About Socialism

Back to the government=socialism nonsense....

 

Air conditioning is a benefit provided by the employer and enjoyed by the worker, and is a consideration when the worker is choosing who to seek or accept employment with. A worker that values comfort over the extra pay would prefer working for the company with air conditioning. The worker who values money over comfort would likely choose the higher paid, less comfortable working conditions at the firm without air conditioning. That means air conditioning is a cost to the employer and a benefit to the worker. That business cost results, ceteris paribus, in lower wages for the comfort preferring worker.

The worker takes those options into consideration when he seeks and accepts employment.

This is speculation, on your part and on the employer's part. The employer implements strategies for attracting and retaining qualified workers. If there are no workers that prefer more comfort to more money, his expense remains and he may have to spend even more to try something else. There is no algorithm or rule that guarantees a return on any speculative expense.

It doesn't matter where the cost of insurance appears on paper. It is included in the total cost of employing a worker. The employer could cover the entire cost of insurance and pay the worker that much less, or leave the entire amount to be paid by the worker and pay him that much more. The same thing is true of unemployment insurance, FICA and medicare taxes. Those things and others are company expenses, regardless of how they're recorded.

The only way there can be "surplus labor value" is if a worker agrees to forego some of his agreed salary in exchange for a percentage of the potential profit. That would necessarily include the possibility of not getting any additional pay if the product doesn't make a profit. That isn't really surplus labor value either though, that is investing part of the wages in an entrepreneurial speculation. This is because the agreement between worker and employer for work and wages is not relevant to the entrepreneur's investments and risks. Profit and loss are a result of the entrepreneur's activities and come after the investments, expenses and risks have already been taken.

The worker isn't investing with the employer unless he does something like the scenario above. The worker's investment is his time and effort in his work. His return on investment is his wages and benefits. At the same time the employer is trying to maximize his return on the investment of hiring a worker, the worker is trying to maximize his investment of time and energy by getting paid more or working less.

Starting from scratch in a Robinson Crusoe scenario (examples of those can be found in the early parts of any number of economics textbooks) would be very difficult. In the United States today you have a huge variety of such opportunities with the need for little or no capital equipment. If you have a car you can drive for Uber, if you have a computer with a camera you can post on youtube. If you have nothing but skills and knowledge about specific subjects you can be a consultant. If you have a couple of dollars you can go to your local library and use their computer to start a shopify drop shipping business. I know a couple guys who started a business by mowing people's lawns with their client's tools until they had enough to buy their own. Now they're a professional landscaping firm with a dozen crews and a warehouse full of lawncare and landscaping equipment. Check out Fiverr.com for endless examples of people doing work with minimal or no capital equipment or investment.

 

If public funds are involved it's not private enterprise, it's public utility. If board members are appointed by regulators, it's not worker controlled.

No matter how many ways you try to make it fit your idea of socialism, it absolutely isn't.

 

Progress requires capitalism. Socialism is a holding pattern.

 

They are NOT mixed. Social programs are purchased via the profits of capitalism. It's fantasy and vanity to call such things 'socialism'.

Socialism cannot co-exist with other models. It is by its nature, all or nothing.

 

They are the least socialist beings on planet earth. They are the biggest fans of capitalist surplus you're ever likely to encounter.

 

No it cannot. What you think is socialism, is the luxuries purchased via capitalism.

 

socialism doesn't require 'regulation'. it doesn't produce surplus, or necessarily trade.

 

1. At the core of capitalism is the false belief that a business owner can assess value & impose that assessment on society.
2. My values aren't limited to those things in life that can be measured by money only.

 

Mixed economies are generally the most successful ones.

 

The business owner does not have any control over value, only the market can decide that. And since the market is a voluntarily inhabited place, the only imposition comes from the market itself.

 

Take the wave of restaurant closings in San Francisco. SF was warned about minimum wage laws They proceeded to artificially hike wages anyway. Restaurants could not get customers to buy a meal at the needed higher prices. I suppose fast food vendor's got a lot more business. But those restaurants who also faced higher property taxes, in some cases higher rents, also faced very high labor costs. Why do Democrats think waiters must have tips? They actually pay waiters wages. So San Frisco could have passed a minimum tip law, but hell no, they went after the restaurant owners.

 

What do you want Democrats to know and pass a law on a minimum tip you pay for all food service? Do you support a minimum tip law for customers? Say the tip is 20 percent of your bill? I mean fast food too.

Lets say you shop at Walmart. Do you tip the clerk 20 percent of your bill?

 

I live in a country which doesn't have a tipping culture. But we have a higher minimum wage than America does.

 

A hollow guarantee since the government doesn't guarantee what that value is.

 

False.

Capitalism includes no such concept at the core or anywhere else.

Value is determined by agreement between the business owner and costumer it is never imposed.

THAT is the core of capitalism

 

Except when capitalism encourages monopolies, such as Amazon.com, for example. Amazon has run thousands of small businesses out of business. So has Monsanto & many other "too big to fail" companies. That has distorted capitalism to the point it is almost unrecognizable from the ideal mode. We now need some elements of socialism introduced into the system to correct the distortions.

 

Tipping is stupid, and I avoid it when possible. America possibly has the worst service in the world, but they demand to be tipped.

If Americans want to know what good service is, they need to go to Japan. Tipping is unheard of, but for some reason, they still provide better service.

 

What is your country minimum wage?

 

ALL free market relationships (customer + business) are voluntarily entered into. Any distortion you experience upon voluntarily entering into a transaction, is therefore your own personal problem. Even monopolies are subject to competition .. it exists on a scale too small for them to be concerned with, but big enough for you to access if you're personally opposed to 'monopolies'.

 

My daughter still waits tables to help pay for her university degree as a Registered Nurse. She earns a good deal of money from tips. As a Nurse she will no longer get tipped.

 

Tipping is outrageous, IMO. It's the restaurant's responsibility to pay staff.

 

That is not how to correct Amazon. Bear in mind when Amazon started, it faced giants of books, later giants of products of many kinds and various prices.

Amazon brought to the customer what he preferred. I have saved hundreds of dollars in fuel costs by using Amazon as a source.

Amazon did not get help from socialism.

 

For food service, $20ph for starters. Can go up to $50ph for very experienced people. A Front of House person would probably be on a salary, rather than an hourly rate. In a high end establishment it would be six figures.

Keep in mind we don't have a culture of 'family restaurants' here (well, we have a few, but they're universally dire and never survive long). We have fast food, cafes, small 'ethnic' eateries, and high end restaurants. This means food service is more of a serious trade here, than it is in America. Staff are expected to be educated, very well spoken, and have incredibly good people skills. "Rustic" types aren't usual.