Thankfully the UK didn't follow France into the anarchy that was the French Revolution, and Earl Grey could make them see reason. But damn did we come close.
The threat of violence that the worker wielded against their employer was indeed a good incentive to keep things amicable.
Nowadays, we don't know where the Lords necessarily live, the size of the Lords private armies don't need to be more than a handful of security guards, and AI/Robotics is diminishing the need for that handful of guards at all.
I don't know why, median house prices are even factor at all in what you think you wage you a wage you accept would be. If you can't afford a house, that means you have to lower your case. There are lots of people who live in less than median houses. That's part of the way averages and statistics work. If you don't like the median house prices, you may have to look at what's going on in your city that the house prices are so high. There are certainly issues in Silicon Valley that need to be addressed, but they are not issues of wages. They are other issues that they need to address. You are always welcome to live in a house that is lower than the median wage and that may be what is needed in order to afford something.
In the United Kingdom, a third of people claiming government assistance are in employment. Over 50% of those buying their first home get gifted money from their parents to do so. Starting from nothing means playing a rigged game. It's like playing Monopoly, where one player starts out with half of the cards and everyone else thinks they can win if they strategise well enough.
Many core economic theories that are taught about productivity and pay are wrong. Anyone living in the real world can see that marginal productivity and price theory are wrong. If the game was perfectly fair, these theories may have some weight, however there's a multitude of factors that skew the board. Poor compensation does have consequences, and they may be felt by individual businesses. However, by and large, these consequences are offloaded on to the rest of society.
The new deal in America roughly got things correct, and was followed by the greatest expansion of the middle class in history. What we're suffering from today is the systematic destruction of that social contract.
They can be use to predict and not predict anything depending on ones idea of "used correctly", which is why it's nonsense.
Rather, the powerful will turn on each other and start waging war eventually, and the expendable bodies used in that is everyone else.
> Now at some point, the humans involved in handing out currency decided that too many people were living too nicely.
The origins of currency are mysterious. There were certainly some number of kings and tribal chiefs who minted coins and handed them out, mostly I think to soldiers. There were also traders using whatever coins and other small valuable objects. But I don't think anybody decided anything, except when messing around with taxes. I suppose company scrip comes closest to this vision, where your lack of money is determined by the mastermind who also creates it and hands it out and decides everybody's roles. That or communism. Generally no, it's not a rigged game, it's a messy brawl.
I disagree with the commenter that your replied to directly, who seems to believe the world is a zero-sum game. However it's also naive to believe that the game is not rigged, and that those who complain simply lack creativity.
In a healthy society, choosing to work to serve others 40 hours a week, should afford you the ability to acquire enough capital to buy a small house and start a family after 10 years. Unfortunately, this is now unachievable in many parts of the world.
Think he’s wrong about this being close to blowing up. Think that’s coloured by his own personal situation. I suspect unfortunately the powers that be correctly read the situation as significantly more room to squeeze.
It might read as bad to usa ears but keep in mind there are people breaking down ships with zero safety, zero job security, low pay, bad equipment and certain heath impact etc. People will bear crazy stuff and still show up to work
Because the "in the real world" alternative is so much worse. In theory: "Workers unite!", in practice: "Lose your home".
The difference is my desperation for the job. I had to pay for my studies back when 1$ an hour seemed like more than nothing.
Now working for less than 50$ feels like being exploited. This is the matter of perspective and situation in life, you can never fix it for everyone in the world. There will always will be people like me who will work for 1$ an hour because they have needs to meet and scholarships or handouts don't make up for it all.
An effective attack? I would say, not really. (Has he improved the economic lot of the people who voted for him? No, he hasn't.) But the sentiment is there to "tear it all down", and it's resulting in action, at least at the voting booth.
Is it resulting in direct action in the streets? Not yet. But we may be closer than you think. (Or perhaps I should have said "not currently". BLM, for example, was kind of in that direction.)
You could just as easily say Europeans are entitled because their salaries are high compared to an Ethiopian. It’s not a useful comparison
Perhaps another US state would have been a better comparison. It might be hard for a software developer in Montana to identify with a Silicon Valley rant about salaries being too low.
It would not cross my mind personally to complain about low compensation for my skilled work, precisely because I know my collegaues from areas with lower compensation are just as skilled and earn less. In what way would the world be better off if I was better paid? If it helped my company increase their security posture then that would say more about the ineffective ways we organize work around here than anything else.
I'm writing this because I don't consider NL to be the top country in Europe where you can make a lot of money being a SWE. And I'm not talkin about FAANG salaries either, they are higher here.
Of course the downside are absurd taxes, up to 62% on a large part of that, so I hope people try to escape that as much as they can (considering the politicians and the wealthy do the same just orders of magnitude more and in the open).
2. You have to take the numbers relative to corporate profits and shareholder earnings, which have ballooned
When the incentives of workers favours burning buildings rather than working for wages, the next step is either to use force/control or to rebalance wages.
Signed, Anyone who you'd like to care
Today is international workers day and we are sharing a capuccino with my colleague.
