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Social progressives on living wage laws, and capitalism more generally (self.SRSDiscussion)

BainCapitalist が 投稿

At my high-school there was a strike by the custodial staff a couple months ago. They were demanding a living wage, and a bunch of students joined them and everything. For the next week facebook was flooded with posts about how everyone deserves to make enough money to make cover the costs of living. It all really bothered me. Most of the people making these arguments for a living wage called themselves socially progressive. Others were making arguments about economic efficiency. It was... strange to me because my highschool is pretty much exclusively filled with wealthy suburban white people.

It reminded me of Harry G. Hutchinson, he's a philosopher specializing in Critical Race Theory. I'm interested to hear a socially progressive perspective on his work. Hutchinson's argument is that minimum wage laws actually cause the marginalization of oppressed groups of people and further entrenches male white privilege. (sorry for the long quote, I didn't want to sacrifice academic honesty).

Fostering this perspective was the work of eugenically-minded progressives who advocated “minimum wages precisely because binding minimums would cause job losses.” Tempted by the rather conventional deduction “that minimum-wage induced job loss was a social benefit because it performed the eugenic service of ridding the labor force of the “unemployable,” progressive hierarchs sought to remake the world by controlling wages and population growth. Influential British intellectuals Baron Sidney and Baroness Beatrice Webb deserve singular recognition for the success of this move. They observed: “‘With regard to certain sections of the population [the unemployable], this unemployment is not a mark of social disease, but actually of social health.’” Flaunting his talent for pulverizing rhetoric, Sidney Webb opined that “of all ways of dealing with these unfortunate parasites, the most ruinous to the community is to allow them unrestrainedly to compete as wage earners. . .” As members of the philosophic vanguard, obligated by a duty to protect deserving workers from the revolting menace competition from “defectives” and the “unfit,” progressive architects yearned to make it illegal to work for less. Captured by this surging zeitgeist, Columbia’s Henry Rogers Seager, future president of the American Economic Association and a leading progressive economist, offered a clear social vision of what should happen to those who, even after remedial training, could not earn the legal minimum. Evoking H. G. Wells’ admonition, he stated: “if we are to maintain a race that is to be made up of capable efficient and independent individuals and family groups we must courageously cut off lines of heredity that have been proved to be undesirable by isolation or sterilization . . .” Gleaming with racial animus, Progressive Era trade unionists used local ordinances controlling licensing and apprenticeship to keep blacks out of their trades or, in a concession to the humanity of African Americans, forced blacks into segregated auxiliary unions. Racial hostility, inescapably tied to union exclusion, flourished a decade later, as the Great Depression worsened and undesirable jobs, traditionally held by blacks, became attractive to whites. As a consequence of unionists’ tenacious surrender to racial hierarchy, the displacement of African American workers became a serious problem.

This is a pretty consistent theme of his work. He criticizes leftists for appealing to the state. A lot of people seem to think that living wage is some how key to liberating the oppressed, but I see capitalism more generally as a way to empower these marginalized groups. What do you think of Hutchinson?

Edit: Wasn't sure if a sentence warranted a trigger warning, better safe than sorry.

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[–]ayequeue [スコア非表示]  (60子コメント)

I don't have the data to counter all of his points, but I am curious how you see capitalism as a way to empower marginalized groups.

[–]Kelsig [スコア非表示]  (56子コメント)

Well, Capitalism has proven to be an extremely effective way to raise standard of living. Yes it's exploitative, but the exploitation, if done right, leads to good for almost everyone.

[–]shroom_throwaway9722 [スコア非表示]  (1子コメント)

Capitalism has proven to be an extremely effective way to raise standard of living

Whose standard of living, exactly?

but the exploitation, if done right, leads to good for almost everyone.

wow. just wow.

That's like saying slavery, if done right, leads to good for almost everyone. Gee, I wonder who it doesn't do good for? Hmmm let's think about this

[–]Kelsig [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

Whose standard of living, exactly?

Everyone, if given enough legislation

[–]WizardofStaz [スコア非表示]  (4子コメント)

Capitalism is effective at leading to innovation, but that does not mean it inherently raises standard of living. The US has the money for its citizens to live far more luxuriously than they do, but that money is tied up in the accounts of the rich, whose entire purpose is to continuously remove value from the economy. You literally cannot be successful in a capitalist society unless you remove more value than you add. To say that the poor could possibly be empowered by such a system is preposterous. The very nature of the system does not permit it. Someone has to produce value for others to skim away. Returning the full value of the laborers back to them in the form of public support services would result in no upper class, so it's not going to happen.

Can we all collectively improve the lot of our country so much that there is a raise in standard of living? Yes. But capitalism, far from helping, actually impedes this by allowing the majority of the value we create to end up in someone's pocket.

[–]Kelsig [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

Capitalism is effective at leading to innovation, but that does not mean it inherently raises standard of living. The US has the money for its citizens to live far more luxuriously than they do, but that money is tied up in the accounts of the rich, whose entire purpose is to continuously remove value from the economy.

That's what taxes are for.

You literally cannot be successful in a capitalist society unless you remove more value than you add. To say that the poor could possibly be empowered by such a system is preposterous. The very nature of the system does not permit it. Someone has to produce value for others to skim away.

