Got back from the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges. You should all rest easy -- the bankruptcy judges are doing fine, as are the bankruptcy lawyers, especially after cocktails and golf.
Raghu writes: "Oh come on. You are far too intelligent to actually believe this nonsense. Just because workers are not *completely* powerless (as in being willing to work for minimum wage) does not mean there isn't a gross asymmetry in the average workplace. Do you really think David Koch is as terrified at the prospect of a janitor quitting as the janitor is of getting fired?" Obviously, David Koch has more power than his janitor, that there is a "gross asymmetry" between the two of them, so I thought about this some more to try and figure out what are disagreement is. The following is my thought: I think of "employer-employee" as highly abstract conceptual categories and interrelations-- what is an "employer" and what is an "employee," and then think about whether those abstract categorizations and interrelations have an inherent "gross asymmetry" that lends itself to inherent abuse, and I conclude that there is nothing inherent in the relationship that creates a "gross asymmetry." You, on the other hand, are more inductive -- you see "employers" and "employees" in the real world, notice that there are many fewer employers than employees, and the employers usually have a significant bargaining advantage over the employees, from which you then conclude the "gross asymmetry" in the relationship. I agree it would be nonsense for me to deny your evaluation of the real life labor market. But I disagree that your evaluation is an inherent product of the employer-employee relationship. Instead, I believe what you are actually evaluating is not the employer-employee relationship per se, but instead the consequence of the (relatively) "unskilled" worker offering his or her labor in the marketplace. Presumably, we should be able to agree that the bargaining power of individuals offering their labor services varies depending on the (relative) skills offered, and the value of those skills vary depending on time and place. But I think that Marxists have a difficult time overcoming a very 19th Century view of the labor force -- a homogeneous mass with replaceable and undifferentiated skills. In such a world, there is no doubt that the employer has a real bargaining advantage. But that is not the world I live in. In the post-industrial world I live in, employees are not an undifferentiated homogeneous mass. Let's go with anecdotes. I work for a law firm with about 13 lawyers and equal number of support staff, from an office manager to a file clerk. In the big picture, we have a very difficult time hiring employees. We cannot post a sign offering a job, expect to receive hundreds of applicants, and then auction off the position to the lowest bidder. Finding a person with the necessary skills, temperament, work ethic, etc. is very hard, and when we find such a person, we are willing to pay a very significant sum to that person. We are very much competing with other employers for such employees. So at the end, I think you and I will probably agree that skilled workers have more bargaining power than unskilled workers, and you would probably even agree that highly skilled workers have equal or greater bargaining power than their employers. Where you and I will go in different directions is that you will conclude that the coercive power of the state should intervene on the side of the unskilled worker to even the negotiating dynamic. I, on the other hand, will oppose such policy for a variety of reasons. David Shemano _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
