“What do they have supremacy over?”
“…I’m assuming you’re familiar with natural rights? Everyone has a natural right to life, liberty and property. Whether a gov’t exists to suppress those rights doesn’t invalidate them….”
While reviewing the comment thread from a previous post, I came across the comment above. I was thunderstruck. This is an incredibly fatuous statement. Just mind-boggling, really. It displays a nearly-complete ignorance of history and how the real world has worked over the past few thousand years.
OK, let’s start with work. We’ll start here because, let’s face it, most of our time is devoted to working. So let’s say the government completely stays out of all employer-employee relationships. What do we think would happen? For the vast, vast majority of the population, I suspect the 70 hour workweek would come back into fashion. Pay rates would plummet, given the lack of minimum wage standards. Child labor would be acceptable. No pensions, no health care, no vacations, no paid time off, no sick leave. Work or get fired. Don’t work the way management thinks you should? Get fired. Say something against management? Get fired. Economic downturn? Get fired. No OSHA standards. Hurt in an industrial/workplace accident? Get fired. Building catches fire? Die, because the exits are locked to prevent employees from taking unauthorized breaks. Try to unionize? Get fired. Go on strike? Get your head beaten in by management-hired thugs strike-breakers. Then get fired.
What about the free market? Won’t some firms try to compete by offering better conditions? Probably not, because the owners are all colluding. Legally. Anyone of them steps out of line, the other owners retaliate. What about start-ups? Don’t exist, because they’re crushed or bought out by the collusion of existing companies.
Don’t know about you, but those conditions sound pretty repressive. With nary a government repression in sight. How do I know this? Because I’m describing the actual working conditions most people experienced in the 1880s., back when men were free. Before government started ‘interfering’ with the sacred employer-employee relationship, before government started messing with the sacred right of each individual to enter into a contract.
And no, this wouldn’t happen overnight, but we’d get there. How do I know? Because we’re well on the road already. A lot of this is already happening. In a lot of companies, a 60-hour week is expected. Don’t want to do it? You find yourself with plummeting review ratings until you’re shown the door. IOW, you get fired. Vacation? Sure, you get it, in theory. Just don’t actually try to take it. If you do, be on email and make the conference calls. Raise? What’s that? Health care? Disappearing. Pension? Please, you’re joking, right? Locked fire escapes? Happened in a chicken-processing plant in Hamlet, NC, in 1991. Yes, 1991, not 1891. A lot of low-end jobs don’t have sick leave. Can’t work because you’re sick? Don’t get paid. Do it too often and you’re fired. Talk union? See the response to resistance to 60-hour week. Payscale? It’s called ‘salary benchmarking’. Companies trade salary info all the time to make sure they’re not overpaying. Overtime pay? Walmart has been caught forcing employees to work after they punch out. IOW, no pay at all, let alone time-and-a-half, as the law states.
OK, some of these things remain pipe-dream fantasies of management, but the list of those is pretty short. We’re not quite back to the 1880s, but we’re getting there, and management will continue to push us in that direction as long as it can.
Believe it or not, much of the time, government is the only thing protecting liberty. Look, some of you need to read some history, like the thousand years between the fall of Rome and 1500 to understand the rise of monarchies. How were monarchies able to gain power over the local feudal nobility? In part, by guaranteeing the freedoms of towns, and their inhabitants. Townspeople and monarch colluded against the local nobles. Because towns had money, the monarchs were able to pay more soldiers than the nobility.
Then read the history from 1500 to the present, to see how individual freedoms came into existence. In case you’ve forgotten, the US government was founded in order to act as a guarantor of individual liberties against the British monarchy. But then, fourscore and 10 years later, with the central government of the US either too far away, too distracted, too weak, or too unwilling to get involved, a new class of ‘feudal nobility’ came into existence right here in the US of A. You can call them “Titans of Industry” or you can call them “Robber Barons”, but the principle is very much the same. And note: ‘baron’ is a term for a local, feudal noble, so the choice of word is apt, and the analogy of these barons to their Mediaeval predecessors is perfectly accurate.
Why do the “Titans of Industry” hate big government? Because it’s the only entity that can stand up to them. The people are powerless on their own. The government is the only agent that can protect the liberties of the individual. The idea that the market will discipline them is Econ 101 fantasy. Sure, it’s supposed to happen, but it doesn’t. Not until some entity (i.e. government) steps in and forces businesses to respect the rights of the individual.
Without government protections, your precious liberties would disappear, usurped by local tyrants. Why would this happen? Because, as Thucydides noted 2,400 years ago, “The strong do what they can. The weak suffer what they must.”
