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I think becoming an employer should be a simple exercise
carried out by the same level of difficulty as creating a
WhatsApp group, i.e, to those who haven't created a
whatsapp
group, it's very easy and simple to do.
This idea proposes we get rid of the responsibilities typically
assigned
to employers.
I propose these are replaced with payments coming from
government.
* paying sick employees
* paying for absences
I propose the following is covered by bank accounts - i.e,
outside the scope of an employer
* instructing a pension provider
* handling payments into a pension provider - this should be
done at a taxation level, outside the scope of the employer
I propose work perks to be exchanged for money instead and
made illegal and buyable on an open market so that even
people who have poor jobs can access the same perks.
[1] Plato and Aristotle on mob rule democracy
https://en.wikipedi...Democracy#Criticism
Some sign mostly the front, others sign mostly the back, of checks to and fromt he government [Sunstone, Apr 10 2020]
[link]
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Congratulations on, re-inventing Marxism-Leninism (yet again). It's been tried, and every time, it's failed disastrously, because humans are nasty, greedy, selfish and venal, and immediate start to try and work out how to beat the system. |
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Did you read the content? |
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This idea is about removing responsibilities from
employers. Not Marxism-Lennism. Unless I am missing out
doing so is Marxist. |
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If any thing, it's the reverse of Marxism. The idea is that
employers do very little for their staff. |
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// Did you read the content? // |
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Yes, carefully and thoroughly. You are describing an ideal "socialist" system. |
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// The idea is that employers do very little for their staff // |
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If they are permitted to do little, they will strive - very hard - to do nothing, divesting all risk and responsibility. |
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It's the same thing; passing off responsibilities to government. |
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As time goes on, employers seek to shift more and more of their fixed costs to government. Everyone votes for it, because it looks like everyone benefits. But governments do nothing well, the friction is enormous, and eventually the system collapses under its own weight. |
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Costs have to be dealt with locally and immediately, not remotely and deferred. |
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I don't think the government actually has to be the people
doing the work either. Private enterprise should be doing
the work. But your employer isn't one of them. I just
think of the misery induced upon on every organisation
for what is a repetitive work that should be carried out in
one place - not again and again in each company. It's not
a market differentiator. |
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I propose that private companies are set up to carry out
the tasks that other companies should not be doing. |
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Government can have a regulation that you MUST have
appointed a representative for a pension provider. |
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Government and companies shouldn't be getting involved
in things that are not
their core business. |
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That's called "outsourcing", and it's Baked to death. Payroll, IT, HR, vehicle fleets, catering, facilities... all routinely outsourced. |
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I'd go as far as to say that companies must outsource these
things. By law. |
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Now companies can be started up easier than ever before.
And their functions can be cloudified and digitised. |
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Do you really think there are thousands of businesses looking at the relative costs of outsourcing vs not and deciding to waste money by not outsourcing? If not what benefit would be gained by forcing businesses to operate in an inefficient manner? I smell troll. |
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Was thinking about this for union shops ; difference is I've got the unions handling everything (except proprietary training and perks), not government. Guess, that would make them guilds. |
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I think I'm recognising some similarity of thought process
with
some witnessed indirectly elsewhere here, can't quite put
my
finger on it.. |
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Aha! gotit! finger firmly put! |
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You're
the one responsible for the government's 'smart' motorways
idea aren't you [chron]. |
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I'm actually arguing for de-regulation here with regard to
employers. |
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The relationship between you and your employer is that
you show up for work, work and then get paid in currency. |
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Every thing else is a value added service, some mandated
by government. Those services must have an elected
supplier. Perhaps picked by the employee or more likely,
who have been chosen as the outsourcers. |
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But you are aren't you, go on admit it, you know you want
to, there's no use
denying it, we can
tell
by the pattern of your thought processes. |
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As revealed by
careful analysis of your reasoning &
arguments. It's like identifying someone by the way they
walk. |
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Nice kit by the way [8th], when did you say you wanted
it back? |
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Tch, keep it. Go, enjoy yourself. We have plenty more. |
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[chronological]; many of your "social repair" ideas would
work fantastically, IF everyone was a Good Person.
