:53 PM, poxpower wrote:

At 4/4/10 07:14 PM, Ytaker wrote:

Yeah, but they'll come into your home and beat you to death.

Because they're atheist or because they're assholes?
If it's not the first thing, why mention they're atheist other than to try and smear atheism?

Well, if you're a christian, they will come into your house to beat you up. Whatever they are, they are anti-religion, being hardline commies.

Plus, you started this by saying they weren't religious.

it was massively weakened, and not enforced.

As far as I can gather, the reason it wasn't enforced was just because of lack of personnel put to the task of doing the enforcing.

Yes. So, no change. Since they didn't care much. They cared more about ending slavery. Their gun boats enforced that.

Evidence?

There's a disease just for coal miners.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalworker%
27s_pneumoconiosis
http://ehistory.osu.edu/osu/mmh/gildedag e/content/HazardsCoal.cfm

Industrial work was an impersonal process where people were hired as tools and worked until they couldn't work anymore, then tossed aside.

Yawn. I meant, evidence such as, statistics that showed that their life length was reduced. There's illnesses for lots of things. Farmer's lung, say. Farmers would inhale mould from hay, and their immune system would then rip their lungs apart. Quite common.

http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/20349/1/Some_Di mensions_of_the_%27Quality_of_Life%27_du ring_the_British_Industrial_Revolution.p df

This puts some numbers down. There's clear evidence of an increase in quality of life. It gives a measurement of height for some reason, which seems fairly pointless since it doesn't track it through time, but otherwise, britain scores much higher on all indexes. 65% literacy rate versus 30 for lower countries, number one in HDI and DW index.

Well, to be precise, housing, cars, expensive medical care plans, and pensions.

All of that drives the economy.

Eh. Cheaper goods do more. Doctors don't stimulate the economy much, pensions tax or track the government bonds, expensive cars tend to have few labourers relative to their costs, likewise with houses. And they've taken money away from a business or poor person to do so.

Plus, statistics. Do you have any that say spending more on the government increases growth?

It's not growth we're primarily interested in but standards of living.

Likewise, statistics. Whatever.

Yes. If you beat a random person,

It specifically says that YOU CAN BEAT YOUR SLAVE which you claimed you COULDN'T DO.

No I didn't. I said you could beat anyone.

" There were rules on when and how you could beat them without getting into trouble and you could enslave your slave's children.

Yeah, but you could beat your servents too. "

I agreed with you that you could beat them. Don't lie.

It's not christianity.

That's what I said.

Yeah, but while everyone used slaves, only christians stopped.

Richer society means less need for slave labour,

The richest of the rich were the ones who had slaves throughout history and it wasn't "for labor". They'd use them for anything you can imagine from teaching their kids to sucking their wangs.

The majority, when captured en masse by a raiding party were used for cheap labour. Often in mines, which was widely seen as a death sentence. Getting to a rich family was lucky. You'd get a good bed, little work, high quality food. And of course, expensive slave catchers if you ran. Rich people are always gonna get servants, though. No special need for slaves, especially when you have modern tech to make housework faster. Unless you have an army or slavers or something, won't be slaves.

It might be, the rise of minimum wage, and education, and environmental laws, that led to the renewal of slavery. If it's cheaper to enslave people in another country, people do it. The reasons people do slavery now are clearly very different from the past. Slaves are a lot less valuable now.

If you want to talk about slavery, do something completely stupid for me...

Go out and rack up a credit card, and apply for and spend all the money you can get in loans. What is the difference between credit enslavement and old school indentured servitude/ human bondage? Human rights.

So basically this slave conversation is about your opinions on human rights.

My GOD these topics all SUCK nowadays

At 4/5/10 12:39 AM, Ytaker wrote:

Well, if you're a christian, they will come into your house to beat you up. Whatever they are, they are anti-religion, being hardline commies.

Atheism =/= anti-theism.
And religious people exterminate each other on the basis of religion routinely anyway.

Plus, you started this by saying they weren't religious.

Who wasn't? Cause I don't remember.

Yes. So, no change.

Well there was a change if you got caught.
It's like how people still drank during prohibition.

Yawn. I meant, evidence such as, statistics that showed that their life length was reduced.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_acci dent

Maybe a farmer would die from work-related causes here and there but coal mining was notoriously dangerous because the mine could collapse or just explode.

This puts some numbers down. There's clear evidence of an increase in quality of life.

I fail to see how a global standard of living calculation applied to all workers during the revolution pertains to "coal mines vs farm work".
It's notorious that life expectancy and wealth increase a lot during the revolution but that's due to technology.

Anyway I can't find any sort of comparative "death at work" type numbers for that era and I'm way too lazy to look any deeper into it... Stupid politics forum...arrr

Eh. Cheaper goods do more.

How so?

Yes. If you beat a random person,

It specifically says that YOU CAN BEAT YOUR SLAVE which you claimed you COULDN'T DO.

No I didn't. I said you could beat anyone.

here's what you wrote:

"Israeli slavery was willing for the enslaved, illegal to hurt the person, and they could leave at any time."

Yeah, but while everyone used slaves, only christians stopped.

No, the USA wasn't and has never been a Christian Nation and it was split in two over the issue as the story goes. And it's the south, the notoriously religious part of the country that opposed it the most.

The main point here is that you can use the bible to justify anything you do.

The majority, when captured en masse by a raiding party were used for cheap labour.

Actually I don't know why I wrote they weren't mainly for labor. Forget that.

It might be, the rise of minimum wage, and education, and environmental laws, that led to the renewal of slavery.

There was never a "renewal" or a "revival". It never stopped.

The reason is simply that it's really profitable.

OP is gangsta

At 4/4/10 10:39 PM, poxpower wrote:

We're talking about really stupid jobs here

Right. I'm getting bored of you making this same point. Wages are not arbitrarily determined and that is the only issue that i care about.

