[NYYS]

A labor force made up of Poli Sci majors is not a skilled labor force, sorry.

yeah, because they're all poli sci majors.

Income gains for everyone charted on that graph except the 60th percentile and up all but collapsed after the early 70s, consistent with my narrative of the situation.

Your narrative is that no one but the best of the best have seen increases in income since 1970. That is not at all reflected in the chart.

Wages are less than a third of manufacturing costs. That's why the conventional wisdom that deindustrialization is related to cheap wages abroad is wrong.

How do you figure that? 1/3 of expenses is a large amount, if that number could be pared down further there would be far greater economic profits.

What?

see above. If your expenses eat up all your economic profits you can't reinvest at the preferable higher rate, regardless of your intentions.

whereas the workers have huge human and productive potential

no they don't.

[Dr House]

Your narrative is that no one but the best of the best have seen increases in income since 1970. That is not at all reflected in the chart.

The chart shows wages rising, over the last 40 years, more or less $3,000 for the 20th percentile (15% gain), around $10,000 for the 40th percentile (25% gain), and $20,000 for the 60th percentile (35% gain). For the 80th percentile, the gains were around $50,000 (45% gain) and for the 95th percentile the gains were about $80,000 (65% gain). Assuming an inflation reporting shortfall of 33% over the last 40 years (which is a very generous estimate), the entire bottom half of the population saw its income decline since the 70s and the 60th percentile saw its income stagnated. Only the upper-middle and upper classes saw any real income gains at all. And that's not even getting into the fact that this chart shows household income, which has increasingly over time been dependent on two income earners rather than one. Male wages have declined over 25% in real terms even using government inflation stats, which means women in families with children have increasingly been forced to enter the workforce simply so the family can avoid crushing poverty.

How do you figure that? 1/3 of expenses is a large amount, if that number could be pared down further there would be far greater economic profits.

Yeah, but my point is that labor being a minority portion of the cost of production, the developed world has a locational advantage over the developing world by having much cheaper capital costs in addition to a more productive labor force. Hence, the presence of high wages in the developed world are not necessarily detrimental to corporate profits.

see above. If your expenses eat up all your economic profits you can't reinvest at the preferable higher rate, regardless of your intentions.

Obviously if you're spending uneconomical amounts of money on labor you can't reinvest, but organically high wages would not exist if this were the case. Up until the late 60s, the US led the world in technological innovation even as it offered the world's highest wages.

[Potemkin]

It's an ethical position.

You mean you're a bleeding-heart liberal?

I can't justify it rationally.

The thing which both Marxists and libertarians have in common is that we can justify our positions rationally. We start from different premises, of course, but we both try to be rational. It's irrational guilt-ridden liberals whose position I have difficulty understanding.

Why are you concerned with which class rules?

If you were ruled over by a bunch of sneering, snobbish imbeciles who owe their status only to who their parents were, you would care about which class rules too.

[NYYS]

If you were ruled over by a bunch of sneering, snobbish imbeciles who owe their status only to who their parents were, you would care about which class rules too.

That's an emotional position as well.

Assuming an inflation reporting shortfall of 33% over the last 40 years (which is a very generous estimate)

Generous? That's gigantic. Let's see some rationale for that.

Yeah, but my point is that labor being a minority portion of the cost of production, the developed world has a locational advantage over the developing world by having much cheaper capital costs in addition to a more productive labor force. Hence, the presence of high wages in the developed world are not necessarily detrimental to corporate profits.

Your position is that sometimes the higher labor costs just come with the territory of being a developed nation (all the benefits that come with being developed). Which is fine, but my argument is that wouldn't it be great if you had cheap labor as well as all the benefits of a developed nation?

[Potemkin]

That's an emotional position as well.

Partly, but not primarily. The essential point is that the rigid class hierarchy which capitalism both generates and entrenches is detrimental to the full development of each individual's human and productive potential. It therefore becomes a blockage preventing the further development of the forces of production of society as a whole. That is not an emotional position; it is an objective one. If I believed that the class hierarchy was both fair and was not a blockage preventing the further development of the productive forces of society, I would not oppose it. Why would I?

[NYYS]

is detrimental to the full development of each individual's human... ...potential

What do you mean by "human potential?"

If I believed that the class hierarchy was both fair and was not a blockage preventing the further development of the productive forces of society, I would not oppose it. Why would I?

That's fair, at least you're not rambling about oppression and equality and fairness and whatever nonsense.

[Potemkin]

What do you mean by "human potential?"

If a child is brought up on the 15th floor of a tower block in South London by a drug addict unemployed single parent, and attends an underfunded state school, and has no real job prospects even if he or she studies hard at school because of the de-industrialisation of the economy, would you say that that child has the possibility of fulfilling its human potential, or not?

[Dr House]

You mean you're a bleeding-heart liberal? :eh:

Of course not. All ethical bases are self-evident. Mine is utilitarianism (the mosty good for the most people).

The thing which both Marxists and libertarians have in common is that we can justify our positions rationally. We start from different premises, of course, but we both try to be rational.