Can you restate this all without the LTV mumjo jumbo

[–]BainCapitalist[S] [スコア非表示]  (2子コメント)

You literally cannot be successful in a capitalist society unless you remove more value than you add. To say that the poor could possibly be empowered by such a system is preposterous. The very nature of the system does not permit it. Someone has to produce value for others to skim away.

I never denied that surplus value exists. It definitely does, but it goes both ways. Theres a consumer surplus, and a producer surplus. Producer surplus is a pretty easy concept to understand. It's just the revenue the producer receives from selling goods and services. Consumer surplus is a little more complicated, but its the difference between what you are willing to pay for a product and what you actually pay for. I'm going to repost what I've said in a previous reply:

How hard would you work in order to make a computer, the one you're using right now. I mean from scratch. Gather up all the materials and assemble them in a way that enables you compute complex algorithms and also connect it with some kind of network that enables people all accross the world to communicate wiht each other. It would be extremely hard for you to do all that by yourself. But you don't have to. Because there are other people who are really good at making iPhones. It's easy for them because they studied engineering, or have skills in metalurgy. They came together and instead of having to charge you for all that work it would have taken you to make the same product, you only pay about $200.[2] That is your consumer surplus.

You stated that you have to remove value from someone else in order to gain value. By your logic, all of the consumer surplus would have to come from suppliers. This might be kind of true in a monopoly, where they get to determine the price of the object they're selling, and therefore have the option to charge the full price that consumers would be willing to pay, extracting every cent of consumer surplus. But a free and perfectly competitive market wouldn't allow that to happen. You couldn't just charge however much you wanted because people would just buy it from someone. In order to compete, you'd have to lower prices, and in order to make up for the lost revenue you'd have to increase output even more. Those poor capitalists, were extracting every single cent of profit from them. They had to go through all the trouble of building factories and creating jobs for people and we just keep forcing them to compete in a free and fair market. In fact in the long run for a perfectly competitive and free market, economic profit (which is distinct from accounting profit) will always approach zero because the total amount of suppliers will always increase until the market price is equal to the costs of production. Thats exploitation! Why is no body calling for a huge income tax so we can bailout these poor exploited suppliers of goods and services... oh wait...

[–]jufnitz [スコア非表示]  (1子コメント)

It would be extremely hard for you to do all that by yourself. But you don't have to. Because there are other people who are really good at making iPhones. It's easy for them because they studied engineering, or have skills in metalurgy.

You mean these people?

You stated that you have to remove value from someone else in order to gain value. By your logic, all of the consumer surplus would have to come from suppliers.

Precisely; the value extracted comes from the labor of these people. These people sell their undervalued labor power to the productive process of an iPhone, which Western workers' own sale of overvalued labor power allows them to purchase. The "consumer surplus" as you're expressing it here is just another word for the spoils of the labor aristocracy, i.e. the spoils of capitalist imperialism.

In order to compete, you'd have to lower prices, and in order to make up for the lost revenue you'd have to increase output even more. Those poor capitalists, were extracting every single cent of profit from them. They had to go through all the trouble of building factories and creating jobs for people and we just keep forcing them to compete in a free and fair market. In fact in the long run for a perfectly competitive and free market, economic profit (which is distinct from accounting profit) will always approach zero because the total amount of suppliers will always increase until the market price is equal to the costs of production.

Hmm, I could swear I've heard this somewhere before...

A fall in the rate of profit and accelerated accumulation are different expressions of the same process only in so far as both reflect the development of productiveness. Accumulation, in turn, hastens the fall of the rate of profit, inasmuch as it implies concentration of labour on a large scale, and thus a higher composition of capital. On the other hand, a fall in the rate of profit again hastens the concentration of capital and its centralisation through expropriation of minor capitalists, the few direct producers who still have anything left to be expropriated. This accelerates accumulation with regard to mass, although the rate of accumulation falls with the rate of profit.

On the other hand, the rate of self-expansion of the total capital, or the rate of profit, being the goad of capitalist production (just as self-expansion of capital is its only purpose), its fall checks the formation of new independent capitals and thus appears as a threat to the development of the capitalist production process. It breeds over-production, speculation, crises, and surplus-capital alongside surplus-population. Those economists, therefore, who, like Ricardo, regard the capitalist mode of production as absolute, feel at this point that it creates a barrier itself, and for this reason attribute the barrier to Nature (in the theory of rent), not to production. But the main thing about their horror of the falling rate of profit is the feeling that capitalist production meets in the development of its productive forces a barrier which has nothing to do with the production of wealth as such; and this peculiar barrier testifies to the limitations and to the merely historical, transitory character of the capitalist mode of production; testifies that for the production of wealth, it is not an absolute mode, moreover, that at a certain stage it rather conflicts with its further development.

Seriously though, if the tendency of the rate of profit to fall ever does end up progressing to a point where the labor of capitalists themselves must be compensated at less than its full value, it would have only reduced them to the position at which wage laborers have already existed since the dawn of capitalism itself. In such a situation, the way to "bail out those poor exploited suppliers of goods and services" (by which you presumably mean the capitalists, not the wage laborers) would be one and the same as the way to bail out the wage laborers themselves.