I said that if everyone jointly believes that women are inferior to men, it would make sense that no act of Law could possibly change it

It's never everyone but even if a minority believes it, they can use the law to force the majority to pay women as much as men.

Minorities cannot force majorities to do anything if the majority does not, at least passively respect the whims of the state. Historically, no positive social reform has ever been passed because the people at the top were agitating for it, and the majority at the bottom didn't want it. When speak of a minority, I am talking of a very small minority, of 1-5%, not 30%, I'm talking about the kind of minority that acts within the State. It also depends on how strongly the majority cares about a particular issue. But it is inconceivable that a minority of statesmen, particularly in a democratic state, would pass laws that the majority are strongly opposed to, and that go against cultural norms. Culture changes before laws do.

No it's not since they can hire people to do the same job for 50% of the pay.
That's awesome if you own a business.

Actually that's the point. I don't mean discrimination by differences in pay, I mean the refusal to admit certain people into a business for racial reasons. If 80% of businesses only hire whites, the twenty percent of businesses that are concerned more with profit and less with racial purity can profit by hiring non whites of equal skill for less pay (Since fewer employers are bidding for them). Eventually the racially mixed teams out compete the racist ones and businessmen are either forced to set asides their racism for the sake of profit, or go out of business. You saw this phenomenon in professional sports. A few maverick teams brought vastly superior African American sports players into their teams, and if the other teams wanted any hope of winning they had to follow suit. The desire to earn money and racism are necessarily at odds with one another, unless you are willing to content that race is an actual factor in employee superiority. (Some races are in fact better workers than others) Otherwise tolerance is profitable and racism is not.

This is why racist areas needed LAWS to make the hiring of minorities more difficult, to take the profit out of it. So the blame for the perpetuity of racism once again falls on the state.

Freedom of speech =/= free market.

My concept of freedom is not restricted to what a person is permitted to do with their own body absent of the material exchange of goods which the actions of their body enabled them to produce. All rights are, in effect, property rights. In that they all derive from a widely held notion that a person's claim to a particular piece of matter is legitimate.

The reason rape is considered 'wrong' is because society views the claim of a person to the matter of his body is legitimate. The right to one's life is based on the notion that a person's conscience is the legitimate owner of their body, it's a property claim.

The reason theft is considered bad is because society views the claim of an individual who has voluntarily acquired a certain piece of matter extraneous to the matter attached to his body

The reason Taxation is considered acceptable is because society views the claim of the state to a fixed proportion (established by the state) of the material objects voluntary acquired by individuals within a given time interval, or as a proportion of the market value of a particular good they purchased.

Historically, the only people to suppress what you would consider 'rights' on a large scale, are government or those tied to the government. Naturally since the outright suppression of rights does require the use of force which is taxing for individuals who do not collect tax income.

Free speech is a property claim, you have property of your vocal chords, of your blogs, of your pen and paper, and of your ability to transform those things into written language or express ideas vocally at the consent of those who care to read or listen. If the state owns your body, owns your property, you have no claim to do or express anything.

Yeah that's when it STARTED but the reforms kept going

My concern is not about whether the laws made employing children illegal or difficult, My concerns are one, the conditions of the privately run and funded mills relative to alternative employment, and the ability of families to become productive enough not to need to have their children involved in earning income. Your laws have no influence or regard to either. You only seem to care whether the children are legally employed and don't give a damn if they're worse off afterward. That's not utilitarian, that's moralistic.

Pff that's bullcrap. They were importing grains from the USA at some point, that's how much food they had to go around.

Um... Are you insane? If a country is IMPORTING GRAIN that means they lack the surplus to feed themselves on their own. The soviet union imported huge amounts of grain from the united states in spite of it's agricultural capabilities, because their people were starving to death.

:BAD DISTRIBUTIONOF WEALTH.***

Communist Drabble, most wealth owned prior to the industrial revolution was still in the hands of the state btw, and continued to be such during the early industrial revolution. Contrast Britain to the United States, where laws were far less prohibitive, you saw a society that was more educated, more egalitarian, and over all wealthier than in Britain. You also saw a greater sense of community without the need for pomp and regalia and some insane National Socialistic attitude.

Yes that is true but if you can send kids to school and make them better workers 15 years down the line, not only will they produce more but they will earn more.

If you can send them to school being the key term. The reason my parents want me to get an education is because They know with a college education in Math, as an Actuary i can make considerably more what they made with high school educations. NOT because there are laws that force people to attend college. My father worked as a brick layer after high school because he could not afford a college education, though latter earned enough to receive education in architecture.

I'm pretty sure children didn't have the ability to decide that going to work at the cotton mill was in their best interest.

Options were poorer in those days as was anything but we are not talking about Slavery and in Britain just like in the United States, huge numbers of people moved from Farms to factories without mass violence or forced relocation.

You just need a handful of guards with guns,

Negro slaves were notorious for being lazy, they were undoubtedly less productive than freemen. And don't underestimate the cost of hiring guards. You also have to pay the cost of

If they don't do what you want? Shoot them and replace them. That's how it works in those areas.
The average cost of a slave is something like 100$ I think it said in the video.

The video also mentioned causes of slavery, Poverty. Kleptocratic governments, Civil wars, and famines. there is no 'legal protection' in these society's because the state has monopolized protection and is supported by foreign funding. Famines are most always a product of poor incentives to produce, and are iconic of authoritarian governments. (Ireland and USSR for ex)

If slavery was supported under free society's you would expect the most amount of slavery in places like Somalia and South Africa.

The disposable nature of the slaves is not about how many people in general there are, but how many unemployed and/or poor people there are. I.e. how many people will fall victim to the slave scam.

I shouldn't have to preface this but I will to protect myself from accusations of Racism.