So, spare me Libertarian, or Free-Market fantasy. Go read some history. Then go out and work in the real world. When you have some actual experience, then maybe we’ll talk.
“For the vast, vast majority of the population, I suspect the 70 hour workweek would come back into fashion.”
I’ve heard progressives and unions scaremonger with this line countless times, but they can never find any support it when pressed. There is no law requiring a 40-hour workweek now, and the vast majority of the workforce is not unionized. So why isn’t everyone working 70-80/hour workweeks already? There is nothing preventing employers from doing so. It’s because market forces restrain them and most employers don’t think of their employees as simple dollar signs.
“Pay rates would plummet, given the lack of minimum wage standards.”
Then why is it that the vast majority of employers voluntarily pay their workers far above minimum wage now? There is no law requiring that they do so. Why isn’t everyone who works in the private sector and is not in a union making minimum wage or close to it?
And so on with the rest of this doomsday narrative. I don’t see any support for it, and it seems like it’s just trying to scare people into following your agenda. It’s the equivalent of telling people the death panels are coming with Obamacare.
“There is no law requiring a 40-hour workweek now, and the vast majority of the workforce is not unionized. So why isn’t everyone working 70-80/hour workweeks already? There is nothing preventing employers from doing so.”
The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 mandates overtime for 40+ hours of work in a week. I would guess that’s why (hourly) workers aren’t regularly working 70-80 hours a week.
For salaried workers, my guess is that many of them are working over 40 hours a week. At the very least everyone I know who is paid an annual salary is expected to work more than 40 hours a week. It’s slow creep I suppose.
But don’t you see? You’re just molding facts to fit your preexisting progressive narrative. When you say “I would guess this” and “I would guess that,” all that really means is that the facts don’t fit the story you want to tell about government restraining out-of-control greedy corporations who invariably abuse workers like machines. Paying somebody overtime is far cheaper than hiring an additional worker, so that certainly isn’t a deterrent. And there is nothing stopping them from salarying everybody at low pay and forcing them to work 70-80 hours. The simple fact is that this hasn’t happened, even with the short-term financial incentives pushing that way in a bad economy. So despite what you might “guess” about business behavior, the narrative you and Oswald are pushing is pure statist fantasy based on unionist fearmongering and nothing more. We don’t see all businesses paying minimum wage or close to it- we see a whole range of salaries in the private sector in reality, and most earn salaries far above that level for no reason other than that businesses choose to pay them to stay competitive and retain skill and talent. You can pretend markets have no effect on business behavior for interventionist convenience, but the plain evidence is that markets do provide restraining forces and allocate resources more efficiently than government can. Prices on labor are set just like how any other price is set – businesses pay attention to what other businesses are doing and try to one-up them.
How many times do I have to say this? I am not peddling fantasy. We are headed in the direction I’ve described, which is where we were before the govt actually did step in to restrain out-of-control greedy corporations who invariably abuse workers like machines.
That is exactly what the Progressive legislation of the late 19th & early 20th century did: it restrained corporations and forced them to treat employees like people. These are precisely the laws that Mark Hanna hated,and that Karl Rove would love to repeal.
That is not twisting facts. That is presenting facts. So far in this discussion, all the contrary arguments consist of is to call what I’m saying fantasy. Without proof of this.
One very important point: there may be no law setting the 40 hour week. However, there is a law requiring that non-salary employees be paid at time-and-a-half for any hours worked over 40. That is why companies don’t require their hourly workers to work more than 40 hours.
As for labeling everyone as salaried and going from there, what is to be considered salary and what is hourly is part of the law. Companies cannot–legally–simply make everyone a salaried employee.
Yes, these laws could be changed, and in fact, the definition of ‘salaried’ was increased a few years back, expanding the category. However, a wholesale change would require legislation, and companies aren’t that bold. Yet. A few more years of a GOP congress and president and who knows what will happen.
See, that is an example of a fact. Someone asks why companies don’t do something; the response is the legal restraint preventing them from doing it.
And the whole paying higher than minimum: once again, I did not say everyone would be making $2/hr. I said “wages would plummet.” Then I gave evidence that real wages for the bottom 80% (at least) are falling. Perhaps “plummet” was a bit over the top. However, wages are falling. And companies are already firing higher salary workers and replacing them with lower salary workers. The effect is to put increasing downward pressure on everyone’s salaries; except for those at the very top. Their wages are going up. And so is the proportion of income they receive, and the wealth they control.
