I don't understand the first chart on the post linked to with the words global hollowing out. How can the employment share of the middle-paying third of jobs be anything other than one-third?
From my point of view, the existence of power imbalances between various market participants is just a basic and undeniable fact. That some market participants use their differential power to shape agreements more in line with their desires also seems like a fact of the market place.
Again, this is very vague. What exactly do you mean by "power imbalances" and "shape agreements more in line with their desires," and what problems do you think result from it?
What I think is that shared assumptions are doing a lot of the heavy lifting here. The problem is that these are only shared among the people who agree with you. Since I'm not really seeing any kind of rigorous argument here, or even entirely sure what exactly is being claimed, there's nothing solid for me to evaluate and accept or reject.
All that said, I think the issue at this point in the discussion is how to ameliorate or deflect some of the adverse effects of leverage in the marketplace, and if it’s even possible or prudent to attempt to do so.
Also, empirically, nominal wages seem to be resistant to downward pressures, even during times of high unemployment. It really isn't all that common for employers to use the threat of firing or layoffs to extract wage concessions.
One particular problem that jumps out at me is that "asymmetric power" would seem to me to imply either a monopoly or monopsony but not both. But the market for unskilled labor doesn't at all look like this. Unskilled workers are broadly interchangeable, as are the jobs that employ them. It's not exactly perfect competition, but it's pretty close.
Now, what I think you actually mean is that capitalists are rich and unskilled workers are poor. But I'm not aware of any reason to expect that to result in a situation that could reasonably be described as "asymmetric power."
I was replying specifically to Roger's comment, the one I quoted. I haven't read all the other comments, so I'm really not even sure how the topic morphed from the original one to this one. But regarding this:
However, since the capital holder and the poor are a clear case of asymmetric power, the potential exists for capital holders to engage in exchanges with the poor whereby the benefit is not relatively mutual, which is unjust.
I'd like to see a model describing how this works. As it is, I'm not convinced that you're describing a real phenomenon, but I'm also not entirely sure I understand what exactly the claim is, so I can't say for sure.
This isn’t about creating and allocating scarce resources among competing interests.
In a sense, it is. The bottom line is that if someone hadn't wandered by with a canteen, the prince would be dead. If it's possible to win a kingdom by patrolling the desert with water, then that creates an incentive to do just that, and people's lives will be saved as a result.
Granted, this is such a highly contrived and unlikely situation that if it happened once people might just assume that it's so unlikely ever to happen again as to make it not worthwhile.
But this logic applies much better to more commonplace scenarios than it does to highly improbable ones. It really is good that people can make money by "exploiting" the poor, because it gives them an incentive to creates opportunities for mutual benefit. Take the profit out of "exploiting" the poor, and they're forced to rely on what charity they can get.
Since we’re talking about coercion as the application of disproportionate power, the members of a privileged class of any sort ought to be fairly up front about the fact that they do indeed possess disproportionate power, even if the power is in a different category altogether.
It's worth noting that this rule tends to be applied asymmetrically. That is, a person's opinion on anti-discrimination law is to be discounted if he does not stand to benefit directly from it. But I don't recall anybody ever suggesting that a person's opinion on anti-discrimination law is to be discounted if he does not stand to be harmed by it.
That is, supporters of anti-discrimination laws will want to privilege the preferences of blacks over the preferences of whites. But they never say that we should privilege the preferences of business owners, who are vulnerable to frivolous discrimination lawsuits, over the preferences of those who are not.
Just as it's easy to oppose anti-discrimination law when you don't stand to benefit, it's easy to support it when you don't stand to bear the costs.
No. If it's your property, it's your property, and you can offer to sell it, or refuse to sell it, to any person at any price for any reason or none at all. And none of that is any of my business, or yours.
That said, real estate brokers are just brokers. If the actual owners of the properties aren't aware of this, I'd think that they'd have decent grounds to sue.
And again, there's the question of why anybody would want to live in a place where everyone treats them like this unless forced not to. Because living there is going to suck in a hundred other ways that the law can't do anything about. If someone really wants to live in a such a place, I don't think the law should intervene to stop them. But neither do I think it's such a terribly important issue to justify the severe compromise of property rights and the collateral damage.
Let's take out the middleman. Suppose we're in a world where all sales are by owner. And everybody lives in his own house. So a bunch of people are selling their own homes on Craigslist, and every single one of them has a John 3:16 discount. Do you think this is coercion?
Is the guy from Plano coercing? Or is he just nuzzling up to coercion?
Honestly, I don't understand why you're even asking this. A take-it-or-leave it offer like this is so obviously not coercion that this doesn't even strike me as a sensible question.
All well thought through comments about the dangers of government intervention.
But that's exactly what I was doing. Pointing out the dangers of government intervention in the context of a discussion in which they were being totally ignored. With no exception that I can recall, every single comment in this thread in support of anti-discrimination law has been about intended consequences (stopping discrimination), with no thought whatsoever given to the unintended consequences.
I'm considering both sides of the ledger; you guys aren't even acknowledging that another side exists.
Note that no one responding to this comment actually addressed the point that accounted for 80% of the comment's text: That there are real costs to anti-discrimination law.
