Socialism in America

Just don’t let the billionaires see the plantation. Might give them ideas.

What’s the problem?

Socialism does imply decent wages (whatever this means).

You only get decent wages under socialism.

You do not get decent wages in OECD economies except for a few strata and this only during a period whichappears to be coming to a close.

Further to 4: Here is the first of some interesting articles by a restaurant owner on tipping:
http://jayporter.com/dispatches/observations-from-a-tipless-restaurant-part-1-overview/

Now if even an ordinary American, working on a former slavery plantation where he is every day reminded of a past of exploitation and gross violations of human dignity,

I think you are being too charitable. Not everyone connected with a plantation is willing to acknowledge the horrors of the slavery that took place there, and some actively work to misinform visitors.

Case in point: A while back there was an uproar when left-leaning singer/songwriter Ani DiFranco scheduled a songwriting retreat on a southern plantation. Among the many eloquent critiques of her decision was one woman who took apart the plantation’s own PR materials on its website.

The plantation and its tour guides apparently bragged that the slave owner treated enslaved people relatively well, and even shared a special meal with them on New Year’s Day. The critique pointed out that this was NOT a kindness — rather, it was a coldhearted recognition that Jan. 1 was the day that enslaved people found out who was going to be “hired out” to different plantations as part of owners’ rebalancing of labor needs in the coming year.

Since the transfers of people (i.e. separating family members, spouses, etc.) wouldn’t take place until Jan. 2, a slave owner who had dinner with the people he owned on Jan. 1 wasn’t being nice — he was being CAREFUL.

(I just spent 20 minutes looking for the original article — if anyone can find it, please link so we can credit the writer.)

Most developed countries are more socialist than the US, but in the US, the term “socialism” doesn’t enjoy any significant distinction from Soviet communism.

Agreed. Redistribution of wealth, however extensive, is not socialism.

Socialism, the actual thing is quite unpopular in Europe. The cold war was much closer here. The 50+ center right people still claim lots of hyperbolic nonsense about it. Adequating every deviationon from manchester capitalism with a socialist hellhole however, as shown in this anecdote is quite another category of crazy.

And I don’t think a good society turns all relations between people to economic ones run by incentive structures.

in case that wasn’t clear, I was being sarcastic. Beyond the broader societal issue, as @5 and @10 point out, making tips in restaurants a major part of waiters’ earnings is a _terrible_ idea even if you think in terms of incentives.

Sorry, if that wasn’t what you were trying to suggest that was just my interpretation, but I don’t think I’ve ever met any American who thinks of socialism in the Webster’s Dictionary sense.

To be fair, i recall people that really should know better (e.g. a political science Prof) adequate wealth taxes with socialism as a self evident proof that such a policy is not viable. The IWF and the Bundesbank must be run by socialists in that case. My guess is that there is a huge country variation in Europe. France has a mainstream political party that is not at all socialist outside rethoric. Here in Germany in contrast, the major left party calls itsself Social Democratic. The term “socialist” until some years ago was used by the precedessor of the East German regime party, which asociates the term with all the atrocities of that ugly dictatorship, not just the economic inadequacies. Ironically, that party is by no means socialist either.

The Wikipedia definition is quite good:

Socialism is an economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy

The Palgrave Dictionary of Economics similarly defines that

[a] society may be defined as socialist if the major part of the means of production of goods and services is in some sense socially owned and operated, by state, socialized or cooperative enterprises.

Most definitions are along those lines. In the US, parts of the political right calls every economic policy they don’t like “socialism,” even if it consists entirely of the regulation of privately owned enterprises (think banking regulation). That should be appropriately ridiculed and not be cause for a re-definition of the term.

Not sure what your point is? Co-operative ownership refers to something like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_self_management as attempted e.g. in Yugoslavia
I don’t think that’s any less radical than government ownership and it still has nothing to do with what the American right labels socialism.

I have long thought that, for many, the true purpose of political debate is render your opponents’ ideas unthinkable. Thus in the US, socialism is merely a dirty word. Alas, this is also even true for some in the UK Labour party.

adam.smith @ 4

My hypothesis for why is that they is the perceived power to punish by not tipping or tipping low—which then gets you even closer to the plantation…

Krugman linked some months ago to a blogpost–a very good one!–by Aimee (?) @ I Spy With My Little Eye (?) making this point.

As far as defining Socialism goes, I think it’s a murky idea. Raise the tax rate sufficiently and most Americans will howl “socialism!” regardless of where the revenue is spent.

with regard to the anecdote: if American people in service jobs typically like a tip-heavy pay system (as the anecdote implies), is it a bad thing when they work in such a system? The problematic part seems to people who don’t like such a system, but are in it anyway.

