On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 10:11, Jim Devine > > The problem with this theory is that (in addition to the fact that > there are no two jobs that are exactly the same except for the degree > of danger) is that workers are not totally mobile between jobs. In > addition to various institutional and natural barriers to mobility, > life under capitalism almost always involves persistent and > significant unemployment (hidden or overt). This means that coal > miners do not simply look at the imaginary peril-free job as the > alternative. They also look at the risks and costs of being unemployed > and needing to seek a new job to pay the bills, etc. > > That is, like the men in the 1953 film "The Wages of Fear" by > Henri-Georges Clouzot (redone poorly by William Friedkin in 1977's > "Sorcerer"), desperate people will take jobs like trucking > nitroglycerin through windy mountain roads in order to pay debts, etc. > The Smithian world of the compensating wage differentials totally > lacks elements of the human condition such as desperation and the lack > of decent choices. It's an imaginary world. > > The research I've done indicates that workers receive compensating > wage bonuses only when they're unionized. That suggests that > implementing these bonuses involve the familiar collective action > problem: paying such wages is good for workers as a group but (likely > due to desperation) there are some "free riders" who are willing to > take a risky job without any kind of extra compensation, thus driving > wages down to the lowest common denominator.
In my experience speaking with David he doesn't usually recognize any theory of economic coercion as a valid interpretation of reality. All actions under the von Mises understanding of Human Action are voluntary, even when making the alternative choice results in the death of oneself or one's loved ones. Therefore every action can be understood as the result of some subconscious c/b analysis. > Unfortunately, the subjective valuations -- such as assuming that > market prices equal true costs -- are usually not made obvious. C/B > analysis is almost always dressed up in fake-scientific garb, with > false pretensions of objectivity. The authors know that they're making > sausage and they don't want people to know what went into it. I agree. I also would say that the whole "freakonomics" fad has intensified the economic imperialism of the social sciences such that every decision we make can be dressed up as the result of some set of c/b analysis vis a vis economic incentives. It is less the problem of trying to use economics to explain every single human decision--it does, just as, with the right theoretical mechanism, explain every decision as the result of superstrings pulling on people's consciousnesses or metaphysical karmic forces at work in the fabric of the universe-- than that the point of the exercise is to lend legitimacy to the ideological proposition that we are all atomistic, self interested individuals at heart and therefore the only possible, workable social system is one that forces us to act according to those interests, i.e. one that takes the very economic coercion denied above and makes it a fundamental mechanism of social and political control, i.e. the only role that the state can legitimately perform. Once you start down this path, you end up in the arena of Epstein's "Takings" where the state has to reimburse businesses for possible lost business in the case of enacting environmental protections or Hayek's system of value communication where in order for the market to function properly EVERYTHING must become a commodity--including people--whether the given society would like to consider it as such or not. While I'm not naive about the fact that there are scarce resources in the world, etc. what really infuriates me about this is that the ideological proponents of this position are most often perfectly fine with performing these activities in private--using the actuarial tables of insurance companies and, in this case, Ford Motors--but when it is revealed that, for instance, the British Health Service, uses an equation to determine whether a surgery should be performed (IIRC it has to do with the cost of the surgery vs. the length of time doctors presume will be added to your life post-op) they inspire (US) populist rage and try to say that this is because it is a PUBLIC entity that is allocating the scarce resources. In other words, as Michael says, it is a disingenuous protocol used by people to defend the profit margin of profitable enterprises and simultaneously, by those same people, as a bludgeon to attack the idea that the c/b analysis could be done by a similar bureaucratic entity in the public sector simply because the equation didn't include a column for "windfall" or "CEO bonus." When I hear discussions of C/B, therefore, I am always reminded of, perhaps, one of the best arguments for class action lawsuits, made by the main character of Russel Banks The Sweet Hereafter. I'll end with that--though note that the c/b is not based on what they think a human life is actually worth, but on what it will cost them to reimburse the lives they presume will be lost... "Anytime I hear about that school bus disaster up there, I turn into a heat-seeking missile, homing in on a target that I know in my bones is going to be some bungling corrupt state agency or some multinational corporation that’s cost accounted the difference between a ten-cent bolt and a million-dollar out-of-court settlement and has decided to sacrifice a few lives for the difference. They do that, work the bottom line. [. . . .] They’re like clever monkeys, that’s all. They calculate ahead of time what it will cost them to assure safety versus what they’re likely to be forced to settle for damages when the missing bolt sends the bus over a cliff, and they simply choose the cheaper option. And it’s up to people like me [negligence attorneys] to make it cheaper to build the bus with that extra bolt, or add the extra yard of guardrail, or drain the quarry. That’s the only way you can ensure moral responsibility in this society. Make it cheaper." s _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
