value for value

It's interesting that we are frequently reminded how people, working for low wages making inexpensive goods, deserve to be paid more. 

So few people seem capable of connecting the dots to understand that paying all these workers more, for work they already do, will simply make all the goods they want more expensive.

The reality is that the economy produces only so many goods for everyone to share, and those who make the least significant contributions to producing them are understandably entitled to the smallest share.

An unskilled worker at the bottom of the ladder can squabble for his fair and tiny share of a larger cut for the unskilled masses at the bottom of the ladder, or  he can cultivate the skills necessary to play a more significant role, rightfully and unquestionably earning his own, larger share.

Among the two political ideologies in America, which one proposes to give everyone a bigger share of what's produced, and which promises you the biggest share you really deserve as an individual with his own merits?

Comments

[J Green]

I think you've gotta be careful with this post. A good friend in Ohio is making armor plating for military vehicles, being paid just over minimum wage and working 50+ hours a week.

The so called "skilled workers", those who manage the work that's done, and who order unsuitable and poor quality materials to make money by lowering costs on a set income government contract while working barely 9 till 5s - these people are not making more valuable contributions and this style of totem pole leadership, where those at the top simply distance themselves from the work by standing on the shoulders of others, is visible in many similar industries and situations.

In the end, so many unskilled workers are unnecessarily over worked and under paid, so that so called skilled/educated workers can work less and be paid more. Just because you're unskilled does not mean you are not entirely capable of making up for that fact via hard work, or that someone else is capable of not living up to the standards of their own capabilities. But our class-based wage system seems to ignore this fact.

The sheer number of times I've seen the responsibility of a company surviving or dying placed on the shoulders of the workforce with wage cuts, layouts and required/forced overtime is madness - where are these skilled management staff shouldering the responsibilities of their jobs? - They're taking 3 family vacations a year and hosting their resumes on the internet looking for their next comfy chair or "networking" over a few drinks.

[John Galt]

Suppose you have an engineer on staff. Given some idle time, and the choice of going down to the shop floor to find additional engineering opportunities or sitting at his desk playing solitaire, this sort of decision is probably one that separates good engineers from bad engineers. Your engineer plays solitaire.

Now suppose you have a blue-collar guy on the production line who works his ass off. Upon seeing that your company's well-paid engineer, for example, spends his days playing solitaire when he could be finding things to do, how should he interpret this?

Is this a sign that blue-collar-guy should back political efforts to centrally control your distribution of wages between your white-collar and blue-collar workers?

Or is it a sign that there's plenty of opportunity and easy competition for engineers who are both qualified and motivated, compared to your company's own engineer who is apparently only qualified?

The status quo is not "unjust" simply because white-collar salaries cannot be accounted for by blue-collar employees. What's more important are the obstacles that keep a person who wants to be a white-collar worker from becoming one.

Would your good friend in Ohio benefit more from a minimum wage hike or a better position doing something that pays more?

[John Green]

It's not an issue of wage increases. It's simply as you originally brought up, being paid based on your contribution. Whether that means increasing a lower wages, or lowering a higher wage - I don't know. But the high end typically pays too much and low end jobs have a habit of paying too little and the economic rift has become far too easy to maintain that a hard working unskilled worker will never amount to anything in our day no matter the hard work they may put in, while a supposedly skilled worker (and we live in a world where a noticeable percentage of so called skills are highly exaggerated or fraudulent) will at least live comfortably at the lower middle class borderline.

I'm all for those who work and contribute more being paid more, but simply because someone is lower class or unskilled they should not be automatically ineligible from the benefits of capitalism so that those further up the hierarchy can inflate themselves beyond reality.

My good friend in Ohio however, would benefit more from job security and a good medical plan. Which seems to be, even in America, becoming a perk reserved for the "skilled". Apparently anyone can spend 50 hours a week covered in metal filings, risking their eye sight and increasing their chances of health problems in later life.

[John Galt]

"It's not an issue of wage increases. It's simply as you originally brought up, being paid based on your contribution."

As valued by whom?

"But the high end typically pays too much and low end jobs have a habit of paying too little"

Perhaps it appears that way, in terms of dollars, when you hear stories of CEOs making 500 times what the mail clerk makes. But the actual slice of the pie that the CEO's consuming for himself is not nearly that disproportionate. He doesn't drive a car worth 500 times the price of the mail clerk's. Nor does he drive five cars worth ten times the mail clerk's.

In fact, the CEO uses most of his money to buy things the mail clerk cannot be persuaded to buy, starting with stocks and bonds. We ding the CEO for taking the biggest check, while giving him no credit for doing the lion's share of the saving -- heck, we even ding him for that, even though we're all utterly dependent on those savings for our own livelihoods.

Furthermore, the sheer rarity of CEOs means that even redistributing everything they have to everyone else results in a very small bonus for the rest of us. Politicians know this, which is why really taxing those guys is only effective if the rest of us have to go without as a result.

As for the skilled guys in the middle -- engineers, managers, etc. -- drive through the neighborhoods these folks live in and tell me if what you see really looks decadent. Remember that all of them faced the prospect of being unskilled and low-paid at one point, and yet they overcame -- just as your friend can.

And the fact that these people contribute to IRAs and 401(k)s confirms that they, too, must be consuming a smaller portion of their incomes than their raw wages suggest.

Your friend's escape from relative poverty, as the original post states, does not lie down the road of redistributing wealth or income from all these folks -- it starts with becoming one of those people himself, and by being determined to do more. Not more by his standards, but more by theirs.