Unfortunately, as mentioned by [8th of 7] above (and
elsewhere), there is a reasonable percentage of people that
are not, who will do whatever they can to (in simple terms)
have MORE than the person next to them. Because human
greed is the biggest problem with humans. |
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Not the biggest, but certainly a very big problem.It has to compete with laziness, envy, bigotry, wishful thinking, wilful self-deception, small-mindedness and a host of others, but it's significant nonetheless. |
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// reasonable percentage // i.e. 100%, but most like to pretend otherwise. |
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//illegal and buyable on an open market// |
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Wait - which? Illegal, or buyable on an open market? And is this
somehow intrinsic to the idea of making it easier to hire people,
or an afterthought? |
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Also, I'm not clear whether this scheme is intended to be
universal and compulsory (in which case the problems of
totalitarianism creep in) or something made available by
government as an option. |
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//Capitalism is just a better if very coarse mechanism for
devolving power to the masses.// |
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May I respectfully draw your attention to the Iron Law of Wages? |
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// insect protein is better // |
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Which colour Soylent is that, then ? Not green, obviously ... |
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Most employment is make-work anyway. Look at the world economy right now. Some people are working hard on the necessities of life: food, saving people's lives, killing other people because they're foreign or some other excuse. |
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All the other stuff is optional. If I want coffee I can boil a pan of water and make my own, I don't need some smarty barrister to pour it for me. |
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I think the real problem here is that the concepts of "work", "employment", "currency" etc. are used interchangeably in different spheres of activity. It would be much better to try and decouple different kinds of activity so that whatever accounting or distribution control system is used for e.g. medicine or chocolate is a different system to be used for hair dye and plastic USB frogs, and is different again from the accounting and distribution system used for entertainment or personal grooming services. |
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//the ongoing redefinition of subsistence// |
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I suggest a stable definition of subsistence, as follows:
subsistence is the standard of living above which capital
formation is realistically possible. |
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For example, if I were a medieval peasant, I might be able to
subsist on a diet of root vegetables while wearing course,
homespun cloth. The next groat I got over and above that could,
in principle, be set aside towards giving my children a slightly
better life. However, if I, in the present day, turned up to a job
interview wearing homespun cotton and presenting the
demeanour of someone who had been living on root vegetables,
and could not afford deodorant or soap, I would not be hired,
and could therefore never earn the extra groat. |
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So, if "subsistence" today happens at a higher level than in the
past, this is not only a function of people being pampered
special snowflakes, but also a function of some intractable
realities of the world of work. |
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In that sense, I suggest, subsistence is not an archaic term.
Ergo, the Iron Law remains relevant. |
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//decouple different kinds of activity// |
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So, you'd like to break the fungibility of money? |
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That cloud of dust on the horizon is the on-rushing army of
arbitrageurs, led by those who combine the most oleaginous
networking skills with the eating habits of the White Pointer. |
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Don't mind me, I'll be over there ... no, further away than that. |
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//decouple different kinds of activity// |
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You could have a special term for that. How about "Collateralized Debt Obligation " ? Catchy... |
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CDOs didn't decouple, but rather the reverse - they coupled (or
helped to couple) wholesale banking to retail banking. |
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We know. It's called "irony" ... that's the exact point, they are the complete opposite of the suggeston. |
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Still totally disastrous, but in an underlyng technically different way. |
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Next up, the Ponzi scheme... |
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//the eating habits of the White Pointer.// |
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Must ... stop ... pastiching the writing style of [8th of7]. I *like*
cats. I *like* cats. I *like* cats ... |
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Come, join us.... don't be afraid... you know you want to... |
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<Turns up Assimilation Intensifier Brane Ray another notch/> |
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//subsistence is the standard of living above which capital
formation is realistically possible// |
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Very nicely put, you've thought about that haven't you. |
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Yes, there's far too much of this "thinking" going on lately. |
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The Iron Law of Wages is less relevant in a technologically advanced society, where "labour" is potentially automated (humans compete with machines, not other humans or animals (to pull a cart, 4 humans = 1 horse)) and reproduction is elective, non-reproduction is socially acceptable, and educated citizens largely understand the principles of resource concentration. No kids = more nice stuff. Children are an investment in the future of society as a whole, but individuals are selfish. Very little measureable benefit accrues to parents - just costs, responsibilities and trouble. |
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The Law assumes commensurate population growth - no longer the case in developed nations. Supply of "labour" can be sustained only by imports in periods of increasing demand and there are social pressures against this. |
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There's also the inherent lag in the system response. Increasing demand faces a ten to fifteen year lag in delivering extra workers. Automation doesn't have such long lead times, in those tasks where automation is possible. |
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It's a useful guideline, but of necessity simplistic, since it tries to encapsulate large economic and social processes within a one-liner. |
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There's another interesting phenomenon - the "dirty jobs that no-one wants to do". In a subsistence economy, it's always possible to recruit night-soil men, tanners, gong-farmers, pure-finders and chimneysweeps. When part of the population is on the edge of starvation, someone will take the job.
