Your suggestions for a system of fair pay
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No, you've lost me again.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
I'm assuming the people there aren't stupid. If farming etc provided a better life than making soccer balls, wouldn't they choose the farming?
So, it's fair to exploit those kids in the Far East, for instance?
Depends on your definition of "exploit". Manipulation of language happening here.
There is an assumption that there is no force involved in getting someone to do a job, that is it is up to their own free will. Slavery is neither acceptable or fair.
If a person accepts what might seem to you meagre pay out of their own free will because they can't get anything better at that moment in time, then yes, it is the fairest system available to us.
You must be joking - they ought to be in school, surely THAT is fair!!!!kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
Not at all. Phone line and a box capable of displaying internet pages and an i/o device is all you need. Given that a household without a TV in the UK is more likely to do so out of choice we're not talking about a massive change in investment...
This kinda reminds me of the 'how would an anarchist society' work thread - once we'd gotten past the 'crime' issue it turned to 'who'd do the shit jobs'...well, everyone who wanted to. People's whole mindsets would be different - there wouldn't be the expecatation of service, more a 'what can I do' rather than 'what can the state do for me'. Either that or you have a national database of people with OCD and make sure there's one per X sqaure miles
I agree with Gorski way back on P1 tho - while you've still got money you've still got rationing, people having a sense of 'fairness' about allocation vs input into society. How a society without ANY form of exchange would function would be interesting - in Star Trek personal demand is mediated by manners - literally, you don't overuse the replicator because you're aware of resource depletion, and act AS AN ADULT, not the kind of enforced grasping childhood that cap imposes on demand. Having said that, the Federation are wusses comared to The Culture
Altho getting back to something that approaches social democracy in the UK would be a start...indidentally, on the Scandinavian models...the state has WAY more interest and information in people's lives from start to finish, just in different ways to CCTV and suchlike...
But they can get somethign better if they break the sacred rules of the contract and take from their employers by collective force.
gorski
customised free radical
About that market shitty myth...
Or:
In Sweden, at least since the 1930s “experiment” started, the workers’ organisations were deemed not only perfectly legitimate but also necessary social and economic partners. G. Esping-Andersen (1985, p. 31) explains the process, “Social democratic class formation, therefore, is first and foremost a struggle to decommodify labour and stem market sovereignty in order to make collective action possible. Only when workers command resources and access to welfare independently of market exchange can they possibly be swayed not to take jobs during strike actions, underbid fellow workers, and so forth. Where the market is hegemonic, the labour movement’s future depends on its ability to provide an “exit” for workers that concomitantly ensures collective solidarity.” We need to mention that unionisation in Sweden is around 80%. Those workers know their strength and do have a very enviable culture of solidarity working for them.
In Scandinavian countries, among other things, the levels of trust between people are the highest in the world. By contrast, the lowest levels of trust (the percentage of people who agree that most people can be trusted) are in the countries with the dismally poor industrial and citizenship relations, adversarial societal model, the greatest social differences and highest levels of poverty (in Brazil, for instance the levels of trust are 10 times lower).
The correlation between levels of trust and investment is evident; the levels of growth are also lower than expected, given certain conditions, as explained by Stephen Knack (1996). There he mentions Robert Putnams’s and Ronald Inglehart’s pieces of research about civic-mindedness and trust and their relationship with economic performance and well-being.
Branko Milanović’s work on inequality shows that it is growing significantly, in global terms. In the US it made a significant jump in the 1980s, rather predictably (Held & Kaya, 2007).
According to Hart-Landsberg, Jeong & Westra (2007), De Rivero (2001) and The Economist (2005) – not known for its “left credentials” and opposition to this particular model of globalisation – conducted their own research. They found that since the beginning of this type of integration of world markets, based on Washington Consensus, the numbers of NVEs (Non-Viable Entities) and UCEs (Ungovernable Chaotic Economies) have risen significantly throughout the world. The Economist found 46 of them, in fact. Indeed, instead of the promised boost, today 50% of world’s youth (15–24 year olds) live in poverty.
