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Post 20

Thursday, August 3, 2006 - 12:23pmSanction this postReply
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Go rent the movie Junior with Arnold Schwarzenegger if you have not see it already.  He plays a doctor who performs the type of male pregnancy Jon describes using a body cavity rather than an actual uterus.

I also recall seeing a science show about an unusual type of tumor in which one fetus absorbs another in the womb.  The absorbed fetus continues to grow inside the child and doctors must eventually remove it to save the life of the host.  The tumorous fetus has no developed nervous system and so cannot live as an entity.  It can look like a flattened, dried, premature baby but has hair and teeth.  Creepy!

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 8/03, 12:25pm)


Post 21

Thursday, August 3, 2006 - 12:54pmSanction this postReply
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John, I agree with you and recognize the point that you're making. Let me add that it is precisely the element of free labor competition that would tend to eliminate any arbitrary or invidious discrimination in the labor market.

If women were being paid lower wages due to sexist discrimination rather than to lower skills, less reliability or reduced potential from leave of absence for pregnancy, then it would be in the interests of employers to compete for their undervalued labor.

If, for example, women were being paid $18 an hour for work of exactly the same economic value and productivity as that of men who were being paid $21 an hour, then it would be in the interests of employers to fire their male workers who were costing them $21 an hour and hire female workers to perform the same job at a substantially lower cost of $18 an hour.

Of course, other employers, seeing the benefits of these lower costs, would follow suit by bidding up the wages of the female workers in competition with other employers for their labor, as long as the wages they were offering were less than what the employers were paying their male workers. Simultaneously, of course, in order to get hired or to retain their existing jobs, the male workers would have to be willing to work for lower wages.

The obvious result of this process of competition would be for the wages of the men and women to level out at equality. Assuming that at the start of this process, there were 8 men making $21 an hour for every 4 women making $18 an hour, the average wage would be $20 an hour -- (8 x 21) + (4 x 18) = 240 ÷ 12 = 20 -- which is what it would be for either men or women, once this process of competition had brought about an equality of income.

Observe that the women, being a smaller percentage of the workforce, would gain more of a wage increase from this process of competition than the men lose from it. The women's wage would increase by $2 an hour, whereas the men's would fall by only $1 an hour.

- Bill
(Edited by William Dwyer
on 8/03, 1:05pm)


Post 22

Thursday, August 3, 2006 - 2:02pmSanction this postReply
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Bill wrote:

John, I agree with you and recognize the point that you're making. Let me add that it is precisely the element of free labor competition that would tend to eliminate any arbitrary or invidious discrimination in the labor market.

If women were being paid lower wages due to sexist discrimination rather than to lower skills, less reliability or reduced potential from leave of absence for pregnancy, then it would be in the interests of employers to compete for their undervalued labor.

Yes absolutely. And that is precisely what we see in the labor market. Although I'm not following the following microeconomic analysis you give here:
 
If, for example, women were being paid $18 an hour for work of exactly the same economic value and productivity as that of men who were being paid $21 an hour, then it would be in the interests of employers to fire their male workers who were costing them $21 an hour and hire female workers to perform the same job at a substantially lower cost of $18 an hour.

Of course, other employers, seeing the benefits of these lower costs, would follow suit by bidding up the wages of the female workers in competition with other employers for their labor, as long as the wages they were offering were less than what the employers were paying their male workers. Simultaneously, of course, in order to get hired or to retain their existing jobs, the male workers would have to be willing to work for lower wages.

The obvious result of this process of competition would be for the wages of the men and women to level out at equality. Assuming that at the start of this process, there were 8 men making $21 an hour for every 4 women making $18 an hour, the average wage would be $20 an hour -- (8 x 21) + (4 x 18) = 240 ÷ 12 = 20 -- which is what it would be for either men or women, once this process of competition had brought about an equality of income.

Observe that the women, being a smaller percentage of the workforce, would gain more of a wage increase from this process of competition than the men lose from it. The women's wage would increase by $2 an hour, whereas the men's would fall by only $1 an hour.


