04-23-2021, 02:09 PM
(04-23-2021, 06:27 AM)David Horn Wrote:(04-23-2021, 01:01 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: A higher minimum wage makes getting employment makes marginal workers less likely to get work. On the other hand, abysmal wages also depress consumer demand Such is a consequence of supply-side economics that depends upon keeping as many people overworked and underpaid so that profits can be higher and that an economy might put more of its productivity into exports
Look at it another way. Should any endeavor that needs near slave labor to prosper exist at all?
Absolutely not.
Maybe we can make accommodations to people with handicaps of any kind, as most handicapped people have some virtues as workers at something. Maybe not industrial work, as handicapped people might be industrial accidents waiting to happen (which may be part of the reason for Social Security -- getting older workers who were especially prone to industrial accidents that caused harm to people other than themselves out of the workplace).
The handicapped people that I have known are typically cautious, which is a virtue in many occupations. You would not want me doing industrial work (bad back, little arm strength, no manual dexterity -- congenital conditions, and little ability to understand non-verbal communication -- which goes with Asperger's syndrome)... but you can imagine what I can do well.
We should pension off the extremely handicapped or have sheltered workshops for the mentally-impaired. Sheltered workshops can keep people from being exploited and abused.
Near-slave labor implies that the system exploits people capable of far better. It is the sort of exploitation that makes the special case of Marxism relevant to the social reality of the economic order.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.