I need help. Libertarians everywhere.

[Die Rote Fahne]

I'm on another forum debating with two Libertarians about how everyone should be able to satisfy their needs and live comfortably.

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need"

They posed the idea that because a doctor/lawyer have to study and work hard to get to where they are they should get more.

I have only responded that in an ideal society both would be able to satisfy their needs. Both are doing a job in which they provide a service to society.

I'm having trouble articulating an argument that is short and to the point. I really do not feel like producing an essay to counter them.

Can anyone help?

[Delirium]

How is the work that a doctor does more valuable than a farmer or a mechanic? Each job is essential for society to run. (excluding lawyers)

Most people who have jobs 'work hard'. You have to work hard to in the construction industry, It also takes quite a bit of knowledge. How is one job more valuable than another to society?

[PRC-UTE]

well doctors would be pretty pointless without bin collectors to take away rubbish and thus prevent lots of death from disease. same for lots of workers who keep cities from getting dirty or backed up with sewage.

that aside, lots of other working class jobs are necessary so that doctors can perform their duties: the factory workers who make their instruments, the men who build the roads, the workers that put up the buildings for them to work in, and so on.

labour is in reality social, and more so with each passing year. it doesn't make a lot of sense to say one worker is more valued than another.

also, I would get very concrete with these liberatarians. Mention that there are societies where being a doctor is not tied to advancement or self-gain, such as in Cuba, yet they have no problem finding more than enough doctors for their society. you don't have to be a supporter of Cuba to recognise that its health service functions outside of a profit making, market driven model.

then follow up by pressing them for examples of where their libertarian ideas really work. not just work for those with loads of money

[Die Rote Fahne]

well doctors would be pretty pointless without bin collectors to take away rubbish and thus prevent lots of death from disease. same for lots of workers who keep cities from getting dirty or backed up with sewage.

that aside, lots of other working class jobs are necessary so that doctors can perform their duties: the factory workers who make their instruments, the men who build the roads, the workers that put up the buildings for them to work in, and so on.

labour is in reality social, and more so with each passing year. it doesn't make a lot of sense to say one worker is more valued than another.

also, I would get very concrete with these liberatarians. Mention that there are societies where being a doctor is not tied to advancement or self-gain, such as in Cuba, yet they have no problem finding more than enough doctors for their society. you don't have to be a supporter of Cuba to recognise that its health service functions outside of a profit making, market driven model.

then follow up by pressing them for examples of where their libertarian ideas really work. not just work for those with loads of money

Thank you very much.

[The Ungovernable Farce]

Also, tell them that libertarian communism called and we want our adjective back. :lol:

[ArrowLance]

I'm on another forum debating with two Libertarians about how everyone should be able to satisfy their needs and live comfortably.

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need"

They posed the idea that because a doctor/lawyer have to study and work hard to get to where they are they should get more.

I have only responded that in an ideal society both would be able to satisfy their needs. Both are doing a job in which they provide a service to society.

I'm having trouble articulating an argument that is short and to the point. I really do not feel like producing an essay to counter them.

Can anyone help?

I'd like to add this.

In my ideal society, those studying to get to a position would be supported while they are doing so. That's not to say they would have a free pass to stop contributing while they are studying. So there is not much trouble in studying what you want, so you can do what you want to do.

[cyu]

I'm having trouble articulating an argument that is short and to the point.


Short reply? Ask them: If you were a doctor and suddenly your pay was cut to the level of a toilet scrubber (or the toilet scrubber's pay was raised to your level), would you suddenly decide to stop being a doctor and switch to scrubbing toilets instead?

Long-winded reply from http://everything2.com/user/gate/writeups/equal+pay+for+unequal+work

1.Promote democracy in the workplace - employees are free to vote on a differentiated pay structure, if that's what they want.

2.Now that workplace democracy is the norm, start promoting equal pay - this isn't to say you're forcing it on everyone - instead, it's kind of like forming a new party in a new democracy, where this new party is promoting the concept of equal pay.

3.Replace product advertising with job advertising. Again, you're not forcing people to no longer advertise their products - you try to convince them instead. Point out the harm (psychological, environmental, etc) to society caused by product advertising versus the increased motivation as a result of job advertising. It's like teaching gardeners to water their plants - you don't force them to water their plants, you're just telling them that watering their plants is a better idea than not watering their plants.