The heavens themselves, the planets and this centre
Observe degree, priority and place
… O, when degree is shaked,
Which is the ladder to all high designs,
Then enterprise is sick! How could communities,
Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
The primogenitive and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,
But by degree, stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And, hark, what discord follows!
… The general’s disdain’d
By him one step below, he by the next,
That next by him beneath; so every step,
Exampled by the first pace that is sick
Of his superior, grows to an envious fever
Of pale and bloodless emulation…

I’ve worked plenty of tip jobs (particularly bartender) and can say that the idea that they support good service is bunk. What it really promotes is the avoidance of bad service and a lot of “pleasant attitude” whether it’s deserved or not.

As a result when some dude (and its always a guy, never a woman) thinks his $8 glass of house wine “tastes a little off” even though you know good and well that it doesn’t taste off at all, its just crappy wine. You smile and tell him “No problem sir, let me pour you another or perhaps you’d like to try a different one?”

You do this to make sure that you protect your tip and he leaves you $10 for the $8 glass…in fact that’s why the wine is priced at $8 instead of $7, since no one would leave $3 for a glass of crummy house wine. The bar owner gets an extra dollar and the bartender has a better chance at getting a $2 tip (25%) instead of a $1 tip (14%).

I don’t know that its exactly the plantation, but there is a certain amount of “Yes massa” involved. Far better to just charge $9 for the glass, pay the bartender better in the first place and if by some chance the customer feels I have in-fact given excellent service and he chooses to give me the extra $1 – then that would be his choice and a reward for doing actual good, rather than just being mediocre. As a tip payer I hate feeling obliged to tip for truly ordinary service simply because its expected (i.e. the bartender who simply uncaps a bottle of $4 beer and who I give $5 to as a tip for doing nothing but applying physics).

There are restaurants in the eastern part of Berlin that let you eat, drink, and pay what you like. No tipping. Admittedly, the drinks menu ranges wider than the al a carte does. My merry and bright wife once paid 180 euros, there, for a meal–identical to mine;and for which I paid 30 euros.

Maybe the “socialism” comment was prompted by opposition to the government setting wages (even minimum ones). That’s a pretty common sentiment in the US, and one that has little or nothing to do with tipping.

Although “tipping” as a topic always makes for a lively comment section anywhere it comes up.

Are there any countries other than the US where tipping is common?

“Are there any countries other than the US where tipping is common?”

Canada.

@notsneaky #10. You make a good point. There can be a great deal of hierarchism among restaurant workers. My son recently worked at a local restaurant where an assistant manager insisted that the sushi chef perform a cleaning function normally done by bus and wait staff. The sushi chef refused and walked out taking several of the
other staff with him. The quality of food and service in that restaurant suffered for quite a while. If a job function could cause that much disruption, it is certain that money could cause a lot more.
I suspect that the most accurate representation in Downton Abbey is the hierarchy/status consciousness of the servants.

Youth unemployment is of a similar magnitude in Ireland which has a extremely “flexible” labour market. ( especially considering the levels of emigration)

I would second adam.smith at #4. The obviously-unfavorable “that would be socialism” is much more likely to be a statement on no tips, not better wages. The idea that doing extra well should not get you anything–rather, you get what you get no matter whether you do anything or not–is what Americans’ hostility to socialism usually reflects.

“Yet there have been polls taken in the last few years in which a substantial number of Americans said they thought socialism was a good idea.”

By Americans I meant REAL Americans. Not pansy liberal elitists. Duh!

“Are there any countries other than the US where tipping is common?”

Britain, although the standard tip is about half what it is in the US.

In the US, these terms (socialism, Marxism, whatever) are totally meaningless. Even left-leaning people who say they are sympathetic to socialism (they do exist, cf. 40) tend to use the term in the same way as the mainstream media and the right: socialism equals social security and universal health care, and also whatever they have in Sweden (there are no tips in Sweden right?) It’s useless trying to correct people and explain what the terms really mean. It’s totally useless to try to insert historical perspective, like “the father of social security and health insurance is actually Bismarck, and he was an anti-socialist”. You just have to accept that when everybody agrees to calling a table “beer mug”, you can’t argue with them, you have to call that damn thing beer mug.

Oh and by the way, liberalism and conservatism are also meaningless terms. Nowadays liberalism denotes a weaker form of “socialism” (i. e. beer mug) whereas conservatism denotes an ideology advocating the systematic dissolution of the social fabric. You get used to it after a while on US soil.

