Wealth Distribution in the USA

Yes, obviously. There are some taxes that the poor pay. Many successful people claim to have done exactly this. So we should enact policies that minimise the number of paupers by ensuring a certain distribution of wealth. But they only get rich and richer by taking more money than they spread. Indeed, as the economy grows, the richest seem to be the only ones who benefit from this growth - even though the poorer people worked hard for it too.While rich people create jobs, it's clear that they only do so when they will profit from doing so. That is: if there is a job position that would net $40,000 a year for the company, then a rich person would 'create' a job that pays $20,000 / year (or whatever) and they take the $20k for themselves.The poor spread their money around by giving it to the rich.A company of 20,000 staff has $1 billion profits for the year. This means they could pay all of their staff, the people that did the hard work $50,000 bonuses. But instead, as is practically mandated by law they 'expand/grow the business', only to 'cut back' when profits aren't as good later, which generally means people losing jobs. I wouldn't demonize such people.But people who are earning huge amounts of money, and using that money to influence politics so that the rules can allow them to earn even more money...at the expense of the poor, the 'doing ok' and the reasonably affluent. People who have tried to keep the hard workers whose actual physical work generates the wealth, as far away from the profits as they legally can. Those that create growth in the economy, and hog most of the proceeds (an increasing proportion according to the video in OP), and then when the economy shrinks manipulate affairs so that the poor and affluent take the fall. The people who earn more a year than many people can expect in their life, and complain at 15% tax rates...Those people? Yeah, they should be demonized. Socialism doesn't function by people robbing a finite number of others sequentially. It's not the existence of people with wealth that is the problem. It is the problem of hogging growth and dodging the consequences of risk at others expense. There is no reason to put everyone into pauperism. I pay socialist health insurance every month. It sits around 100-200 a month. I am not a pauper as a result. The government has made sure that I can comfortably afford that amount of cost without worrying too much about it. And if I fall ill there's no deductible or premium rise or getting kicked from my insurer. I don't have to worry about any bills coming in unless I deliberately opt for private treatment (which I occasionally do).I am not a pauper because of this, I am much wealthier as a result. My private life insurance went up when I fell ill, but fortunately my national insurance rates stayed the same.The degree of taxes required to drive someone earning $5,000,000 / year into being a pauper would be phenomenal. A rate that nobody, I'm sure, is proposing. I'm sure the first million or so was earned through hard and maybe even honest work. But after that, the work starts to get easier. You can in fact pay other people manage your investments and do very little in the way of work at all.I'm not sure how much capital I would need to near effortlessly pay myself a liveable wage in perpetuity - but I'm pretty sure its an amount many of the wealthiest people have surpassed.I'm sure many of them continue to work hard, but they don't generally need to work 70 hours a week in sometimes physically difficult jobs, just to meet the basics requirements of survival as many of the 'paupers' do.

Yes, more or less.If we leave it to the market, it will come down to supply and demand. And there is more demand for work than there is work. So wages will be driven down as those who are willing to work for next to nothing 'outbid' the others.And workers have little leverage to change this state of affairs. The only thing they can really do, outside of legislation, is collectively withhold their labour. This decreases the supply of workers, and hopefully persuades the market to up wages accordingly.But this is disruptive to society and those that engage in it are often reviled and legislated against.So in practical terms, the market is too cruel a force to be the only factor in determining wages.To justify the first sentence of this post imagine where the market forces forced wages down to the point where a person could only barely afford the cost of living (on a shoestring). What is the practical difference between someone in such a position and a slave? Some theoretical degree of freedom? It's not much. Slaves work in return for habitation/clothing/food etc, and those in poverty are basically doing the same thing. It might not be the malevolent and racist slavery made infamous by the Americans; it might be more akin to the slavery that was practiced in other times at other places.

My final paragraphs explain my comment in more detail. He was likely working elsewhere for a while, and maybe spent some time unemployed. Who knows, he's hypothetical. No, but businesses do sometimes expand into a marketplace and in the process, cause other businesses to lose market share and thus have to scale back and lose employees. Sometimes there is net growth, sometimes not. Unemployment rates have moved around, but its not a steady decline alongside rising GDP.None of which really speaks to the nature of the concept of wage slavery

It wasn't a rebuttal, just an explanation for my saying 'yes, more or less'. But whose talking about removing the employer? The fact that you can see that leaving it to the market can (and indeed does) lead to unfair consequences should answer your question of

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Why shouldn't wages be set by the market?