Moreover, the Economist also found that, for instance, the social policy has nothing to do with the global pressures of “competitive” nature. In fact, they found that Singapore reserved only 20% of GDP for public spending. The US set aside 33%, Germany, 49%, and Sweden, 68%, of their GDP for public spending!
Hirst & Thompson (1996, p. 64) say, “Provided an economy remains competitive in the goods and services it trades internationally, it can choose high levels of social spending and does not have to be ‘competitive’ or drive down wages in the non-internationally traded sectors”.
“Yet,” they continue, “the concept can be used to undermine any attempt to maintain or improve domestic public services and welfare standards, in the belief that they will render UK private employers uncompetitive. We can begin to resist these arguments of a global economy dominated by ungovernable market forces, which is at variance with the evidence.” (ibid. P 64)
Or:
In Sweden, at least since the 1930s “experiment” started, the workers’ organisations were deemed not only perfectly legitimate but also necessary social and economic partners. G. Esping-Andersen (1985, p. 31) explains the process, “Social democratic class formation, therefore, is first and foremost a struggle to decommodify labour and stem market sovereignty in order to make collective action possible. Only when workers command resources and access to welfare independently of market exchange can they possibly be swayed not to take jobs during strike actions, underbid fellow workers, and so forth. Where the market is hegemonic, the labour movement’s future depends on its ability to provide an “exit” for workers that concomitantly ensures collective solidarity.” We need to mention that unionisation in Sweden is around 80%. Those workers know their strength and do have a very enviable culture of solidarity working for them.
In Scandinavian countries, among other things, the levels of trust between people are the highest in the world. By contrast, the lowest levels of trust (the percentage of people who agree that most people can be trusted) are in the countries with the dismally poor industrial and citizenship relations, adversarial societal model, the greatest social differences and highest levels of poverty (in Brazil, for instance the levels of trust are 10 times lower).
The correlation between levels of trust and investment is evident; the levels of growth are also lower than expected, given certain conditions, as explained by Stephen Knack (1996). There he mentions Robert Putnams’s and Ronald Inglehart’s pieces of research about civic-mindedness and trust and their relationship with economic performance and well-being.
Branko Milanović’s work on inequality shows that it is growing significantly, in global terms. In the US it made a significant jump in the 1980s, rather predictably (Held & Kaya, 2007).
According to Hart-Landsberg, Jeong & Westra (2007), De Rivero (2001) and The Economist (2005) – not known for its “left credentials” and opposition to this particular model of globalisation – conducted their own research. They found that since the beginning of this type of integration of world markets, based on Washington Consensus, the numbers of NVEs (Non-Viable Entities) and UCEs (Ungovernable Chaotic Economies) have risen significantly throughout the world. The Economist found 46 of them, in fact. Indeed, instead of the promised boost, today 50% of world’s youth (15–24 year olds) live in poverty.
Moreover, the Economist also found that, for instance, the social policy has nothing to do with the global pressures of “competitive” nature. In fact, they found that Singapore reserved only 20% of GDP for public spending. The US set aside 33%, Germany, 49%, and Sweden, 68%, of their GDP for public spending!
Hirst & Thompson (1996, p. 64) say, “Provided an economy remains competitive in the goods and services it trades internationally, it can choose high levels of social spending and does not have to be ‘competitive’ or drive down wages in the non-internationally traded sectors”.
“Yet,” they continue, “the concept can be used to undermine any attempt to maintain or improve domestic public services and welfare standards, in the belief that they will render UK private employers uncompetitive. We can begin to resist these arguments of a global economy dominated by ungovernable market forces, which is at variance with the evidence.” (ibid. P 64)
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
This is very true, but I don't think it is in any way inevitable to social democracy that it should have this controlling, authoritarian streak. Libertarian socialism (a banner I occasionally carry) is not an oxymoron - extensive provision of high quality public services for all paid for out of general taxation can exist next to respect for the individual's right to fuck up their lives should they so wish. And the state does not need to know any more about the individual to charge them higher rates of tax.
At risk of stating the obvious, it is possible to take what is good about Scandinavia and reject what is not.
So what?
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