On the question of tips and socialism, you all might be interested in some of these little data points from a report by Gordon Lafer issued last year by EPI.

1. In 2011, lawmakers in Wyoming introduced a bill that would have allowed restaurants and other employers to force their wait staff to pool their tips. Tips would be redistributed among the non-wait staff, who could then be paid the subminimum wage.

2. That same year, Maine legislators passed a bill declaring that “service charges” were not tips at all. Because they aren’t tips, they don’t belong to the wait staff. Employers can pocket them—without informing customers—and redistribute them to the non-wait staff (or keep them as profit).

Seems like confiscation and redistribution is okay, so long as it’s the employer who’s doing it.

http://www.epi.org/publication/attack-on-american-labor-standards/

TM @51

In the US, these terms (socialism, Marxism, whatever) are totally meaningless. … It’s useless trying to correct people and explain what the terms really mean.

There is no single ‘true’ meaning of the word “socialism.” Rather, there are a range of definitions within the ballpark of reasonable definitions (though I am one of those who thinks that the ‘actually existing socialisms’ e.g. of the Cold War era weren’t socialist at all). Asserting that the term “socialism” has one single correct meaning is absurd. Pretty much the same goes for “Marxism,” since there are varieties of Marxism.

Btw since a lot of W. European socialist parties, over the years, came to favor social democracy and not much beyond that, it’s understandable that some or many people in the US think socialism=social democracy, though that is not TM’s preferred definition. It’s not that everyone in the US is so stupid and has never heard of Bismarck, or whatever TM wd like to suppose.

I was recently surprised to discover that “anti-colonial” is a dirty word as well.

LFC: I don’t know what you think is my “preferred definition” of socialism; I haven’t told you. There certainly is a range of meanings. But that doesn’t make it arbitrary, unless you are willing to agree that one might as well call it beer mug or abracadabra.

“It’s not that everyone in the US is so stupid and has never heard of Bismarck, or whatever TM wd like to suppose.” Do you ever talk to Americans about these things?
I once asked a college class where they think Social Security came from and nobody even named FDR. Certainly some Americans do know a bit more than that about the history of the welfare state but I would be very surprised if more than a tiny fraction know in what country and century the first social health and retirement insurance model was instituted, let alone name Bismarck. Seriously if Americans had even the most basic knowledge in that area, the whole Obamacare debate could never have played out the way it did. It is precisely because Americans don’t know – really genuinely honestly don’t know – the difference between socialism and mandated health insurance a la Switzerland that the extreme right has been able to exert such a huge political influence in the US. Let’s not fool ourselves – these labels do matter a lot in the political debate.

Also LFC, it is relevant in that context to mention that Americans have been told Obamacare was invented by either Lenin or Hitler (probably both, since they were both socialists). This may be a fringe opinion but you can believe that such silly propaganda wouldn’t be peddled if there weren’t plenty of takers for it. You have to face the fact that a sufficient segment of the American people is really that stupid uninformed. It’s not in just in our imagination.

“Plenty of people seem to confuse Obamacare with good policy.”

Or with being the best policy that could get through the Senate at the time, but we have had this argument here many times.

I dislike the power relation involved in which a server can do all the work of which he/she is required, and then still theoretically get less than the minimum wage

As I understand it, theoretically that cannot happen. I believe the minimum wage law regarding service workers is that they can be paid less than minimum wage when their tips actually, rather than just potentially, make up the difference.

likelihood OF ever being implemented [sorry]

TM @68 – quite generally wages and hours enforcement in the US is a complete joke and rules are violated routinely. Here’s a report (PDF): http://www.nelp.org/page/-/Justice/2010/JustPayReport2010.pdf
States actually use lax enforcement as a competitive advantage so there is some degree of race to the bottom (see. e.g. http://web.law.columbia.edu/attorneys-general/policy-areas/labor-project/resources/state-and-hour-laws ).

I’d imagine this particular case to be relatively rare, but where it does occur, independent enforcement is fantastically unlikely; given the power differentials in the types of tip-dependent jobs where people are actually likely to fall below minimum wages, employees are both unlikely to know about this and even if they do unlikely to demand payment, let alone report employers; finally, given the above, even if they report this, it is relatively unlikely to lead to enforcement action.

@TM
I concede that a fairly substantial segment of the US pop. is prob. uninformed on these matters. Your initial statement struck me as a bit more sweeping than that, but I agree there is no doubt a fair amt. of ignorance out there.

LFC 02.12.14 at 4:52 pm @ 55
‘… Asserting that the term “socialism” has one single correct meaning is absurd.’

