Why should someone paid just to push buttons on a machine earn $15 an hour?

[Jacob Cliff]

Or someone who flips burgers, etc.? I understand the idea of a "living wage," but wouldn't that cause inflation?

[RedWorker]

Ask yourself: Why are you even asking this question and not another question? A specific viewpoint, a framework of seeing things is implicit in your question.

Did you think about the fact that these people are being kept pushing buttons, instead of being replaced by automation or self-service? In communism they could dedicate themselves to doing some meaningful thing. In capitalism, if they were replaced by robots it would be even worse for these people. And if they are not, it is because it is more profitable within the current circumstances.

Why should their income be increased to $15 an hour? Pretty simple, everyone deserves the right to live a decent life, and the struggle for it strengthens the working class movement. And $15/hour is barely a decent life in USA.

[Sasha]

Also, higher wages doesnt equal inflation http://www.forbes.com/sites/bobmcteer/2014/04/30/wage-inflation/

[Rafiq]

Why shouldn't they? That is the question. Do people who press buttons have the desire to have higher wages? They do. We don't have to convince them. So why shouldn't they?

[Spectre of Spartacism]

The real question you should be asking yourself is why they are being paid a wage at all. The answer to that is to maintain system of exploitative economic relationships that stifle and oppress that "button pusher." If you want to fight that exploitation, you support any movement at all in the direction of higher wages, with the goal of eliminating the wage relationship altogether.

[ckaihatsu]

Also, higher wages doesnt equal inflation http://www.forbes.com/sites/bobmcteer/2014/04/30/wage-inflation/


The pervasive alarmism about inflation can only be understood in *class* terms -- those with vested economic interests *don't want* to see the working class gain in its proportionate share and control of the economy, as through higher wages.

It's that simple.

The 'inflation' card is played as fear-mongering, to suggest that money would automatically be worth less if workers had more of it to spend, blatantly ignoring that workers are far more likely to *increase economic velocity* -- that is, to actually put money into circulation, through spending -- than companies would (consider today's historic amounts of company stock buy-backs and almost moribund investment-making).

Also, we could look at government-mandated higher wages, or wage subsidies, in terms of conventional *deficit spending* -- the bourgeois government regularly goes into deeper debt in order to do deficit spending, in the interests of *expanding the economy* and increasing velocity -- why not initiate this dynamic at the point of *wages* -- ?

[Sewer Socialist]

People who phrase the question that way presumably are thinking of a cash register, but that describes many jobs. Driving is basically pushing buttons, computer programming is pushing buttons, sending e-mail is pushing buttons, running a cnc machine is pushing buttons, etc.

It's a devaluation of work, and a valorization of ownership, entrepreneurship, etc. Owning something requires no work at all; why do owners "deserve" anything?

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/bobmcteer/2014/04/30/wage-inflation/





[Yellen] likely has noticed the recent decline in the productivity of labor, which is a factor limiting demand.


That's a crock of shit....


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/73/US_productivity_and_real_wages.jpg/1024px-US_productivity_and_real_wages.jpg





Even though productivity is called the productivity of labor, the amount of capital per worker is the main determinant of the productivity of labor.


That's a crock of shit, too -- it's technological *leverage*, basically.





Productivity usually has more to do with those evil capitalists than those virtuous workers. In this context, today’s GDP weakness is telling. GDP growth didn’t fall because of consumer spending, but because of a chronic lack of business fixed investment (non-residential) spending.


*This* part is true, aside from the diversionary facetiousness of including the term 'evil capitalists' -- also the flattening of GDP is because of the tendency for the rate of profit to decline, which is inherent to the system of capitalism.

[Synergy]

I have a lot of respect for the "button pushers" because they do the boring/repetitive jobs that no one else wants to do. Agricultural work is also demeaned and it's frequently performed by hardworking minority groups that get blamed for everything.

[Alan OldStudent]

Why should someone paid just to push buttons on a machine earn $15 an hour? Or someone who flips burgers, etc.? I understand the idea of a "living wage," but wouldn't that cause inflation?

