Thomas Lunde wrote: > > > Now this is interesting! You want to help McJob corporations to further > > lower their McWages for shit work, in order to increase shareholder profits, > > all at the expense of taxpayers. BI as a neo-con scheme after all ?
> I thought you'd like that little twist Chris. Gotta keep the ol capitalists > happy. Actually, I think what it would do is straighten up McDonalds and > those other exploiters who don't pay teenagers overtime and only give adults > partime work so they don't have to pay benefits. This gives the lower end > employee, the freedom to quit. That is one of the big freedoms that the > working class has lost in the neo con heaven we live in. Keep the slaves at > a subsistence level of wages - keep 7 - 10% employment so there are plenty > of other potential slaves standing in line and then go to the government and > demand more flexibility in the Labour Code. You want to have the cake and eat it too. On the one hand, you say that BI gives employees the freedom to quit. But OTOH, you said that the BI would be low enough to make most people want to work nonetheless. So the McCorporations would still have enough "potential slaves standing in line", with the additional advantage that they can pay even lower wages (i.e. make higher profits) since they're supplemented by the BI, as you admit. Also, you start from the problematic assumption that McDeath should be allowed to continue at all (and even be helped with the BI!) with the massive external costs that result from its unhealthy junk food and environmental destruction. In the non-BI system I envision, McDeath would be slapped with punitive eco-taxes and health-taxes and would have to pay decent minimum wages ($16+). Also, paying no BI, the gov't could afford to offer well-paid (>>$16) workfare jobs with high socio-environmental usefulness, which would lure workers away from McDeath. As a result, junk food would become so expensive, McJobs would become so relatively unattractive, and McShareholder profits would become so low, that McDeath (and other McCorporations) would have to shut down, resulting in very positive socio-enviro-economic consequences overall. I think the hamburger example illustrates very well what an unsustainable --even counter-productive-- "band-aid" BI would be. Chris ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains the keyword "igve". _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
