“Off the back” sounds like the wealthy took advantage of folks when, in fact, they entered voluntary contracts in a win-win scenario. Creating a company is not exploitative but rather collaborative and mutually beneficial (with workers).
I feel like you'd have to give some evidence for the claims you are making (voluntary, win-win, creating a company being collaborative...) as long as the US doesn't have free health care,free housing and/or some form of UBI. "Take job where you have to pee in bottles or live in squalor" doesn't seem that voluntary to me
The onus is on the person making the claim to provide the evidence. Forming a company (that doesn't work in immoral areas) is a perfectly ethical and legal way of making money.
UBI is not the only solution. Islamic countries have for over 1400 years had the Zakat system, which provides for the poor and needy.
Yeah and I asked OP to provide evidence for their claims. Forming a company is not the same as making money of your workers, and just because it's allowed under the current rules doesn't mean it's ethical. Qnd regarding zakat, I know too little about it, but I'm wary of any solution which boils down to "charity" because that makes the receivers dependent on keeping their benefactors happy.
There are many places in the United States that have free healthcare, free or reduced price housing, and assistance payments for the poor and sick or injured. These things are paid for with public money through government programs.
Personally I think everyone deserves a certain level of dignity, especially when they're going through hard times. But I've also seen plenty of examples of people who "work the system", which makes it harder to get funding for social welfare programs.
Where are those places and why aren't people making use of them? I think at least one presidential candidate ran on a healthcare for all platform, so it seems like I'm not the only one who doesn't know this.
And it always strikes me as weird how willing people are to waste money and create inefficient systems only to keep some freeloaders from enjoying their life but balk at hunting down rich people for tax evasion, imposing proportional fines for offenses like they do in Finland or closing tax loop holes. I mean I think I understand why but I find it weird.
a) Undeveloped land is freely available, and anyone who wants to can go and cultivate it independently from anyone else, making a life entirely for themselves.
b) All land is already owned, and making a living must be achieved by exchanging (typically labour) with others.
Do you believe that people starting without capital in scenario b) will enter into contracts as freely as those starting without capital in scenario a)?
a) 100% of the world population can relocate globally without any need for visa so they can access the global job market and pick the best location
b) 1% of the world population has access to enough education to become highly skilled and be able to relocate legally. Everybody else has limited choice.
Another example:
a) Everybody has access to UBI and can freely choose to work or study or do volunteering, art etc
b) Unemployed people go hungry, homeless, get sick, get imprisoned
If you read the link, you'd learn that in the 10 most populous US states, 2.4 million minimum wage workers are victims of wage theft annually. This loss averages $3,300 per (full time, year round) worker per year, and just under $8 billion in total per year.
And that's only minimum wage workers, in a subset of the US.
Was there a particular reason you were under the impression that wage theft was uncommon?
This is a fantasy. Voluntary contracts imply that workers have the option of not working for starvation wages, which in many cases is simply not true. If your options are to work a dead-end minwage job or, well, die on the street, is it really a voluntary contract that you're entering? I would say not.
If all the companies that are willing to hire you equally treat you like crap, you aren't really given much choice. In terms of entrepreneurship, it carries a ton of risk. People living paycheck-to-paycheck typically aren't able to carry such a risk with no safety net (family, etc.).
Of course! You can choose:
- Not to work
- Move to a city/state with better opportunities
- Take classes to specialize
- Work hard and get promoted
- Start your business
Aren't these valid options? No "cigar smoking fat cat" force workers to sign the contract under duress.
For many people these are not valid options, no. If you grew up in a low-income household and entered a low-wage job, the likelihood of having sufficient savings to choose not to work, take time off to improve your skills, or move is very low.
How do you have the money to move, take classes, or start a business (business licenses cost $$$) if you are choosing between abusive/dead-end work and homelessness?
But wait, I thought building the company was collaborative? If I collaborated in building the company I work for, why would I want to leave it just to work for a different CEO? If all the workers agree that we need a different CEO, why can't we vote for it? After all, it's supposed to be a collaboration ....
It isn't voluntary when its the only game in town. My personal experience tells me the nature of work in the US is exploitative. Of course, experiences will vary, but I've never felt alone in this; on the contrary, in the Midwest "Living the Dream" is essentially shorthand for "I hate my job and everything about it". We're all living the dream, and boy does it suck.
Sure except one side gets a much larger benefit and the other side must enter into this style of contract with _someone_, or starve to death (in the typical case). Just to sidestep the debate over differing dictionary definitions of exploitation (to show my hand a bit though, I prefer the ones that are useful in describing how things have become the way they are, rather than the libertarian ones).
Not if the wealthy campaigned to keep the minimum wage below a living wage for the sake of a higher profit, while also subsidizing the welfare system so the taxpayers pick up the bill instead of the company owners.
Creating a company _should_ be collaborative, but our current capitalist system has actually become more exploitative.
That is a very naïve way to look at it. It is capitalism, and capitalism is brutal. So even if your view applies to some cases, it certainly does not to all.
Take Jeff Bezos' commentary after his ride into space for example:
> I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all this. So, to every Amazon customer out there and every Amazon employee thank you from the bottom of my heart.
I get it that we, the consumers paid for this trip. But his employees? What do they have to do with this? Isn't it supposed to be a "collaborative and mutually beneficial" relationship, which would imply that Bezos is not making money from his employees, but exclusively through them, and paying them what they deserve? Yet he claims that they paid for it, which implies that he is not paying them what they deserve, since it is the customer who is supposed to pay his salary, not the exploitation of his employees.