I’m going to assume your two questions are serious and that you’re not just trolling. Your handle is “MarxianSocialist.” As a Marxist, you may have read “Value, Price, and Profit” and also “Wage, Labor, and Capital” by Marx. If you have, you’ll notice that my answers below have their bases in these two works.

Your query actually consists of 2 questions: 1) Does a raise in the minimum wage cause inflation and 2) Do simple, repetitive, low-skilled jobs deserve a $15/hour pay?

I am a volunteer for “15 Now Tacoma,” a coalition which has put a controversial initiative on the November ballot. Tacoma is a port city in the northwest corner of the United States. Sincere people ask me similar questions to the ones above all the time because they don’t know the answer. Here’s how I answer them in Standard American English, without using much Marxian terminology.




No. A raise in the minimum wage won’t cause inflation. The minimum wage is unrelated to inflation. Since the first minimum wage law was enacted in the US in 1938, it has been raised 22 times. During the intervening 77 years, Increases in the minimum wage have never resulted in inflation. Think about that for a moment. NEVER RESULTED IN INFLATION!

What sets prices is the market, not minimum wage. A decline in the value of currency is what causes inflation, not the minimum wage. Any number of studies have shown that, except in the restaurant business, increased minimum wages do not cause increased prices. A 2001 study by Aaronson found that restaurant prices increase 0.07% for every 10% increase in the minimum wage. If Tacoma’s minimum wage goes up to $15/hour, the price on a 4-dollar hamburger will go up about 16 cents.

Moreover, it is the market that tends to set the price of commodities, not the minimum wage. A business-person always tries to sell his product or service for as much as the market will bear. After all, he’s in business to make a profit. Many factors go into that calculation, and the legally mandated level of the minimum wage is not one of those factors.


Employers want to discourage low-wage workers from demanding an increase or a fair wage. So they try to make the public, as well as their employees, believe that low-wage workers are not worth decent wages. In essence, to the employer, low-wage workers are no more than undeserving and whiney schmucks. They use degrading terms like “burger flipper” and “button pusher” to portray low-wage workers as being “uneducated,” “greedy,” and “lazy.”

At the same time, these employers spend a lot of time, money, and energy to figure out how to get the most value out of the average work-hour that they purchase. That’s why low-wage jobs like fast-food work is so demanding. The bosses constantly speed up and rationalize the work flow. They demand that the worker be fast, to be able to multitask, to be accurate, to be able to stand for many hours and maintain composure under really demanding conditions. Just go into a busy Starbucks some day and watch, REALLY WATCH, the effort those workers put into their job.

Low-wage workers clean the offices and toilets, take custodial care of your elderly relatives, collect your garbage, provide you with childcare so you can go to work, bag your groceries and stock the food on grocery shelves, and so on. So please do me a favor. All this work has dignity. Please don’t trivialize this socially valuable labor as “burger flipping” or “pushing buttons.” Don’t trivialize honest labor. These workers are underappreciated, but their work is necessary, and adds quality to your life. In fact, it makes your life bearable, even possible. All work has dignity. Don’t ever forget that.




Alan OldStudent
Volunteer
15 Now Tacoma
http://15nowtacoma.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/logo-2015-0630.jpg

[Armchair Partisan]

I have a question for you, dear "Marxian" "Socialist". Why should they not be? (Assuming that the alternative is "they get paid less than $15 an hour".) Answer that for me, because I'd love to hear what drives a self-described socialist to support reducing wages.

[Jacob Cliff]

I have a question for you, dear "Marxian" "Socialist". Why should they not be? (Assuming that the alternative is "they get paid less than $15 an hour".) Answer that for me, because I'd love to hear what drives a self-described socialist to support reducing wages.

All I'm doing is playing the devil's advocate. My questions typically do that to see how a Marxist would answer these things, and so I can see the Marxist perspective on common topics in the US. Look at the questions I post and you'll probably realize that.