So how long will it be between steps 1 and 3? Months, years, decades? It's hard to predict, but the point is to begin the path.

The main reason I endorse equal pay for unequal work is described here: Demand is not measured in units of people, it is measured in units of money (http://everything2.com/title/Demand+is+not+measured+in+units+of+people%252C+it+ is+measured+in+units+of+money)

How would an economy and incentives work without pay differences?

Market Economics without Capitalism

The market came with the dawn of civilization and it is not an invention of capitalism. If it leads to improving the well-being of the people there is no contradiction with socialism. -Mikhail Gorbachev

Was Gorbachev contradicting the basic assumptions of socialism? I don't see a fundamental contradiction.

Consider this: Everyone in the economy gets paid the same monthly salary - regardless of whether you're a child, an engineer, retired, or whatever (yes, people in more difficult jobs may get more "respect" than other jobs, but that's just social conditioning and not related to their salaries). They then spend that money in a market to buy what they want / need. Market pricing still determines prices.

Here's the rub: instead of higher profits going to the producers, the extra money going into those industries just means there is more demand for those products and services. So the money is used to pay new producers in those industries, thus increasing supply - and everyone still has the same monthly salary.

As long as everyone has an equal salary, that is similar to economic democracy. Everyone has an equal amount of "votes" as to what to produce next. The concept of a salary is no longer a "reward" for work, but as just a method used so that everyone can help determine what goods and services are valuable.

The Demotivation of External Rewards

There are plenty of psychological studies that show "rewarding" work results in people liking the work less, and focusing on only the reward as their goal:

There was an experiment documented in Elliot Aronson's The Social Animal - some people were divided into two groups. In one group, the people were paid to do a certain activity. In the other group, the people were not paid to do the activity, but instead the organizers emphasized things like how much fun the activity was. At the end of the experiment, the people who were paid were much less likely to have found the activity enjoyable and would only do it again if they were paid again. The others were more likely to do the activity again of their own accord.

http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/pbr.htm also documents how giving someone a "reward" for work ultimately results in the person liking the job less and only going after the reward.

There is also this from http://bookoutlines.pbwiki.com/Predictably-Irrational

Ariely then ran another experiment. He read from "Leaves of Grass," and then asked his students the following:

•1/2 of the students were asked if they would be willing to pay Ariely $10 for a 10-minute poetry recitation

•1/2 of the students were asked if they would be willing to listen to a 10-minute poetry recitation if Ariely paid them $10

•The students who were asked if they were willing to pay offered $1 for a short reading, $2 for a medium reading, and $3 for a long reading.

•The students who were asked if they'd accept pay demanded $1.30 for a short reading, $2.70 for a medium reading, and $4.80 for a long reading.

Q: What is going to keep you getting out of bed at 6:30 AM other than the idea of bettering yourself and your family?

Depending on the job: the feeling of satisfaction of doing something important, the joy of doing something you've been brainwashed to love, bettering yourself & family by bettering society at the same time.

Q: One could imagine societies developing a social stigma against lazy workers, but it's even easier to imagine organizations without.

There isn't a stigma against not going on a rollercoaster. Well actually, you might get some ribbing from your peers that you're chicken. In any case, how do marketers get you to ride a rollercoaster? It's just one activity among millions of others - why is this one so desirable that you'd actually want to pay to do it, instead of having to be paid to do it? The marketer is basically emphasizing how much fun the activity itself will be - not what result or reward you'd get afterwards.

There is a danger in promoting the process too much though. Let's say you've basically been brainwashed to enjoy churning butter the traditional way. What if a new method comes along that is more efficient? Well, then those who are in charge of "marketing" in the butter industry will have to switch to promoting this new method instead, and leave the old method for you to do in your "leisure" (less important) time.

Q: Most of us ride a rollercoaster once in a while, but (most of us) would be bored if we did it all the time.

Yet people do things like read / argue on the internet day in and day out, or play a MMORPG day in and day out. You could argue that these activities are different in that they involve something different every day. Yet jobs could be tailored in the same way. Just apply the same product / marketing principles to the job itself. If you write software, you may be satisfied solving the same problems every day, simply because it makes you feel good to be the expert in your area. However, if that bores you, then you could branch out into other areas, or help out a peer who is swamped. If you work on an assembly line, you could easily move around to other parts of the assembly line if the learning curve isn't steep. You could even spend days outside of your "normal" job – maybe planting trees in a park or whatever the job advertisers are promoting that week.

