Learning to use market forces to distribute a fair share to workers - Part I

"Market forces"?

"Distribute a fair share to workers"?

How do we start talking about the issues that affect us, the workers of the world?

And even that brings to mind the negative "issue associations" with a label like "workers of the world".

We have to both clear the decks of false assumptions AND prepare the ground for discussion of the issues of the day.

Let's start with some basics. Just because a discredited historical figure (discredited in our humble opinion, either yours or mine) supported a concept does not make the concept wrong. Like the saying goes, even a broken mechanical clock is right twice a day. So when we attribute the concept "religion is the opiate of the masses" to Karl Marx, we should still examine the concept if for no other reason then current religious beliefs have been used to justify such obvious evils as slavery and the taking of aboriginal peoples' lands. We should at least question the relationship of religion to the fair distribution of the wealth our — the workers — efforts — mental and physical — create. If we can't get past the idea that an all-powerful God has established the lines of authority for this life here on earth and our true reward will be given by "Him" in the "after-this-life" place called "Heaven" ... well ... what can I say? You are already pissed off at me.

In any case, what we are witnessing today is the defining of wages as a cost of doing business in which separating the individual worker from any form of collective bargaining based on the real contribution of his or her labor allows the cost of labor to be reduced below the cost of keeping a slave alive. A living wage is no longer required. Is that an argument for the return of slavery? No, it is an argument against the immoral absurdity of the current trend in wages.

To be continued ...