[RedWorker]

Their employers, who do no work at all, are paid the greater portion. They who do all work are being paid a misery wage.

[Ele'ill]

the jobs looked down on as being easy and undeserving of a higher wage regarding wage increases are not easy jobs

[RedMaterialist]

All I'm doing is playing the devil's advocate. My questions typically do that to see how a Marxist would answer these things, and so I can see the Marxist perspective on common topics in the US. Look at the questions I post and you'll probably realize that.

You might want to check out Marx's Wages, Prices and Profit.

[Comrade Jacob]

We should pay workers £25,000 an hour and just completely fuck the system over. High wages seem better but it does create a bigger gap between the 1st and the 3rd world worker and discourage the people from actual struggle.
"bro, u know what we should do bro? We should vote for Bernie cos it's revolutionary."

[Alan OldStudent]

All I'm doing is playing the devil's advocate. My questions typically do that to see how a Marxist would answer these things, and so I can see the Marxist perspective on common topics in the US. Look at the questions I post and you'll probably realize that.

Well Comrade MarxianSocialist,

Perhaps a lot of people didn’t know you were playing devil’s advocate to see how other socialists and communists would answer this. The tone of the answers you received may have been a bit different had people known why you asked the question.

Several have suggested you read “Wage, Labor and Capital” (WLC) by Marx. On the 15 Now Tacoma website, an article called “Uncle Weston, Wages, Inflation, and Killing Jobs (http://15nowtacoma.info/2015/01/17/uncle-weston-wages-inflation-and-killing-jobs/)” sums up the main points of WLC as it applies to the question of the $15/hour minimum wage.

Check that article out and see what you think.

***AOS***

[Emmett Till]

Or someone who flips burgers, etc.? I understand the idea of a "living wage," but wouldn't that cause inflation?

Let's give this a straight, direct answer, whether it was a serious question or not.

Actually, nobody gets paid "just to push buttons," because where that is possible, it's easy to rig up an automatic system to get it done.

People get paid to push the right buttons at the right time, because if they push the wrong ones at the wrong time in an automatized system, something at best expensive and at worst catastrophic will happen. That's worth paying for, objectively economically more worth paying for than most other things.

As for burger flipping, the fact is, as anyone who has ever done it will tell you, the work pressure at fast food joints is so high that it is a tougher job than most of the gigs folk get $60k for, and certainly has a much higher risk of burn injuries.

However it does take much less training, which is why those jobs are paid more, due to the working of Marx's labor theory of value. Plus of course the fact that they are rarely unionized.

[Emmett Till]

We should pay workers £25,000 an hour and just completely fuck the system over. High wages seem better but it does create a bigger gap between the 1st and the 3rd world worker and discourage the people from actual struggle.
"bro, u know what we should do bro? We should vote for Bernie cos it's revolutionary."

Who is this "we"? I am reminded of an old joke from the '70s.

The Lone Ranger to Tonto: We're surrounded!

Tonto to the Lone Ranger: What you mean we, white man?

[Alan OldStudent]

Here’s another argument I use for raising the minimum wage to $15/hour.

According to an April 14 Washington Post article (http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/04/14/when-work-isnt-enough-to-keep-you-off-welfare-and-food-stamps/), 73% percent of public assistance recipients in the United States are working people. And according to a study at the University of California, Berkeley (http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/fast-food-poverty-wages-the-public-cost-of-low-wage-jobs-in-the-fast-food-industry/), nearly two-thirds of public assistance goes to working families. This means that American taxpayer shells out $152.8 billion a year to supplement poverty wages so employers with an entitlement attitude can get away with paying poverty wages. In other words, the employers rely on the welfare system to help defray their labor costs.

Here’s one way to look at this: A restaurant needs stoves, cash registers, and other items to make their businesses run. We call those necessary tools capital commodities. These capital commodities have a cost associated with acquiring and replacing them.

Labor power is also a capital commodity, and like the restaurant’s refrigerator, stove, tables, chairs, plates, cutlery, there is a cost associated with acquiring and replacing it when the worker quits or dies.