[–]Kelsig [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

I find it funny that you post Chinese labourers, then Mao. Those underpaid workers actually managed to be way worse under Mao.

[–]Lolor-arros [スコア非表示]  (33子コメント)

Capitalism allows good to happen, sometimes.

That doesn't mean it leads to good.

[–]Kelsig [スコア非表示]  (32子コメント)

Do I really got to bring up the "human nature" argument? Smh

Incentives are great things for getting productivity kicking. Yes it's authoritarian, but it works.

[–]JustAnotherBrick [スコア非表示]  (10子コメント)

Human nature is socially constructed. It is in a state of flux, shaped by society rather than shaping society. As society changes, so too does our idea of human nature.

[–]Kelsig [スコア非表示]  (6子コメント)

Never once have incentives not carried our life. Sure, you can have your incentive be "help others", but in a world with scarcity, no one likes making sacrifices. These utopian political systems are just that -- utopian. Transition states are useless at this point in time.

[–]JustAnotherBrick [スコア非表示]  (5子コメント)

I am not talking about incentives, I am talking about the "human nature" argument. For example, a serf 2000 years ago would have a radically different idea of "human nature" than you do today. Marshall Sahlins wrote a very interesting book on this subject if you are inclined to read it. The title is overly long so I won't link if here, but if you Google "Marshal Sahlins human nature" you will find it.

[–]Edgy_Atheist [スコア非表示]  (2子コメント)

socially constructed

I hear this a lot with regard to race and gender, which I understand.

Can you give me an example of something that isn't socially constructed?

[–][削除されました]  (1子コメント)

[deleted]

    [–]nuclearseraph [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

    This is just a misnomer; when people use the term 'human nature', at least when discussing economic systems, they are usually referring to socially constructed things like moral or ideological values.

    [–]Lolor-arros [スコア非表示]  (14子コメント)

    Productivity is still kicking, and increasing, even though those incentives don't really exist for a majority of Americans anymore.

    Productivity has barely anything to do with those incentives.

    [–]Kelsig [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

    What? Is there something you can link me to here to further clarify, because I certainly have a job for the money. If that wasn't the case I'd be spending all day eating pizza, learning, and playing video games.

    [–]BainCapitalist[S] [スコア非表示]  (12子コメント)

    What do you mean by incentives? If you mean money then I don't understand... Profits are the whole reason we produce anything right?

    [–]Lolor-arros [スコア非表示]  (8子コメント)

    Profits are the whole reason we produce anything right?

    Uh, no? There are so many reasons to do that other than money.

    By incentives I mean wages, just like you.

    [–]BainCapitalist[S] [スコア非表示]  (7子コメント)

    Allow me to correct myself. Money is not an end itself, it's a means to an end. We work to gain money because it enables the means of consumption. We work to consume goods and services.

    What do you mean by saying people don't have incentives anymore? People get paid to work still...

    [–]Lolor-arros [スコア非表示]  (6子コメント)

    Less than 63% of working age people are actively in the U.S. labor force right now.

    So well over half of all Americans are not a part of the labor force. And that number's only goin' up.

    [–]Kelsig [スコア非表示]  (2子コメント)

    Less than 63% of working age people are actively in the U.S. labor force[1] right now.

    So? Use actual unemployment statistics, we know that disabled people, old people, and kids exist.

    [–]BainCapitalist[S] [スコア非表示]  (2子コメント)

    That number includes people who are retired and likely living off of pensions or other delayed forms of compensation. What's your point?

    [–]shroom_throwaway9722 [スコア非表示]  (2子コメント)

    Profits are the whole reason we produce anything right?

    Funny how workers produce everything, yet capitalists get pretty much all the profits.

    [–]BainCapitalist[S] [スコア非表示]  (1子コメント)

    Funny how you ignored every other factor of production.... and did so without adding anything to the discussion.

    [–]shroom_throwaway9722 [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

    I guess my point zoomed over your head, but I'll explain it once more: profit is not the ultimate motivator. In fact, profit is a pretty terrible motivator when you consider the entirety of human experience. Plenty of people do things every day for decades and see pretty much no profit from that endeavor.

    In capitalism, workers must sell their labor power order to survive. That's one major motivator - survival. The other major motivator is personal passion - do you think people stop making art or working on hobbies or following their dreams because of a lack of profit? Absurd!

    Funny how you ignored every other factor of production

    There are no factors of production which justify capitalists' exploitation of workers.

    [–]Fillanzea [スコア非表示]  (3子コメント)

    There are some people who are never going to be able to do work that the market currently values highly. Some of them have physical disabilities, some of them have cognitive disabilities; some of them are going to hit up against the barrier that there just aren't enough jobs that pay a living wage to employ everyone. There are no incentives out there that are going to turn a person with severe cognitive impairments into a person who can make a living wage in the free market. Heck, if a person doesn't have a college degree and can't get one because they're already working two jobs or they can't find a way to afford tuition... the structural barriers that keep people in poverty are way stronger than incentives can manage to be.

