I don't think the biggest differential of usefulness to salary is nurses v tube drivers, or Molly off love island v the prime minister. Nurses have been receiving insultingly low pay levels for a very long time, as have other health professionals. Why is this suddenly an issue now? Don't use nurses as an example unless you are willing to stand up for their right to more pay.
I don't think the biggest differential of usefulness to salary is nurses v tube drivers, or Molly off love island v the prime minister. Nurses have been receiving insultingly low pay levels for a very long time, as have other health professionals. Why is this suddenly an issue now? Don't use nurses as an example unless you are willing to stand up for their right to more pay.
Yes nurses \9and other NHS staff) should be paid more, maybe instead of tube/train drivers getting an increase, for example
Maybe if she was paid less, the customers who earn a lot less, could pay less for their orders
In terms of importance, stress and responsibility, the PM (whichever party is in power) should earn closer to that of the Creative Director of some fashion range
I don't think the biggest differential of usefulness to salary is nurses v tube drivers, or Molly off love island v the prime minister. Nurses have been receiving insultingly low pay levels for a very long time, as have other health professionals. Why is this suddenly an issue now? Don't use nurses as an example unless you are willing to stand up for their right to more pay.
Yes nurses \9and other NHS staff) should be paid more, maybe instead of tube/train drivers getting an increase, for example
In a capitalist system where prices are supposed to find their own level according to the market, then if the level of pay for a worker arrives at a particular point due to market forces such as the availability of workers, or how well organised they are, or there being no alternative, then capitalists should be cool with that. A Dacia costs less than a Rolls Royce due to market forces doesn’t it? If a train driver costs £100,000 a year then it is up to the train companies to deal with that. I repeat though, that wages ought to have some relationship to what it costs to live. Properties in my average road of terraces cost around £650,000 these days, maybe more. If you earned £50,000 a year you need something like a £65,000 deposit saved and a mortgage of something like six times your income. That comes in around £3100 repayment a month on a 30 year mortgage. 12 times £3,100 a year comes in at around £37,000 a year to keep a roof over your head let alone paying for anything else. Yes people can live in a cardboard box in Sheerness cheaper, and use all the hours god sends and a fortune in wages to get to work in London, but market forces will shift that situation, especially if workers organise themselves.
We are fortunate to live in a capitalist society. That gives every individual freedom of choice as to their chosen profession, on the understanding that different career or work choices have their upsides and downsides.
Some take on roles because it's a vocation. Many teachers and medical professionals would fall into this category. Many don't do it for the money, but for a sense of purpose.
Some take on roles that perhaps don't ultimately fulfill them, but their motivation is more around financial reward than civic duty. You might want to put bankers in that mould.
Others are able to operate at a higher level because of intellect, but again, this comes with different outcomes depending on how you choose to use that intellect. University law professors generally earn less than barristers - they could be barristers, but prefer academia.
People make choices.
If tube drivers don't think they earn enough, then they should leave and get alternative employment that pays them what they want (provided they have the skills and intellect to do that).
If people in the medical profession are there for the money, then they have, in all likelihood, made the wrong career choice based on what they want to achieve.
Perhaps they should resign and take up the vacancies created by the tube drivers that resign because they don't earn enough...
Or we could adopt socialism and strive for a communist society, where everyone works for the common good and there is equal distribution of capital. There are are many examples of where this works brilli.....
We have already adopted socialism, which is not the same thing as communism. If a restaurateur can achieve £50 for a dish of dried toast with a fried egg on top, plus a sprig of parsley and call it a nouvelle cuisine special then that is capitalism writ large. If a train driver can achieve a living wage by collective action including strikes that is also capitalism writ large.
I am not a clever man, but what I wrote sounds truthful. A person in Cumbria exploited a vulnerable person, paid them £10 a week and made them live in a vomit covered shed whilst sending them on jobs that they charged the client thousands for. Their dog shed was cleaner and nicer than the shed they made the poor bloke live in. It was criminal, it was extreme, it is rare, but it is a situation that spoke to the heart of ‘free market’ capitalism where you make as much personal money as possible, on this occasion by destroying somebody’s life for forty years, forty years. The authorities, not least the social services and the court system, socialist enterprises, rescued him and dealt with the modern slavers. Socialist enterprises we all pay for in our taxes. I am not being clever here, but if anything I have written isn’t true, then put me right.
