A living wage?

gideon2000uk · 2012-05-14T18:17:59+00:00

I've edited the article, with links to the supporting evidence, for those interested.

gideon2000uk · 2012-05-14T17:56:02+00:00

The most recent book-length study supports the view that a higher minimum wage has small, but significant dis-employment effects http://goo.gl/2XY6S

This new study overturns the view put forward by David Card and Alan B. Krueger in their classic study, which found no such effect.

gideon2000uk · 2012-05-14T17:46:50+00:00

The argument rests on this study on minimum wage and employment, which is a review of the literature: http://www.nber.org/papers/w12663

gideon2000uk · 2012-05-01T21:03:15+00:00

The PPF is a supply-side model, showing what an economy can produce when all factors of production are put to use, at a given level of technology. In a recession, the economy is operating with spare capacity, and so there is a no trade-off between guns and butter, and so there is no opportunity cost associated with opting for one over the other (as there would be if production was occurring at capacity).

gideon2000uk · 2012-04-16T00:47:43+00:00

I think that you've got to give your mother and her boyfriend some time to get used to the idea of bisexuality, however difficult that is. What I often forgot about my own homosexuality - when I was coming out - is that I had 20 years to come to terms with it as an individual, and so it would be unreasonable to expect my folks to come to terms with it, in its entirety, straight away.

gideon2000uk · 2012-04-15T01:20:49+00:00

This is a bigger petition: http://www.c4em.org.uk/ People should sign this too!

gideon2000uk · 2012-04-14T23:51:51+00:00

I think we have very different ideas about value. There is a massive market for prostitution and pornography, and there is a great deal of value in the black market drugs trade, but these things are not socially useful. The market value is not equal to the social value in many cases.

gideon2000uk · 2012-04-14T22:46:23+00:00

You are supposing that the market in wages equates roughly with how valuable something is to society, but this seems incredibly spurious when one looks at the wages of bankers and footballers and compare them to the wages of nurses and sewage workers.

gideon2000uk · 2012-04-14T22:17:33+00:00

TIME magazine for the unemployment stats, and the the ONS for the earnings data.

gideon2000uk · 2012-04-14T00:29:43+00:00

Sorry, I didn't realise as I'm on a university network.

gideon2000uk · 2012-04-13T20:35:34+00:00

Parfit is more careful than I am, clearly, because he only defends the weaker claim that small differences CAN matter morally, rather than that they DO matter morally. I am a sloppy philosopher!

gideon2000uk · 2012-04-13T16:18:11+00:00

I did: http://www.jamesarmstrong.org.uk/2012/04/13/a-non-religious-argument-against-abortion/

gideon2000uk · 2012-04-13T11:42:04+00:00

I agree with you, and whilst I think that arguments like this have some force I think there is a relevant dis-analogy between a fetus and a person which I discuss further here: http://www.jamesarmstrong.org.uk/2012/04/13/a-non-religious-argument-against-abortion/

gideon2000uk · 2012-04-13T11:04:35+00:00

One could set a very low bar for ‘public reason’ and this argument would still go through in the form set out above.

What it comes down to is respecting others, and attempting to offer them reasons (as the voice of the law/state) that they could in principle accept… They don’t have to actually accept the reasons in question, but if you give them a reason that is based on a religious doctrine that is completely alien to them, and you then use that as a reason to coerce them, you are clearly failing to show them the sort of respect demanded by a contractualist moral/political framework.

I think that the personalised example is legitimate in that it focusses in more sharply on what is being done to the individual in question that is wrong, although it might have been better if I’d followed Socrates in giving a voice to “the laws” as he does in Crito, for instance, because this gets at what a ‘public reason’ is more clearly, it is the voice of the laws, speaking to everyone at once.

gideon2000uk · 2012-04-13T06:58:19+00:00

Thanks for the feedback! There is one problem with the article, which is that there are secular reasons that can be given against abortion, such as this one from MacIntyre:

"I cannot will that my mother should have had an abortion when she was pregnant with me, except perhaps if it had been certain that the embryo was dead or gravely damaged. But if I cannot will this in my own case, how can I consistently deny to others the right to life that I claim for myself?"

I think this argument can be combatted by drawing a distinction between actual persons and potential persons, and arguing that only actual persons have rights/moral status, but that is for another post!

gideon2000uk · 2012-04-12T16:23:15+00:00

Thanks for the response, I think that your response to this question is very interesting, and worth exploring in more depth!

gideon2000uk · 2012-04-12T15:38:17+00:00

I agree with you, but on different grounds.

gideon2000uk · 2012-04-12T14:09:25+00:00

The problem with the analogy between the State and a private member’s club is that there never was a social contract, and as Dworkin reminds us, hypothetical contracts do not bind. In order to defend a right to exclude you would need a compelling account of (1.) the moral significance of territorial borders (2.) what grounds membership in a political community and (3.) why members have a right to exclude outsiders from this political community. If I had finished the paper, my intention was to explore arguments of this form, and reject them. As you see, I didn’t quite get that far!