There was a stereotype in the antebellum south that black slaves were Lazy simply because africans were lazier than whites. (This was actually used as an argument in favor of slavery, the personal ineptitude of the Black meant that he was better off being managed as a slave by the white, Sort of like the notion that the personal ineptitude of the individual in general makes him better off being manged as a slave for the state) But their laziness was on one sense the logical consequence of having no incentive to perform well, and on the other hand a direct method of protesting enslavement.

So saying "Negro slaves were notoriously lazy compared to freemen" wasn't me saying that Black people are lazier than Whites. Freemen includes freed blacks.

At 4/5/10 11:51 AM, SmilezRoyale wrote: Wages are not arbitrarily determined and that is the only issue that i care about.

Perhaps not arbitrarily, but they certainly aren't assigned by value of work. They are assigned by level of power and depending on the resources proximity to the control of flow of the resource. The man who hires people to click buttons to transfer wealth from one place to another makes more money than those who produce the products he gets other people to move around for him.

So, while it may not be arbitrary you could not necessarily claim it is fair or that all wages are appropriately justified.

At 4/5/10 03:22 PM, gumOnShoe wrote:

So, while it may not be arbitrary you could not necessarily claim it is fair or that all wages are appropriately justified.

And what is it that makes it 'appropriately justified'

No, wait, let me guess. The number of hours of labor that person puts into the work.

I'm sorry but this particular issue is hardly negotiable. the law of imputation isn't even challenged by mainstream economists.

At 4/5/10 04:15 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

At 4/5/10 03:22 PM, gumOnShoe wrote:

So, while it may not be arbitrary you could not necessarily claim it is fair or that all wages are appropriately justified.

And what is it that makes it 'appropriately justified'

No, wait, let me guess. The number of hours of labor that person puts into the work.

Nah, how 'bout we do it by number of calories burned during the workday. :D

Then it would at least be based on some need associated with doing the job. But I'm being cheeky.

I'm sorry but this particular issue is hardly negotiable. the law of imputation isn't even challenged by mainstream economists.

Who gives a fuck about mainstream economists? No, seriously? Who does. They are weathermen, commentators, pundits at best! They make observations, rarely proofs, and most of them don't focus on wages because they've never even considered it.

But lets get down to brass tacks here. We're not arguing the worth of the value for pushing a button x times a day by some guy low on the totem pole. We're arguing about whether the guy at the tip-pity top is being grossly overpaid for the benefit he brings to society and how society is supposed to correct for that.

I look at this the way I look at farming. If a farmer rapes his soil and doesn't take care of it for 5 or 10 years, it shouldn't be surprising when he starves. In this case the land (society) can actually have a say in the matter. If a rich person can't do what he needs to do to make sure those under him or worse off that could have an effect on his life don't do so well, it will come as no surprise when they organize to bring a balance back to the system.

At 4/5/10 04:27 PM, gumOnShoe wrote:

Then it would at least be based on some need associated with doing the job. But I'm being cheeky.

Then i will assume are being sarcastic.

But lets get down to brass tacks here. We're not arguing the worth of the value for pushing a button x times a day by some guy low on the totem pole. We're arguing about whether the guy at the tip-pity top is being grossly overpaid for the benefit he brings to society and how society is supposed to correct for that.

The only objective measure of the value a person brings to society is the value of the product he produces, and what the consumers of that product are willing to pay for it. Which means under free competitive conditions the wages paid to a worker will tend towards the subjectively determined value of the good or service he produces.

Very few people can actually PAY themselves, and those individuals are only capable of doing so after they have paid the negotiated people under them their wages from the total income their business accrued from selling the good or service. If the good or service is incredibly unique and valuable that company will make a profit and the ones at the top will earn a 'profit'. And their income is thus not really determined by them but still by what consumers value.

If you want to cut the income of a rich man without using coercion, people simply need to stop buying the product or service he is involved in selling. The only reason someone can legitimately make a certain amount of money is because SOMEONE down the line thought that that person was worth paying at least X amount of money.

For example, A CEO (Who technically is not an entrepreneur per say though he can act as one) Cannot pay himself more than what the board of dirrectors is willing to pay him, and the board of dirrectors is only willing to pay the CEO as much as what value they think he will add to the company. What value he adds to the company is not decided by the board of directors [although they have the potential to do things that add value to the company) But by the Consumers.

I personally do not think Brittney Spears, for example, is worth however many millions she is paid per year. But the millions of people who buy her records means that those people do value her 'music'. And I will not be so conceited as to claim that my subjective preferences of music and culture are superior to the masses of people who patronize her and thus I have legitimate authority to 'intervene' on the part of 'society' (Which has already determined her worth and has paid her such through the actions of the consumers, so in fact it is not society that is determining this 'new wage' is it some Archon) and either take a portion of that wage or simply impose a price ceiling of some sort on pop stars.

In that businessman's own pay is limited by what Consumers pay them has two exceptions. They may be 'over-payed' if their incomes are artificially inflated. Doctors, for example, are probably paid more than what their services render because the supply of doctors is artificially limited by a monopoly on the licensing of doctors. Of course Doctors aren't really better off because of the high costs of education they have to pay, plus red tape and malpractice insurance, but they are in fact paid more than what their services WOULD pay if Society were free to voluntarily chose the worth of doctors services.

I stress voluntary because if a bank robber steals $50,000 from the bank's clients, simply because the clients have surrendered their money at gunpoint doesn't mean that society thinks the bank robbers are worth $50,000. If those Bank robbers in an alternate universe were in fact Expert gun slingers and Dare devils who attracted crowds that paid them a total of $500,000, without any compulsion, society has decided the once bank robbers and their crew.

Fuck these fucking fucks of idiots.

