Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: $Revision: 1.6.2.16 $; site inmet.UUCP Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!qantel!lll-crg!ucdavis!ucbvax!decvax!cca!inmet!nrh From: nrh@inmet.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Equality through Reaganomics ? Message-ID: <7800744@inmet.UUCP> Date: Mon, 25-Nov-85 13:07:00 EST Article-I.D.: inmet.7800744 Posted: Mon Nov 25 13:07:00 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 29-Nov-85 21:08:46 EST References: <7800672@inmet.UUCP> Lines: 99 Nf-ID: #R:inmet:7800672:inmet:7800744:000:4970 Nf-From: inmet!nrh Nov 25 13:07:00 1985 >/* Written 1:46 pm Nov 24, 1985 by jim@ISM780B in inmet:net.politics */ >>>Just goes to show, dunnit? If all the women stayed home where they >>>belong, there'd be no unemployment. I mean, it stands to reason.... >> >>You are joking, of course, but there *are* a lot of people who >>think that someone who gets a job (a woman, immigrant or whatever) >>*takes* the job from others. On the contrary, anyone who holds >>a productive job *makes* jobs for others. Thus, the more jobs >>for women, the more jobs for *everyone*. > >I understand how creating new jobs leads to creating other new jobs, >but just how does forcing one person out of a job due to availability >of cheaper labor create new jobs? I think you've got hold of the wrong end of the stick, here. You might ask of the first part of a surgical procedure: "How does cutting people open cure them?" The "availability of cheaper labor" means that there are people willing to do the work for less. Typically it means that the "cheaper labor" folks are POORER than the fellow who has the job already. So you offer the person who has the job a lower wage -- he refuses, he "needs" the salary he had. (This process can be VERY indirect -- the folks in Michigan, with a per-capita income of $11,466, can lose fleet contracts to the folks in Japan with a per-capita income of $9,864). You then offer it to the "cheaper labor", who accepts (You offer it first to the people you've been dealing with because that's smart business). The "cheaper labor" is not some subhumanoid hive-oriented creature who may be safely regarded as more compliant, or less deserving -- he (or she) is a human being, perhaps living in a poorer country, perhaps the victim of prejudice, perhaps simply less-skilled (though sufficiently skilled that he/she is useful to you). Is it so horrible that the free market in this case tends to distribute money among the downtrodden and away from those who refuse to compete? >The current policy seems to be to >create conditions of extreme poverty and then lower the minimum wage for >minors. That's quite a remarkable statement. Where can I find the organization doing this? Lowering or getting rid of the minimum wage WOULD be a good idea -- before the imposition of the minimum wage, black youth unemployment was about the same as white youth unemployment. I assume that whoever is administering this "policy" is not couching it in terms of "creating conditions of extreme poverty" -- what do they (whoever "they" are) actually say about it? >The economic conditions force the minors to seek work instead >of attend school; the differential on wages gives them a competitive >advantage for *existing* jobs, lowering the cost to the employer and forcing >the higher-paid adult out of work. Quite a simplistic analysis, this. I assume that this is backed up with some statistics, somewhere? In particular it seems to imply that the role of skill and experience can be neglected. In some jobs this is true -- some assembly-line work, for example. In other jobs (heavy equipment operation, carpentry) this is not true. >Since labor is inelastic (something >conveniently ignored by free market freaks), the adult ends up unemployed, >his children drop out of school to go to work ... Once you're an "official adult", then it's nasty of Jim@ism780 to tell you that you can't have a job because Jim wants to keep employed somebody making (say) twice your anticipated wage, and until you're that age, you're pretty heavily under the thumb of your parents, at least as far as getting a real job goes. Labor inelastic (in supply)? Somewhat, certainly, but do you have any figures? If labor WERE very inelastic in supply, then we would NOT see a change in high-school students' behavior because of a change in wages. Further, the person in the high bracket (whose job is about to be destroyed unless he takes a pay cut) would then not even consider refusing the lower salary -- it would be madness. Or perhaps you mean "inelastic in demand"? This would imply that jobs are NOT created in response to offers to take jobs for lower wages, nor destroyed in the face of demands for higher wages. But this propensity for detroying jobs in the face of demands for continued high wages would seem to be what you're complaining about, so I doubt you mean "inelastic in demand". Besides, it would imply that no jobs were destroyed by the imposition of minimum wage. How many elevator operators, shop girls, lamplighters, butlers, and maids, do you see around these days? >Now in the case of immigrants, many of the jobs they take are so bad >no one else would take them anyway. Besides being more than a little insulting to the immigrants involved, this contradicts your earlier assertion that labor is "not elastic". because clearly if a job that "nobody else would take" will be taken anyhow, then the supply of labor is elastic so long as people can immigrate.