But that's the whole point. You have to do cost-benefit analysis to justify a law, and you guys are just doing benefit analysis: If this stops just one person from being discriminated, it's worth it. But that's silly. The benefits have to outweigh the costs, and you're completely ignoring the costs.
It's almost as though this were entirely about signalling your tolerance. Through intolerance.
I don't know why I have to keep repeating myself, but for gay activists, this is a symbolic issue. They will not be happy as long as anyone, anywhere, is allowed to get away with discriminating against homosexuals. The fact that they support laws against anti-gay discrimination conveys no actual information.
The important question is whether anti-gay discrimination poses a real threat to homosexuals' ability to find employment or housing, and it pretty clearly does not, as evidenced by the fact that the vast majority of gay people are employed and not homeless.
And yes, obviously the fact that 78% of Americans think that we need laws against anti-gay discrimination supports my thesis. In addition to the 78% who support anti-discrimination laws, there are doubtless many who, like me, disapprove of anti-gay discrimination but do not think laws are necessary, and probably some who don't strongly object to others discriminating but would not do so themselves.
So suppose 10% of employers will not hire homosexuals, and 10% of landlords will not rent to them. I suspect that you're thinking right now that this is horrible, horrible, and that something must be done to put an end to this. Because for you it's about symbolism, and about punishing discrimination.
But it doesn't actually represent a real hardship. It means that on average a gay person will have to interview for 10% more jobs and look at 10% more apartments before finding one. I don't see that this is something so horrible that it justifies either the collateral damage (see my comment that started this subthread) or the massive compromise of property rights.
In fact, I would love for bigots to have the right to post "Homosexuals need not apply" signs in front of their places of business so that I could avoid patronizing them myself. Which is another drawback of anti-discrimination law: It suppresses information about who the bigots are.
On “Promises Were Broken”
I don't understand the first chart on the post linked to with the words global hollowing out. How can the employment share of the middle-paying third of jobs be anything other than one-third?
"
Now all the superrich have to do is make sure everyone has a job at 42k a year with a medical plan, and the protest will amount to nothing!
Seems to be heading that way on its own.
On “Coercion (again) and Power”
That was supposed to be in reply to Stillwater above. It's just as well, given that it had reached the nesting limit anyway.
"
From my point of view, the existence of power imbalances between various market participants is just a basic and undeniable fact. That some market participants use their differential power to shape agreements more in line with their desires also seems like a fact of the market place.
Again, this is very vague. What exactly do you mean by "power imbalances" and "shape agreements more in line with their desires," and what problems do you think result from it?
"
What I think is that shared assumptions are doing a lot of the heavy lifting here. The problem is that these are only shared among the people who agree with you. Since I'm not really seeing any kind of rigorous argument here, or even entirely sure what exactly is being claimed, there's nothing solid for me to evaluate and accept or reject.
"
All that said, I think the issue at this point in the discussion is how to ameliorate or deflect some of the adverse effects of leverage in the marketplace, and if it’s even possible or prudent to attempt to do so.
What exactly are those adverse effects?
"
And from this, you conclude...what, exactly?
"
Also, empirically, nominal wages seem to be resistant to downward pressures, even during times of high unemployment. It really isn't all that common for employers to use the threat of firing or layoffs to extract wage concessions.
"
If jobs are harder to come by than workers, that's a sign that wages are too high, not too low.
"
One particular problem that jumps out at me is that "asymmetric power" would seem to me to imply either a monopoly or monopsony but not both. But the market for unskilled labor doesn't at all look like this. Unskilled workers are broadly interchangeable, as are the jobs that employ them. It's not exactly perfect competition, but it's pretty close.
Now, what I think you actually mean is that capitalists are rich and unskilled workers are poor. But I'm not aware of any reason to expect that to result in a situation that could reasonably be described as "asymmetric power."
"
I was replying specifically to Roger's comment, the one I quoted. I haven't read all the other comments, so I'm really not even sure how the topic morphed from the original one to this one. But regarding this:
However, since the capital holder and the poor are a clear case of asymmetric power, the potential exists for capital holders to engage in exchanges with the poor whereby the benefit is not relatively mutual, which is unjust.
I'd like to see a model describing how this works. As it is, I'm not convinced that you're describing a real phenomenon, but I'm also not entirely sure I understand what exactly the claim is, so I can't say for sure.
"
More concisely, rules that intuitively seem fair in a one-off game can lead to inefficient outcomes in an iterated game.
"
This isn’t about creating and allocating scarce resources among competing interests.
In a sense, it is. The bottom line is that if someone hadn't wandered by with a canteen, the prince would be dead. If it's possible to win a kingdom by patrolling the desert with water, then that creates an incentive to do just that, and people's lives will be saved as a result.
Granted, this is such a highly contrived and unlikely situation that if it happened once people might just assume that it's so unlikely ever to happen again as to make it not worthwhile.
But this logic applies much better to more commonplace scenarios than it does to highly improbable ones. It really is good that people can make money by "exploiting" the poor, because it gives them an incentive to creates opportunities for mutual benefit. Take the profit out of "exploiting" the poor, and they're forced to rely on what charity they can get.