There is this "notion" that everyone has "their" money, when in reality everything is interdependent and if we do not function as a community these selfish pricks will fall off the face of the earth because their lack of a frontal lobe. Oh really, I have MY money? Are you sure its not a PART of the ECONOMY i just took out? You cannot create money, only take it from the economy.

Still, stupid assholes will continue to babble about how they earned more than another human being. In reality, everyone works just as hard... but some are more appreciated than others.

At 4/5/10 06:51 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: The only objective measure of the value a person brings to society is the value of the product he produces, and what the consumers of that product are willing to pay for it. Which means under free competitive conditions the wages paid to a worker will tend towards the subjectively determined value of the good or service he produces.

The idea that voluntary trade is the "only objective measure of value" is an unfounded assumption that is directly challenged by the OP of this topic. I can name 2 other objective measurements of value.

- all professions are valued equally
- the value of a profession are to be valued by voluntary trade, but the value of every profession is worth at least $10 an hour

Both of those are objective criteria for setting wages.

At 4/5/10 11:25 PM, Musician wrote: - all professions are valued equally
- the value of a profession are to be valued by voluntary trade, but the value of every profession is worth at least $10 an hour

Both of those are objective criteria for setting wages.

Technically, in the long-long-super-duper-BIG picture (i know, many of my fellow americans do not like thinking like that) every job is worth equal value to anything you may consider of "higher" worth. Doctors and lawyers, though paid handsomely today, were disposable in ancient times (due to a, shall we say, "less civilized" civilization).

History has shown that communal living is best, and economics do not shy away from that rule either. A garbage man is just as "valuable" as a doctor, it just depends on your situation. If you are sick, you need a doctor, if you need tons of things moved, you need a garbage man. Situations.

I agree with the poster above me stating at least a minimum wage of 10 dollars at this current date.

At 4/5/10 11:35 PM, drDAK wrote: History has shown that communal living is best, and economics do not shy away from that rule either. A garbage man is just as "valuable" as a doctor, it just depends on your situation. If you are sick, you need a doctor, if you need tons of things moved, you need a garbage man. Situations.

holy fuck you're retarded

anyone can move garbage, only a handful of individuals have the skills to be a doctor. OBVIOUSLY the doctor is worth more

I agree with the poster above me stating at least a minimum wage of 10 dollars at this current date.

Minimum wage destroys jobs.

Sorry for shortening, but this is, I believe, essentially what you said in about a paragraph, and I'd like to keep this short and to the point. While the examples you provided were enlightening, we don't need to consider them... anyhow...

At 4/5/10 06:51 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: People who buy products set the wages of those they buy products from, especially those at the top. But those at the top must make everyone else happy by paying them before they can take anything for themselves. Those who make a lot are valued both by the company they work for and the people who buy their products.

First, this assumes people know what is good for them and good for society. And while it is a slippery slope we must understand and recognize that there are crooks among us and stupid people: people who stick paper clips in sockets, people who buy McDonald's for lunch everyday, people who frequently ignore safety labels, etc etc etc. There has been a lot of study into whether or not people can really apply value to various goods and everything I've heard has pretty much pointed to: not reliably. One example, toy makers found out that an adult generally can't set the price for a stuffed bear and randomly presented with a bear costing 12 or 20 dollars responded equally.

Second, this also assumes that the product being bought is not a necessity. In the case that it is (gasoline) and the resource is scarce we must rely on competition to keep prices down, but even so the vast sums of money seem worth it to get from A to B. At no point in this decision has the customer decided Mr. Bigshot executive at the top deserves the money he is paying. More than likely he doesn't even consider it in the transaction. The consumer doesn't understand what went into any of the work, from the speculators who found the oil to those who studied the well to those who went and built the well to those who pumped it to those who shipped it, purified it, ran it through the pressure chambers and heat to separate it into its varying mixtures, ship it again, sell on the stock exchange, and eventually bring it to the gas station that had to be built and run etc etc etc. The consumer's only real concern is whether or not he can spare X amount of money for the product he needs. To consider this a mandate on executive pay, is relatively speaking, a stretch.

Third, work itself is a product that is overly abundant. We offer it to a range of employers that gets to decide which product to buy, but at his cost. Sure, you can negotiate, but as you've pointed out scarcity and competition keep prices low. So, the man at the top who controls the flow of cash and product has a lot of weight to decide who is hired and at what rate and he will only ever pay the minimum that he can get away with. Supply and demand, keeping as much for himself or themselves if you want to look at the board in the case of a corporation. And since we know consumers can't really do anything than arbitrarily value work, it is unlikely (not impossible) that what the owner of the business is willing to pay for a job is not the correct value, and since they are predisposed to pay low, and the worker likely NEEDS the job it is likely the worker will be underpaid and the executives can amass more than what their total work for the company brings to the company relative to the true value of their employees. There's a lot of ifs and likely's here, but I believe it.

Now, we may look at another facet of this very large complex and nigh incomprehensible equation. Each worker, lets suppose, has a minimum state of being sufficient. At this point they can get by, but they don't improve. This is material in nature only. They have food, they have medicine, but they aren't getting any better than where they are and they are living from paycheck to paycheck. Their lives aren't secure. Above this is a level of contentment. This is where the middle class is at. They can expect their salary to increase, they go into some debt, but with the expectation of being able to pay it off. There are clear and visible rewards, but things aren't great. Then there are two more options: bellow sufficiency and free ranging happiness. There are probably varying degrees of both but they should be obvious. One, you don't have enough, the other you have more than and your happiness and well being are no longer reliant on your salary.

In the U.S. free ranging happiness occurs at or above $60,000. Bellow sufficiency or poverty is $20,000 or less. Sufficiency and contentment lie somewhere in the middle depending on the individual. A majority of people in the united states are well off, but a significant portion are sufficient or below (Poverty 2008, Census Graph). Note that the previous graph was 2008 as we turned into a recession. It is likely that they spiked higher in the last year, especially since unemployment rose as high as it did and cash flow was drastically reduced. I would not be surprised if our poverty rate went up several percentage points.