But when the available workforce is falling, a premium must be paid to recruit into those roles. Most workers will prefer to flip burgers for an acceptable standard of living than unblock sewers for the same reward. |
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As time passes, that disinclination moves up the employment tree. |
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Someone's got to crawl into the Jeffries tubes and chase the tribbles out ... |
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//"dirty jobs that no-one wants to do"// |
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I always have a problem with that phrase, according to
supply & demand in a free market there are no dirty jobs
that no-one wants to do, there are only jobs that (for what
they are & their conditions) don't pay
enough to attract an employee. |
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So it peeves me no end when I hear the dirty jobs line & its
ilk from the self same people who were citing economic or
market 'realities' to justify lower wages or something
similar only (seemingly) moments before, employers don't
have a monopoly on market forces, there's two
sides to that coin & hearing someone
simultaneously embracing one side while denying the other
is almost enough to make you want to scream, gut them
with blunt garden instrument shove a pole up their arse &
roast them over a slow fire,
with some vegetables. |
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[Orders some chianti & fava beans from Tesco online] |
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[Flicks through 'Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics'] |
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There's not a single damn recipe in here! |
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What, no Wicker Man ? But the garden implements are good. You can practice by waving a scythe in the air, upside-down, and chanting "Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb". |
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<Turns up Brane Ray another click/> |
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Are you still sure you like cats ? |
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// I always have a problem with that phrase // |
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Not unreasonable, again it's trying to capture a big complex issue in a trite simplistic way. But "free" markets are in reality constrained by multiple factors, demand-supply lag being only one of them, along with training. For example, although the vast majority of humans can in fact pilot an aircraft to an acceptable level, a sudden demand for one million extra pilots could not be met in a timeframe less than several years. |
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On the basis of [chron]'s work-warehouse, shelf-stacking model, then the assumptions have some validity, but in the real world, no. |
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"Free" (unregulated) is too often confused with "unconstrained" - all markets are constrained in some way. |
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//What, no Wicker Man ?// |
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Certainly not! have you ever tried cooking with one of
those? |
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It's almost impossible to get an even temperature. |
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[Sits there sharpening it & mumbling something about a
lack
of
recipes & false advertising] |
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// have you ever tried cooking with one of those? // |
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Yes. Great for baked potatoes, the Argentine style of cooking beef (on a metal rack propped in front of a fire), anything boiled, or grilled fish. |
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When the time comes to burn down the next Mad Doctor's windmill, you can have first go. Here, take these. Don't catch them on the scythe, and keep them clean until needed. |
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<Proffers chef's white tunic, apron, and tall hat, sealed in a plastic pack/> |
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//now those are unaffordable, they are rioting.// Rioting is pretty much the French national pastime. |
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It keeps them busy. Otherwise they might drive elsewhere
and infest everyone else. |
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The horror, the horror ... |
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Perhaps what's needed is an agreement to stop the french from spreading and becoming a pandemic. |
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Britain did all the pioneering research up to 1815; time other nations put some effort in. |
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You see, [8th]? Civility; watch and learn. |
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Oh, we know all about "civility". |
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We just don't use it, or if we do, it's for nefarious reasons. |
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We demand that you post that as an idea so we can bun it. |
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Make it with folded arms so the torso fits comfortably
in
the steamer & bent knees so it's torso lies flat while the
lower legs & feet form a handle. |
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What [Skewed] said, but in 128-point block capitals, bold, italic, underline. |
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And in a suitably shouty font. |
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Skewed was imagining a version of appropriate size for steaming vegetables, in a cookpot of normal size. You don't get to change the spirit of his words whilst simultaneously emphasizing them, you have to pick. Anyway don't you have half a dozen different bronze bulls? |
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Yes, and a Bronze Turtle too, as a tribute to Sir Terry. |
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We want the Wicker Man vegetable steamer, and we want it NOW. The vegetables are evil and must be destroyed. They must be made to suffer. |
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The red tape and expenses being an employer should be much less. Nor should employers have ti be sales tax. collectors for the government. |
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But employers would pay part of the taxes that the government would use to pay for absences, sick and maternity time, FICA, single payers insurance when it gets here, unemployment, medical insurance, corporate bailouts, small business loans, and such. |
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The businessperson will pay for it one way or another. |
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"The Republics for which they used to stand," are controlled solely by the people that pay the bills to run the country. Pure democracy, socialism, communism is controlled largely by those that do not pay the bills to run the country. |
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See Plato and Aristotle's opinions on democracy [1] |
