Most overpaid/underpaid profession? - Page 29

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First thing is, I view equal opportunity and income parity as two different things. Interconnected yes but not one and the same. So, I prefer to talk about them separately.

When you were talking about disparity in income, I think you were talking more about wage slavery. I agree that wage slavery exists in many parts of the world. Apart from the underdeveloped and developing countries it might even exist in some jobs of a developed country. I also agree that wage slavery is wrong and such practices should be eliminated. What I am not agreeing with is your solution or the method by which you want to eradicate such malpractices.

If what you're saying is correct and the rich are getting richer by robbing the poor, then what you're suggesting is rob the rich to pay the poor. But my concern is that there will be people who are earning comparatively higher than the others but actually achieved it through their own merit and ability. In fact most are doing it on their own merit and ability. Why should we penalise them?

 

The path that you're suggesting, with government control in everything and equal pay for everyone, is communism. We have already tried that and it has failed. As Gauri had pointed out earlier, it robs people of the desire to excel because they know that they won't be rewarded for their extra effort. It's the general law of nature that someone will emerge as the leader, some as followers and some will simply remain where they were. If in capitalism we end up with rich, middle class and poor; in socialism/ communism we will end up with the powerful, followers of powerful and the powerless. It's bound to happen. We can't force that to change, neither will it be right to force everyone to be even. Only thing we can control is how one acquires their wealth or power, i.e. we can see to it that they go only by fair means.

 

Talking about communism and how it can be discouraging for some people – if someone comes up with a brilliant idea and because of that we are able to create considerable wealth, he'll expect to be rewarded for that. If we say 'Thanks to your idea, our state coffers are now richer by a billion but hey we will reward each worker including you with hundred bucks', I don't think he will feel very happy about it. And next time he has a good idea he won't even bother to come forward to share it. What we're effectively doing is asking the intelligent to dumb down or atleast not expect any rewards for their intelligence, while we're assuring the dumb that they'll be rewarded for the efforts of the intelligent. The mediocre will remain where they are. However, the nation as a whole when compared to other nations will slowly decline as personal initiatives and idea generation dry up due to lack of personal motivation. You might say that it is selfish to seek personal rewards but that's how people work and we simply can't ignore reality.

 

According to me communism, socialism, capitalism none of them work when implemented as a standalone economic policy. These economic models are for the ideal scenarios. But in real life, the market is far from perfect. There'll be businessmen who'll try to take undue advantage of others. There'll be workers who will demand more than they deserve. There'll be overachievers but there'll be a lot of underachievers as well. Free trade is necessary but so are controls to ensure free trade remains fair as well. So, I will agree with RTH on this one. In reality it's better to have a mix of both capitalism and socialism (maybe communism also but I don't favour that) and as RTH had said, most countries currently follow a mix of both.

 

Capitalism alone can give rise to powerful syndicate and politician nexus who'll try to control the entire market and eventually the country. On the other hand socialism alone will give rise to complacency. A country can't run on welfare programs and will eventually go bankrupt. In complete capitalism, an individual might end up with disproportionately large amount of wealth, much of which may not enter the economic cycle and thus will never benefit others. In complete socialism, surplus ends up with the state and thus will not completely benefit those who actually worked for it.

To keep people motivated and to encourage trade we need capitalism but to ensure fairness and to see that a section of the population doesn't get deprived altogether we need government intervention as well in the form of socialism.

 

Next, if we talk about profit sharing. The objection I had with your suggestion of profit sharing is, if a company is supposed to give away it's profits to it's employees then in that case employees should also be asked to shoulder the burden of losses. It's only fair, but you never mentioned it. So I asked you, shouldn't we ask the employees whether they are ready to accept that responsibility or not? If I say to a simple assembly line worker that he will get paid only if we are able to sell the goods that he is helping us in manufacturing, will he accept? For him he has already put in his effort. Selling the goods is someone else's responsibility and if the salesman fails I don't see any reason why the assembly line worker should take blame, unless the salesman failed to sell because of some negative quality of the product that was due to the assembly line worker's fault during production. Point is, if he's not ready to be penalised for other's failure, then he shouldn't expect to be rewarded for other's success either.

Moreover, there can be another possible scenario. Employee A might work hard in a company during a period when it was going through financial hardship and so will not get much money during that period because of less or no profit. Employee A helps the company to recover but then moves to another company. Employee B comes in A's place. Now, B will enjoy the benefit of a profitable company that actually is A's credit. Employee A never got the reward for his own efforts.

 

Anyways, I'll say that you lost sight of the primary aim when you were talking about profit sharing. The aim is not to share profits; it's only a means that you were suggesting. Aim is to pay everyone their fair share of wages. Instead of vehemently defending profit sharing, we can also look at other alternatives. For example, we place a check where we say that the labour and human resource cost (you can even break it up by levels to ensure that whole of it is not given to the top level) should make up atleast a certain percentage of the final selling price of the product or service. We can ensure healthy wages for everyone in this manner and we will also be able to reward those who will put in more effort as this structure will give us more flexibility. Additionally the profit of the owner will be under control but at the same time he won't feel deprived if he does do a good job of managing the company and thus generate high revenue.

It's just another suggestion though and there can be other ways which might be even better.

 

Once again, coming back to Nike example and sweatshops. Any business will try to put in place policies that will make it harder for it's competitor's to survive. There is nothing wrong with it either as long as they adhere to certain ethics and fair play. But there will always be people who'll try to break those ethics and fair play rules and it should be upto us that they're not able to do so.

Maybe you're thinking that I don't give a damn about those people. In a way you are correct. I will never accurately know and I can never fully appreciate their situation. But I do know this, that a nation which wants to move ahead should take care of it's people; and a nation which truly cares for it's people will do everything to ensure that they don't have to work in sweatshops.

 

Again it's not your concern for such people that I was against, it was your remedy that I am opposed to. You think closing Nike sweatshops will solve the problem. I think it won't. If not Nike, then Reebok. If not Reebok, then someone else. As long as the condition persists there'll be someone or the other to take advantage of that situation. And the present condition in third world countries is such that, even if you prohibit all companies from availing the services of sweatshops, the workers will themselves plead to the companies to employ them even if it's for $2 per day. Instead of asking industries to go away, if the govt. does opposite, i.e. encourage more industries, especially local industries, to come in; then the companies will by default have to raise their wages to attract workers. But if 20% or 30% of your population is unemployed, then the rest will simply feel grateful to have a steady source of income.

This is the reason I was saying that it's ultimately the people, who want the change, who also have to become more responsible. We vote to power incompetent politicians, we go with the flow when it comes to over hyped celebrities, we are the one who willingly pay more money just to flaunt a brand. Then if an incompetent politician fails to create employments for the masses, if the celebrity becomes millionaire and if the brand starts fleecing us, can we really blame them alone. Ain't we equally responsible? No one will say that a thief is a good person, but if we leave our house open and vulnerable we are equally at fault.