So a question here is, are people being paid correctly both executives and their underlings. You say yes; I say no. Another question here is, if the people on the top are dependent in some form for their lifestyle based on all members of society, do they owe something to society to make sure everyone has the chance to at least be sufficient when within their power and contentment more so. I would argue on a moral level that they do. The question this topic poses is whether anyone is entitled to have money. If you argument is yes, people who work for money are entitled to it, then it MUST be true that the appropriation of said money is done in the most correct way possible. Correctness and morality are independently defined by the individual, but at some level there is a point where not paying your workers enough leads to a worse workforce and leads to unhealthy lifestyles which eventually endangers you and your company. Beyond that, there is also a benefit to keeping your workers happy, they do better for you. But, again, we can't trust people at the top to make the right decisions anymore than the people buying their products.

So, the only thing we can do is look at the state people are in and attempt as a society to enable everyone to be at the least sufficient, if that means taking from those that have way more than the need to provide for those who weren't given enough to begin with, feel free to call me Robin Hood.

At 4/5/10 11:25 PM, Musician wrote:

At 4/5/10 06:51 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: The only objective measure of the value a person brings to society is the value of the product he produces, and what the consumers of that product are willing to pay for it. Which means under free competitive conditions the wages paid to a worker will tend towards the subjectively determined value of the good or service he produces.

The idea that voluntary trade is the "only objective measure of value" is an unfounded assumption that is directly challenged by the OP of this topic. I can name 2 other objective measurements of value.

I can perform jumping jacks in front of my house and claim that my labor is worth 50 dollars per hour, and if people are not willing to pay me that much I have a right to use the state to ensure that I am paid that amount.

But i shouldn't have used the word objective to describe value. Value is subjective, that you think something has value is a matter of your subjective perception. Value as a thing in itself cannot be given an actual measure of value but marginally the value of a thing can be measured by how much of other things which you value you would be willing to give up in exchange for that good. The natural tendency of people to order certain things as being more important than others and thus exchanging objects, conditions, or circumstances which they do not like for those that they do like leads to the subjective valuation of goods on the margins.

What makes a a traveling Sale's person's claim to... say... 85,000$ per year more legitimate than my claim to 50$ per hour is that whereas the Sale's person's income is derived from other people deciding voluntarily how much they are willing to pay for that sale's person's goods. My claim to 50$ an hour is based on my assertion and nothing else, it's not based on whether people think I am valuable and therefore pay me 50$ an hour. Whereas Richard Simmons' Jumping jacks, among other things, are valued by people (mostly women) who want to get in shape.

If a person is willing to give as much as 500 dollars for a doctor's visit, that means that think that the doctors visit is worth no more than whatever other objects or things of value the person feels 500$ could otherwise command. This is a subjective assessment of the Doctor's Value but it is objective as far as we are concerned if we are measuring the value that he is worth to society. If we imagine that a person is willing to pay a higher price for the doctor, either because Doctor's are more scarce or the quality of the doctor is higher than before. (Scarcity in this case has an influence on value because of the effect of Marginal Utility, although it is better to have more doctors than less, the MARGINAL doctor is more valuable when there are fewer doctors in the total 'stock'. Marginal utility and subjective valuation explain why is why Diamonds are more valuable than water even when the latter is more essential to life. )

You can CLAIM that a Garbage man's labor is as equally valuable as a Doctor's labor, but if value is subjective and if we are measuring value on the basis of how society values a person. That society voluntarilly gives a total of X ammount to a person, is far more objective than you just telling me that you FEEL that a Garbage man is worth more to society than a Doctor. Even if we say that both are necessary to society, we have to look at value not based on the costs of giving up all of our garbage men or all of our doctors, for the same reason society doesn't think about the value of diamonds and water on a basis of giving up all of the diamonds or all of the water, only the marginal diamond or the marginal water. So the idea that both Doctors and Garbageman should be paid the same because they are both necessary is not true.

And the fact that if you did pass a law saying that Doctor's and Garbagemen were to be paid the same, that you would see a shortage of doctors and an unnecessary surplus of people willing to be garbagemen seems to be to be proof enough that the arbitrary prices set by a pay-czar are Not relevant to societal value of a particular profession.

Smile you're still completely missing the point. The voluntary market system isn't inherently a more valid measurement of value just because it's voluntary. You can make the argument that it's a more effective system of value measurement (which I would partially agree with), but you can't argue it's inherently correct.

At 4/6/10 10:37 AM, Musician wrote: Smile you're still completely missing the point. The voluntary market system isn't inherently a more valid measurement of value just because it's voluntary. You can make the argument that it's a more effective system of value measurement (which I would partially agree with), but you can't argue it's inherently correct.

I can't prove it's morally correct. I can say that it is a more genuine depiction of how society values a particular kind of labor. Unless you want to make the case that people do not act upon how they value certain things.

At 4/6/10 11:06 AM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

At 4/6/10 10:37 AM, Musician wrote: Smile you're still completely missing the point. The voluntary market system isn't inherently a more valid measurement of value just because it's voluntary. You can make the argument that it's a more effective system of value measurement (which I would partially agree with), but you can't argue it's inherently correct.

I can't prove it's morally correct. I can say that it is a more genuine depiction of how society values a particular kind of labor. Unless you want to make the case that people do not act upon how they value certain things.

;;;
Which is fine what your saying...as long as the medium of exchange actually has value. THat's the real problem with a fiat monetary system. You can save hard all your life & to be sure you don't lose it in a banking collapse, you save it at home. but when you factor in inflation & the possibility of currency devaluation all of a sudden having stacks of cash could easily have you holding onto paper that is worth less than what it used to be & could even be worth nothing at all.
You can be a great worker, skilled etc. but if people can't pay you , or the money's not worth the paper its printed on...You'll want something else...chickens, eggs, gallons of gas, Whatever it may be , but it will ahhve to have some intrinsic value.
But if say your a farmer, & your place is paid for. You may not be rich, but say another Great Depression hits, you can at least feed yourself, grow food that can be used to barter for something you need or want.

