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From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Labor Market (re: Discrimination)
Message-ID: <777@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 15-Jul-85 01:23:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.777
Posted: Mon Jul 15 01:23:00 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Jul-85 14:57:32 EDT
References: <8204@ucbvax.ARPA> <1340264@acf4.UUCP>
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 63

In article <1340264@acf4.UUCP> mms1646@acf4.UUCP (Michael M. Sykora) writes:

>>He is
>>unwilling to recognize what US law has for close to a century: that the
>>labor market is controlled by the employers, who are capable (and willing)
>>to set the wages at whatever level they want, for whatever reason they want.

>You must be joking, Charley!  How about some theoretical reasoning to
>justify this claim, including, of course, a refutation of the law of
>supply and demand (there's a Nobel prize in it for you).  How about some
>empirical evidence to back up this claim.

Theoretical reasoning can wait; supply and demand (in the Smithian fashion)
can only be assumed to work in a system of near perfect competition.  Many
towns exist in a near-monopoly situation with regards to the labor market
(it's work at Mecca Steel or leave town); only the most pig-headed
classicists would argue that supply and demand work according to their usual
fashion.

As for empirical evidence, why don't you read up on the early history of
labor movements.

>>The fact that we have labor unions is sufficient demonstration that
>>employers are quite willing to set unreasonable wages.

>And the fact that there are bigots in the world is "sufficient demonstration"
>that some ethnic groups are inferior, right?
>Is this some new form of logic you are employing?  Please expound.

False analogy!!!! The correct analogy would be to say that the existence of
the NAACP and the SCLC is sufficient demonstration of racial bigotry.  (I
had really hoped that you had learned something about argument after all
this.)

>>They do not have the money to resist the illegal
>>actions of their employers, nor do they have the choice of picking up and
>>moving away.

>This is indeed unfortunate and should be corrected by law.  The government
>should protect these people from illegal actions of employers and anyone
>else, THAT is its job.

How?  How?  How?  That's the whole point.  That's why we have restrictive
labor laws in this country.  I'm much more inclined to rely on the present
system, which can be adjusted as we go along, rather than Mike's system,
which seems to rely on equal parts of optimism about human nature and
economic magic.  (And I had always wondered why they called it voodoo
economics.)  Mike, I want to know what KIND of laws you are going to enact to
fix this problem, and how they are going to be enforced.  If you are going
to have any sort of nebulous law, than I think it's readily demonstratable
that the current system is superior; it';s flexible, and your's isn't.

>>Besides, if the secretary secretly runs the whole thing, why isn't she paid
>>commensurately?

>If the secretary runs the whole thing, why is he/she still a secretary?

You tell me.  I don't know, and besides, I'M not the one who thinks that her
present plight is proper and just.

Charley Wingate  umcp-cs!mangoe

"You've disintegrated Einstein!"