    (Now, it's true that people who are pro-capitalism will often argue that minimum wage laws hurt people with disabilities, because employers who might hire them for $3/hr might not be willing to hire them for $7.25/hr; this is why I prefer a universal basic income to a higher minimum wage, but I also view that as a way-out-there lefty thing that doesn't currently have a realistic chance of happening.)

    And it definitely hasn't been true in the recent past that the exploitation leads to good for almost everyone. Since 1973, productivity is up by about 80%, and hourly wages have gone up by only about 40% -- and median hourly wages have gone up by only about 10%, so almost all of that wage growth has gone to people who are middle class and higher. source.

    I don't pretend to have a solution for poverty, but I do think that people want to work hard and make something of their lives when they have the ability to do so; they don't need to be threatened with starving to death to make that happen.

    [–]Kelsig [スコア非表示]  (2子コメント)

    There are some people who are never going to be able to do work that the market currently values highly. Some of them have physical disabilities, some of them have cognitive disabilities; some of them are going to hit up against the barrier that there just aren't enough jobs that pay a living wage to employ everyone. There are no incentives out there that are going to turn a person with severe cognitive impairments into a person who can make a living wage in the free market. Heck, if a person doesn't have a college degree and can't get one because they're already working two jobs or they can't find a way to afford tuition... the structural barriers that keep people in poverty are way stronger than incentives can manage to be. (Now, it's true that people who are pro-capitalism will often argue that minimum wage laws hurt people with disabilities, because employers who might hire them for $3/hr might not be willing to hire them for $7.25/hr; this is why I prefer a universal basic income to a higher minimum wage, but I also view that as a way-out-there lefty thing that doesn't currently have a realistic chance of happening.)

    None of this is inherent to capitalism. Even Friedman, the God of limited government, wanted a negative income tax.

    And it definitely hasn't been true in the recent past that the exploitation leads to good for almost everyone. Since 1973, productivity is up by about 80%, and hourly wages have gone up by only about 40% -- and median hourly wages have gone up by only about 10%, so almost all of that wage growth has gone to people who are middle class and higher.

    This is very, very misleading. Our wages now are worth much more. Even if my "wealth" was doubled, I would not live even a decade ago. Our commodities are quite simply better now. The technology that we're graced with now leaves our wages to be much more effective at increasing quality of life. Anyway, the income inequality is caused by stupid governance.

    I don't pretend to have a solution for poverty, but I do think that people want to work hard and make something of their lives when they have the ability to do so; they don't need to be threatened with starving to death to make that happen.

    But they might need to be threatened with not being able to afford a new iPhone or granite countertops.

    [–]Lolor-arros [スコア非表示]  (1子コメント)

    But they might need to be threatened with not being able to afford a new iPhone or granite countertops.

    Okay, now you're just trolling.

    [–]Kelsig [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

    I'm being a tad tongue-in-cheek, but not trolling...

    [–]shroom_throwaway9722 [スコア非表示]  (1子コメント)

    Yes it's authoritarian, but it works.

    It works to enrich capitalists. That's about it.

    [–]rapgamecamus [スコア非表示]  (1子コメント)

    Yes, if you play nice in the race to the bottom after decades and decades of brutal economic liberalization and foreign exploitation, your country just might be able to experience the joys of being a middle income nation with a small middle class.

    [–]Kelsig [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

    That sounds like all economic systems ever

    [–][削除されました]  (12子コメント)

    [deleted]

      [–]shroom_throwaway9722 [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

      At the very worst, you could say capitalism is only bad for white males

      Fly away, troll

      [–]Engelgrinder [スコア非表示]  (8子コメント)

      Yes, the capitalist class extracts surplus value, but the demander also extracts a consumer surplus.

      Citation needed.

      At the very worst, you could say capitalism is only bad for white males, which would explain the white domination of labor unions and support for a living wage.

      Capitalism has a long history of colonialism and slavery, which created large labor aristocratic classes among white males. This is why anti-capitalist revolutions have mostly happened at the peripheries, many being led by PoC. The large majority of Marxist revolutionary militias today are made up of non-whites.

      [–]LessLettersPlease [スコア非表示]  (5子コメント)

      Citation needed.

      Consumer surplus is the difference between demand and the equilibrium price. So if you're willing to buy an iPhone 6 for $1000 and the price is listed at $600, you benefit from a surplus of $400. It's a very basic component of any supply/demand model.

      [–]Engelgrinder [スコア非表示]  (4子コメント)

      Consumer surplus is the difference between demand and the equilibrium price. So if you're willing to buy an iPhone 6 for $1000 and the price is listed at $600, you benefit from a surplus of $400. It's a very basic component of any supply/demand model.

      That confuses the subjective (immaterial) "profit" of simple market exchange with the objective profit of capital investment.

      Here's part of a video to help explain:

      https://youtu.be/dCx_MUwI15M?t=6m40s

      [–]BainCapitalist[S] [スコア非表示]  (3子コメント)

      /u/lessLettersPlease is correct in stating that consumer surplus is an extremely basic concept in economic thought. It's bizzare to ask for a citation, because its existence is almost universally recognized by all economists, including Marx... its sort of like asking for a citation for the definition of "addition" or "subtraction". I also do not appreciate the blatant oversimplification of complex Marxist literature in that video. Can you please link to an academic article that makes the same argument? Or even better, simply provide an excert.