A good source for info on this little known & often misunderstood market see www.24hgold.com & check out the articles that are posted daily.

Some guy who was rich on paper, can't eat it. No one will accept it for food or other necessities.
It's not worth the paper its printed on anymore...so what do you actually have ?
Nothing !
Which is why people like myself (alarmists according to some) have gotten rid of all my investments but 2.
Evrything I cashed out I paid off one of my mortgages, & paid down the other so I'm under 10,000 left owing on my home. I then turned most of the rest into Gold & Silver bullion.
Plus I also bought some investment old coins I been lucky enough to buy at auction, for less than my Canadian Coin News & the appraiser(s) I know who have then evaluated my investments for these rare items.

In the last 2000+ years gold has been a successful hedge against monetary systems that collaps & just for the record.

EVERY FIAT MONETARY SYSTEM EVER CREATED HAS EVENTUALLY COLLAPSED ! ! !
We almost witnessed it with the crunch in the US in 2008. Only the entire world needing to protect itself kept the US dollar afloat. China is presently capable of bringing the US dollar to its knees. But in doing so they would hurt their own economy, because they are awed almost 2 trillion US dollars & if they devale to nothing... then China has nothing but useless paper.
Which is why China is devesting itself of US funds. Why it is investing hundreds Billions of US dollars in Africa, & South America, to open & develope oil feilds, mines, hydro projects, agriculture etc.
They art also pushing & pushing hard for a world currency & for the first time ever there IMF is able to print its own money, which other countries (and for now its Countries/Governments only) that can use them.

Which is why I believe in our lifetime we will see a new currency take over as the world's prefered monitary holdings.
Let's us not even get into the scam...should i say Ponzi Scheme that some of the worlds largest gold reserves, Banks that do not have the actual bullion on hand to, cover all the paper they now have out to investors who think they actually do have !
This little straw could collapse the banking system...JP Morgan & HSBC are known for this & the word is slowly getting out.
The paper gold out there (which by LAW ) is supposed to be backed by actual physical gold bars, has recently been said to be above the actual physical gold available & it is substantially over sold.

Which means if all the people who own paper that says Banks Gold Depository has so many ounces of gold belonging to them, & they request the physical metal in trade for their paper. The Banks will collapse (all it will take is a run on the bank & the word get out that there isn't enough gold available & all hell will break loose & al the printing presses in the world won't be able to fix it !

At 4/6/10 11:06 AM, SmilezRoyale wrote: I can't prove it's morally correct. I can say that it is a more genuine depiction of how society values a particular kind of labor. Unless you want to make the case that people do not act upon how they value certain things.

By the same logic you could say anarchy is a more genuine representation of what society believes it's social laws should be. Even if we agree that it is a more "genuine" system, that still begs the question: how does having a "genuine" system benefit us? Obviously anarchy doesn't really benefit us, because rational self interest in pure anarchy inevitably leads to things like theft, rape, and murder.

Ideally, an economy is based off of what is most beneficial for a society as a whole, and not what is "genuine."

At 4/6/10 03:22 PM, Musician wrote:

At 4/6/10 11:06 AM, SmilezRoyale wrote: I can't prove it's morally correct. I can say that it is a more genuine depiction of how society values a particular kind of labor. Unless you want to make the case that people do not act upon how they value certain things.

By the same logic you could say anarchy is a more genuine representation of what society believes it's social laws should be. Even if we agree that it is a more "genuine" system, that still begs the question: how does having a "genuine" system benefit us? Obviously anarchy doesn't really benefit us, because rational self interest in pure anarchy inevitably leads to things like theft, rape, and murder.

Ideally, an economy is based off of what is most beneficial for a society as a whole, and not what is "genuine."

Obviously? If you want to want to argue against the feasibility of a stateless society please make a thread for it. Unless you define Anarchy as something other than "No State" (And many people do that) Such as, No Heirarchy, no private property, no rules (The state is not the only rule maker) and/or total freedom from consequence I do not contend that "Anarchy" in the long run, leads to a prevalence of things like rape theft and murder, to the contrary, it provides the frame work for which structures both economical and equitable can emerge to deal with them more properly than a monopoly of force.

But I digress.

Well you already stated yourself that the voluntarism method of value determinable is more economical than arbitrary assessments by a pay czar. So as far as I am concerned the Utilitarian argument for a free market in wages and prices has already been dealt with, and it is only the Utilitarian arguments that i am concerned with.

If you want to say that it is immoral or unfair that some people are paid more than others, even when society is left to itself to decide what certain labor is worth, I have no way of proving this true or false, 'Fairness' is completely subjective as is morality. I can't prove that being a homosexual is immoral because I have no idea how one even derives notions of morality.

At 4/6/10 07:45 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: as far as I am concerned the Utilitarian argument for a free market in wages and prices has already been dealt with, and it is only the Utilitarian arguments that i am concerned with.

Which is why I'm wondering why you came into this particular topic and made such a fuss, when I obviously wasn't arguing against the utilitarian argument. The topic, "you're not entitled to your money", addresses the idea that the money you earn is the immediate result of your work, in the same sense that a loaf of bread is the immediate result of baking it. Value is an ideological construct; a (limited) right bestowed upon you by society. The purpose of this right is utility, not adherence to some abstract sense of morals.

On a side note, I do have some arguments against the utility of the free market, but probably not in this thread. I think you should make a new thread about Anarchy. I'd be happy to debate you about the utility of Anarcho-Capitalism or Minarchism.