Someone exploiting someone else by keeping them as a slave is nothing to do with free market capitalism, it's the act of an absolutely inhumane bastard. It is laughable to refer to courts and social services as "socialist enterprises"...
You must have thousands of examples in your little red book of the inhumanity of capitalist society - unfortunately the example you are using here doesn't fit.
I don't think the biggest differential of usefulness to salary is nurses v tube drivers, or Molly off love island v the prime minister. Nurses have been receiving insultingly low pay levels for a very long time, as have other health professionals. Why is this suddenly an issue now? Don't use nurses as an example unless you are willing to stand up for their right to more pay.
Yes nurses \9and other NHS staff) should be paid more, maybe instead of tube/train drivers getting an increase, for example
Someone exploiting someone else by keeping them as a slave is nothing to do with free market capitalism, it's the act of an absolutely inhumane bastard. It is laughable to refer to courts and social services as "socialist enterprises"...
You must have thousands of examples in your little red book of the inhumanity of capitalist society - unfortunately the example you are using here doesn't fit.
Why not? The poor bloke was used as a money making machine for forty years? Like a capitalist exploiting an oil well. We club together to fund courts and social services and lots of other things too, that is socialism. What little red book do you allude to?
Someone exploiting someone else by keeping them as a slave is nothing to do with free market capitalism, it's the act of an absolutely inhumane bastard. It is laughable to refer to courts and social services as "socialist enterprises"...
You must have thousands of examples in your little red book of the inhumanity of capitalist society - unfortunately the example you are using here doesn't fit.
Why not? The poor bloke was used as a money making machine for forty years? Like a capitalist exploiting an oil well. We club together to fund courts and social services and lots of other things too, that is socialism. What little red book do you allude to?
I'm assuming (as would you) that he is referring to Mao's Little Red Book.
Your example is a poor one and as SA says, there are many better examples (the cockle pickers of Morecambe Bay?). The example you quote is an evil bastard physically and mentally abusing/torturing a vulnerable person and it doesn't help support your argument for socialism over capitalism.
One of my points about the tube drivers is that their action is a feature of the capitalist system. After the Black Death the wages of farm labourers rose because they became a scarcer resource. If for some reason other resources become scarce, the costs go up. The rail companies can presumably train more staff and employ them more cheaply because the resource has then become become less scarce. Like having an abundant harvest. In the meantime the workers are maximising the profit to be made from their labours. Maximising profit is encouraged under capitalism. The justification to get paid even more does not go through a moral filter, it is a feature of the system.
'The rail companies can presumably train more staff and employ them more cheaply because the resource has then become become less scarce'
Many people would jump at the chance to replace them, having lost jobs during the pandemic and truly struggling to keep a roof over their heads. Anyway, personally I think they are paid more than enough and shouldn't be striking for more pay and disrupting the service
'The rail companies can presumably train more staff and employ them more cheaply because the resource has then become become less scarce'
Many people would jump at the chance to replace them, having lost jobs during the pandemic and truly struggling to keep a roof over their heads. Anyway, personally I think they are paid more than enough and shouldn't be striking for more pay and disrupting the service
When you say ‘more than enough’ I have tried to link that notion with one example of the cost of housing as mentioned above.
'The rail companies can presumably train more staff and employ them more cheaply because the resource has then become become less scarce'
Many people would jump at the chance to replace them, having lost jobs during the pandemic and truly struggling to keep a roof over their heads. Anyway, personally I think they are paid more than enough and shouldn't be striking for more pay and disrupting the service
When you say ‘more than enough’ I have tried to link that notion with one example of the cost of housing as mentioned above.
How do you mean?
Why don't we all get a pay rise, not just nurses and tube drivers? How would that affect numbers in poverty, for example?
I don’t know. It was about an honest day’s work is the same for everybody if they do the same hours. To me an honest day’s work ought to be enough to give everybody who does one a decent standard of life. We are in a capitalist system that encourages differentials, not differentials above a basic standard, but a free for all where people find ways to get more than others. That is what the train drivers are doing, maximising the profitability of their labour.
I don’t know. It was about an honest day’s work is the same for everybody if they do the same hours. To me an honest day’s work ought to be enough to give everybody who does one a decent standard of life. We are in a capitalist system that encourages differentials, not differentials above a basic standard, but a free for all where people find ways to get more than others. That is what the train drivers are doing, maximising the profitability of their labour.
Don't they already get decent remuneration for an honest day's work - maximising the profitability of their labour is not about wanting a fair wage then but getting as much as they can? (Whilst disrupting others and a likely fare increase)?