On “So What Do We Do About College Athletics?”
I don't have a lot of strong opinions on this issue, but I'm dead set against putting them in boxes and selling them to the highest bidders.
On “Coercion (again) and Power”
Since we’re talking about coercion as the application of disproportionate power, the members of a privileged class of any sort ought to be fairly up front about the fact that they do indeed possess disproportionate power, even if the power is in a different category altogether.
It's worth noting that this rule tends to be applied asymmetrically. That is, a person's opinion on anti-discrimination law is to be discounted if he does not stand to benefit directly from it. But I don't recall anybody ever suggesting that a person's opinion on anti-discrimination law is to be discounted if he does not stand to be harmed by it.
That is, supporters of anti-discrimination laws will want to privilege the preferences of blacks over the preferences of whites. But they never say that we should privilege the preferences of business owners, who are vulnerable to frivolous discrimination lawsuits, over the preferences of those who are not.
Just as it's easy to oppose anti-discrimination law when you don't stand to benefit, it's easy to support it when you don't stand to bear the costs.
On “The Intersection of Government Coercion and Private Discrimination”
Note to self: Do not enter off-the-record comments into permanent, publicly searchable databases.
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Ha! I officially disapprove of fraud, but off the record, that's awesome.
"
No. If it's your property, it's your property, and you can offer to sell it, or refuse to sell it, to any person at any price for any reason or none at all. And none of that is any of my business, or yours.
That said, real estate brokers are just brokers. If the actual owners of the properties aren't aware of this, I'd think that they'd have decent grounds to sue.
And again, there's the question of why anybody would want to live in a place where everyone treats them like this unless forced not to. Because living there is going to suck in a hundred other ways that the law can't do anything about. If someone really wants to live in a such a place, I don't think the law should intervene to stop them. But neither do I think it's such a terribly important issue to justify the severe compromise of property rights and the collateral damage.
Let's take out the middleman. Suppose we're in a world where all sales are by owner. And everybody lives in his own house. So a bunch of people are selling their own homes on Craigslist, and every single one of them has a John 3:16 discount. Do you think this is coercion?
"
Is the guy from Plano coercing? Or is he just nuzzling up to coercion?
Honestly, I don't understand why you're even asking this. A take-it-or-leave it offer like this is so obviously not coercion that this doesn't even strike me as a sensible question.
On “For God So Loveth Ye That His Servant In Plano, Texas Doth Giveth Ye An Affordable Oil Change”
All well thought through comments about the dangers of government intervention.
But that's exactly what I was doing. Pointing out the dangers of government intervention in the context of a discussion in which they were being totally ignored. With no exception that I can recall, every single comment in this thread in support of anti-discrimination law has been about intended consequences (stopping discrimination), with no thought whatsoever given to the unintended consequences.
I'm considering both sides of the ledger; you guys aren't even acknowledging that another side exists.
"
Note that no one responding to this comment actually addressed the point that accounted for 80% of the comment's text: That there are real costs to anti-discrimination law.
But that's the whole point. You have to do cost-benefit analysis to justify a law, and you guys are just doing benefit analysis: If this stops just one person from being discriminated, it's worth it. But that's silly. The benefits have to outweigh the costs, and you're completely ignoring the costs.
It's almost as though this were entirely about signalling your tolerance. Through intolerance.
"
I don't know why I have to keep repeating myself, but for gay activists, this is a symbolic issue. They will not be happy as long as anyone, anywhere, is allowed to get away with discriminating against homosexuals. The fact that they support laws against anti-gay discrimination conveys no actual information.
The important question is whether anti-gay discrimination poses a real threat to homosexuals' ability to find employment or housing, and it pretty clearly does not, as evidenced by the fact that the vast majority of gay people are employed and not homeless.
And yes, obviously the fact that 78% of Americans think that we need laws against anti-gay discrimination supports my thesis. In addition to the 78% who support anti-discrimination laws, there are doubtless many who, like me, disapprove of anti-gay discrimination but do not think laws are necessary, and probably some who don't strongly object to others discriminating but would not do so themselves.
So suppose 10% of employers will not hire homosexuals, and 10% of landlords will not rent to them. I suspect that you're thinking right now that this is horrible, horrible, and that something must be done to put an end to this. Because for you it's about symbolism, and about punishing discrimination.
But it doesn't actually represent a real hardship. It means that on average a gay person will have to interview for 10% more jobs and look at 10% more apartments before finding one. I don't see that this is something so horrible that it justifies either the collateral damage (see my comment that started this subthread) or the massive compromise of property rights.
In fact, I would love for bigots to have the right to post "Homosexuals need not apply" signs in front of their places of business so that I could avoid patronizing them myself. Which is another drawback of anti-discrimination law: It suppresses information about who the bigots are.
On “The Intersection of Government Coercion and Private Discrimination”
It's coercive in precisely the sense that it's coercive to keep unwanted intruders out of your home.
On “Occupy Wall Street”
The people who disagree aren't really people.
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They're against greed, Burt. Why aren't you with them? Are you for greed?
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.