Of course, words are conventions and can have any number of meanings. Some definitions are more useful than others, however. Also, that the definition of a perfectly reasonable concept like ‘the ownership and control of the means of production by the workers’ has no word to represent it for most of the population may be a problem.

Tim Worstall 02.12.14 at 1:28 pm

” I was a waitron unit for near a decade and I think the tipping system’s just great. The effect might not be quite where you think it is though.

It’s really on how waitron units get sorted into the particular places they work. For a more expensive place (or, alternatively, a place with very high turnover of tables) will mean that those tipped are going to be earning more money. So, those with aptitude for the job self select into those two types of places as they pursue higher incomes.”

Even for you, this is bad. Every job I’ve had has been untipped, and you know what?
Sorting gets done anyway.

SoU, adam.smith – I guess what I’m wondering is whether wage theft in tipped jobs is more pervasive than elsewhere, owing to the fact (new to me) that the employer is required to make up a lack of tips.

TM – I’m informedly guessing here, but the answer is likely that it depends on how you measure.
I’m pretty confident that wage theft for people who make below minimum wage is near-universal in tipped jobs. So if someone isn’t making her/his $7.25 with tips, I’m pretty sure that less than 50% of employers will pay the difference.

But if you think about a restaurant job, the $5.13 gap between total minimum wage and tipped wage are roughly the tips for $25. This is calculated on a weekly basis—so basically an employee would have to average less than $25 of sales an hour during a workweek to be affected by this. I haven’t worked in tipped jobs myself, but my wife has done so a lot and this strikes me as a rare occurrence.

In California servers are not exempt from minimum wage laws. In most states they are. Restaurants can only pay so much in labor and still stay in business. That means that it is much harder to attract decent kitchen staff. You can solve this by charging a service fee and distributing more money to the kitchen staff. But in most states it is not a problem because a server’s minimum wage is much less than the regular minimum wage, 2.13 an hour.

Tips are better than pay. No one reports the full amount of their tips. This difference is tax free. The BLS median hourly wage is 8.92. But the BLS is collecting data from employeers. Based on years in service industry as a crappy server in crappy restaurants 8.92 an hour is way too low a figure. They are using server’s self reported numbers. I could be wrong but that is what I am thinking. Which means the real median hourly wage is probably about at least 12 – 13 an hour. Not a lot of wage theft.

Servers, even those who technically make below minimum wage, tend to make way above it in practice, certainly more than cooks and dishwasher. This is also reflected in your standard restaurant hierarchy with servers>cooks>dishwashers. It’s not the servers who get screwed and I seriously doubt that ANY restaurant where the employer is engaging in any kind of “wage theft” survives for any period of time. Read that jayporter article at the beginning, it lays out pretty well.

As MPAVictoria said, Reservoir Dogs springs to mind. Here’s the clip. Maybe not everyone’s seen it.

Warning: contains foul language and Steve Buscemi teeth.

On the question of wage theft and the enforcement of wage and hours laws, I suggest you all take a look at the EPI report I posted at 53 above. Enforcement of the laws is, as someone else mentioned up-thread, a total joke. One of the studies cited in the report — which is a multi-city study — found not only a tremendous amount of wage theft but also that almost a 1/3 of the employers who are found guilty and are forced to pay penalties continue to violate the law because the odds of being caught (plus the level of penalty) are so low that there’s little incentive not to. Also, many states have inspector staffs in the single digits. Florida has none. Louisiana has two. Oregon has three. Missouri has six. Finally, when localities have tried to pass ordinances against wage theft, and have come up with credible and viable enforcement mechanisms, state legislatures have shot them down. That happened in Florida.

notsneaky: I’m not convinced that the solution to the very real problems of non-wait staff are laws allowing employers to pool tips.

You seem to be under the impression that waitstaff are doing rather well, at the expense of non-waitstaff. But as that EPI report makes quite clear, that’s just not the case.

It states: “The poverty rate for waiters and waitresses—who comprise the bulk of all tipped employees—is 250 percent higher than that of the workforce as a whole. Furthermore, the share of waitstaff in poverty is directly related to state wage laws. In states where waitstaff receive the full minimum wage, 13.6 percent are poor; in states with a tipped wage set somewhere between $2.13 and the federal minimum, waitstaff poverty is 16.2 percent; and in states that apply the federal subminimum wage of $2.13, waitstaff poverty rises to 19.4 percent.”

Pooling tips would simply allow employers to pay more non-waitstaff the subminimum wage, and on top of that take what is already a fairly limited pot of money (tips) and have it be redistributed among a larger group of people.

