Quote:
Originally Posted by SweetJane
It may be a great wage, but it's nowhere near the ammount that the trust-fund babies and inheritors of the factory make for doing almost nothing in comprison to the labor put into the product by the workers.
To get into a "prestigious university" you have to have money in the first place. Why should they get payed more because they started life out on the better end of an uneven playing field? It's not as though these auto workers have always been payed $75 an hour- the unions had to fight to get there. That's CLASS WARFARE.
The end result of forming a union is to collectivise the factory. The workers should be able to make decisions regarding production, rather than answering to the demands of a boss who is only there to make a profit off of their labor.
Ok, so I guess I just shouldn't complain when my boss is racking in the bucks from MY labor, but he pays the guy who yells at me to work harder a higher salary and 10% of all of the profits I make for doing nothing but making me work harder for less wages, and then the boss sits on his profits... worrying that he can't feed his kids or pay the electric bill?
As for the argument of worker-owned buisinesses, the point of capitalism is to make as much money as possible regardless of who you step on to get to the top. Wal-mart started out as something kind of great. It was a local buisiness that was lucky enough to branch out, and until a point it advertised everything as being made in America. Then all of a sudden, Ronald Reagan comes along right when Walton's kids inherit the chain, and there's tons of cheap labor overseas. It's not the fault of the labor in America being more expensive becuase of labor unions and at least a feigned attempt at caring about American citizens' human rights- it's a fault in capitalism, especially globalized, corporate capitalism. You said that you think the problems in capitalism are caused by government intervention? You haven't been paying attention.
If worker-owned buisinesses are collectivised, that's great. Everyone has a democratic say in what happens in production, and the distibution of wages is also discussed and voted on by the workers. But if the point of the whole operation is to create as much money as possible for one or two owners, at the expense of the workers who have little to no control over their situation, it is, by nature, exploitational.
|
Alright, there is alot of nonsense and mostly rhetoric here, but I'll try my best to get around it.
So you make the contention that you have to have money to get into the Prestigious universities. That simply isn't the case, we live in a meritocracy, not an aristocracy. Obama did not come from a rich background and he graduated from a very good school I'd say. Furthermore if you have the grades most ivy leagues will give you a free ride. The problem of not affording prestigious universities is simply not applicable anymore. Between the massive student loans and FAFSA grants available, not to mention the free rides that schools give to talented students really makes your point trivial if not outright obsolete.
Next, this notion of class warfare rest on Marxist notions of 'class consciousness' which is very problematic and suffers from some deep epistemic issues.
The actual purpose of a union isn't to 'collective' the factory, that is called stealing. Unions merely exist to put labor in a position of power when negotiating wages and contracts.
The notion that because you, the worker, made the product makes your inherently deserve more money is nonsense. You provide a service, that is to make the product. There is no metaphysical connection between you and the product. Its not like the steel created by steelworkers is somehow inherently connected to the workers. Its just a product that they create, a product that the workers did not provide for the capital or efforts necessary to even give the worker a job.
'You said that you think the problems in capitalism are caused by government intervention? You haven't been paying attention.'
I'd actually say you haven't been paying attention. It is government intervention within the free-market that created the conditions for an inflated market that led to unnatural, insofar as the freemarket wouldn't have done it, levels of risk. Because the government subsidized many risks in the market, the corporations took on levels of risk they normally would not have taken on.
The point of capitalism from the supply side is for everyone to make as much money as possible. A company wants to hire the very much worker money can buy as long as it is within cost constraints.