The cost that the employer pays to acquire this capital commodity is the workers’ wage. But as we all know, prices of a commodities do not always equal the value of those commodities. That’s why we can talk about some items being “overpriced” or “underpriced.”

The cost associated with acquiring and replacing labor power is the cost of living. In the City of Tacoma, that comes to around $15/hour for living in modest circumstances ($15/hour comes to $31,600/year for full-time work). But the minimum wage in Tacoma is only $9.47/hour ($19,082.05/year). That’s far below the official poverty rate for a family of 3. So who makes up the difference? It is the taxpayer who makes up the difference.

Most businesses, especially small businesses, fail within the first 5 years of their existence. The two main reasons are a lack of a viable business plan or under-capitalization. If a business can’t function unless it obtains public assistance to supplement labor costs, in any rational universe, it does not have a viable business plan. Such a business deserves to go under, according to the ideals of a free marketplace that the right-wingers are always yapping about.

It is these very same welfare-slurping business people who frequently lecture low-wage workers about self-reliance and how we need to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. They yammer about low-wage workers having an entitlement problem, and they preach about the blessings of capitalism. We’re the chosen people, the denizens of New Jerusalem. They exhibit all this self-righteous sanctimony while happily sticking their snouts into the welfare trough, sucking up taxes paid by slightly better-off workers.

***AOS***

[willowtooth]

why should someone need to be paid?

[Alan OldStudent]

why should someone need to be paid?

Planet earth to Willowtooth! You may not have noticed, but most working people who are grownups have bills to pay. That's why we need to be paid for our hard work. Are you for wage theft?

If yours is an opening gambit into a lecture about how communism will abolish wage slavery, please spare me the finely-honed arguments. I'm already all for abolishing the wage system.

Quick question: How do we get there from here? I'm talking about practical terms, you know. How do we convince a sizable enough percentage of the working class about the need for communism.

Please bear in mind that I was probably a communist before your father was born, have been jailed and blacklisted for my views.

Oh, by the way, can you please stick to the subject? The subject has to do with why unskilled labor deserves at least a US $15/hour minimum wage. So if you want to go on about abolishing wage slavery, please start a new topic.

***AOS***

[willowtooth]

Planet earth to Willowtooth! You may not have noticed, but most working people who are grownups have bills to pay. That's why we need to be paid for our hard work. Are you for wage theft?

If yours is an opening gambit into a lecture about how communism will abolish wage slavery, please spare me the finely-honed arguments. I'm already all for abolishing the wage system.

Quick question: How do we get there from here? I'm talking about practical terms, you know. How do we convince a sizable enough percentage of the working class about the need for communism.

Please bear in mind that I was probably a communist before your father was born, have been jailed and blacklisted for my views.

Oh, by the way, can you please stick to the subject? The subject has to do with why unskilled labor deserves at least a US $15/hour minimum wage. So if you want to go on about abolishing wage slavery, please start a new topic.

***AOS***

i don't think arguing for a $15 minimum wage is what communists should be concerned with, its not even leftist, its barely democratic, if you want me to throw up a bunch of stats as to why there should be a $15 federal reserve note issued per Gregorian hour, then I can do that, but I can also prove that a $35 min wage is a "good thing" if you really want me too

but as a leftist, I think that my reformist politics should always be to the further extreme of the status quo, meaning atleast argue for a $16 minimum wage

if that makes any sense:wub:

[Bala Perdida]

15??? Hell no. That won't even get me a trailer in the hood here. Get me $54/hr and I'll stop complaining. I mean not really cause work still sucks and we have to deal with piece-of-shit-complaining-tantrum-throwing-lawyer-wannabe-dumb-ass customers. Also I've never heard of anyone just pushing buttons. Flipping burgers sucks ass too. You think 'it's just burgers and fries'? Get your ass behind this grill and tell me it's just burgers and fries. I'm about to show you my qualifications by hand and tool. I'll be serving you up to the hospital. Ain't no customer talking shit. Yeah I get paid by the hour but this isn't even my only job. Even then I can't afford the shit you have. I'm about to smash up that wraped up Silverado. That'll be my overtime.