Incidentally, I’m amused by your questioning the methodology of the EPI report when you urge us instead to read a first-hand account by a restaurant owner, who operates a fairly high-end locavore “gastro-pub” in San Diego with entrees that go for as much as $30, checks for a party of four that would easily run in the hundreds, and thus high tips. Not exactly representative of your typical restaurant in America. The reality is that there are more than 3 million men and women who work in the food establishments with tipped employees, and most of them are not working in those kinds of establishments, generating those kinds of checks, and thus those kinds of tips.

Corey,

“The poverty rate for waiters and waitresses—who comprise the bulk of all tipped employees—is 250 percent higher than that of the workforce as a whole.”

What is the “workforce as a whole” here? Minimum wage workers or all workers? If the latter then, given that, the food industry isn’t made up of doctors, lawyers, accountants, or bankers – it is a low wage industry – that statement is fairly meaningless. Of course low wage workers will have higher poverty rates than non-low wage workers. I might be wrong about “workforce” means here though.

“Furthermore, the share of waitstaff in poverty is directly related to state wage laws. In states where waitstaff receive the full minimum wage, 13.6 percent are poor; in states with a tipped wage set somewhere between $2.13 and the federal minimum, waitstaff poverty is 16.2 percent; and in states that apply the federal subminimum wage of $2.13, waitstaff poverty rises to 19.4 percent.”

This doesn’t control even for per capita income in a given state, never mind average low skilled wages. When the authors state “directly related to state wage laws” they are grossly exaggerating (that’s what I mean about questionable methodology, and other things too). All they mean is that there’s a correlation between poorer states and states that have subminimum wages. The distribution of states with each kind of of wage floor is non random. Even without looking it up I’m willing to bet most of the “apply the federal subminimum wage” states are in the South. Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, probably Georgia (these are guesses but I’d put money on the table and bet I’m right). So all that correlation shows is that in poorer states there’s more poor people. Well, yes.

Pooling tips would simply allow employers to pay more non-waitstaff the subminimum wage, and on top of that take what is already a fairly limited pot of money (tips) and have it be redistributed among a larger group of people.

First sentence is not necessarily true. Even if it was I’d be willing to bet that your average dishwasher or cook would much prefer to get the subminimum wage + a fair share of the tips than minimum wage + get stiffed on the tips by the wait staff, which is what usually happens. And I base that on personal experience. I worked at some places where the culture was such that the wait staff pocketed pretty much all the tips (in fact, one place, it was so bad the owner would “pay” the kitchen staff extra, mostly in kind (i.e. mostly free beer after work) out of his own pocket to keep up the morale and ease the constant tensions) and I worked in places where we got the subminimum wage and fair tips (mostly due to the fact that there was some, uh, romantically involved couples working on both sides of the kitchen window) and the pay was so much better.

That sort of brings me to the last point. Yes, jayporter’s experience is that of a fairly “high-end” restaurant (though it depends on your definition of “high end”). But even these places employ low wage workers (note the wages he talks about in the article). My experiences aren’t that “high-end” but they pretty much completely align with what the author is describing. How many low wage jobs have you worked Corey?

And oh yeah. I did have my wages stolen. Not by some evil corporation (though I’m sure that happens) but by your storybook “Mom & Pop” that some people get so enamored with. Turns out Mom & Pop can be as greedy as the next guy (another matter is that these people aren’t exactly rich, usually pulling in something in the range of 40-70k a year, ignoring the unrepresentative tail of that distribution). Actually that restaurant went bankrupt after about 6 months, which is fast even by industry standards. Mostly because word spread around they were up to some shenanigans.

Tip jobs can be nice when youre a healthy young college student with upper class parents. Such students can also say no to the new iphone and not work at all. They dont have to work the tip job anymore when they are older and thus less physically attractive which lowers tips. And they always have access to the better tip jobs in the first place. Stories along those lines are dont make a culture with jobs where one depends on tips for a living any better.

Sorry, one more point. While the report cited in the footnote says that wages for all workers are higher in states with no subminimum v. states with subminimums — a fact that might point in your favor — it goes onto show that the disparity between the two types of states is much higher among tipped workers than it is among workers in general. In other words, the issue is not one of poorer v. richer states but of public policy regarding subminimum wages.

For 80% (forget 80%+) to be references to other EPI reports, no more than 63 footnotes would have to be references to non-EPI sources. Yet counting back from the last footnote — #314 — I found 100 footnotes with references to non-EPI sources. And I had only gotten to footnote 209. That means…you’re full of shit.

Ok, you want to argue about details rather than the point. Sure. You’re right, I was wrong. I looked at a particular section of the footnote list and noticed lots of references to epi sources. So my 80% was a quick estimate which is wrong. Most of the footnotes are either links to government documents or newspaper articles. Fine, you win on a technicality?

