Re: Mosler Seminar: A Union Wage at the Bottom

[Warren Mosler <mosler@xxxxxxxx>]

At 05:51 AM 3/8/97 -0800, you wrote:
>	   WHEN ALL IS SAID AND DONE, IT IS A UNION WAGE
>	           OR NOTHING AT ALL HAS CHANGED

JJ,

I would very much like to get on with many of these types of
questions.  For example, what we leave our children are things
like (depleted?) resources, capital goods, knowledge in various
forms, etc.  Clearly if they manage to produce 20 million cars
in 2007 they will not have to send them back to 1997, regardless of
the financial system.  We may indeed leave them a system
full of legal (financial) obligations set up in 1997, which they may or may
not decide to enforce  or ignore.  That being said, I do see the benefit
of leaving them a functional legal and financial system.

I hope you are not calling me anti-union, simply because it is not in feaps.
I would guess that an elr total compensation package that provided for
a reasonable standard of living would change the nature of unions.  For
example, skilled and specialized workers in the private sector, such as
printers and baseball players, may desire to practice their trade
for its own sake.  This 'attachment' to their trade makes the thought of
becoming an elr worker a nightmare, regardless of its compensation.
That puts them at the mercy of their employers, as if there was no
safety net at all.  Unions would function, in this case, to protect them.

As for how the real elr wage is set, I thought that was covered.  For
example, it could include healthcare benefits.  Remember, though,
such benefits have a real cost, and if added may result in a shrinking
of the elr pool and a 'spreading' of the value scale, if other govt
spending is not cut and/or taxes not raised.  Perhaps other econs could
comment on this.

Warren Mosler



>
>	The issue of fiat money, and whether or not our
>	grandchildren are impoverished by us when we
>	use it, (because interest burdens on their income
>	may persist after our death), is certainly part
>	of PKT and Soft Currency Economics (SCE).
>
>	The matter is resolved by noting that along with
>	the interest obligation go homes, factories,
>	long term bonds transferred to grandchildren by
>	their parents, etc., and whatever is left of
>	the culture after the internet chews it up and
>	spits it out.
>
>	The grandchildren are even advised they can
>	remove the burden of interest by paying it in
>	very cheap money, if they chose a higher rate of
>	inflation that better fits their economy then
>	the one we live with in hard times.
>
>	But the real issue raised by SCE when the big
>	picture of economics is examined is how the
>	wage at the bottom is set for persons employed
>	by resort to government subsidy to keep them
>	from dying or killing for a living.
>
>	PKT is a response to the choice between
>	totalitarian economics and laissez faire. There
>	may be many responses in between these extremes
>	that qualify as a mixed economy; but PKT is the
>	big one that would modify the jungle in which
>	finance capital evolved to force its institutions
>	to recognize and solve the economic problems of
>	labor whose price is below where it morally
>	belongs.
>	
> 	And the major question in the task above is what
>	must be put in place to compute the moral price
>	for labor, for the last man looking for work.
>
>	In laissez faire theory, nature supplies the
>	price. If the last man looking for work is as
>	capable as all others, he takes an equal share
>	by force of personality and arms. If less
>	adapt at war or business, he takes less.
>
>	In totalitarian theory, a dictator or clique
>	assign someone to do the calculation, and its
>	done.
>
>	In PKT and SCE the answer so far has not included
>	a union of the unemployed and an arbitration
>	procedure if its negotiations with government
>	reach impasse.
>
>	In real life, on the outside, this question is
>	being argued today because of welfare reform.
>	It is said these unemployed persons, even after
>	employment, will not have the take home pay
>	necessary to pay union dues.
>
>	Naturally, SCE does not have to address every
>	detail today that tomorrow will solve. But,
>	from the left, the charge is made that SCE
>	is an invitation to workfare, i.e., underpaid
>	work that may even cause the loss of jobs
>	among government workers.
>
>	Only independent unions can cure this error.
>	Government, as we know it, is more an extension
>	of business than of labor -- more apt to
>	support laissez faire than a bonafide mixed
>	economy.  Attention must be paid to the way
>	the wage is set for labor that does not fit
>	well the needs of profitable enterprise.
>
>	John Gelles   afraid to post his 10 point
>	program -- new readers may ask for it.
>
>
>

Warren B. Mosler
Director of Economic Analysis
III Finance

See:

"Soft Currency Economics"
=========================
http://inca.gate.net/~mosler/softecon.html