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It's not about demanding a job be worth anything. It's about acknowledging that the power to set wages primarily lies in the hands of the employer and that without intervention, employers, in order to maximise their profits, will pay the minimum they possibly can. This minimum will essentially be the least amount anyone would be willing to do that job for, and as such that can, and does, lead to impoverished workers who end up trying to outbid each other on lower and lower wages.It's not considered desirable, to some, to have an impoverished working class. Some think that if the working class had some spending power that would be better economically and would mean a better quality of life for more people which is a moral victory too.We invented the notion of self-regulating markets because supply/demand mechanics sound so neat and tidy. It's all rather swell, and I confess to understanding only some of it. But nevertheless, I think it would be foolish to enslave ourselves to the 'will' of an inhuman mechanic.We might define the value of a job in an auction sense as being the least amount of money anybody who can perform the job will perform the job. That is, let market forces set a value. But I think human labour should have a minimum price on the market. I think you agree that $0/hour + living expenses is below minimum (eg., slavery, indentured servitude); I see no reason the government can't then make a calculation about living expenses and say that wages for a full working week must pay at least necessary living expenses. We don't want the working class to be worse off than slaves, right? Yes, yes, they get to pick who their masters are - but there were forms of consensual slavery historically too. And markets do indeed influence wages. Which is why CEOs of large corporations can command such lucrative salaries, while the cleaners do not. Because there may well be a surplus of people willing to clean for money, the market would almost certainly set the wage at below the minimum required for comfortable living. This is evident in the number overseas departments global companies use solely due to the fact that they can pay lower wages.As such, although we allow the market to set wages for the middling jobs and above, for the lowest paid jobs there should be government regulations to prevent rampant labour exploitation at the expense of the citizens. We, quite rightly, set a minimum wage below which it would be both unfair and illegal to pay someone for a day's work.And that's why, in short, we don't let the markets decide. The market is amoral and blind of social consequences. Thus we add regulations to avoid the market running too far in undesirable directions.

Why would we consider things independently of labour unions? Why consider only one side of the bargaining process when determining wages? As I said, market forces do set wages. But there are good reasons to not allow market forces be the sole determining force, and to legislate for a minimum price for human labour as I have previously described.

I'm asking you why would we consider wages independent unions as that is what you called upon me to do. Well, when minimum wage rises, the spending power of the poor workers rises, as does the cost of services and products. So unless a business is somehow compelled to not increase their prices to reflect their larger overheads, they shouldn't need to discard jobs as a result. The question you asked is why don't we just let the market decide wages. I'm happy to see that we have some agreement over why we don't. I couldn't really comment on that situation.Here in the UK a minimum wage and standard working week gets you about 12,000/year. You'd pay 1,100 in income tax and NI. You might be paying about 6-7,000 in rent, 3-4,000 on food, and oh, that's it. You're done spending for the year. Good look with your utilities. Thus the tax payers, not the businesses that profit from the workers labour, have to make up the difference in housing benefits and the like.I'm pretty sure we're glad that the market isn't allowed to make that situation any worse, even if it isn't compelled to currently make it any better.

This assumes that there is an equal amount of money out there willing to be spent on the good or service. But if we've just increased the minimum wage that assumption doesn't hold and more work needs to be done before we can reach concrete conclusions about the effects.abe: This evidenced by the fact that businesses are regularly increasing the prices of their goods and services as the cost of acquiring the materials or of the labour to process them changes.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

You said:

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Independent of social legislation and labor unions and any other factors affecting compensation, a job is worth what someone is willing to pay.