      Think of consumer surplus like this. How hard would you work in order to make a computer, the one you're using right now. I mean from scratch. Gather up all the materials and assemble them in a way that enables you compute complex algorithms and also connect it with some kind of network that enables people all accross the world to communicate wiht each other. It would be extremely hard for you to do all that by yourself. But you don't have to. Because there are other people who are really good at making iPhones. It's easy for them because they studied engineering, or have skills in metalurgy. They came together and instead of having to charge you for all that work it would have taken you to make the same product, you only pay about $200. That is your consumer surplus. Its basically the labor-hours that you save by simply purchasing the product from a supplier. This does not require the "comparing the value of one good with another good" stuff that video was talking about. My explanation actually uses Marx's labor theory of value.

      [–]Engelgrinder [スコア非表示]  (2子コメント)

      including Marx...

      No, Marx does not talk about "consumer surplus". I challenge you to find an excerpt where he confirms the existence "consumer surplus".

      My explanation actually uses Marx's labor theory of value.

      No it doesn't, please don't try to pretend you've understood Marx if you're making up this garbage.

      [–]BainCapitalist[S] [スコア非表示]  (1子コメント)

      I challenge you to find a single word he ever used in english.... like you simply cannot get past the fact that used a different language and therefore we need to look at context. "Surplus value" is a translation of the German word "Mehrwert", which is probably more accurately translated as the "value-added". It makes sense to say that you get added value from purchasing an iPhone, because you would have spent much more labor hours producing an iPhone by yourself. So the value added is analogous to amount of labor you saved and subsequently spent doing other things. Now if you want to derail the discussion into a debate about semantics or linguistics then I suggest you try that on a different subreddit considering its against the rules here. I'm trying to talk about progressives have marginalized black Americans through the tearing down of free markets.

      No it doesn't, please don't try to pretend you've understood Marx if you're making up this garbage.

      I'm starting to question weather or not you've even read any Marxist literature at all... I asked you for an academic article but all you could give was a grossly oversimplified video with mediocre animation. In my explanation I literally compared the value of an iPhone in terms of labour-hours... there was no comparing the value of different two objects, just the one same object in terms of the labor-hours of the producer vs the labor hours of the consumer. You didn't even explain why it was "garbage".

      [–]Engelgrinder [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

      Buying a commodity in the market that you would otherwise produce above the SNLT and extracting surplus value are not the same thing, only one involves the accumulation of capital. Please stop pretending you've understood Marx.

      I'm starting to question weather or not you've even read any Marxist literature at all...

      Yes, I'm sure the person with the username "Engelgrinder" has never read any Marxist literature. Nice one.

      [–][削除されました]  (1子コメント)

      [deleted]

        [–]Engelgrinder [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

        You seem to be conflating neoliberalism with capitalism. No, its not even neoliberalism is just colonialism. How is government protectionism of chartered monopolies to create colonies where people do not have the right to negotiate for wages in any real sense capitalist?

        "Government protectionism" is inherently tied to capitalism - capitalism cannot exist without a bourgeois state. If you ignore this you are ignoring the real history of capitalism.

        [–]Kelsig [スコア非表示]  (1子コメント)

        At the very worst, you could say capitalism is only bad for white males, which would explain the white domination of labor unions and support for a living wage.

        I don't understand

        [–]BainCapitalist[S] [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

        The last part of the Hutchinson quote talks about how white labor unions discriminated against blacks with various regulations and licencing. I'm sorry if I'm not clear right now, probably a consequence of tiredness

        [–]BainCapitalist[S] [スコア非表示]  (2子コメント)

        He's really only making one argument though. That a minimum wage is bad because because it pushes black people out of the labor market. In the section I quoted he was warranting that main arg by citing progressives that have used the living wage for racial oppression.

        I think that capitalism has libratory potential in a lot of ways buy why not focus on this instance for now? It can help black Americans by allowing them to compete with whites in a free labor market.

        [–]justajust [スコア非表示]  (1子コメント)

        If anybody rich were serious about using capitalism to help black people, we'd have paid out reparations by now.

        [–]BainCapitalist[S] [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

        Its funny you mention reparations. Another book called * The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study* by Fred Moten and Stephano Harney talks about reparations precisely. People who make this argument demand that blacks and poor workers submit before the state and accept it gifts as though it some how makes up the debt.