You see, there’s actually an easy way to answer this question. Follow the footnotes! If you do, you’ll see that it “workforce as a whole” refers to all workers.

So… I was right that the comparison is meaningless? But hey! You scored a “point” because you told me to “follow the footnotes”. I guess you can get a bonus point for the condescending tone too.

Uh, no. First, how you would even know what the methodology is if you don’t follow the footnotes is beyond me.

Well, because usually the methodology is explained in text, as in “controlling for X we find that…”. There is a footnote here and I’m looking at the source and… well first, it turns out that I was right, the states with only the Federal subminimum wage are in the South, like I said. Are you disputing something here?

you’ll see that he is not referring to poor workers overall in a poor state but rather to tipped workers — in states that are both richer and poorer — and how their wages vary in proportion to wage laws in those states.

Umm, the report itself says: “Furthermore, the share of waitstaff in poverty is directly related to state wage laws. In states where waitstaff receive the full minimum wage, 13.6 percent are poor; in states with a tipped wage set somewhere between $2.13 and the federal minimum, waitstaff poverty is 16.2 percent; and in states that apply the federal subminimum wage of $2.13, waitstaff poverty rises to 19.4 percent”

Here is what I said: “This doesn’t control even for per capita income in a given state, never mind average low skilled wages.”

You seem to be completely missing my point. I did not say that the report was referring to poor workers over all. I was specifically saying that the report, when considering the wages of *tipped workers* is not *controlling for* the general wage level in a given state.

And of course he’s looking at both rich and poor states, how else would get variation in the data here? The *whole point* is that in richer states a smaller share of the waitstaff is gonna be poorer, minimum subwage or no.

Sorry, here it’s just you not understanding some basic rather than me making any kind of error (but I didn’t look at a footnote!)

Moreover, there are only six states that don’t have some version of a subminimum wage for tipped workers. In other words, 44 do have some version of a subminimum. You think they’re all Mississippi, Alabama, and the South?

Look at figure C. You don’t see a spatial pattern here? The only Southern state which is not in the “Full tip credit” category (i.e. states with laws “enabling payment of the lowest subminimum wage ($2.13)”) is Florida (which is not South anyway). Yes, the South and the general income level of states – not tip law legislation – is driving a good chunk (if not all) of that correlation, you don’t even have to run a regression to pick that up. So, well, yes.

You seem to focus on this whole “ha ha ha you’re not looking at the footnotes” but when one actually look at the footnotes, it seems I was right.

And then a lot of hand-waving about where you worked vs. where I worked.

You brought it up in relation to the jayporter article with the objection that that only applied to “high end” restaurants (which still hire low wage workers). I only pointed out that, no, that wasn’t true. (and yeah, I’ll take my personal experiences and precise, intelligent analysis of other people who know what they’re talking about over an EPI report any day. If you have some more serious data analysis, something not from a politically driven advocacy group, then we can talk)

I’m not going to engage with the Internet Tipping Argument That Never Bloody Ends.

I will say that ‘socialism’ in American English is a word like ‘stinky’. It’s not a dirty word, so much as a word used by spoilt children, especially young bullies. ‘You’re stinky!’ ‘No I’m not!’ etc.

Compare the above % changes in the median wage by group, as you move from Low to Medium, and Medium to Equal Treatment, with the % change that one observes in the poverty rates among the waitstaff, which is about 20%.

Here’s something more serious:

http://ftp.iza.org/dp7092.pdf

They *do* find that increases in the subminimum wage increases the take home paid of tipped workers but the effect is small. And it reduces employment and hours worked.

(but be sure to look at footnote 19!)

js.

You missed a lot of parts. Of course I agree that servers are low wage workers, who make much less than most. No, I am not opposed to better wages for servers. I am simply opposed to policies which do not increase their wages (more precisely, hardly at all) but likely decrease the wages of non-servers, who are also employed in low wage jobs. Is that hard to follow? Explanation sufficient?

The flipside of rightwing willingness to denounce as socialist just about anything that promote equality and justice is that there is remarkably strong support for ‘socialism’ in the US, at least among the young

http://www.people-press.org/2011/12/28/little-change-in-publics-response-to-capitalism-socialism/?src=prc-headline

John, given the total nebulousness that is socialism (as an ideology) in America (remember how Obama is a socialist?), I really wonder what “socialism” those young people are supporting.

The well paying jobs with benefits, cheap post secondary education and affordable health care socialism.
/Which really is all that most people want.

…and which, except for the second one, never existed in actually existing socialism.