There was a movie director that stated all great films are about either death or sex. Another director replied that he had to add money to his list. The first director responded that money is only used to avoid the first and get the second. I would add another thing to the use of money: to get pride – whether it's to buy status symbols, or simply to hold and be able to say you have a large amount of it. The thing with death and sex is that they are fairly absolute – death is death and sex is sex in every culture. Pride on the other hand is much more malleable. Different cultures (and subcultures) are proud of different things. Humans can take an active role in changing culture in any direction (which is basically what advertising and marketing is).

In today's system, you convince people to work by offering them money. You convince them to want money by advertising goods they can buy. Without product advertising, would people still want those goods (or money) as much? What then is the purpose of it all? To create a "desire" that wouldn't have existed otherwise, so you can fill that desire – it seems to me to just be a system of creating unnecessary work. Now before you make the argument that advertising isn't all that effective in getting people to buy what they don't want, consider this: why spend so much effort on advertising? It supports all of network television – million dollar salaries for the cast of Friends. Companies wouldn't spend so much if it didn't work. If advertising is just informative, then why spend all that money on slick ads? Why not just a simple, boring blurb about your product? The answer, of course, is that "boring" doesn't sell.

Replacing Product Advertising

So let's turn this around. Instead of trying to convince people to want things they don't want, instead convince them to want to do things that actually need doing. Seems like a much more direct method to me and a much better use of the skills of our great advertisers.

Instead of running ads that say, "I want this product" - they could be ads that say, "I want to work on a version of this product that will go down in history" - or "I want to work with some of the most exciting people in this field" - or "I want to learn the intricacies and possibilities of this product design."

What makes me think this kind of advertising would work?

As long as the advertising is controlled democratically, then the electorate already knows how important these jobs are. Thus, they already have the motivation to get these things done. The only real question is, are they able to make these activities sound enjoyable. To that end, they just need to employ the same psychological tools that product advertisers have been honing for years.

I would imagine different people would give their support to many different organizations. Each of these organizations would be supporting advertising for different activities. The more people supporting one organization, the more advertising you'd see for the jobs supported by that organization.

If you're "lazy" and don't feel like doing anything, nobody forces you to work. You are free to stay at home and watch TV or surf the internet all day. However, instead of being constantly bombarded with ads trying to get you to want more stuff, you are instead bombarded with ads trying to get you to want to go out and do stuff that society thinks needs doing.

As long as people see value in doing something, they are free to support advertising for that kind of activity. Sports, for example, are good for people's health, and, in cases like swimming, can save lives. However, if some other activity could not only provide exercise, but also help out other people at the same time (for example, building a wheelchair accessible trail along a scenic mountain path), then I could easily see more people gravitating toward promoting that other activity.

[RedSonRising]

The ultimate end goal is to progress to a point of production where the need for an individual to sell their labor isn't necessary, and they are free to pursue what they want in life, without limited access to educational institutions or material necessities. The left over dirty jobs are to be democratically divided in a society where anyone can be anything career-wise.

Cyu's post is has most of what you would need to counter that. If they don't understand the point, I think this quote sums it up pretty well.

"Man's freedom is lacking if somebody else controls what he needs, for need may result in man's enslavement of man." -Quaddaffi

[Die Rote Fahne]

Anyone willing to come on the forum and back me up?

Nothing gets through their skulls.

[Pogue]

Mate why would you bother. Its a forum, they do not exist in real life, and they are not worth the time.

[Die Rote Fahne]

Mate why would you bother. Its a forum, they do not exist in real life, and they are not worth the time.

I know, but it's hurting my brain.

I'll quote them:

"CEO's also take the most risk when starting the business, and therefore will make the most money. Workers at the bottom make the least because it is no risk to work for n established company. Its just like when your trying to find investors to back w/e the hell you are trying to do. The first investors get the largest shares of the business because they are risking the most when they give their money to a brand new company. It is no different than with CEO's.
Ideally, that's the case"

"Why do I feel like I'm repeating myself? right... because I keep having to address the fact that I am not saying what janitors and street cleaners (janitors dont clean the streets) do is not important, I am saying it is not fair and also slightly insane to assume that someone who does something that everyone can do, who doesn't work towards it at all and who could slack off all their life should be paid the same as someone who made extreme sacrifices and worked and trained very hard to do something few others can do.