So, unless you actually start putting some facts on the table, not just generalizations about ‘fantasy’ or ‘scare tactics’, it’s hard to take the contrary position seriously. It’s like EPIC FAIL. Wow, that’s deep. That’s subtle.That’s beneath what my six-year old would do.
Oswald, my statement that you used as an excuse to attack businesses had absolutely nothing to do with businesses. My statement had everything to do with the supremacy of the individual existing in spite of a suppression of those rights by governments. I never said businesses don’t ever violate someone’s rights. I never said the government should not exist or that gov’t doesn’t have a role in protecting those rights.
“Believe it or not, much of the time, government is the only thing protecting liberty.”
While that may be, it’s also the only thing that consistently violates our rights as well, even rights that, as you note, the gov’t exists to protect.
“While that may be, it’s also the only thing that consistently violates our rights as well…”
What a terribly ideological thing to say. Individuals’ rights, at least in the US, are most commonly threatened not by government, but by other individuals or groups of individuals. Every criminal on the street is a threat to our precious property, after all.
Corrupt governments exist in the world, but I doubt you can honestly say you’ve been the victim of one.
“Every criminal on the street is a threat to our precious property, after all.”
Being a threat and actually carrying out a violation are 2 different matters, as I’m sure you’re aware.
“Corrupt governments exist in the world, but I doubt you can honestly say you’ve been the victim of one.”
When you note corrupt, I assume that to mean things like crony capitalism and such. Is that an accurate assumption? If so, there are certainly more ways than that to violate our rights. Each time I go to the airport and must be subjected to a TSA “pat down”, that’s arguably a violation of my rights. Every time someone is arrested or jailed for trying to put something into his body or do something that the gov’t doesn’t like, but that doesn’t violate anyone else’s rights, is having his rights violated. Those are easily identifiable examples.
The PATRIOT Act is a law full of seemingly nothing but violations of individual’s rights, though I can’t say if I’ve had my rights violated because it’s all done in secret. We are arguably violating the rights of our children when we borrow money to fund consumption today that they’ll have to pay back tomorrow. Do we have the most corrupt gov’t on earth? I don’t think that’s the case, but I’d still say we’re more likely to have our rights violated by our government than by a fellow citizen.
“Being a threat and actually carrying out a violation are 2 different matters, as I’m sure you’re aware.”
They wouldn’t carry the “criminal” label if they hadn’t already violated those rights.
And since when did you gain the right to privacy? That’s arguably not included in life, liberty and property. Or are you forced to give up your libertarian dream and admit that the government’s obligation to liberty can include things such as privacy, healthcare, housing and unemployment assistance?
“They wouldn’t carry the “criminal” label if they hadn’t already violated those rights”
So anyone who’s ever committed a crime, no matter the severity, will always and forever be a threat? I’m surprised you ever step out your home.
“And since when did you gain the right to privacy? That’s arguably not included in life, liberty and property.”
We’ve always had the right to privacy, unless of course you do not believe you have the right to keep your thoughts or actions to yourself. It could be argued that privacy is a fundamental component of life, liberty and property. In fact
“government’s obligation to liberty can include [...] healthcare, housing and unemployment assistance”
Those are are goods, not rights. In order for the government to provide you with the goods you listed, it must first take the resources to pay for them from someone else. You can call it taxation, social justice or whatever you’d like, but they aren’t rights.
No, your ideology requires you to classify them as merely goods, but for those of us who live in the real world, they are human rights – inalienable and irrevokable.
I’m sure you’re familiar with (but not a fan of, no doubt) the United Nations? The United States is a signatory of the UN Convention on Human Rights, where all of these supposed “goods” can be found. But of course, when your dogma so conveniently provides all the answers, I’m sure the UN must sound very naive to you.
And I’m certainly not afraid to leave my house, but the idea that the ~250 governments in the world can abuse human rights more often than the millions of criminals and associations can’t come from anything other than a warped lens.
How can something that has to be produced by another human being be “irrevocable”? Are you going to chain doctors to the wall and torture them until they perform health care if they refuse? Your ideology makes no sense.
You do realize that over 80% of the governments of the world are autocratic regimes?
“your ideology requires you to classify them as merely goods.”
Nev, my “ideology” classifies them as goods because they are things which require humans to produce. Rights have no such limitation. I don’t have to pay anything for my right to free speech or the right to keep my thoughts to myself. In order to receive healthcare or housing however, it must first be traded for lest we introduce slavery into the discussion as an option, which would clearly violate one’s right to his life.