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I am asking what useful knowledge we acquire about the value of labour if we discount such things as the actions of labour unions? Why would we value the worth of a job independent of many of the factors that go into determining it? I've only been around a few decades, but from what I've seen businesses raising their prices in response to increasing overhead costs may not be simple, but its certainly simple enough to be achievable, regularly. The business I work for does it on a monthly basis. There may be jobs that net less than 12,000 a year for a company. But that's not what the minimum wage is about. It's about putting a minimum price on human labour.Are you able to show any correlation between unemployment rates and minimum wage changes allowing for real money terms? I mean changes in minimum wages tends to come only every now and again and usually comes in big leaps - so surely the evidence of jerky unemployment rates correlating to these changes would be apparent. Is it? Right, but we don't need that many coopers or thatchers any more so that's not too big a problem. So now they are specialist jobs that due to their rarity can command higher wages than their historical counterparts could. It's not a settled and established fact that raising the minimum wage will always and necessarily reduce employment.But how do we want society to be structured: Many of the people that do get work and grow the economy are reasonably comfortable and spending money in diverse ways, but with a higher unemployment rate. Or lower unemployment, but less money being paid to the workers such that they can only just scrape by.A $billion dollar profit company can clearly afford to pay its low paid workers considerably more, but the pattern seems to be that the business expands and employs more people, who are later made redundant when the company has scale back in economic hard times. I don't think we differ really. I was just answering your question as to why don't let the markets just sort out wages. It's the same reason we don't let governors determine our speed on a steam train. Fine, the governor can help us with that, but we want a human driver too. I think it would be oversimplifying the current economic climate to say that the minimum wage is to blame for our levels of unemployment. We live in a global economy with no global government to oversee it. One confounding feature is salient to this subtopic - there are thousands of people who work for the company I work for in Asia who are doing jobs that British people are capable of but the Asian workers will accept lower wages...might this impact on unemployment rates? We should also point out that the law of unintended consequences needs to be considered anyway. Do you really think that if Corporations had the power to influence society, they would do so in a way that benefited society as its primary reason? Or do you think they'd influence society to maximise their profits? There are numerous examples of the power and unaccountability of global corporations, and we should be aware of the potential unintended consequences of less government regulation (hint: remember the past ten years?)

Isn't it odd that raising minimum wages to keep in line with inflation is resisted so strenuously? No, my argument boils down to 'we don't know for sure, so asserting that 'Raising prices when overhead increases should result in fewer sales'.' is inappropriately premature.'Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Was it my repeatedly asking you what point it was you were making that clued you in on how certain I was about it? Is it your contention that my company is anomalous in some fashion? Are the companies in your locality still charging the same amount as they did in 1950? I'm sorry I thought when you were saying that

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Companies still won't pay more than a job is worth to them... Jobs worth less than that will come under pressure to change or will disappear. Raising the minimum wage can have the completely expected effect of reducing employment...

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you were suggesting that there was a link between raising the minimum wage and unemployment rates. What were you saying then? What jobs would disappear, then? Actually companies do have responsibilities to the citizenry, but that aside not all companies have stockholders, either. Companies also have responsibilities to their workers (they must provide as safe and comfortable as possible working environment, adequate health and safety training, and sufficient remuneration for a full time worker to survive). Actually a government has responsibilities to both these groups. Indeed. That's not really part of my argument. My argument is that because companies have pressures to drive wages down, and they have more power in wage negotiation than the workers, the government should enact legislation to prevent exploitation of the lowest paid worker's labour. But that correlation doesn't imply any causation. Any number of things could be causing problems in the young people finding work. A large number of competing equally skilled job seekers (a baby boom of some kind), or it could be that health has improved dramatically and older workers are staying in senior positions longer, meaning middle aged workers are having promotions delayed, meaning younger people aren't climbing the ladder anywhere. Or something else.If you could show me some link between employment rates and introductions or increases in minimum wages that would be something we could actually discuss. I've never seen such data, perhaps you have. If you have seen data that just focuses on young people, that'd be interesting too.Have you seen any actual studies that link minimum wage rises with youth unemployment? There are workfare schemes, Unpaid Work For The Unemployed.

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Why would we consider things independently of labour unions?

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I'm asking you why would we consider wages independent unions

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I am asking what useful knowledge we acquire about the value of labour if we discount such things as the actions of labour unions? Why would we value the worth of a job independent of many of the factors that go into determining it?

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It doesn't look like revisionism to me, it certainly appears I kept asking you why we should consider wages without consideration to one party in the negotiation of those wages. So are you agreeing with me that as costs of doing business rise, so to do the prices the business charges?

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Oh, gee, your company is successfully raising prices, I guess that settles it!

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This seems to sarcastically be saying that my company is unique in its capacity to increase prices as exposure to expenses rises. If you were trying to say something else, perhaps you could try being straightforward with it. In that case in answer to your question:

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Why shouldn't wages be set by the market?