The problem Bill is that they are not only competing for a wage, they are also competing for a level of productivity they can offer. So they are actually not at equal economic value and productivity (speaking in aggregate terms of course) Women tend to take off from work and leave jobs to start families which can create an economic burden to businesses. Turnover, training a new hire, and establishing a repertoire with a new employee is a very large economic expense that women contribute to. So their wages reflect that. They do not compete equally as they can't offer the same productivity as men can offer, which is why men are worth more than women. So the analysis I believe would go more like this:

A man is paid 21 dollars an hour. The company gets 40 dollars an hour of production output from this man. This gives the company a net of 19 dollars.

The woman is paid 18 dollars an hour. The company gets 35 dollars an hour of production output from this woman. This gives the company a net of 17 dollars.

So you see their wages may not necessarily get to the same wage through competition of wages alone. It's also a matter of, what kind of work can the employee offer to the company?

A rational company would want candidates in the labor market to compete with net productivity, not wages alone.
 

EDIT:

Doh! I just realized Bill that wasn't the point you were making. You were making an argument that if productivity among workers being equal, wage gaps because of sexism would go away because of competition in wages. 

(Edited by John Armaos on 8/03, 2:17pm)


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Post 23

Thursday, August 3, 2006 - 10:53pmSanction this postReply
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Luke,

Going back to that woman at your meeting. I wrote, “…state in no uncertain terms that you strongly disagree—then try to disengage.” I suggest to you that when it comes to asking her to confirm that she favors slavery, you’ve allowed the discussion to deteriorate too much—should have disengaged earlier.

You and I know that you didn’t attack her, just her ideas. But consider that it may not have felt that way to her. She’s alone and meeting your group for the first time. Asking her to confirm her support for “chains of slavery” can only be received as an aggressive challenge, a provocation.

You didn’t swallow Objectivism in one night, did you? Didn’t you find some principles and positions that were strange to your existing knowledge and required some time to consider before you accepted them? Give newbies the same opportunity. They need time to consider what they have heard. See what they think at the next meeting after a week or weeks have passed, and then again at the next meeting. If you stake your assessment of them on one issue, (which may be a blind-spot issue for them,) in one night, they will perceive that they are unwelcome and you will not see them again. You will miss opportunities to reach people.


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Post 24

Friday, August 4, 2006 - 6:33amSanction this postReply
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(continuing metadiscussion ... )

Not only the hostile, or even the benign but intense, response to a point of disagreement, but also the piling on of multiple, eager but blind responders can be alienating before it becomes overwhelming. IMHO, on seeing such a development, intervene; an empathetic distraction would likely be least awkward — but keep an eye on the about-to-be-victim's face starting earlier, in anticipation, to guide a more appropriate defense.


Post 25

Friday, August 4, 2006 - 5:48pmSanction this postReply
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Doh! I just realized Bill that wasn't the point you were making. You were making an argument that if productivity among workers being equal, wage gaps because of sexism would go away because of competition in wages.
That's funny, John! Yes, that's exactly the point I was making. Glad you saw it, if only a bit belatedly! :-) If there were a wage gap due to invidious discrimination, a free labor market would tend to eliminate it. You don't need civil rights legislation.

History provides a dramatic illustration of this point in the case of African Americans. In 1857, white mechanics petitioned the Atlanta City Council to ban competition from free blacks. The petition stated: "We refer to Negro mechanics [who] . . . can afford to underbid the regular resident mechanics . . . to their great injury. . . . We most respectfully request [that the council] afford such protection to the resident mechanics." (Quoted in Jared Taylor, Paved With Good Intentions, p. 29. Original source: Scott Alan Hodge, "Davis-Bacon: Racist Then, Racist Now," The Wall Street Journal (June 25, 1990)

The petition was necessary, because capitalists preferred the cheaper black labor to the more expensive white labor. The same issue arose after the Civil War, when white supremacists attempted through peer pressure to persuade Southern landowners to limit employment opportunities and restrict wages for blacks. Nevertheless, according to Professor Jennifer Robach of George Mason University, "white employers vigorously competed with one another for black labor." It was thus necessary for the white supremacists to resort to governmental intervention through the Jim Crow laws. Professor Roback describes these laws as "attempts to enforce a labor-market cartel among white employees that could not be enforced in any other way." (Roback, "Southern Labor Law in the Jim Crow Era: Exploitative or Competitive?" University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 51, po. 1161 1984.)

