no. 381

"Wage repression is a fairly self-explanatory term meaning the deliberate undermining of wages by employers. Wage repression is most often used by private sector employers in order to cut their payroll expenditure, but taken as a whole, the state is actually the largest employer, and is just as capable of repressing wages as the private sector.

The idea that economic efficiency can be increased through the repression of wages is an article of faith for ideological neoliberals. Witness the effects of the current Tory austerity programme on wages, or think back to the 1980s when the collective bargaining rights of millions of workers were attacked by Margerat Thatcher’s government.

I say that wage repression is an article of neoliberal faith because (much like a lot of orthodox neoliberal theory) there is actually little actual evidence that wage repression is good for the national economy, and in fact, a lot of evidence that it is actually harmful.

The reason that the subject of wage repression is important now, is that the UK is currently enduring the longest period of wage repression in over a century, in which the average wage has fallen in real terms every single month for three consecutive years (every month since the Tory led government came to power).

…

The idea that wage repression is actually bad for the economy is hardly a new one. Quakers and other non-conformist religious groups realised early in the industrial revolution that by paying reasonable wages, and providing additional benefits such as education and healthcare, they themselves benefited from the massively increased productivity of a loyal, healthy and educated workforce (as compared to the bitterly exploited, poor, unhealthy, malnourished and ill-educated workforces of the less ethically minded of the early industrial pioneers). Probably the most famous rejection of wage repression was the high pay / low price policy of the American automobile manufacturer Henry Ford (hardly a “leftie” by any stretch of the imagination), who paid high wages and made low profit margins on his vehicles, so that his employees would return their wages back to his business through the purchase of the vehicles they themselves had been constructing.

To put the historic objection to wage repression into reasonably simple economic terms: Wage repression is bad because it reduces the disposable income of workeres - When workers have less money to spend, this results in a fall in consumer spending - When consumer spending falls, aggregate demand falls - When aggregate demand falls the economy falls into low-growth, recession or depression.

I don’t think it takes a lot of brains to realise that the less money the public have in their pockets, the less they are going to spend, and that this fall in spending will have a negative knock-on effect on the wider economy.”

Thomas G. Clark

no. 297

"The invisible hand does indeed allocate the efforts of private industry to the best possible uses, as long as 'best' and 'most profitable' can be used interchangeably."

Gin and Tacos, from the post Better Living Through Chemistry, or: Thanks, Free Market!

no. 157

"Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank and he can rob the world."

Edited on Tue Nov-29-11 12:49 PM by WilliamPitt
Credited to Jim Truther on Facebook

(via)

no. 76

no. 75

"Radio host Thom Hartmann notes that the astronomical salaries commanded by CEOs indicates (by simple supply/demand) some sort of shortage of qualified people. What quality is it that is in such shortage? Mr Hartmann speculates that the necessary characteristic which is in such short supply is sociopathy. One needs to know how to run a company AND to be able to destroy the environment and the lives of fellow human beings."

LarryHart, commenting on a post at Contrary Brin (see previous post)

no. 74

"But in rejecting one set of knowledge-limited meddlers -- 100,000 civil servants -- libertarians and conservatives seem bent on ignoring market manipulation by 5,000 or so aristocratic golf buddies, who appoint each other to company boards in order to vote each other titanic "compensation packages" while trading insider information and conspiring together to eliminate competition. Lords who are not subject to inherent limits, like each bureaucrat must face, or rules of disclosure or accountability. Lords who (whether it is legal or not) collude and share the same delusions."

David Brin, discussing the change (and failure) of American Conservatism.

no. 48

"I think you're stating something we've discussed on this site before. That the Enlightenment experiment in both democracy AND in capitalism (two very different things) that made the 20th Century what it was--was essentially an experiment in ENGINEERING. A system--a sort of machine if you will--was CONSTRUCTED which magnificently channeled human motivation INTO self-sustaining, beneficent directions.

Now in the 21st century, the right-wing is cheerfully dismantling the Great Machine under the bizarre theory that because that machine worked so well, it has proven that human motivation NATURALLY tends toward self-sustaining, beneficent directions, and that machines actually get in the way of this process.

It's analogous to a claim that the functioning of the internal combustion engine proves that the best way to make use of hydrocarbons for motive power is uncontrolled explosions--that the engine itself is somehow retarding the process."

LarryHart commenting at Contrary Brin

no. 23

"A Criminal is a person with predatory instincts without sufficient Capital to form a Corporation."

Clarence Darrow