Libertarians cannot justify their ethical basis rationally either. Either they are concerned with societal welfare (like I am), self-interest (like Yankees seems to be for the most part), or a mystical conception of Lockean natural rights that they never bother to justify.

Generous? That's gigantic. Let's see some rationale for that.

I read a study last year that measured an independent consumer goods basket which included food and fuel (which as you know were excluded from the CPI in the early 60s). According to it, by including the goods excluded by core inflation accounting (the price of which is a component of cost of living), you get an increase in the inflation rate of a little under 1% a year. Cumulative over 40 years, that's over 40%, hence my description of a 33% shortfall as generous. And that's not even getting into further manipulation of the CPI done under the Reagan and Clinton administrations. The Reagan real estate adjustment makes sense given people don't buy a house very often, but none of the Clinton-era adjustments made any sense, and in particular all of them were bogus because they only concerned themselves with downward adjustments. For example, quality indexing erased inflation based on quality improvement, but did not erase deflation based on quality decline.

Your position is that sometimes the higher labor costs just come with the territory of being a developed nation (all the benefits that come with being developed). Which is fine, but my argument is that wouldn't it be great if you had cheap labor as well as all the benefits of a developed nation?

Depends. Better for who?

Partly, but not primarily. The essential point is that the rigid class hierarchy which capitalism both generates and entrenches is detrimental to the full development of each individual's human and productive potential. It therefore becomes a blockage preventing the further development of the forces of production of society as a whole. That is not an emotional position; it is an objective one. If I believed that the class hierarchy was both fair and was not a blockage preventing the further development of the productive forces of society, I would not oppose it. Why would I?

Why are you concerned with human potential, or the productive forces of society?

[Potemkin]

Why are you concerned with human potential, or the productive forces of society?

Because I believe that this is the driving force of all social and human progress. As an atheist, I invest immanent human society with the burden of meaning with which most people invest God or the Dao or whatever. The meaning which those people find in God or in the Dao, I find in the progressive development of human society. The meaning of history is precisely this development of the forces of production in human society and the associated cultural and human development. As Walter Benjamin put it in his Nine Theses on the Philosophy of History, "There is a storm blowing out of paradise.... We call this storm 'progress'." This is related to the Hegelian root of Marxist philosophy: Hegel believed that human history is a gradual progression towards the realisation of the Absolute. Reinterpreted in materialist terms, that is also my belief.

[Dr House]

Because I believe that this is the driving force of all social and human progress.

Right, but why are you concerned with advancing human progress?

[Potemkin]

Right, but why are you concerned with advancing human progress?

Because only human progress can create a world in which each individual is able to achieve their full human and productive potential. The attempt to create such a world constitutes the meaning of human history.

[Dr House]

Because only human progress can create a world in which each individual is able to achieve their full human and productive potential.

And why is this desirable?

[Paradigm]

If you were ruled over by a bunch of sneering, snobbish imbeciles who owe their status only to who their parents were, you would care about which class rules too.

Are you suggesting that's not the case in his country?

[Potemkin]

And why is this desirable?

Is it more desirable to live in a modern 21st century developed nation or in a cave during the Neolithic period?

[Dr House]

Are you suggesting that's not the case in his country?

It's not the case in mine, or in yours. Not to the extent that it is in his.

Is it more desirable to live in a modern 21st century developed nation or in a cave during the Neolithic period? :eh:

Of course not, but that's related to technological progress, which if the Soviet experience is anything to go by a dictatorship of the proletariat will actually decline rather than accelerate.

[ninurta]

Is it more desirable to live in a modern 21st century developed nation or in a cave during the Neolithic period?

It all depends on where you live. I am liking the 21st century over here, but in some places even a dumpster is a better home.

[Potemkin]

Of course not, but that's related to technological progress, which if the Soviet experience is anything to go by a dictatorship of the proletariat will actually decline rather than accelerate.

Technological progress is itself driven by economic and social progress. The ancient Greeks had the steam engine, but only used it to move giant statues in their temples in order to awe the great unwashed masses. The British had the steam engine in the 18th century, and used it to power their manufacturing machinery and create mechanised mass production for the first time in human history. That's an economic and cultural difference, not a technological one. And the USSR put the first satellite in orbit and the first man in space, just a few decades after being an agrarian society of serfs. How were they not technologically advanced?

[Dr House]

Th USSR excelled in aerospace and military technology, where it had a direct competitor (the US), but it always lagged far behind the west in civilian technology.

[Potemkin]

Th USSR excelled in aerospace and military technology, where it had a direct competitor (the US), but it always lagged far behind the west in civilian technology.

What do you mean by 'civilian technology'? I grant you that the Soviet Union's neglect of computer technology in the 1950s and 60s led to serious consequences in the 1980s, but what other examples are you thinking of?

[DanDaMan]

Th USSR excelled in aerospace and military technology, where it had a direct competitor (the US), but it always lagged far behind the west in civilian technology.

And just how much of the Russian GDP was used for that compared to the USA?