At 4/5/10 11:51 AM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

Right. I'm getting bored of you making this same point. Wages are not arbitrarily determined and that is the only issue that i care about.

They are determined by how low someone can get away with paying someone else.

Minorities cannot force majorities to do anything if the majority does not, at least passively respect the whims of the state.

Unless the minorities have... you know... guns and whatnot.

Actually that's the point. I don't mean discrimination by differences in pay, I mean the refusal to admit certain people into a business for racial reasons.

Well I don't.

hiring non whites of equal skill for less pay

Yeah wait until the rednecks find out who they have to work with at the gravy factory.

The desire to earn money and racism are necessarily at odds with one another

Not really, slavery being a prime example.

Historically, the only people to suppress what you would consider 'rights' on a large scale, are government or those tied to the government.

And as luck would have it, historically, the only people to ever do anything on a "large scale" are governments.

My concerns are one, the conditions of the privately run and funded mills relative to alternative employment,

It was harder and had worse conditions but had steadier pay.

Your laws have no influence or regard to either.

What are you talking about? If it's illegal to send kids to work, where are you going to send them but schools? Especially if it's state-funded?
And the laws made factory work less dangerous for everyone in the long run.

If an employer can get away with unsafe work conditions, HE WILL. Capitalism does NOT fix this. All it does is make sure that a factory owner tries to get away with the lowest possible standards of security so as to increase his profits.

Um... Are you insane? If a country is IMPORTING GRAIN that means they lack the surplus to feed themselves on their own.

I should have precised that they imported grains instead of using locally grown grains because it was cheaper. This bankrupted many of England's farmers.

So again, everyone in the country could have eaten.

and continued to be such during the early industrial revolution. Contrast Britain to the United States,

That's a pretty ridiculous comparison to make in 1800, especially for the kinds of observations you're trying to derive from it.

If you can send them to school being the key term.

Yeah you can't send them if they spend their day in the mines.
And you can't stop sending them to the mines when they're your own competition for your job. When the economy stabilizes with "well one man, one woman and two kids working at a factory earn enough to get by, that's fine" you have nowhere to go.

Negro slaves were notorious for being lazy, they were undoubtedly less productive than freemen. And don't underestimate the cost of hiring guards. You also have to pay the cost of

Again we're talking about slavery today, which costs peanuts. But even back then it was obviously cheap enough to use anyway unless you think all those people were just stupid and went through the trouble of getting slaves just for the fun of it.

there is no 'legal protection' in these society's because the state has monopolized protection and is supported by foreign funding.

There has been slavery in every kind of society from the dawn of time. Wealthy, big, small, black, white, asian, rich, poor etc.
If it wasn't illegal in the USA, people would use slaves in a heartbeat. It would probably make workers really angry too, just like it does with illegal immigrants, as slaves would do their jobs for a fraction of the price. What would they do about that?

The countries with the most rampant slavery and the places where it's the most prevalent are lawless places basically. Places where the government's arm can't reach and where people are left to fend for themselves and roaming gangs of slave-drivers can just go in and pick them up without opposition.

Blaming their government for this? Please. They can't police themselves so slavery crops up just as it happened anywhere in the world where people couldn't defend themselves against anyone who would enslave them.

And now this brings up to a key point of anarchism: you require everyone to basically be responsible for their own security, which is a terrible, terrible system as it's well-known that a society of jack-of-all-trades SUCKS ALL compared to a society of specialists, which large governments allow to thrive.

Anyway if lack of government really was worth anything, it would have spread. But strangely enough, anywhere you go, any society who has ever done ANYTHING had some semblance of a government and the bigger and more complex it was, the bigger their people's achievements.

If anarchist societies REALLY were better at thriving, the simple evolutionary process dictates that anarchist societies would have overtaken non-anarchists ones eventually and replaced them because they'd be wealthier, happier, healthier etc.

But nope.

I'll respond to you (Poxpower) Tomorrow, right now I'm loaded with homework and I personally feel guilty posting this when i should be working.

But one side note i wanted to bring up was the AP report that apparently 47% of Americans presently pay no income tax. (A proportion of those probably paying a negative income tax). In light of the fact that at some point, the benefits that these people receive will have to be cut (Either by the government or by virtue of the fact that the US Government collapses financially) and Taxes will have to be raised, I pity these individuals considering how the unstable safety net created by the government will be cut beneath them, and they'll basically just get their faces smashed on the asphalt.

From what I've also heard, as of recent, the top ten percent in the United States, (Top 10%) Pays about 73% of the federal income tax. I'm having trouble finding out, at recent, what proportion of the total wealth the top ten percent controls though I wouldn't be surprised if it was close to that amount.

Now I'm not for destroying wealth for the sake of making it more evenly distributed, but ignoring that.

At one point does one feel that the "Rich" Have "Paid their Fair share" ? Is it when the proportion of the total income tax they pay is equal to the total proportion that the top ten percent of income households (And there are technically flaws with this because the top ten percent of income earners are not necessarily the top ten percent in terms of over all wealth) own? Is it higher? If they own, 70% of the Wealth, is a 70% tax burden still too low?

Yeah if you want to drop this I don't care cause it's starting to take too long haha :p
I should be working too.... .... ...

At 4/8/10 06:49 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

From what I've also heard, as of recent, the top ten percent in the United States, (Top 10%) Pays about 73% of the federal income tax.

Well here's how I see it. Would you rather be rich and pay taxes or poor and pay no taxes?
Aren't you rewarded enough by life and society when you can actually afford to pay 100k in taxes? As I see it, that's a tax for your right to control that much wealth and not have a bunch of guys kick down your door and rape you in the night.

At 4/6/10 08:44 PM, poxpower wrote:

They are determined by how low someone can get away with paying someone else.