How do you avoid violating the spirit, if not the letter, of article 4 in guaranteeing one’s right to food noted in article 25 of the UDHR? And should a farmer refuse your demand to provide food without compensation, then what? Do you violate article 5 and chain them to a wall as RTW wonders? Perhaps you violate the spirit, if not the letter, of article 4 and force a different individual, or group of individuals, to hand over compensation he, or they, rightfully earned so that you can pay the farmer?
“the idea that the ~250 governments in the world can abuse human rights more often than the millions of criminals”
Tell that to the future taxpayers of this country who must shoulder the debt we are foisting upon them to pay for our current spending desires. We are stealing from them every single day, something the “millions of criminals” couldn’t possibly do to each of them nearly as frequently.
Remember your own words, which sparked this article: a government’s failure or inability to provide these rights doesn’t invalidate them. Human rights exist on their own principles, and it’s a very slanted thing to say that they cannot be rights because they cost too much.
“a government’s failure or inability to provide these rights doesn’t invalidate them”
But I said “Whether a gov’t exists to suppress those rights doesn’t invalidate them.” That’s different. Rights are not granted by government, they’re something you are born with — which is why they exist even in the absence of government.
The problem with the list of “rights” you refer to (food, housing, medical care) is that without the threat of government force, those rights don’t exist.
Pure bunk! JGardner beat me to it but I fail to see where that statement has anything to do with your commentary. I don’t even claim to be libertarian but understand and agree with the statement. That was a desperate attempt to disparage libertarianism with anti-corporate fear mongering. EPIC FAILURE!!!
… I’ve heard progressives and unions scaremonger with this line countless times, but they can never find any support it when pressed.
Apparently, we missed the part where I said “a lot of this is already happening.”
Try an experiment: ask anyone who works in an office if they work 40 hours a week. If they say ‘yes’, find out where they work so we can all apply. A 50 hour week is routine for a lot of people in the private sector; 60 hours is not unusual. My point is: take away the safeguards and why would you not expect the expectation to increase? And why do you not think that the expectation would not soon morph into a requirement?
Did you get that: a lot of people are already working 50-60 hours. As in NOW. As in, as we speak.
And let’s say that minimum wage laws are repealed. You don’t think every minimum wage earner wouldn’t eventually be fired, and replaced with someone for a few bucks? Maybe one, maybe two? Remember Circuit City? They already did exactly that. They told everyone with more than 10 years experience that they were being terminated. They could re-apply, but at a much lower wage.
Yes, they went out of business, but not because all their employees left en masse.
I repeat: I am not fear mongering. I am describing conditions that already exist.
Coincidentally, I came across this today. I don’t agree with everything that’s in it, and I strongly suggest you read the comments, b/c there is an excellent discussion of where the authors may have gone too far, etc.
crookedtimber.org/2012/07/01/let-it-bleed-libertarianism-and-the-workplace/
However, the article is well-documented with plenty of cites of actual circumstances of the way that corporations are invading people’s lives. Has the govt ever ordered you to stop smoking? Companies have done this. People are over Bloomberg’s case for restricting the size of sodas, but which is more intrusive? So, it’s stuff like this, ripped from the headlines.
So, these are not scare tactics. I am describing things that exist. Or, if they don’t now, they did exist in this country, until the govt stepped in and stopped it.
Karl Rove has repeatedly spoken of his admiration for Mark Hanna, whose ardent desire was to repeal all the anti-trust and progressive legislation passed by that ‘damned cowboy,” aka Theodore Roosevelt. Rove has explicitly expressed his belief that we should return to conditions of the 1890s, when all of the things I described were the status quo. IOW, he, and people who support him, are actively trying to re-create the conditions I describe. They are doing this now.
Again, don’t believe me? Talk to someone who works for Bank of America.
So, Mr Epic Fail, looks like the Epic Fail is on your part.
jgardner, yes, I got it that what you said wasn’t about business. My point was that, in the modern US of A, the biggest threat to your freedom is not the govt, but your private-sector employer. Yeah, yeah, you’ve got natural rights. Big whoop. You’ve only got rights when someone is protecting your rights. And, it ain’t the private sector doing that.
Sometimes I wish I lived in Libetarian La-La land, where hard work always pays off, where virtue is always rewarded, where companies never pollute, or buy congresscritters, violate health and safety laws. Unfortunately, I live–and work–in the real world where stuff like this happens. Often and frequently.
OK, so I’ve been instructing you to read history. Looks like a lot of you need to catch up on current events, too. If you are not aware of what I am describing, you need to get out more.