        Slight trigger Warning: author uses some swears and strong language

        There’s a very important, and let’s call it righteous strain, of Afro-American and Afro-Diasporic studies that we could place under the rubric of debt collection. And [is] it’s basically like, “we did this and we did that, and you continue not to acknowledge it. You continue to misname it. You continue to violently misunderstand it. And I’m going to correct the record and collect this debt.” And there’s a political component to it, too. Maybe that’s partly what the logic of reparations is about. Or even the “I have a Dream’ speech, he’s like ‘we came here today to cash a check. A promise was given. We came to collect.” That’s what King said. So, I don’t disavow that rhetoric or even that project. And, in many ways, I’m a beneficiary of that project, in ways that are totally undeniable and I don’t want to deny. I also think that that project is not the project of black radicalism – which is not about debt collection or reparation. It’s about a complete overturning – again, as Fanon would say, and others have said. If that’s your concern, if that’s your project, the mechanisms of debt collection become less urgent. Or they become something that one is concerned about, but in a different way. Like, “I will note the debt, and I will note the brutal and venal and vicious way in which the debt is unacknowledged.” When we talk about debt, to talk about the unpayability of debt is not to fail to acknowledge the debt. But, certain mugs just refuse even to acknowledge the debt. And I think a whole lot of what people want when they want reparations is in fact an acknowledgment, and they want an acknowledgement of the debt because it constitutes something like a form of recognition, and that becomes very problematic because the form of recognition that they want is within an already existing system. They want to be recognized by sovereignty as sovereign, in a certain sense. So, basically, I can read a big old book on the history of Western Marxism, and I can be alternatively pissed off about the way that its author can write that history without writing about CLR James. I’m alternatively pissed off, bemused, feel pity for his ignorant ass, whatever. You start to feel pity for his ignorant butt, but then you also understand the deep structural connections between ignorance and arrogance. And you can’t feel sorry for an ignorant motherfucker if he’s also an arrogant motherfucker, so then you get mad again. You stay mad, actually. But this is not a personal injury. You have to step to it in a different way.

        [–]emojiclast [スコア非表示]  (3子コメント)

        Ahhh the never-ending rabbit hole of post modern political critique. I put this argument along side those clickbait articles that "The Joker WAS the Hero" and "Beetlejuice Was The Living One" style of cultural critiques.

        It is the job of academics to critique lived society through their various, though often myopic (by necessity) lenses. Academe currency is plausible divergence from the status quo. This is not to downplay the work of academics but to instead consider the mechanisms in place that led to the critique.

        Nobody here seems to be adequately challenging you on the facts here, and you seem more than steadfast in your opinion -- which makes me think that you really aren't here to have a discussion so much as a dogma -- but fine, I will take your bait.

        Capitalism is a flawed engine built upon monetizing incentive structures. The reason capitalism is flawed is because, well, human incentives are...and I wish there was a better word for it.....fucked.

        That is not to say that capitalism doesn't work -- in fact it works very well. With restraints. Unfettered capitalism can create "race to the bottom" scenarios, and that is why minimum wage laws exist. With that said, I do not think they are the solution to the problem of wage equality, but they provide a standard that helps relieve fluctuating job markets, and cull the incentive to low-bid living standards. Have racists progressives used regulations in the past for their own motivations? Absolutely. And I am often times the last to defend regulation when it comes to most liberties. But unlike speech & expression, capital is a limited resource and economics (and by nature incentives) are based around scarcity. It makes sense to have sensible, balancing laws to prevent the worst-case scenario. I welcome your response.

        [–]BainCapitalist[S] [スコア非表示]  (2子コメント)

        Critical Race Theory is fascinating to me, but I thought it would get more sympathy amongst progressives. Guess I was wrong.... I guess people aren't marginalized unless the oppression is so direct (as opposed to structural oppression) that you need to physically see it happen in front of your face. I'm guessing I'd get more sympathy if the victim was a white girl as opposed to a black male laborer.

        which makes me think that you really aren't here to have a discussion so much as a dogma

        Wow this community is really exhausting... I think I fell for the derailing trap too many times on this thread and thats why it seems like I'm not engaging in the proper way or whatever. I realized that when I found myself talking about the german translations of Marx's original works.... No body here seems to care that marginalized groups of people are harmed by state intervention. this is not a "welcoming space for the perspectives of minorities and marginalized people". It really just isn't.

        Here I'll just repost the empirical data I found from the same article. Lets try and stray away from the discussion about capitalism in general, as that seems to be what everyone else is focusing on. Lets just talk about living wage. On balance I do believe living wage laws have a gross history of racism and even if that same racism is not present in current advocates for living wage laws it still doesn't change the fact that the law has racial implications.

        Rejecting the idea that underpaid workers can exercise their power of exit, which plainly operates as an abuse-limiting device for employees,150 “every country in the world has enacted a system of laws and institutions intending to protect the interests of workers and to help assure a minimum standard of living for its people.”151 Theory, on this account, favors state intervention since free labor markets are imperfect and provide an opportunity for employers to extract rents by abusing workers, which is a source of injustice and inefficiency.152 Predicated on such theories, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA),153 enacted more than 70 years ago, epitomizes an explosion of government intervention facilitated by a flurry of statutory enactments that commenced during President Hoover’s administrations.154 The FLSA’s stated purpose is to constrain “labor conditions detrimental to maintenance of the minimum standard of living . . . [while not] substantially curtailing employment or earning power.”1 Building on this particularly pungent record, the enactment of the FLSA produced results that mirrored a similarly disastrous policy in apartheid-era South Africa.184 “The Labor Department determined that the FLSA caused between 30,000 and 50,000 workers, mostly Southern blacks, to lose their jobs within two weeks.”185 This result confirmed the inescapable linkage between minimum wages and the eugenic virtues of removing from employment those who are a burden on society. As leading progressive economist and future American Economics Association president A. B. Wolfe predicted eugenic objectives could be achieved by eliminating inefficient entrepreneurs through minimum wage regulation, resulting in the elimination of “ineffective” workers.187 In combination with other New Deal programs, minimum wage regulation conduced to a persistent decline in the African American employment rate, which is coherent with the deduction that democratic governments give the greatest benefits to those who are the best organized and the least disenfranchised—categories that include few blacks.188 Although minimum wage regimes exhibit prima facie neutrality,189 it is not difficult to show that labor cartels, sheltered by progressive labor ideology and minimum wage law, enforced a philosophy that decisively conceives of blacks and other minorities as inferior outsiders.190 It would therefore require legerdemain of epic proportions for the instantiation of this ideology to produce actual economic and social gains for vulnerable populations.

