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From: Bill Sloman on 17 May 2010 06:40 On May 17, 4:22 am, dagmargoodb...(a)yahoo.com wrote: > On May 14, 5:07 pm,Bill Sloman<bill.slo...(a)ieee.org> wrote: > > > On May 14, 10:42 pm, John Larkin > > > Productivity is the ultimate benevolence. Technology pushes > > > productivity. > > > Perfectly true. But it doesn't do a thing to ensure that the benefits > > of increased productivity are equally shared between capital and > > labour. > > Obviously it's extremely critical how and when those benefits are > shared. Labor does not deserve all the proceeds of my innovation, > risk, and investment simply because I hire them, guarantee them a > regular check when I get none, and insulate them from the predations > and petty ministration of their rulers. Showing up for a paycheck at > a factory does not entitle you to the factory. > > Freedom means you can start something yourself, if you want those > rewards and are prepared to take those risks; government means you > can't, to a larger and larger extent. Society as whole provides the environment where you can hire technically educated employees, communicate with them, and have them travel around and get looked after when they get sick. Your taxes support that society. Try setting up an innovative business in a third world country where the tax rates are lower (or easily evaded by bribing the right people). Showing up for a paycheck at a factory doesn't entitle you to the whole factory, but the last hundred years has demonstrated that the optimum split for rewarding capital versus labour comes out at around fifty-fifty. As the brilliant innovator who made whatever it was possible, you think that you deserve a larger proportion of the gravy, but societies where people like you have managed to hang onto more of the profits don't turn out as well as places where labour gets a roughly equal slice of the pie. -- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
From: Bill Sloman on 17 May 2010 06:44 On May 17, 5:39 am, John Larkin <jjlar...(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote: > On Sun, 16 May 2010 19:22:18 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodb...(a)yahoo.com > wrote: > > > > >On May 14, 5:07 pm,Bill Sloman<bill.slo...(a)ieee.org> wrote: > >> On May 14, 10:42 pm, John Larkin > > >> > Productivity is the ultimate benevolence. Technology pushes > >> > productivity. > > >> Perfectly true. But it doesn't do a thing to ensure that the benefits > >> of increased productivity are equally shared between capital and > >> labour. > > >Obviously it's extremely critical how and when those benefits are > >shared. Labor does not deserve all the proceeds of my innovation, > >risk, and investment simply because I hire them, guarantee them a > >regular check when I get none, and insulate them from the predations > >and petty ministration of their rulers. Showing up for a paycheck at > >a factory does not entitle you to the factory. > > >Freedom means you can start something yourself, if you want those > >rewards and are prepared to take those risks; government means you > >can't, to a larger and larger extent. > > People consume and business invests. Any society must balance > short-term consumption against long-term investment. That is what the > "sharing" is about. People invest in feeding and educating their children, and in keeping them healthy enough to continue eating and learning. That too is a long term investment, and the US is currently investing rather less than it should in that particular area. -- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
From: Bill Sloman on 17 May 2010 07:05 On May 17, 1:33 am, "JosephKK"<quiettechb...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > On Fri, 14 May 2010 17:53:22 +0100, Martin Brown > > <|||newspam...(a)nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote: > >On 14/05/2010 16:06, John Larkin wrote: > >> On Fri, 14 May 2010 08:31:49 +0100, Martin Brown > >> <|||newspam...(a)nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote: <snip> > >> A decent industrialist realizes that a partnership with workers is > >> mutually beneficial, but must still compete with company owners who > >> don't agree with this philosophy. A company can't arbitrarily give > >> away high wages without achieving corresponding competitive benefits. > > >This wasn't about competition though it was about screwing the poor sods > >at the bottom of the pile into the ground knowing full well that they > >were individually powerless and a consumable item. > > You are rather completely bought in to the liberal version of history > based on the content of your post. Look again through the records, your > previous