“…and which, except for the second one, never existed in actually existing socialism.”

Oh go away.

@112 — A reasonable argument can be made that the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba were and are not examples of socialism, insofar as socialism is different from capitalism. When Lenin and his friends came to power in Russia, they instituted a system Lenin called ‘state capitalism’, in which the management structure remained, but the government took the place of private capitalists in owning and controlling the means of production overall. The pyramid of authority remained unchanged. Lenin recognized that this arrangement was unsatisfactory (from a socialist point of view) and urged the development of local cooperatives, but he died before he could do anything about it, and his successor found the centralized authoritarian quasi-capitalist system much more to his liking and so it continued and was imitated elsewhere. While the good old will to power was probably their main motive, one should recognize that during most of its career the Soviet Union was being attacked or threatened militarily and economically in an almost fanatical, jihadist manner by the capitalist and fascist states, which considerably restricted the choices of its rulers and made a centralized system look necessary. The same has been true of China and Cuba.

“Nah, it’s mostly the personal experience of someone who’s actually worked low paying jobs, rather than a bunch of folks who haven’t, but who like to pontificate about people who work low paying jobs.”

Oh? You know the job history of everyone posting here? That is extraordinary. However extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence so tell me what job I did for 4 years will putting myself through University. And be specific.

Not sure about socialism or any of the usual labels. But to get back to the original premise, I think that once you get past a certain income/net worth, it’s really just a matter of keeping score against your peers. You don’t even think of the lower strata, it’s where you rank on the Forbes 400 list that matters.

People often think that a certain income/net worth buys you personal freedom, but it really just buys you more chains. That’s why the Janis Joplin line of the 60’s resonated with us: “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”

“That wasn’t addressed to you.”

And these unspecified people it was addressed to, you know them personally? Well enough to know their work history?

Hope everyone hit by the snow is safe and warm . . . .

On the issue of tips. I worked far too long in restaurants, putting myself through three rounds of university that way, and doing restaurant work too long after graduating with my first degree. Could not find a decent job with a degree in Art. Later went back to get something more “practical.”

I bar-tended, waited tables, was a bouncer. In two restaurants in my experience, the owner forced us to give back a portion of our tips to pay for his credit card costs. I quit both, in anger, after learning this. Others would try to get money back to pay for uniforms and other items. As far as I knew, they didn’t ask this of their other staff, though they were making so little they couldn’t have afforded it.

It’s important, especially for reasons of solidarity, to know first hand how the other half lives. I have two college degrees, and have never made much money. I’ve done working class jobs my entire adult life, from carpentry, to mason’s helper, to bouncer, to warehouse work, to restaurants and then, finally, 15 years in Internet tech support.

Some might find the latter to be out of the “working class,” but if pay is any measure, it’s not. Especially if you throw in scheduling, odd hours (I worked until midnight for the shift diff), etc.

Socialism in America: As Steinbeck was reported to have said, it would never take hold here because we’re all just temporarily embarrassed millionaires. I think there is something quite brilliant in that insight.

____________ (third attempt of HTML coding) ____________
Country  1820      1870      1913     1950      1973       2003
USSR     688       943      1,488     2,841     6,059      5,397
USA      1,257     2,445    5,301     9,561     16,689     29,037

The belief in capitalism, or that it can be reformed, tweaked or tamed, is all too much like religious subservience. Which is in keeping with the way businesses are set up in the first place — if they aren’t co-ops. All hail the leader!! I will put all my faith in him or her!!!

Instead of “Jesus take the wheel,” you have “Capitalist bossman or bosswoman take the wheel!!”

There are, of course, different seasons of this stuff. I wouldnt be surprised if most people here hadn’t at some stage worked a minimum wage job, or considering the forum done the ‘7 years on 16k at grad school thing.’
Obviously, though, this is completely different in every way than working in a low paid job with X (where X is..with no real opportunity of moving out of it ..or paying off debt.. or bringing up children.. or dealing with some class of addiction..or struggling with a serious medical condition.. or dealing with a feckless partner )
Which is why we need to look at the totality of the situation, which is an obvious and largely inane point, but still..

Ronan #129,

Well said. But increasingly, even those with higher ed and middle class backgrounds aren’t assured of anything — of working their way out of debt, etc.

I worked hard to get my first degree, couldn’t find a decent job, decided to go back for a Masters, and then became homeless. I was on the edge enough that the loss of one crappy restaurant job pushed me over the brink, I could no longer afford even a room with a bunch of students, and had no where else to go.

