Brexit Is Very Unfortunate Thing For EU Peaters, Here's Why

tankasnowgod

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Jan 25, 2014
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A person born into wealth wants to start a business in an area with high poverty and low opportunity so they can exploit the desperation? You legislate for minimum wage and use state power to strongly encourage union membership to empower worker bargaining.

This is one of your ideas I disagree with. Minimum Wage takes away opportunities from workers and smaller businesses. What business is it of the government's if I wish to sell my labor to an employer (whoever it may be for whatever reason) at $1.75 an hour? Which, by the way, was more than the minimum wage that Kennedy talked about in his debate with Nixon.

I also don't think most unions today serve the interest of workers. The less they are voluntary and most are somewhat compulsory, the less responsive they will get to the demands of their members. And if the state is "strongly encouraging" something, that's beginning to sound like force. Meet your strong central authority that you don't want to admit exists.
 

sunraiser

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Feb 21, 2017
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I wonder if Peat would think that identity politics is a means of interested elites to undermine class awareness or if he thinks, like some lefties, that identity politics really are a legit left concern.

To me it’s clear it’s devised to deflect and derail from class struggle. Divide and rule.

I absolutely think he'd agree with you. He almost directly says that in the medium article.
 

sunraiser

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Joined
Feb 21, 2017
Messages
549
This is one of your ideas I disagree with. Minimum Wage takes away opportunities from workers and smaller businesses. What business is it of the government's if I wish to sell my labor to an employer (whoever it may be for whatever reason) at $1.75 an hour? Which, by the way, was more than the minimum wage that Kennedy talked about in his debate with Nixon.

I also don't think most unions today serve the interest of workers. The less they are voluntary and most are somewhat compulsory, the less responsive they will get to the demands of their members. And if the state is "strongly encouraging" something, that's beginning to sound like force. Meet your strong central authority that you don't want to admit exists.

I don't think minimum wages are ideal either - I think union based sectoral collective bargaining agreements are better. Then workers and business owners both have an input into the process.

I understand the argument you're making about the "freedom" to sell your labour at whatever price you like, but even Adam Smith notes the working bargain isn't really a free choice unless you have the choice to opt out (i.e some kind of welfare state for basic needs).

When land and scarce resources are monopolised by a small few people that own most of the wealth, it creates the age old situation in which most workers must sell their labour to meet their basic needs. That means without unions or minimum wages it often isn't a freedom to sell your labour for a low wage, but a necessity (choose - exploitative wage or death). The market doesn't care about human needs or health in low skilled and menial areas.

Often you see corporate politicians refer to freedom in this way and it's a nothing but an ideological fallacy.

Lament your union experiences and critique them by all means. Figure out how to make them better, but the point I'm making above has to be a key idea in political discourse as it always has been. Class awareness is key, as Peat says.

People often say left wing politics is ideological and idealist, but I see neoliberalism and modern libertarianism as those things.

It baffles me that we can't agree on the need to acknowledge the idea I'm articulating. We might disagree on the solution and our experiences might shape us into having differing stances but I don't understand how this age old human conflict can be thrown out of discourse about human civilisation.
 
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