Moreover, it is worth noting that textile manufacturing, the only industry in South Carolina in which segregated employment was prescribed by law, was also the only one in which blacks were underrepresented in 1960, which further suggests that it was not capitalism but governmental intervention that was most responsible for employment discrimination against African Americans. Even during Apartheid, Africaner capitalists routinely hired black labor in violation of their own racist laws -- and were fined for doing so. (Thomas Sowell, "'Affirmative Action:' A Worldwide Disaster," Commentary, December 1989, p. 26)

Although in the present U.S. economy, Jim Crow laws no longer prevent blacks from competing with whites, employers are nevertheless prevented by the actions of labor unions from hiring blacks (women, or other minorities) at lower wages. Consequently, the cure for racist or sexist discrimination that would normally occur in a free labor market tends to be obstructed by unions and by the labor legislation that supports them.

Not only do coercive union monopolies prevent blacks from competing with whites, and women from competing with men, but so do licensing and franchise laws. Instead of outlawing racial and sexual discrimination in the marketplace, the 1964 Civil Rights Act should have decriminalized competition by busting the coercive power of labor unions and dismantling the licensing and franchise laws that prevent people with little money or education from competing with established businesses. At the very least, these coercive monopolies deserve to be contested under the 14th Amendment if only to give unemployed workers and aspiring entrepreneurs the same rights that existing workers and capitalists already possess.

Had the principle of civil rights as embodying freedom of opportunity and equal protection under the law been adhered to from the beginning, black slavery, Jim Crow and separate-but-equal laws never would have existed. Nor, to any significant extent, would racial or sexual discrimination in the marketplace. It was the repudiation of these rights to freedom and political equality that allowed for economic exploitation based on racism and sexism. It is, therefore, essential that these rights be reaffirmed as a guarantee against a similar kind of oppression occurring in the future.

- Bill

Post 26

Friday, August 4, 2006 - 6:10pmSanction this postReply
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Thank you Bill for the historical insights!

Post 27

Friday, August 4, 2006 - 6:53pmSanction this postReply
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You're welcome, John! Yeah, fascinating, isn't it?! Unfortunately, it's something that very few people are aware of.

- Bill

Post 28

Saturday, August 5, 2006 - 12:53amSanction this postReply
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Yeah definitely fascinating. I would never have stopped and thought about interpreting Jim Crowe laws with any economic analysis in mind.

Post 29

Saturday, August 5, 2006 - 7:58amSanction this postReply
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Jon wrote:

Going back to that woman at your meeting. I wrote, “…state in no uncertain terms that you strongly disagree—then try to disengage.” I suggest to you that when it comes to asking her to confirm that she favors slavery, you’ve allowed the discussion to deteriorate too much—should have disengaged earlier.

David wrote:

Not only the hostile, or even the benign but intense, response to a point of disagreement, but also the piling on of multiple, eager but blind responders can be alienating before it becomes overwhelming. IMHO, on seeing such a development, intervene; an empathetic distraction would likely be least awkward — but keep an eye on the about-to-be-victim's face starting earlier, in anticipation, to guide a more appropriate defense.

Some readers may have noticed that our local group uses the Shared Inquiry format for questions such as these.  Regarding the interpretive questions, not only do we seek to understand the author's point of view, but also each other's.  In his books on effective habits, Stephen Covey advocates Habit 5, "Seek first to understand, then to be understood."  To accomplish the understanding of another person's point of view, the listener reflects back his interpretation of the person's statements until that person says he feels fully understood -- not necessarily accepted, but understood.

In this instance, I listened carefully and reflected back to the woman my interpretation of her statements until she said she felt fully understood.  No one called her immoral for her statements and we did not have enough people in that side discussion to "pile on" disagreement.  So the only improvement I can see in the approach would be to employ Habit 4, "Think Win-Win."  I will chew on how to do that for future reference.


Post 30

Saturday, August 5, 2006 - 8:13amSanction this postReply
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... not necessarily accepted, but understood.


Well pointed out - crucial difference so often ignored or overlooked.....


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