If there were no street cleaners (although I don't know what that has to do with the argument as I am not saying we should get rid of street cleaners or any other menial labor jobs) we could manage to clean the areas in front of our homes and clean our own streets, if there were no doctors, we would die.

and if he is working, the janitor has money, he makes at least minimum wage and if that's not enough we have many, many, many programs in this country to help him out further."

[Jimmie Higgins]

I know, but it's hurting my brain.

I'll quote them:

"CEO's also take the most risk when starting the business, and therefore will make the most money. Workers at the bottom make the least because it is no risk to work for n established company. Its just like when your trying to find investors to back w/e the hell you are trying to do. The first investors get the largest shares of the business because they are risking the most when they give their money to a brand new company. It is no different than with CEO's.
Ideally, that's the case"

"Why do I feel like I'm repeating myself? right... because I keep having to address the fact that I am not saying what janitors and street cleaners (janitors dont clean the streets) do is not important, I am saying it is not fair and also slightly insane to assume that someone who does something that everyone can do, who doesn't work towards it at all and who could slack off all their life should be paid the same as someone who made extreme sacrifices and worked and trained very hard to do something few others can do.

If there were no street cleaners (although I don't know what that has to do with the argument as I am not saying we should get rid of street cleaners or any other menial labor jobs) we could manage to clean the areas in front of our homes and clean our own streets, if there were no doctors, we would die.

and if he is working, the janitor has money, he makes at least minimum wage and if that's not enough we have many, many, many programs in this country to help him out further."

I posted a link to an article that then links to a study done which found that despite the libertarian myths about the US being a "middle class country" with most people having the opportunity to be self-employed and there being a lot of class mobility - the US was the second-worst industrial country in the ratio of small-business owners and self-employed people.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/facts-real-enemy-t115157/index.html?t=115157

So even though the US is the beacon of neo-liberal small government-ism, big-government "socialist" France has more per-capita small businesses and self-employed people. *Ouch, does it hurt when you libertarians realize that your entire worldview is based on myths?*

[New Tet]

I'm on another forum debating with two Libertarians about how everyone should be able to satisfy their needs and live comfortably.

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need"

They posed the idea that because a doctor/lawyer have to study and work hard to get to where they are they should get more.

This is where the 'to each according his need' clause kicks in.

In a society where artificial scarcity no longer exists it would be absurd to give two stakes to a doctor and only one to the janitor because they perform different functions in a hospital.

How many stakes does it take to feed a doctor as compared to a janitor if the labor of both is essential to the needs of the hospital, of society and of each other?



I have only responded that in an ideal society both would be able to satisfy their needs. Both are doing a job in which they provide a service to society.

And both are doing it cooperatively: 'from each according his ability'.

Because just as there are janitors in the halls, rooms and bathrooms of the hospital there are janitors in the operating room. They make sure every surface and every instrument and tool used in an operating theater is sterile during, before and after surgery.

They're called 'scrubbers', and that's all they do. Every day. Day in, day out. For very sound practical reasons, the doctor cannot perform this task. If she did, she'd be lucky to operate once in a blue moon.

In a sane society the value of our labor need not be measured according to how many years it took us to acquire the skills to perform it, but on how useful it is to everyone around us.

[QUOTE]I'm having trouble articulating an argument that is short and to the point. I really do not feel like producing an essay to counter them.

Can anyone help?

Think in terms of cooperation. Social labor.

[The-Red-Pen]

I'm on another forum debating with two Libertarians about how everyone should be able to satisfy their needs and live comfortably.

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need"

They posed the idea that because a doctor/lawyer have to study and work hard to get to where they are they should get more.

I have only responded that in an ideal society both would be able to satisfy their needs. Both are doing a job in which they provide a service to society.

I'm having trouble articulating an argument that is short and to the point. I really do not feel like producing an essay to counter them.

Can anyone help?


It comes down to this, They think of them selves only. Dont even both our nation is comming down socialists and Libertarions. It's sad but well oh well.

[cyu]

Anyone willing to come on the forum and back me up?

You're wasting your time (assuming it's a pro-capitalist forum). If an atheist goes to a Christian forum, he's not going to convert any Christians. If a Christian goes to an atheist forum, he's not going to convert any atheists. The people in these specialized forums believe their idelogy even more than your "average Christian" or "average atheist" - if you really wanted to fight any ideology, do it where there is a wider varierty of people in the audience, people from both sides, moderates, neutrals, third-parties, etc.