“Did you get that: a lot of people are already working 50-60 hours. As in NOW. As in, as we speak.”
But most people aren’t, and most people who work in the non-unionized private sector aren’t, even in this horrendous recession. In any event, even though some may be working 50 hours or more, that’s not even in the same universe as working 70 hours, so stop exaggerating. Very few Americans are working 70 hours a week for their employer. The only ones I know actually doing this are being paid 160-180k because they chose to work for big law firms or investment banks in New York City. I think they’re nuts for doing it, but it’s their decision.
The inescapable counterpoint you don’t address is that there is absolutely nothing in the way of laws or regulations preventing businesses from forcing employees to work 70-80 hours a week or paying them all minimum wage right now, and the fact is that barely any businesses are doing that. Most elect to pay their workers more than minimum wage – significantly more – and don’t make them work outrageous hours. So your unionist narrative is the only fantasy here, a statist carcicature of the business world that the vast majority of Americans who work everyday in the real world private sector understand isn’t even remotely true.
In all that anti-corporate spew, you still failed to make the connection to the original statement. Inserting the token vilified Republican, in this case Karl Rove, into the argument is proof positive of fear mongering. Again, FAIL!
My apologies. I don’t know how I can make this any clearer.
I work in the private sector. I don’t work for a big law firm or investment bank or in NYC. I don’t make $160k per year.
I did not say that Americans now are working 70 hours. I said that I, personally and professionally, a lot of people who routinely work 50-60 hours per week, and are making in the $50k range.
Maybe most Americans aren’t; but part of that is because the percentage of part-time workers who want to be full time is at an all-time high. Hourly people at McDonalds don’t work more than 40 hours, b/c that would entail OT pay. But you’d better bet the managers do. And retail managers certainly do. In fact, that’s been a ploy used for a very long time: promote someone to “assistant manager”, make them salaried, and then have them work a boatload of hours, anything over 40 for free.
If “most Americans” aren’t aware of this, maybe they aren’t salaried. Maybe that’s what I didn’t make clear. If not, my bad, and my apologies.
I pointed out what the ‘token vilified republican’ has said during interviews. This is what he believes.
I provided a link to another site that has additional information basically confirming my point, in principle, if not in details.
However, my detractors do not seem able to get beyond their ideological blinders. I report what I see and experience; it doesn’t fit their preconceived notions; ergo, what I see does not–because it cannot–exist.
I provide the analogy of what is happening now to conditions in the past. Those conditions existed until the fed govt stepped in to stop them. The trend we are on is taking us back to those conditions. But, oh yeah, no one here reads any history, so what I’m saying cannot be true.
Offshoring is not cheap. There are significant start-up costs involved. Yet, companies undertake this so they don’t have to deal with minimum wage laws. Why do we think that, absent min wage laws here, companies would not fire workers at higher rates and replace them with workers at lower rates?
This is, in effect, what they’ve been doing for the past 15 years. They’ve been firing US workers and replacing them with lower cost workers in another country.
Can someone deny or disprove that?
If they are already doing this, AND incurring the costs of offshoring, how can anyone imagine that they won’t do the same here, and save themselves the costs of offshoring?
Can you deny or disprove what I’m saying? Have companies not been offshoring to cut labor costs? Have they not then fired higher-cost workers? The effect is to drive down everyone’s wages. Raise? maybe they give you one, for 1%. Much of the time, they don’t. Real wages fall.
BTW, I didn’t say everyone would be making minimum wage. I said ‘wages would plummet’. Why do I say this? Because they have. Talk to someone over 40 who’s lost a job paying over $40k; have they been able to get another at anything close to the same rate? Maybe a few have. The lucky ones.
Have you seen what’s happened to median personal income over the past 30 years? It’s gone down. Have you seen what’s happened to median household income over the past decade? It’s gone down, and even during the height of the so-called “Bush Boom” median household income never got back to levels of the late 90s.
The overall trend is clear: real–as opposed to nominal; please don’t tell me I have to explain the difference–wages are falling.
Except, that is, wages for the top 1%. They’ve been skyrocketing. Corporate profits are at all-time highs, while the share of profits paid to workers is at an all-time low.
How much more clear can I make that? Seriously?
This isn’t speculation. What I’m describing has been going on for a couple of decades. Have you not been paying attention?
People, get your heads out of your, uh, the sand. Look around you. What sort of insular, isolated little worlds do you live in? Are they full of cotton candy and unicorns and fluffy white clouds?