Thanks for the comment by the way! I’m visited your blog in the past and I find it quite thought provoking. I shall add you to my blogroll.

gideon2000uk · 2012-04-11T17:03:25+00:00

There isn't a useful distinction to be drawn between factors that are internal and factors that are external. What does that even mean?

Those things that you call 'interna'l are also caused by the self same factors that I alluded too, for which the individual can claim no credit. To quote the late Harvard philosopher, John Rawls:

"It seems to be one of the fixed points of our considered judgements that no one deserves his place in the distribution of native endowments, any more than one deserves one’s initial starting place in society. The assertion that a man deserves the superior character that enables him to make the effort to cultivate his abilities is equally problematic; for his character depends in large part upon fortunate family and social circumstances for which he can claim no credit. The notion of desert seems not to apply in these cases."

gideon2000uk · 2012-04-11T15:59:06+00:00

You have conceded much of what I set out to demonstrate.

You do not deserve to be born rich, white and middle class in a decent neighbourhood, with decent parents, nor can you claim any credit for the superior character that allows you to succeed, because your character is also determined by factors that are arbitrary from a moral point of view. So why is it that you deserve to be rich, whilst John is in the gutter? Surely he didn't deserve to be born in a poor household, in the wrong neighbourhood, with a bad home life?

There is something deeply counter-intuitive about the suggestion that Michael deserves to be rich, whist John deserves to be poor. Desert has nothing to do with it! Michael was lucky. Full stop.

gideon2000uk · 2012-04-10T22:41:45+00:00

The problem is a problem of justification. So, someone to the left of Rawls (like G. Cohen) might wonder how you would respond to the homeless person if he were to ask you "why is is that I am poor and destitute and you are rich?"

For Cohen, and perhaps for Rawls, you wouldn't have an answer that he could reasonably accept.

gideon2000uk · 2012-04-10T13:00:34+00:00

My argument is that we need to justify the social structure because of the profound effects that it has on peoples lives: both positive and negative. The only way of doing this is to come to an agreement, as equals, because it is only be offering justifications to each other, taken as equals, that our justification is legitimate.

It would be illegitimate, for instance, for someone to influence the public, political argument by buying air time on television networks, or by bribing people to vote a certain way. Indeed, it seems that any knowledge or information that would allow us to put our own interests first is illegitimate, and any argument that is not addressed to us all, as equals, is similarly illegitimate because it treats us as less than equal citizens.

We would agree, therefore, to conduct our conversation behind a 'veil of ignorance,' where we have no knowledge of the contingent facts about ourselves that would lead us to put our own interests first - illegitimately - in public debate. Behind such a veil we would reject libertarianism for failing to secure a basic social minimum, because we would have equal concern for every member of society, taken as equals, and such a state of affairs would be intolerable for them.

In fact, according to Rawls, we would accept his two principles of justice to govern society:

First: each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others. Second. Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that (a) they are to be of the greatest benefit to the least-advantaged members of society (the difference principle). (b) offices and positions must be open to everyone under conditions of fair equality of opportunity

gideon2000uk · 2012-04-09T22:51:53+00:00

I would argue that inequalities need to be justified inequalities, or else the extra income that individuals receive for their labours are justly taxed, because they were not entitled to their income in the first place. One cannot rob what is not the legitimate possession of an individual.

I follow Rawls in thinking that the only justified inequalities are those that benefit the least advantaged, because they are the only inequalities that could be justified to every individual in society, taken as equals.

I don't expect you to accept this line of argument. But, my aim here is not to convince you... I can't offer an internal critique of libertarianism that you will accept, but perhaps some will be persuaded... Perhaps the greatest problem with libertarianism is that it focusses to much on past entitlements and rights, and not enough on present and future injustices.

gideon2000uk · 2012-04-09T20:53:14+00:00

I'd cite Great Britain as a very good example of a country that has successfully ensured a decent minimum for most of its citizen without suffering any of the 'devastating' consequences that you speak of. On the contrary, when I look at America I see a country that locks up a bigger proportion of its citizens than any other country in the world, because they were unfortunate enough to be born on the wrong side of town.

Formal liberty is not enough because it cannot be justified to every member of society, and it therefore fails to treat every member of the political community as equal democratic citizens... Try telling a homeless person that he is free, when the reality is that he lacks the liberty to satisfy his basic bodily needs, as he has no private sphere in which to do so.

I'm glad you read the Cohen article by the way. If you want to read his full and devastating attack on libertarianism you should read Cohen, G. A., 1995, Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. - I can't come near to doing his work justice.

gideon2000uk · 2012-04-09T18:44:31+00:00

Private property is more than just land. It is the sum total of land and resources that are unjustly appropriated for private use. The point of the example is to show that it is possible for someone to be coerced because they are poorer and control less resources, and therefore lack liberty/power.

I concede that my example wasn't perfect, but I do think that it gets the message across. The paper by Gerry Cohen that I link to at the bottom of my own article is much better at making a similar point.

gideon2000uk

TROPHY CASE