The global economy is having a race to the bottom in wages paid for human effort. Any rational person immediately recognizes the conditions under which many third world workers perform for pay are tantamount to slavery. For that matter, the bind that illegal immigrants find themselves in here in the United States—because of their inability to report unfair labor practices without identifying their own illegal status—is also a form of indentured servitude.
Why can't we start by saying a person should be able to earn at least enough to live on by working 4 hours a day, six days a week for 24 hours per week ... wherever that person works? This would be three 8-hour days ... or two 12-hour days. This would define the local minimum wage. The important thing is to leave time for personal development. The requirement that all minimum wage labor jobs be limited to 24 hours per week unless the WORKER specifically agrees to longer hours at overtime wages would be written into law.
It isn't just the low pay but the low pay AND long hours that leave the individual worker unable to alter his or her labor value in the labor market.
By working fewer hours the individual could then choose from whatever variety of opportunities present themselves in his or her area ... such as education, additional or self employment (which can lead to ownership, for one thing), thinking (which can lead to invention among many, many outcomes), leisure activities or entertainment, whatever.
The next thing I would start in the industrialized countries—where forms of energy other than human effort predominate—is mandatory work for everyone past the age of 16 and not in school full time except the elderly and disabled. We have enough work to do here in the United States to keep everyone eligible working 24 hours a week. And we have enough income from the technologically developed use of energy to pay for full employment of this kind. Government agencies would be "employers of last resort".
My reasoning stems from the rational requirement to give each individual a reasonable opportunity to improve his or her life according to the individual's own needs and desires, and thereby be a real participant in the labor market.
Furthermore, considering an individual's needs and desires in a general sense, we know that a staple need and desire of maturing adults is to have children and raise them successfully to maturity. In other words, to have a stable family over an extended period of time. Stable families are also a goal of mature societies ... or should be. A mature country like the United States should be seeking ways and means to create a solid economic foundation for its families.
I also believe that sorting out economic solutions in a rational market ("rational" in that the rules have been imposed fairly out of experience by the participants—those at risk—themselves) where the participants have relatively equal equity in the transaction creates the most positive economic dynamism ... and that freeing the worker from the social encumbrances imposed by mandatory long hours at low pay would do more to energize the economy and or families and communities than any other single act.
Why can't we start by saying a person should be able to earn at least enough to live on by working 4 hours a day, six days a week for 24 hours per week ... wherever that person works? This would be three 8-hour days ... or two 12-hour days. This would define the local minimum wage. The important thing is to leave time for personal development. The requirement that all minimum wage labor jobs be limited to 24 hours per week unless the WORKER specifically agrees to longer hours at overtime wages would be written into law.
It isn't just the low pay but the low pay AND long hours that leave the individual worker unable to alter his or her labor value in the labor market.
By working fewer hours the individual could then choose from whatever variety of opportunities present themselves in his or her area ... such as education, additional or self employment (which can lead to ownership, for one thing), thinking (which can lead to invention among many, many outcomes), leisure activities or entertainment, whatever.
The next thing I would start in the industrialized countries—where forms of energy other than human effort predominate—is mandatory work for everyone past the age of 16 and not in school full time except the elderly and disabled. We have enough work to do here in the United States to keep everyone eligible working 24 hours a week. And we have enough income from the technologically developed use of energy to pay for full employment of this kind. Government agencies would be "employers of last resort".
My reasoning stems from the rational requirement to give each individual a reasonable opportunity to improve his or her life according to the individual's own needs and desires, and thereby be a real participant in the labor market.
Furthermore, considering an individual's needs and desires in a general sense, we know that a staple need and desire of maturing adults is to have children and raise them successfully to maturity. In other words, to have a stable family over an extended period of time. Stable families are also a goal of mature societies ... or should be. A mature country like the United States should be seeking ways and means to create a solid economic foundation for its families.
I also believe that sorting out economic solutions in a rational market ("rational" in that the rules have been imposed fairly out of experience by the participants—those at risk—themselves) where the participants have relatively equal equity in the transaction creates the most positive economic dynamism ... and that freeing the worker from the social encumbrances imposed by mandatory long hours at low pay would do more to energize the economy and or families and communities than any other single act.
Note: Let me clear about what I mean by "relatively equal equity in a transaction". It only exists when both the seller and the buyer do NOT have to sell and buy, or both the seller and the buyer HAVE to sell and buy to get what each needs. If the seller does not have to sell but the buyer has to buy, or the seller has to sell and the buyer does not have to buy then there is NOT relatively equal equity in the transaction.
The problem with unregulated capitalism—among other things, and not meaning rational market capitalism which creates the positive economic dynamism of the industrialized world—is not that it devolves into a "free" market, but that the stronger participants use monopolistic practices and become the sellers who do not have to sell when the buyers (as in consumers who need gasoline to get to work and there are a limited number of gasoline suppliers) have to buy, or become the buyers who do not have to buy when sellers (as in sellers of their personal labor) have to sell.
The so-called "free" market (which because of externalities does not exist) let's the bullies regulate the market substituting monopolism in the guise of capitalism. We need to reinvigorate our marketplaces by establishing relatively equal equity in all transactions ... starting with the most basic transaction of all: wages for labor.
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