minimum wage

[Hermit]

Cost of living depends on food, consumer goods, energy and housing. If land is scarce and food is imported, you get the Japan situation.

That's what I thought, but I looked up some figures. The cost of food, consumer goods, energy and housing is less in Japan and the USA than in Australia. On the other hand it is not 56% and 48% of cost of living, though. Australians on the minimum wage are still better off than their counterparts in the other two countries I looked at. Plus, we live in Australia. That by itself makes us better off.

[Tero]

The Japanese settle for less. They are pretty cramped. Not quite Honk Kong yet.

The minimum wage has to go up, as the people doing the jobs will not do well in the long run. Eventually you will end up doing self service at these places, as they cannot hire enough staff. I'm surprised self checkouts are not standard for most shopping. It would depend on the toatal bill how much you need to watch the shoppers.

[SnowLeopard]

Isn't it rather counter productive to society to automate everything, then nobody has any jobs and no one can afford to go to the places that have automated things and we all starve to death except the 1% so we need to do a French and start killing the rich for being cunts exploiting the people VIVA REVOLUTION!

[pErvinalia]

Pretty much.

[MrJonno]

Isn't it rather counter productive to society to automate everything, then nobody has any jobs and no one can afford to go to the places that have automated things and we all starve to death except the 1% so we need to do a French and start killing the rich for being cunts exploiting the people VIVA REVOLUTION!

It's a flaw in capitalism in that it can make some things so efficient there aren't enough jobs to go around. The Free Market doesnt work so well when the unemployed petrol bomb it

If your neighbour is unemployed its your problem as much as his in the end

[Drewish]

[Tero]

Good stuff, keep the discusson going.

[Strontium Dog]

Graph's a bit out of date now, the UK minimum wage is £6.50, which is $10.72 at current exchange rates.

[Drewish]

Isn't it rather counter productive to society to automate everything, then nobody has any jobs and no one can afford to go to the places that have automated things and we all starve to death except the 1% so we need to do a French and start killing the rich for being cunts exploiting the people VIVA REVOLUTION!

It's a flaw in capitalism in that it can make some things so efficient there aren't enough jobs to go around. The Free Market doesnt work so well when the unemployed petrol bomb it

If your neighbour is unemployed its your problem as much as his in the end

How is it a flaw of capitalism? The automation really only appears to be occurring in nations with higher minimum wages. It looks like it's the minimum wages themselves that are incentivizing the automation. I'd much rather make it so low skilled workers get a pay check than a welfare check. The actual result of these laws is moving up the bottom rung of the economic ladder and creating a greater disparity between economic classes.

[MrJonno]

How is it a flaw of capitalism? The automation really only appears to be occurring in nations with higher minimum wages. It looks like it's the minimum wages themselves that are incentivizing the automation. I'd much rather make it so low skilled workers get a pay check than a welfare check. The actual result of these laws is moving up the bottom rung of the economic ladder and creating a greater disparity between economic classes.

Well actually its a flaw in relying on capitalism rather than capitalism itself. At least in the UK and presumably other countries the majority of 'welfare' goes to people on low paid jobs not the unemployed. In effect the state is subsidising Mcdonalds by topping up its employees wages so they can live. It's actually arguable if Mcdonalds if actually profitable if you took away those subsidies.

If the state is going to pay a significant % of the wages of an employer it might as well just nationalise the lot and take its share of the profits.

The minimum wage is in effect the maximum lifetime wage for a significant % of the population

[Drewish]

Nationalizing a multinational... with the justification of, "We were going to pay their workers welfare anyways." Are you joking?

[Tero]

That's about how it goes. Except the support network is so weak here, that the state and supply of cheap labor is not that predictable. It seems like there is enough now.

[JimC]

Having the highest minimum wage isn't hurting Oz very much at all. We've still got a higher rate of employment than many countries with lower minimum wages.

I know I'd much rather live in a country which doesn't treat the lowest rung of its population as expendable serfs...

[pErvinalia]

Productivity is the key word, Drewish, not wages. Productivity is what matters to businesses and apparently the economy. Once automation becomes more productive per unit cost, then automation will replace workers. Whether that is now in higher minimum wage countries, or later in lower minimum wage countries, it's going to happen. Capitalism is focussed solely on profits (therefore the obsession with productivity). Social effects are not part of the equation. Someone, was it Buckminster-Fuller(?), said that rising automation should by now have allowed us all to work less hours a week for the same standard of living. What's really happened is that as a society we've become obsessed with standard of living increases, and so everyone is working as hard if not harder than ever before in recent history (i.e. last 60 years or so). Those who don't do this, get left behind, both materially and socially.

Automation should allow us all to work less but still achieve increases in the standard of living. The trick is how to politically achieve that. The interesting thing is that those most affected by automation are those in the lower classes. I don't think the rich like the idea that the lower classes should work less than themselves yet be happy and contented. Neoliberal capitalism, after all, really relies on an exploited underclass for it to function correctly. Strange times ahead. Revolution would be appropriate, if you ask me.

[MrJonno]

Society has to come up with jobs that have a non-financial value to society, ie one society as a whole values but no one any one individual will pay for.

Capitalism can't deal with this, as in the end as a system it doesn't value employment in itself