In a narrow sense you can call this true. The demand curve for the labor market like any good is such that any person will always try to buy something at the lowest price they can get. Be it a purchaser of goods or a purchaser of labor. But this works the other way around as well. I could argue that wages are determined by how high someone can get away with being paid. But i don't know if that is what you meant or if you were trying to use that to conclude that, in the absence of anything short of a complete state control of all prices and wages (Which would basically result in a blind economy), employers will be CAPABLE of paying workers only enough for their barest survival; Basically what Karl Marx believed. I don't want to believe that you are naive enough to need me to explain why this isn't logically or empirically true.

Minorities cannot force majorities to do anything if the majority does not, at least passively respect the whims of the state.

Unless the minorities have... you know... guns and whatnot.

Governments exist based upon the premise of legitimacy. Not necessarily active support but passive support. Like the USSR they fall apart rather quickly when people reject the notion of the state having authority. Take the cliche example of the cattle versus the rancher. The rancher may be more powerful than any individual cattle. ( with his impressive prod and what not) But that doesn't mean if 60 or 80% of the cattle decided to charge the rancher the rancher wouldn't be overwhelmed / killed. If this wasn't the case, then any despotism could exist indefinitely. George Bush could refuse to resign as president, for example.

This means that a government, even one that is not necessarily run 'democratically' Cannot for any duration of time enact a policy that runs in direct odds with the cultural views of society at the time. The cultural views have to change BEFORE the laws change. This is why kings during most of the middle ages seldom dared to do anything that would get them excommunicated by the pope, A political leader in a time when religion was central to legitimizing authority. This is also why European kingdoms weren't run by Gays, Jews, Muslims, etc. This is also why democracy can work to a limited degree, in that they can't enact policies that virtually everyone agrees are bad.

Well I don't.

Then classify what kind of discrimination you are talking about, how it could happen and why the problem requires your enlightened oligarchy.

Yeah wait until the rednecks find out who they have to work with at the gravy factory.

Yes. When the white racists find out that an employer is profiting by valuing money over race, they'll call their CONGRESSMAN and tell them to pass a law making it so that black people cannot be paid less than white people, thus, there is no longer any incentive for employers who may be slightly racist to hire black people (Unless they are ostensibly superior workers) since tolerance is no longer profitable. That's how the government 'solves' the problem.

As for slavery, Why only enslave blacks? By only enslaving one race or group of people you are denying yourself the opportunity to

The only people to ever do anything on a "large scale" are governments.

Except for agriculture, the arts, navigation and large scale trade, science, industry....

It was harder and had worse conditions but had steadier pay.

Probably, aside from the enhanced productivity factor there is the matter of compensating difference. Garbage men probably earn more than custodians even though custodians may have more involved work, the former is more unpleasant than the latter.

What are you talking about? If it's illegal to send kids to work, where are you going to send them but schools?

If economic conditions require them to work, and it is impossible for them to do so LEGALLY, they will do so illegally. They will work as thieves or prostitutes, or they will simply starve and die.

As for schools, throughout most of early industrial history you had public schools, just not the kind of secular-public schools that you would want. But this is at moot point, you cannot send children to school even if you want to, if they're parents do not have enough money to feed them on their own, you need the surplus. This surplus did not exist and it never would have had it not been for capital accumulation.

If an employer can get away with unsafe work conditions

There are a number of reasons why employers find making working conditions more comfortable / safe, I will discuss it in a second post for lack of characters.

They imported grains

I do not see the relevance. That hasn't established whether England could feed itself. The agricultural revolution in a way DID create the surplus; It was enough surplus to create a population of non farming factory labors, but not enough to allow for a large proportion of the population NOT to work, you saw yourself what workers were paid those days. If people WANT to go to school, and can AFFORD to go to school, they will. The economy of the day may not have required the kind of education you think everyone OUGHT to have, but as far as children are concerned I don't think parents would have wanted their children working if they could have afforded it.

That's a pretty ridiculous comparison to make in 1800, especially for the kinds of observations you're trying to derive from it.

How so? Britain and France had feudal aristocracies and the United States had very little of that. Read De Tocqueville if you don't believe me. If you can acquire wealth without providing any trade or value, i.e. at gunpoint, it is not unreasonable to expect there to be a great deal of power and wealth and inequality between those with and those without the guns.

competition

I already debunked this; you don't make society wealthier by restricting the supply of labor to increase wages. Increasing wages by reducing supply simply means someone else is paying a higher price for the same or a smaller quantity of product. Tom Smith the millworker may benefit by a law that restricts the number of mill laborers, the John Jones the coal miner suffers when he finds that his shirts cost double what they used to. The only way to increase real wages is to increase the number of output per worker per unit of time, this requires capital accumulation which requires savings and the forgoing of consumption which requires entrepreneurs.

There has been slavery in every kind of society from the dawn of time. Wealthy, big, small, black, white, asian, rich, poor etc.

There has been poverty in every kind of society from the dawn of time, and therefore...?
Yes, some societies have mitigated poverty and thus we ask under what conditions is poverty, and or slavery most easily mitigated.

I stated that the lecture suggests that Slavery is easy because people in those countries are desperate; they are desperate because they are poor. Why are they poor? Kleptocratic governments that do not allow for the development of industry in the same way the Asian Tigers permitted it.

The countries with the most rampant slavery and the places where it's the most prevalent are lawless places basically. Places where the government's arm can't reach and where people are left to fend for themselves and roaming gangs of slave-drivers can just go in and pick them up without opposition.

Lawless and stateless are two different things, likewise, simply because a state is stable/unstable does not mean that the governments are authoritarian/libertarian. Unstable states TEND to be more authoritarian, more controlling, and more chaotic. That Zimbabwe is one of the most authoritarian governments on the planet does not mean there is no chaos in Zimbabwe.

http://www.heritage.org/Index/pdf/2010/I ndex2010_map.pdf