        I await for your response, hopefully I can get at least one satisfactory perspective on this argument. My main problem is that people seem to agree that we have advanced in racial progress in some way. No one claims we've made it all the way but they claim that we've made progress... that infuriates me. It's at least debatable weather or not the actions of past progressives have done more or less for racial progress in this country. In my view, these actions only make violence against blacks more hidden, and therefore more justifiable. its like cleaning your room by sweeping all the dirty laundry under a bed. You know theres more work to be done but its just so much easier to hide it.

        [–]Engelgrinder [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

        it seems like I'm not engaging in the proper way or whatever. I realized that when I found myself talking about the german translations of Marx's original works....

        lmao.

        [–]emojiclast [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

        You didn't really approach any of my points. I did not mean to assume anything, trust me, I am new here to reddit and I don't get the sport so well. But I digress....

        I am a Keynesian. I believe in government bailouts. The Fed. It works for a reason because otherwise we would have massive fluctuation in the expectation game. Futures. You don't want to delve into a conversation about capitalism with me, perhaps, I am more privy to it's conventions than you are. Yes, I am a capitalist progressive. Mechanisms that protect a sense of confidence on both the supply-side and the demand-side, work in tandem with the market. This is why labor protections actually -- ironically -- help the market.

        In good faith I will research your data. I promise you that. But I must admit, it sounds like a Neo-Bircher calibration.

        [–]rapgamecamus [スコア非表示]  (6子コメント)

        This argument reminds me of all those people who say that Planned Parenthood was started by eugenicists who wanted to kill as many black fetuses as possible to cull the population.

        Also - unions in early 20th century, especially as they became less radical and more liberal, were just as racist as the rest of American society. This, however, doesn't invalidate the utility and purpose of unions at all. Likewise, a few "progressive hierarchs" might have desired a minimum wage to exclude blacks from the workforce, but it doesn't invalidate the idea of a minimum wage one bit.

        I see capitalism more generally as a way to empower these marginalized groups

        Lel. Not gonna bait me into an argument on this one Mr. BainCapitalist.

        [–]BainCapitalist[S] [スコア非表示]  (5子コメント)

        This argument reminds me of all those people who say that Planned Parenthood was started by eugenicists who wanted to kill as many black fetuses as possible to cull the population.

        Lel. Not gonna bait me into an argument on this one Mr. BainCapitalist.

        This argument reminds me of all those people who try to derail the discussion by somehow mentioning abortion when it has nothing to do with the discussion... Or by attacking my username... Hm correct me if I'm wrong, but last time I checked it was against the rules of this subreddit.

        As for the actually substantive portion of your post, this part of the article I was quoting is a genealogical account of living wage rhetoric. I don't personally find genealogy arguments all that persuasive. But people on this sub seem to be sympathetic to the arg that if the meaning of something has changed historically from something less... Idk "oppressive" then you still shouldn't use that phrase/ word because you cannot separate it from its historic context.

        But apart from that, there is still a more general argument here. It is still true that if you make it illegal for a anyone to bargain for a lower wage, you will still effectively be hurting the marginalized classes that already have to live with a low wage. You're still ensuring the dominance of whites over blacks by not allowing blacks to compete in a free labor market. And also, labor union leadership today is almost exclusively controlled by white males. People love to attack the lack of diversity in corporate leadership but they never seem to attack white labor unions.

        [–]rapgamecamus [スコア非表示]  (4子コメント)

        Yes, let's deregulate wages and see how well that works out. You either need strong unions or a strong minimum wage, can't have neither or there will be social insurrection soon enough.

        Not even going to bother arguing with someone who thinks allowing "blacks to compete in a 'free' labor market" is preferable to minimum wage laws and/or unions. I already know your arguments and you already know mine as these debates have been held ad infinitum in the real world and online.

        [–]Engelgrinder [スコア非表示]  (2子コメント)

        Yes, let's deregulate wages and see how well that works out.

        It'd probably end in a resurgence of militant unions, factory sit-ins, revolutionary Marxist groups etc in the US. So there'd be a positive side to it too.

        [–]BainCapitalist[S] [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

        You already knew that living wage laws are empirically proven to harm marginalized groups of people? I can honestly say that I actually have no idea what your argument against that would be. Do you agree with the progressives of the past that said it was necessary in order cleanse the population of those inferior wage earners?