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It does make sense in many aspects : large union contracts these days, there's all sorts of clauses like free education, sick days, various non-work-related insurances, etc. etc. etc. that, often, the union is bigger than the employer and could get better deals. The company should just be paying a straight salary + giving perks integral to the company, itself (like transit companies giving discounts on trips, etc.). Just, my 2c. |
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Let's analyse that a little more closely. |
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What you've described is a contractual arrangement between two parties. There will be all sorts of "break" clauses, and even without them, the two parties can simply mutually agree to set aside the contract, or force majeure can be invoked. |
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The problem with a government run scheme is that it tries to be a one-size-fits-all design and operate indefinitely with no break clauses. It's inherently inflexible, and cannot adapt rapidly to a change of circumstances. Employers and unions may not want to adapt or change, but the market will ultimately force them to face an altered reality. Governments try to pretend they can actually control reality; then they fail, usually disastrously. |
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Critically, as the pace of social and economic change accelerates, and governmental systems scrabble to preserve the status quo, or react slowly and inappropriately - since by the time a change has been agreed and implemented, the problem itself has moved on - the strains get greater, and credibility id eroded. |
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Two contracting parties can change an arrangement in hours, if necessary. Oh, they might decide on a "transition period" and all sorts of other measures, but the fix can be done fast. Representative democracies can't do that. When the world changes overnight, their reactions take years. |
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In a world where change was slow, the systems can cope. "We have done it like this for years" worked. Now, it doesn't. What worked in the past does not work today, and will not work tomorrow. |
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There are other problems. Governments don't generally pay enough to attract the best talent; talented people don't want to bother with the sluggish, hidebound systems of bureaucracy. Unsurprisingly, they're left with the residue when all the best people have taken interesting, well-paid jobs that they want to do, so no government is ever better than third-rate. So they rely on consultants, who are paid huge sums to tell them the obvious, which they then ignore, because it's not what they want to hear - it's not reassuring. Thus the downward spiral continues ... |
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When the present is like the past, you can sort-of muddle along. When the present is not at all like the past, and the experience of your organization ceases to be relevant on a daily basis, you're doomed. Commerce adapts, because that which does not adapt, does not survive. |
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//Two contracting parties can change an arrangement in hours, if necessary.//
lol |
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It's rare for that to happen, but a "memorandum of understanding" can be produced and signed off very quickly. |
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Yes, mostly it's a sluggish, lawyer-infested swamp, but not always. |
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A memorandum of understanding is only very exceptionally
legally binding and when legally binding takes as long as any
other contract. The whole justification of an MoU is that
because it is not legally binding, you can write whatever you
want - it doesn't matter. |
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True; "Peace in our time" is not a given. |
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But presented with an actual signed bit of actual paper, and driven by their compulsion to fall down and worship it as a god, lawyers will grumble and shuffle their feet when told "turn this into a proper contract" because while they're prevaricating, de facto implementation has already happened. |
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It's amusing to watch their horror and confusion when things are simply done without reference to the legal niceties and they get told to tidy up the paperwork. They fail to grasp that the paperwork is only a description of the thing, not the thing itself. |
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I can confirm that this is sometimes hilarious. |
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// But you are aren't you, go on admit it, you know
you want to, there's no use denying it, we can tell by
the pattern of your thought processes. |
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// As revealed by careful analysis of your
reasoning & arguments. It's like identifying someone
by the way they walk. |
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Could you tell me how I think? That would be very
interesting to me |
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Smart motorways is not my idea but some thing I can
imagine myself thinking of. I've heard it was a bad
idea in practice. |
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I suspect that's not a good thing. |
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What's the theme to all my ideas? |
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What I'm trying to reconcile at the moment is the
difficulty of starting a business. Your typical greasy
spoon or low end food place is pretty bare bones
whereas a chain restaurant looks good. A greasy
spoon cannot afford all the services needed to
provide maternity leave, perks and pension
payments. They shouldn't be forced by law or legal
requirements to provide these services. The
relationship between you and your employer shod be
a financial one. The "looking after" should be
outsourced as 8th says. It's baked a lot but it's still
the company that provides it. I should elect a pension
provider at the financial level not at the
organisational level of my employer. My employer
shouldn't be tied to pension provision. |
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I see it as an life account that has elections on. A bit
like a shareholder or domain registrar. |
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I can see how it describes a perfect socialist system
though. So this is clear to me now even though it
sounds as if it promotes business doing the
outsourced work. |
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People exploiting systems is some thing that is
interesting to me as I want to defend against it. Evil is
exhibited by the common person. |
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Every system has been exploited. It's why we have
TLS and OAuth 2. |
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I wonder what systems can be introduced to provide
society wide protection of government services. If
you look at the fraud caused by the furlough scheme
and bounce back and PPP loans in the US there was
a lot of exploitation goin on for gain. |
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//The relationship between you and your employer shod be a financial one//
If you want to live in a non-shitty world then removing morality from relationships is not the way to go about it. |
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