[willowtooth]

15??? Hell no. That won't even get me a trailer in the hood here. Get me $54/hr and I'll stop complaining.

they are both just meaningless figures

what you want is housing, food, medicine, and maybe a few luxuries. now if you lived in a culture where they taught you from childbirth how to hunt, gather, trap, and fish and build your own home and sew your own clothes you wouldn't need 899 pesos per hour.

Yet this society has taken our right of self determination and told us to "play the game" and you will be prosperous but it is in fact, a swindle and only the play on peoples minds to manipulate us into following dreams

we should focus on eliminating "the dream" (the american dream) and challenging people to innovate and solve problems today and not appeal to fascistic and primal elements like the great man theory, fashion, sports, nationalism, classism, and chauvinism.

[Alan OldStudent]

i don't think arguing for a $15 minimum wage is what communists should be concerned with, its not even leftist, its barely democratic,..
And I don’t think communists should abstain from an ongoing mass movement to better workers’ pay. This initiative will enact the toughest minimum-wage law in the nation if it passes, and our polling suggests it will.

If you were a Tacoma resident, would you oppose this initiative because it doesn’t demand $16/hour? If we changed it to $16/hour to satisfy you, would you still refuse to participate in it because it wasn’t $17/hour?

Tacoma is a working class town. The 15 Now Tacoma initiative has become the center of politics here and it dominates the local news coverage. It has educated a layer of workers about the exploitative nature of the system and has rattled the cages of some of the conservative union misleaders.

And what’s the problem with fighting for reforms? Are you opposed to fighting for reforms? Are you opposed to labor unions, which have as their mission negotiating the conditions of exploitation of workers?

Are you opposed to such moderate reforms as social security legislation, abolition of child labor laws, health and safety standards, unemployment insurance, retirement benefits, because they’re not radical enough? These demands, which are “barely democratic,” are reforms that workers have fought and bled for. Do you think their sacrifices were a waste, a hindrance to the development of working-class consciousness?


but as a leftist, I think that my reformist politics should always be to the further extreme of the status quo, meaning atleast argue for a $16 minimum wage
Why? Do you think it’s revolutionary to keep moving your immediate and transitional demands to the left of the mass movement? And why is that not just ultraleft posturing?


… if that makes any sense:wub:
Look comrade, I don’t mean to be rude or disrespectful, but actually, your position makes absolutely no sense to me at all. It’s balderdash! In fact, impossibilism makes no sense to me because it’s abstentionism under the flag of ultraradicalism.

***AOS***

[Bala Perdida]

they are both just meaningless figures

what you want is housing, food, medicine, and maybe a few luxuries. now if you lived in a culture where they taught you from childbirth how to hunt, gather, trap, and fish and build your own home and sew your own clothes you wouldn't need 899 pesos per hour.

Yet this society has taken our right of self determination and told us to "play the game" and you will be prosperous but it is in fact, a swindle and only the play on peoples minds to manipulate us into following dreams

we should focus on eliminating "the dream" (the american dream) and challenging people to innovate and solve problems today and not appeal to fascistic and primal elements like the great man theory, fashion, sports, nationalism, classism, and chauvinism.
I thought the rest of my post made it clear that this changes nothing.

[willowtooth]

And I don’t think communists should abstain from an ongoing mass movement to better workers’ pay. This initiative will enact the toughest minimum-wage law in the nation if it passes, and our polling suggests it will Sure but as others have said inflation and commodity futures exchange rates plus worker participation outflow rates (and other capitalist jargon) will just "even everything out" so whats the point lol?


If you were a Tacoma resident, would you oppose this initiative because it doesn’t demand $16/hour? If we changed it to $16/hour to satisfy you, would you still refuse to participate in it because it wasn’t $17/hour? ive been to tacoma white supremacist fuckin hell hole of a place stuck between the leftist cities of seattle and portland with more confederate flags than people if you ask me


Tacoma is a working class town. The 15 Now Tacoma initiative has become the center of politics here and it dominates the local news coverage. It has educated a layer of workers about the exploitative nature of the system and has rattled the cages of some of the conservative union misleaders. thats great ask for $20 per hour from now on


And what’s the problem with fighting for reforms? Are you opposed to fighting for reforms? Are you opposed to labor unions, which have as their mission negotiating the conditions of exploitation of workers? supporting labor unions are fine especially for selfish reasons, and reformist politics are fine if your bored, or being forced and under duress I guess:(


Are you opposed to such moderate reforms as social security legislation, abolition of child labor laws, health and safety standards, unemployment insurance, retirement benefits, because they’re not radical enough? These demands, which are “barely democratic,” are reforms that workers have fought and bled for. Do you think their sacrifices were a waste, a hindrance to the development of working-class consciousness?yes



Why? Do you think it’s revolutionary to keep moving your immediate and transitional demands to the left of the mass movement? And why is that not just ultraleft posturing?
sure I guess it could be seen as ultra left posturing


Look comrade, I don’t mean to be rude or disrespectfulthe hatred makes me stronger;)


, but actually, your position makes absolutely no sense to me at all. It’s balderdash! In fact, impossibilism makes no sense to me because it’s abstentionism under the flag of ultraradicalism.

***AOS*** I have never been called an absentionist under the flag of ultraradicalism before but I think i like it

[Alan OldStudent]

ive been to tacoma white supremacist fuckin hell hole of a place stuck between the leftist cities of seattle and portland with more confederate flags than people if you ask me

I’ve lived in Tacoma since 2002, and I’ve seen zero confederate flags. How long were you here? When were you here? What part of the city did you stay in?

Here’s a video of the types of flags and banners I’ve seen around here. Do you see any confederate flags in this video? It's basically a bunch of workers.

While you are looking at this video, bear in mind that 2 years ago, few of the workers thought about socialism or communism. Now a lot of them do.

QE6bhX3pSZc

[Ele'ill]

i don't think arguing for a $15 minimum wage is what communists should be concerned with, its not even leftist, its barely democratic, if you want me to throw up a bunch of stats as to why there should be a $15 federal reserve note issued per Gregorian hour, then I can do that, but I can also prove that a $35 min wage is a "good thing" if you really want me too

but as a leftist, I think that my reformist politics should always be to the further extreme of the status quo, meaning atleast argue for a $16 minimum wage

if that makes any sense:wub:

how about arguing against the condition of work instead of accepting the bread crumb initiatives of what are at this point class enemies

[RedMaterialist]

Sure but as others have said inflation and commodity futures exchange rates plus worker participation outflow rates (and other capitalist jargon) will just "even everything out" so whats the point lol?



Two myths have been exploded in the past 10 yrs or so: 1, That an increase in the minimum wage (or of wages in general) causes inflation; and 2, That an increase causes a rise in unemployment, especially among teenagers. You can google minimum wage, inflation and unemployment and find hundreds of references, (which, of course, you never hear about in the media.)

Marx argued in Wages, Prices and Profit that an increase in wages can only have a temporary effect on prices and that ultimately a wage increase can only cause a decrease in profits. He pointed out that, among other evidence, agricultural wages in the US were substantially higher than in England at the time yet food prices were much lower. The minimum wage in Australia is about $17 per hour, yet its inflation rate is about the same as the US.

Socialists should advocate for higher wages, minimum or otherwise, because of the resulting increase in worker standards of living and decrease in capitalist profit. Any claim that wage increases cause inflation and unemployment should be exposed as bullshit.

Another reason to advocate for an increase is that it is one of the most popular issues in the US. Whenever an increase is put to a vote, it almost always passes. It is an issue which directly confronts workers and capitalists, and the workers almost always win. You can use the election to organize for socialism.