        Rejecting the idea that underpaid workers can exercise their power of exit, which plainly operates as an abuse-limiting device for employees,150 “every country in the world has enacted a system of laws and institutions intending to protect the interests of workers and to help assure a minimum standard of living for its people.”151 Theory, on this account, favors state intervention since free labor markets are imperfect and provide an opportunity for employers to extract rents by abusing workers, which is a source of injustice and inefficiency.152 Predicated on such theories, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA),153 enacted more than 70 years ago, epitomizes an explosion of government intervention facilitated by a flurry of statutory enactments that commenced during President Hoover’s administrations.154 The FLSA’s stated purpose is to constrain “labor conditions detrimental to maintenance of the minimum standard of living . . . [while not] substantially curtailing employment or earning power.”1 Building on this particularly pungent record, the enactment of the FLSA produced results that mirrored a similarly disastrous policy in apartheid-era South Africa.184 “The Labor Department determined that the FLSA caused between 30,000 and 50,000 workers, mostly Southern blacks, to lose their jobs within two weeks.”185 This result confirmed the inescapable linkage between minimum wages and the eugenic virtues of removing from employment those who are a burden on society. As leading progressive economist and future American Economics Association president A. B. Wolfe predicted eugenic objectives could be achieved by eliminating inefficient entrepreneurs through minimum wage regulation, resulting in the elimination of “ineffective” workers.187 In combination with other New Deal programs, minimum wage regulation conduced to a persistent decline in the African American employment rate, which is coherent with the deduction that democratic governments give the greatest benefits to those who are the best organized and the least disenfranchised—categories that include few blacks.188 Although minimum wage regimes exhibit prima facie neutrality,189 it is not difficult to show that labor cartels, sheltered by progressive labor ideology and minimum wage law, enforced a philosophy that decisively conceives of blacks and other minorities as inferior outsiders.190 It would therefore require legerdemain of epic proportions for the instantiation of this ideology to produce actual economic and social gains for vulnerable populations.

        [–]BastDrop [スコア非表示]  (1子コメント)

        I'm confused by the excerpt you included. Is it about historical context for the present? Because a lot of the points are historically important but not currently true. In particular, American union membership is currently higher among blacks (13.6%) than whites (11.0%). Minimum wage is similar. It may have historically been used in the way he's describing but the modern minimum wage does not cause job loss.

        Also, I think you may be confusing terminology a little bit. Progressive Era is referring to a very specific political movement around the turn of the 20th century and their beliefs and motivations shouldn't be conflated with modern people who identify as progressive.

        Finally, I think you should clarify what's wrong with white people supporting a striking union. Does it make you uncomfortable because most of the union members are PoCs? If so, what do you feel the appropriate response of the white suburban people who go to your white suburban school is?

        edit: fixed link

        [–]BainCapitalist[S] [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

        In this section of the article he discusses the historical origins of living wage laws in order to warrant a more genealogical argument against living wage laws. While I personally personally don't find genealogy arguments all that convincing, I was interested in seeing how a more socially progressive person would view it. A lot of people on this subreddit seem to sympathetic to the argument that if the meaning of a word has changed historically to something less... Idk "oppressive" then we still shouldn't use that word because you can't sperate it from the historic context.

        Later in the article he does do an empirical analysis of the effects of living wage policies in modern times I can't access it right now because I'm on mobile but I'll come back and edit this post later. But if I remember correctly, while it may have been true that the total employment number might have stayed the same, the number of still black workers decreased. All the adverse effects of LW disproportionately effect black Americans.

        Now, I can't see your links on mobile for some reason. So you'll have to bare with me. Is that 11% of the entire black population? Or is it just a percentage of all union members? I'm pretty sure if you just looked at total membership then there would be a lot more whites than blacks... But the more important thing is union leadership. Which is almost exclusively dominated by white males.

        And the reason I felt strange about it was probably more because I was surprised that my stereotypical white suburban class mates would care about social justice. But even more so I had to listen to a bunch of white folk tell me why my race is oppressed and how I'm just a victim of capitalism and low wages... It was just weird.

        On the point about progressives, I think there may be a misunderstanding here. Hutchinson is an afro pessimist. Its a complicated philosophy but basically he is critical of all instances where the state is used to intervene for the supposed "liberation" of black people. He uses progressive as a blanket term for everyone who advocates for government action basically.

        [–][削除されました]  (2子コメント)

        [deleted]

          [–]Engelgrinder [スコア非表示]  (1子コメント)

          It seems you have brought a gun to a fist-fight. You've obviously studied this in quite a bit of depth and know a lot about capitalism.

          Yes, that's clearly the problem here... libertarians just know way too much about capitalism for puny SJWs to handle.

          [–][deleted] [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

          Libertarians tend to know lots of "stuff" about capitalism. Whether that "stuff" is right or wrong really doesn't matter much in this context. (I personally think it's wrong btw)

          You'll notice that most of these comment threads follow this pattern:

          SRSer: criticise one point

          BainCapitalist: avalanche of words

          rinse repeat

          OP isn't getting the response he/she wants. This is a waste of time.

          [–]nuclearseraph [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

          The point of a living wage isn't to liberate the oppressed, it's to make it so that people don't fucking starve.

          capitalism more generally as a way to empower these marginalized groups.

          Lol are you fucking serious?