Anyway, if you do go to a broader forum, here some ammunition:

From various people at http://www.revleft.com/vb/economic-calculation-argument-t113038/index.html

Well, I really don't see the point in engaging in this debate, insofar as Austrian economics is not so much a serious theory as it is a matter of blind faith, an ideological justification of the market.

In the ancient empires, Mesopotamia and Egypt and Rome, there would always be a class of priests who had the job of thinking up philosophical excuses for why the people should believe that the emperor was a god, etc. In modern capitalist society, this role of apologetics for the status quo of power is performed partly by economics professors.

The Austrian professor Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) was one such.

Indeed. There are two ways to study the economy. One is to simply study it. The other is to study it with the explicit goal of trying to protect the privileged position of the wealthy. The second is basically what Austrian economics is all about - it is what the funders of their research organizations pay them for. The problem with this kind of study is that the "science" becomes handcuffed - it is only "allowed" to show results that ultimately favor the wealthy - thus it is no longer a science at all.

Before we make fun of libertarians for supporting things that real capitalists would never accept, we must remember that the purpose of libertarian organizations is not to put their ideas into practice, but to produce bourgeois propaganda. The job of libertarians - and the reason they get funded - is to persuade people away from socialism. As such, we must vigorously attack their propaganda, not simply dismiss it as being insane.

Libertarianism is the bourgeois method of persuasion and pacification; a peaceful method of repression, if you will. It is, as was said by mike, a kind of farce perpetuated by high priests who claim to be objective know-it-alls of how things should be run because they have fancy credentials. They exist to shut down debate when talk of change arises.

Of course, some of these high priests are more idealistic than others, as can be seen by comparing the "radical" Austrian school loons to their tamer and obviously more in-tune-with-reality neo-classical Chicago school counterparts. The later have far more pull in terms of influencing policy, but the former obviously have their part to play, else they would not get the funding they currently do. As was also said, however, the ruling class is not stupid. They fund these think tanks and organizations not because they actually embrace libertarianism, but because they can ignore all the bullshit unfavorable to them and merely take what's useful. They will toss aside the stuff about ending government favors to big business, and happily take the stuff about gutting the welfare state.

Pathetic, really. Libertarians, especially the idealist ones, really are nothing but goons. Their purpose is to shill for the current order, all while they are supposedly trying to better it by turning it into something not even the ruling class would ever go for.

For the deluded "middle class" libertarians, many just don't realize what dupes they are:

The gargantuan mountain of cash in America
http://www.jmooneyham.com/the-huge-mountain-of-cash-separating-the-rich-from-everyone-else.html
"At the bottom are the poor and the 'middle-class' (see the little box in the lower corner?)... Notice the little pink block at bottom left in the left-hand image? That's where 96% of Americans like you and me live."

Spreading the wealth around
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/wealth.jpg
Income growth during first Bush term: Richest 1% of population gets $4,200,000 more per household. 90% of population gets $304 more per household.

Income Growth 1976-2006
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=69
Per-capita growth: 64%. Growth for 90% of population: 10%. Growth for richest 1% of population: 232%.

[ckaihatsu]

CEO's also take the most risk when starting the business, and therefore will make the most money.


This is not true, because the reality is nowhere near as simple as it's made out to be here -- or, rather, the truth may be as simple as this is, in construction, but with the difference that there is nearly *no* risk to the well-informed investor.

I'd like to make an analogy here to the process of driving -- one may say that they are taking on "the most risk" by being the driver of the car, and it may some validity at face value, but then again, it's not quite *that* simple, because there are other factors involved that are not being covered in the pat statement.

- Are the passengers taking on *no* risk at all, or is there some risk to them by being along for the ride (in the economy)?

- Is the driver trying to get to the destination (to make money) using *sheer guesswork*, or have they reached out to a guide that can considerably improve their chances on their journey?

- Is the role of driver particularly difficult, compared to that of the passengers, in navigating the (financial) terrain, so that they should be rewarded disproportionately?

- If the driver finds that the car has run out of steam, for whatever reason, will they shoulder the burden of providing new transportation for all concerned, or will they pass off the responsibilities of covering additional costs onto the passengers?