instructors have both understated the worst excesses of the > "owners" and underreported the decency of the average to best cases. Martin Brown cites evidence that supports his point of view. You don't adduce any evidence to support your claim that his reports are biased. Whoever your intructors were, they didn't teach you how to respond to a fact-based argument. In fact - as Martin Brown pointed out - the decency of the average to best cases wasn't all that relevant, because the evil, grasping employers could sell their product for less than the product produced by the average to best cases, who risked being driven out of business if they were too considerate of their workers. Afew years ago, Texas introduced minimum wage legislation, which appreciably raised the wages of fast food employees. The whole fast food industry was terrified that their slender profit margins would evaporate in the higher labour costs, but in the event the fast food businesses started making more money after the legislation came into force. It turned out that the fast food employees hadn't been getting a lving wage, and they'd only stay in the jobs for a short while until they could get something better. the minimum wage wasn't all that much higher, but it was high enough to appreciably reduce staff turnover. More experienced staff did a better job, which sucked in more customers, which meant that the store owners were making more money even though they were paying out more in wages. Unrestrained free markets don't automatically produce an optimal distribution of resources, particularly when the employers don't appreciate the real costs and benefits of hiring and firing. In the UK, during the first world war, a spate of industrial accidents caused by over-tired workers forced legislation to control the maximum number of hours of per day that a worker could do. The immdeiate effect of the enforcement of this legislation was that production - not just productivity - went up, because over-tired workes were much less productive than people who had had enough sleep. In this case it was patriotism as much as greed that had inspired the excessive hours of work, but the pressure had again produced a sub- optimal solution. -- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
From: Bill Sloman on 17 May 2010 07:18 On May 17, 1:10 am, "JosephKK"<quiettechb...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > On Fri, 14 May 2010 08:06:18 -0700, John Larkin > > <jjlar...(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote: > >On Fri, 14 May 2010 08:31:49 +0100, Martin Brown > ><|||newspam...(a)nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote: > > >>On 14/05/2010 06:16, dagmargoodb...(a)yahoo.com wrote: > >>> On May 13, 5:02 pm,Bill Sloman<bill.slo...(a)ieee.org> wrote: > >>>> On May 13, 8:20 pm, dagmargoodb...(a)yahoo.com wrote: <snip> > >It only makes sense if the money comes from somewhere. If all the > >employers arbitrarily doubled wages, inflation would take it all away > >within weeks, maybe days. > > In late 1930s Germany it was hours to minutes. Israel had a similar > problem twice since. (well over 1000% per year inflation). German hyper-inflation peaked in 1923, under the Wiemar Republic. In the late 1930's Hitler was in power, and used Keynesian pump-priming (mostly investing in weapns of war) to sustain a tolerably stable economy. If you can't get fact like that right, why on earth should anybody take you seriously. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation > >If a single employer did it, he's go out of > >business. Shuffling paper money around is meaningless; productivity is > >real. Ford increased wages because he had a revolutionary > >super-efficient way of making cheap cars, and most workers found the > >pace and discipline tiring and tended to quit after a few months. He > >needed the best workers to stick around, so he golden-handcuffed them; > >this was *before* they were unionized. The "invisible hand" was at > >work. Productivity was the key. > > >This is good: > > >http://www.amazon.com/Ford-Men-Machine-Robert-Lacey/dp/0517635046/ref... > > While i will not argue that the assembly line was(or not) an important > innovation, it did tend to make humans into robots, and people are > notoriously mediocre robot machines. Way too much people as > robot/machine(/assembly line) thinking still permeates management > thinking today. Taylorism. It isn't all-pervasive. Volvo did it differently. http://home.kpn.nl/Kiebeler/homepage%20Hans/teams-between-neo-and-anti-Taylorism.htm -- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
From: Bill Sloman on 17 May 2010 07:28