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is... they are. Well nobody is suggesting that that is how wages are calculated. Marx and those that followed his footsteps would argue that a person should receive the value he adds to the product, and that in capitalism that value is 'stolen' by the capitalist. I've never suggested that the minimum wage changes how much a job is worth to the company, it should be noted. I've just said it legislates a minimum price for human labour.Maybe it does 'price jobs out of the market', but all you've done is say it. This would make sense if minimum wages were being ever increased faster than inflation. But that's not what is happening at all as far as I can see.What I see is that minimum wage gets set, and it stays there for a good number of years, then it will periodically be bumped up to bring it in line.This means that minimum wage labour steadily goes down in real price. So businesses can employ more minimum wage staff as time goes on. Then it gets bumped up and some businesses may find themselves overextended.It seems the solution isn't to stop increasing the minimum wage, but to have more frequent and thus less sharp increments. Since these businesses are probably putting up their prices in line with inflation at least, they should not find paying wages in line with inflation strenuous.Granted, if there was no minimum wage, we'd probably find higher employment. But then, if slavery was mandatory for 90% of the population we'd have good employment too... Let's say you set the minimum wage to be $1,000,000/hour.Would this be a problem?Well suddenly every working person becomes a millionaire. But then again, businesses won't be charging $10 for a cup of coffee anymore, they'd be charging $1million for it instead...so being a millionaire isn't all that great.It'd be a problem for other reasons, obviously. I don't however see, how it necessarily leads to less employment - it just leads to a hyperinflationary sort of position that essentially wipes out everyone's savings.

I'm not sure why our discussion had to devolve into personal criticism, I suggest you give that a rest. To what end? Actually, I know not. Which is why I asked if you had seen some study or somesuch - to present it for my illumination. Why is example misbegotten? You neglect to say. Nor am I making the assumption you claim I am making. What I was saying is that if wages go up, prices go up. But that's fine, because wages have gone up. As long as prices aren't rising faster than wages we're all good.I was quite clear that raising the minimum wage to $1million/hour clearly has multiple real world difficulties, it's not like I'm pretending this would be a good idea. It was just to highlight that higher wages doesn't intrinsically lead to less employment. It certainly might, I don't know.

And it seems I am destined to remain so. Give me a clue, in which post did I devolve this discussion into personal criticism? That is, criticising your personal behaviours or attributes. I was talking only about jobs in isolation, independent of the all the mess that would cause for other reasons. In what sense was my reasoning more problematic that talking about a minimum wage of $50,000? I mean, assuming America keeps the dollar long enough, minimum wages will reach $1million dollars/hour and unless the future is Mega-City 1 (a comic book city with 87% unemployment rates due to robots doing all the work) I don't see why we must assume that this would be a problem for unemployment. What's the alternative? More people working hard but being as impoverished as the some that were previously unemployed? What would you prefer: More employment, at wages that won't pay rent and food at the same time (ie., what happens when we let non-human market forces decide), or less employment at wages that do pay rent and food? Devaluing currency occurs during inflation. My use of hyperinflation (which is what I called it) doesn't really make any difference on that point.If I had said $50,000 then I would have spoken about the fact that prices would rise to compensate for the higher overheads (and to capitalise on the increased amount of capital available to the market), so that coffee prices might rise to $25 / cup, which would be fine, because wages had gone up.The unemployed? Hopefully whatever unemployment benefits they are entitled to will also rise in line with inflation.

Well, no, I don't. I do believe that raising the minimum wage does result in prices adjusting, but that isn't to say everything is pretty much as before. If you want to make the claim that certain and specific things do change, I would like to see the evidence to support that though. Again, no, I do not reject that. I asked if you could support your view with any studies you might have come across. I believe that this exit speech may well be connected to my challenging you to identify where I devolved this discussion into personal attacks and your inability to do so. You can let me continue believing that too, if you like. I'll remain ready to continue the discussion should you opt to respond.

You asked me to drop the 'passive aggressive behaviour' in Message 183. And I did, I dropped that entire line of discussion in Message 188. I did however challenge you because you engaged in a personal attack against me. Instead of an apology I received an unsupported tu quoque in Message 190.I'm not sure what else I could have done, but sorry if you felt harassed by me. I think I did everything in my power to rectify that by avoiding discussing that line as soon as you made it clear you weren't happy with it. Now, did I really start personally attacking you, or did I just 'harass' you? I don't think I did personally attack you, I just didn't understand a point you were making and 'politely' but 'persistently' sought some clarification on the matter. You just felt it was 'passive/aggressive' for whatever reasons. I didn't launch an attack against your character, but you took a swipe at me and Crashfrog in the same rhetorical blow. I feel an apology is only appropriate for that, unless you think that kind of discourse is what you want around here.Since I have dropped the harassing line of discussion, would you actually like to continue the other sub-discussions we were having? I suspect not, but since this is a discussion board, I'll re-extend the invitation to discuss by repeating my question to you

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What would you prefer: More employment, at wages that won't pay rent and food at the same time (ie., what happens when we let non-human market forces decide), or less employment at wages that do pay rent and food?

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I think that's a perfectly fair, and potentially fruitful question to ask in the context of this discussion, don't you?