Workers at the bottom make the least because it is no risk to work for n established company.


Some research into annual workplace deaths, not to mention injuries, hospitalizations, use of sick days, etc., should demonstrate that workers do indeed put themselves at risk in the process of work.





Its just like when your trying to find investors to back w/e the hell you are trying to do. The first investors get the largest shares of the business because they are risking the most when they give their money to a brand new company. It is no different than with CEO's.
Ideally, that's the case


It's with statements like this one that I wonder if the bourgeoisie hasn't developed an ELIZA-like artificial intelligence expert system to serve as a centralized back end to respond to all left-leaning political discussions, like this one that you're in. If it existed it would free up the asshole hacks while sapping *our* time in these pointless, unresolvable exchanges.

*This* dividend-oriented statement is easily classified into the 'ownership' category. I categorically *refuse* to entertain, much less discuss, *ownership*-oriented remarks, because they digress from the overall topic of conversation, that being on how to construct society for the maximum benefit to *everyone*.





"Why do I feel like I'm repeating myself? right... because I keep having to address the fact that I am not saying what janitors and street cleaners (janitors dont clean the streets) do is not important, I am saying it is not fair and also slightly insane to assume that someone who does something that everyone can do, who doesn't work towards it at all and who could slack off all their life should be paid the same as someone who made extreme sacrifices and worked and trained very hard to do something few others can do.


I have to admit that I, myself, am slightly more sympathetic to *this* point than others on this board might be. I certainly *appreciate* that we all have a finite, approximately similar, number of years in which to live and participate in society, so it's *very* understandable to say that a working hour out of one person's life is roughly equivalent to a working hour out of another person's life, no matter what the labor, as long as the labor is societally useful.

*And*, as long as people's basic human needs for life and livelihood are met by the greater society they should be free to pursue whatever line of work is most appealing to them, with the fullest opportunities for the practice of that work.

*However*, I also appreciate the amount of education, training, and practice that goes into some of the more complex professions, and I happen to think that that aspect could be quantified into a socialist formulation of labor hours / labor credits, by using a mass-survey-derived *multiplier* attached to labor hours, to gauge factors like professional education, job training, difficulty of work, and distastefulness of work.

And, of course I don't appreciate the *sneering* attitude taken by the writer here in staring down their noses at blue-collar workers.





If there were no street cleaners (although I don't know what that has to do with the argument as I am not saying we should get rid of street cleaners or any other menial labor jobs) we could manage to clean the areas in front of our homes and clean our own streets, if there were no doctors, we would die.


*This* statement *typifies* the nowheresland, "frontier" formulation that libertarians use in referring to society -- a *very convenient* formulation that * has no similarity * with reality.

In this formulation work roles are *abstracted* into individual toy action figures that the writer then manipulates at will. In *reality* we have a societal structure -- government -- that not only *precludes* the need for redundant, individualized effort, like street cleaning or sewer maintenance, but that should also go *even further* in the direction of collectivized public services, so that all doctors would be employed by a single-payer government administration overseeing all matters of health care for the population.

The hypothetical statement used by the writer here shifts our attention in a *backward*-leaning way, arguing for us to *just settle* for the *existence* of doctors in some fashion, nevermind the overall social organization of these professionals and others like them.

Note the difference in treatment of *ownership* concerns -- the dividing up of spoils, above -- versus the treatment of *labor*, here -- where the very *existence* of both blue-collar and white-collar laborers is called into question in a hypothetical scenario, leaving us breathlessly relieved to have *any* kind of labor-based services *at all*, at the end of the hypothetical, as though we lived in an era of hyper-alienated, mass-stupidity barbarism with little chance of coordination around work roles.





and if he is working, the janitor has money, he makes at least minimum wage and if that's not enough we have many, many, many programs in this country to help him out further."


And this is still another slur against the role of work in society -- by what policy do we have a *lack of* *a livable wage* for someone -- *anyone* -- with an add-on, band-aid policy alongside it that only complicates the status of having a lack of a livable wage? Disgusting. Offensive.

I'd like to recommend a one-page diagram I made that illustrates the sourcing process for *all* societal value, resting on the fact that value can only be derived from either labor or capital. It is based on an excerpt from Jack London's _Iron Heel_:


Labor & Capital, Wages & Dividends

http://tinyurl.com/6bs6va


Chris




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