On May 17, 5:43 am, John Larkin <jjlar...(a)highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote: > On Sun, 16 May 2010 19:05:54 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodb...(a)yahoo.com > wrote: > > > > >On May 14, 2:31 am, Martin Brown <|||newspam...(a)nezumi.demon.co.uk> > >wrote: > >> On 14/05/2010 06:16, dagmargoodb...(a)yahoo.com wrote: > > >> > Of course Marx himself was a n'er-do-well who never earned his keep, > >> > a pseudo-academic parasite sponging off patron Engels. Engels in turn > >> > coasted off the family business. Marx made his living guilt-tripping > >> > Engels with econobabble, a fine tradition carried on by Marxists > >> > today. > > >> Engels saw first hand what greedy industrialists were doing to their > >> workers in the Lancashire cotton industry. Boiler explosions were > >> commonplace up until the Vulcan insurers made a stand and insisted on > >> proper boiler safety inspections. And in cases of tampering with safety > >> relief valves they would not pay out. > > >> It was common practice to overstoke the fire before the first shift and > >> add weight to the pressure relief valve - this resulted in several large > >> scale boiler explosions destroying big mills in the early morning and > >> killing many workers in the Lancashire cotton industry. > > >Destroying your factory is a bad business model. That quickly self- > >limits. Besides, nowadays we sue or jail those people. Too much, in > >fact. > > >>http://www.camdenmin.co.uk/technical-steam/historic-steam-boiler-expl.... > > >> Articles on the history of boiler insurance show that the US had a worse > >> record despite having the advantage of seeing the innovations in UK > >> boilers. Some element of NIH played a part but mostly it was that > >> industrialists greed was paramount and the workers powerless. eg. > > >>http://www.casact.org/pubs/proceed/proceed15/15407.pdf > >> first page and page 7 under Normal Loss Hazard > > >Interestingly and ironically enough, that emphasizes the need to > >identify defects and eliminate high risk insureds to minimize > >underwriting loss rates. > > >"Experience has also shown that the scientific examination and > >inspection of insured boilers produces a > >declining loss ratio." > > >> > "To each according to need" really means "From you to me." "Dear > >> > Fred, I need that grocery money, and I deserve it, luv Karl, xoxoxoxo > >> > P.S. Stop exploiting me! KM" > > >> It makes reasonable sense to pay your workers a living wage for the work > >> that they do rather than pay them less than they can sensibly live on. > >> Ford was about the first in the USA to actually do this. > > >> In the UK there were some decent industrialists mostly of quaker > >> families who did treat their workforce fairly - examples include some > >> household names like Pilkingtons, Cadbury, Bournville, Marks&Spencer. > > >> But most of the rest were complete bastards who built large factories > >> and employed the equivalent of bonded labour stuck very high density > >> slum housing. It was not surprising that unions were formed in some > >> cases the manager really did hold the whip hand - literally. > > >As John pointed out, that was a transient effect, an unusual, historic > >dislocation. Machines meant that few could farm what had previously > >required the toil of many. So there were lots of workers looking for > >work. > > >Short term, that's painful. Long term, that's creative destruction, > >society re-allocating resources from something no longer needed, to > >something people do want and need. > > The pattern repeats: > > http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/05/15/BUPJ1DEGG.... > > Manufacturing seeks cheap labor and makes lots of stuff. Pretty soon, > that labor isn't cheap any more. Eventually the world may run out of > places with cheap labor. Intelligent manufacturing seeks to automate the duller and more repetitive parts of the job, but moving to China does require less investment. Effectively, investment in manufacturing automation has been on hold since since the US started exporting its low-paid jobs to China, and the rest of the world joined the rush. Back when I was working in England, English manufacturers complained that British workers were less productive than their German counterparts, until an academic economist did a comparison that controlled for the capital investment per worker. It turned out that - on average - the Germns invested more capital per worker, which was reasonable since German wage rates were higher, but in areas where Brisih employers had invested as much as their German counterparts, British workers were more productive, presumably because the British employers were picking off only the low-hanging fruit. -- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen |