PsychoSerenity wrote:Seth wrote:PsychoSerenity wrote:
But it's not me, it's society, it's democracy, it's a system of laws created over a period of time by people cooperating together to achieve more than they could alone.
And what's the ethical and moral basis for this collective decision?
The fact that it works.
Does it? And for whom does it work? Certainly not the business owner who's stuck with supporting an employee he doesn't need for life.
It provides a greater number of people a more productive society to live in. If you don't agree with it you are free to leave and live as a hermit.
Ah, the old tyranny of the majority argument. Why do the "greater number of people" have a moral claim to oppress the lesser number of people to satisfy their needs and wants? I believe that's generally referred to as "slavery" or "involuntary servitude." How do you morally justify enslaving others to labor on your behalf. And subjective utilitarian arguments of "it works" are particularly weak. Just because something "works" doesn't mean it's ethical or moral. Take Hitler for example, his "final solution" worked...for him. Not so much for the Gypsies and Jews.
What's the unintended consequence of mandating that an employer support every employee he hires for life?
Let's get this one out of the way. Nobody but you in this thread has talked about employers having to "support every employee he hires for life". The discussion was about employers ability to immediately dismiss employees without reason.
Okay, granted. Now, what do you mean, exactly, by "without reason." If I fire you because my profit margins have dropped because the market is soft, isn't that a "reason?"
Just what's happening in France right this minute...Young people with no work experience are not being hired by anybody and the unemployment rate for young people is skyrocketing...and they are beginning to riot.
Why would a business owner take a chance on hiring an untested, unknown new worker when there are thousands of older, experienced, seasoned workers available? Moreover, those older workers usually have families to support, and if the employer is going to be required to support that person for life, then it's in his interest to hire someone who is not only proven and experienced, but someone who is a net positive to society because he's a stable family man.
That's just one of the unintended consequences of this sort of socialist stupidity.
Nonsense.
Um...dude...it's observable fact. Even in the US, when there's a glut on the labor market, as there is during a recession, employers generally select from the cadre of experienced older employees rather than giving new workers a chance. That's why the unemployment rate among black teenagers and young adults exceeds 25% in many cities and approaches 45% in places.
All you have to do is go to any McDonalds in the US right now and see all the older, and even retired workers flipping burgers to prove this point. I went to WalMart yesterday and was helped by a man at the cashier's station who was at least 80 and obviously had some mental issues as he had difficulty remembering if he'd counted out the correct change or given me my receipt. But at least he's reliable (meaning he shows up when he's scheduled) and he's honest (I presume) and he has a great customer service attitude.
He's not some pimply-faced high schooler who spits on your burger because he hates "working for the man" and thinks (like he's been trained to do by the Marxists in the education system) that society owes him a living.
For you to say "nonsense" is complete nonsense.
The examples you give for why a business would hire one person over another apply equally in systems with and without workers rights.
Not so. When the economy is hot, and the labor pool is nearing empty, low level employers like fast-food joints who need unskilled or relatively unskilled workers have to choose from the dregs and they have to accept inferior quality. Again, this shows up in the fast-food industry almost immediately where competing fast food joints have to compete against each other to hire ANYONE to work for them to keep the doors open, so we end up with the aforesaid pimply high schooler with a bad attitude hocking lugis in our lunches, and the owner won't do a damned thing about it because if he does, he has to close his doors.
Some years ago exactly that happened to a friend of mine. A teenage boy with a shitty attitude working at an Arby's during a hot economy got offended by my friend asking him to correct his order, which the teen had screwed up. My friend opened up his sandwich after he got it and there was a giant yellow snot-ball on it. He reported it to the manager, who promptly fired the kid. The next day he went back to the Taco Bell right next door to the Arby's and was served by the same snot-nosed teenager, who had walked out of Arby's across the parking lot to Taco Bell, where he was hired immediately because at that time it was all but impossible to get ANYONE, including a Mexican illegal, to work in the fast-food industry because other, better paying jobs were going begging.
Workers rights have little to no effect on overall employment levels, which are driven primarily by demand for business.
True enough, overall. The labor demand must be met, and will be met, but not necessarily to the benefit of the individual company, as we can see from the example I just cited.
But economies are dynamic, and business owners must have the freedom to hire and fire as they find necessary and suitable to their immediate economic needs. Workers don't have a "right" to work at any particular job, they don't even have a right to work at ANY job. They are like any other merchant selling a commodity. Their commodity happens to be their labor skills, and if they have deficient or absent labor skills, then in a free market, just like the manufacturer of inferior widgets, they will not be competitive in the job market. Nor should they be. Giving an inferior worker a "right" to work only encourages that worker to remain inferior and not improve his skill set. This phenomenon can easily be observed in Cuba, for example, where a Denver newspaper reporter recently observed a small grocery store in Havana that had almost nothing on the shelves being staffed by SEVEN people, none of whom did anything at all, including offering to help the reporter find something he needed. Every one of those seven people was being paid by the Communist regime to stand around with their finger in their nose and their thumb in their ass and do absolutely nothing because under Communism Castro-style, they have a "right" to a job...even if it's a phony make-work position that's utterly useless to society.
And not one of those employees will ever be anything but a strap-hanging idler because there is absolutely no reason for them to improve their skill set, since they get paid the same under Castro if they are a grocery store worker or a physicist.
The problems in recent years have been caused by deregulated financial systems which have led to an almost entirely separate speculative economy, trading ownership of immaterial property for profits without any new investment, which does nothing but leach off the real economy as cash is hoarded by the wealthy, leaving the majority in debt and unable to pay for goods or services, stifling demand. But I'm not going to expect you to agree with any of that.
Do you really think that "the wealthy" stuff all that cash in their mattresses or fill up their vaults with it and "hoard" it like Scrooge McDuck?
If so, there's no reason to discuss economics with you because clearly you're too uneducated to be worth the time it takes to type the reply.
Let me ask you a question: Who do you think builds luxury yachts and trophy homes for "the wealthy," and what do you think they get paid with?
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth
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