Unless society moves in a different direction, then just as William Hills will try to maximise profit from whatever it is they offer, so will train drivers, or even delivery dispatchers.
Comments
In terms of importance, stress and responsibility, the PM (whichever party is in power) should earn closer to that of the Creative Director of some fashion range
A Dacia costs less than a Rolls Royce due to market forces doesn’t it?
If a train driver costs £100,000 a year then it is up to the train companies to deal with that.
I repeat though, that wages ought to have some relationship to what it costs to live. Properties in my average road of terraces cost around £650,000 these days, maybe more. If you earned £50,000 a year you need something like a £65,000 deposit saved and a mortgage of something like six times your income.
That comes in around £3100 repayment a month on a 30 year mortgage.
12 times £3,100 a year comes in at around £37,000 a year to keep a roof over your head let alone paying for anything else.
Yes people can live in a cardboard box in Sheerness cheaper, and use all the hours god sends and a fortune in wages to get to work in London, but market forces will shift that situation, especially if workers organise themselves.
Some take on roles because it's a vocation. Many teachers and medical professionals would fall into this category. Many don't do it for the money, but for a sense of purpose.
Some take on roles that perhaps don't ultimately fulfill them, but their motivation is more around financial reward than civic duty. You might want to put bankers in that mould.
Others are able to operate at a higher level because of intellect, but again, this comes with different outcomes depending on how you choose to use that intellect. University law professors generally earn less than barristers - they could be barristers, but prefer academia.
People make choices.
If tube drivers don't think they earn enough, then they should leave and get alternative employment that pays them what they want (provided they have the skills and intellect to do that).
If people in the medical profession are there for the money, then they have, in all likelihood, made the wrong career choice based on what they want to achieve.
Perhaps they should resign and take up the vacancies created by the tube drivers that resign because they don't earn enough...
Or we could adopt socialism and strive for a communist society, where everyone works for the common good and there is equal distribution of capital. There are are many examples of where this works brilli.....
If a restaurateur can achieve £50 for a dish of dried toast with a fried egg on top, plus a sprig of parsley and call it a nouvelle cuisine special then that is capitalism writ large.
If a train driver can achieve a living wage by collective action including strikes that is also capitalism writ large.
A bloke exploited by capitalism was saved by forces of socialism.
A person in Cumbria exploited a vulnerable person, paid them £10 a week and made them live in a vomit covered shed whilst sending them on jobs that they charged the client thousands for. Their dog shed was cleaner and nicer than the shed they made the poor bloke live in.
It was criminal, it was extreme, it is rare, but it is a situation that spoke to the heart of ‘free market’ capitalism where you make as much personal money as possible, on this occasion by destroying somebody’s life for forty years, forty years.
The authorities, not least the social services and the court system, socialist enterprises, rescued him and dealt with the modern slavers.
Socialist enterprises we all pay for in our taxes.
I am not being clever here, but if anything I have written isn’t true, then put me right.
You must have thousands of examples in your little red book of the inhumanity of capitalist society - unfortunately the example you are using here doesn't fit.
The poor bloke was used as a money making machine for forty years?
Like a capitalist exploiting an oil well.
We club together to fund courts and social services and lots of other things too, that is socialism.
What little red book do you allude to?
Maybe one for another thread of its own?
After the Black Death the wages of farm labourers rose because they became a scarcer resource.
If for some reason other resources become scarce, the costs go up.
The rail companies can presumably train more staff and employ them more cheaply because the resource has then become become less scarce. Like having an abundant harvest.
In the meantime the workers are maximising the profit to be made from their labours.
Maximising profit is encouraged under capitalism.
The justification to get paid even more does not go through a moral filter, it is a feature of the system.
Many people would jump at the chance to replace them, having lost jobs during the pandemic and truly struggling to keep a roof over their heads. Anyway, personally I think they are paid more than enough and shouldn't be striking for more pay and disrupting the service
Why don't we all get a pay rise, not just nurses and tube drivers? How would that affect numbers in poverty, for example?
It was about an honest day’s work is the same for everybody if they do the same hours.
To me an honest day’s work ought to be enough to give everybody who does one a decent standard of life.
We are in a capitalist system that encourages differentials, not differentials above a basic standard, but a free for all where people find ways to get more than others.
That is what the train drivers are doing, maximising the profitability of their labour.
How about we all get paid the same?