Belongings in my car, or stuffed in lockers at my university, I showered in the gym, slept (illegally) where I could on campus, and tried to take classes while all of that was going on. It was too ironic that one of my classes was French Existentialism and Alienation in Literature, etc. etc. I felt like I was living through a Beckett novel or some absurdist play.

And that was in the 80s. Things are far worse now.

bob mcmanus 02.13.14 at 5:30 pm @ 132 — Speaking of which, one of the things I thought might be evidence of a loss of control is the vast, absurd upsurge in surveillance, governmental, corporate, and private.

133: I don’t necessarily see a loss of control so much as a loss of Foucauldian discipline, a loss of hegemony. I am honestly trying to think if there is any kind of upsurge in extra-legal resistance, crime, underground economy. Bittorrent? I honestly don’t know. I suppose I would predict a decentralization of discipline and punish or control structures. The producers of Dallas Buyers Club are themselves searching out and sueing 31 downloaders. So maybe yes, more anarchistic, with facilitating institutions available for use and abuse. Part of the point is that is difficult to impossible to get a grip on, totalize, create a narrative that sustains.

Endnotes, No 3 I think, has an exhaustive description of 2011 British riots, history and causation, etc. There is much that is interesting there.

I am simply opposed to policies which do not increase their wages (more precisely, hardly at all) but likely decrease the wages of non-servers, who are also employed in low wage jobs.

Oh, right! I’d forgotten the bit about how the minimum wage is really the worst thing that’s ever happened to low wage workers. Thanks for reminding me! Thanks too for reminding me how the years I thought I’d worked in low wage jobs are really a figment of my imagination.

Commenters and even the OP have turned to the long-running tip thread and to the conception of the term ‘socialism’ in the US, but the very interesting question at the heart of the OP needs to be addressed at some point: Does the billionaire have a duty not to be rich? Does it violate ethical principles to pursue money beyond necessity? I would say yes, and that a sound ethical argument could be provided to support this answer: that to have the pursuit of money as the goal of one’s actions, after the point at which one has enough to live in reasonable comfort and security, is indefensible ethically. In my comment under Chris’ post I mentioned the problem of the tendency of excess money to corrupt the public policy making process through the tendency of the power principle to override the application of ethical principles (of equivalence of value of agents before the ethical laws and of equitable results, of harm and benefit), citing the Deaton interview, but it’s also indefensible (I think Chris’ point) for someone to possess enormous excess wealth just so they can feel big about themselves while millions of people are suffering; the excess money could probably be used for public goods (to e.g., give free universal access to a university education and to lifelong learning by providing free access to all scholarly output (books, scholarly journals, etc.)).

Related to this question is the problem of the quest for status in response to a conventional view of what is valued. We need to detach the idea of accumulation of wealth from the definition of ‘success (in life)’. Extremely wealthy people should not be glorified, but vilified as morally grotesque.

Then the question of motivation for action and effort: the field of economics seems to accept the absolute and timeless validity of the profit motive as a reason for why anything gets done. People at the current time as a matter of fact do seem to follow this principle in their economic related activities; but the quid juris question always arises: is it right for us to have as our main reason for action the pursuit of money? I would say no. The motivation intrinsic to the activity or the desire to act on the need to reduce human suffering are not only preferable but effective. (E.g., we have good teachers who are not motivated by lust for wealth). A serious CEO has the duty not to demand but to refuse the astronomical and unbalanced compensation packages they are offered; and when they don’t refuse, they should be criticised.

The ethical principles underlying these conclusions can be stated explicitly. Philosophers should be able to do this. Let’s have the fully articulated argument; the ideas need to be refined. The current imbalance of wealth and opportunities for a decent life is unsustainable.

Actually existing capitalism:

I really don’t see a legitimate rationale for leaving the vast majority of humanity behind, all so the top 20%, give or take, can feel good about the tradeoffs they’ve made — because they reap the rewards. There is really no moral or ethical rationale for someone making a ton more money than someone else, and no way to explain that massive difference logically. It’s arbitrary, even within the system of capitalism, even according to its own rules and history — it’s arbitrary.

Of course capitalism isn’t the universe, and it’s not the world, and it hasn’t encompassed all of history, so we really can view it from outside its closed doors. And the view from outside shows how positively whacked it is to even want a system based entirely on economic apartheid, that naturally undermines democracy, naturally creates mountains of waste, debt, pollution and dislocation and does so to benefit the few at the expense of the many — and the planet.

Now, one can understand plutocrats wanting such a system. They set it up for themselves in the first place. If triangles worshiped a god, etc. etc. But it’s completely illogical and irrational for those left behind to want it, and even those struggling to keep from being left behind.

Capitalism, at best, has a natural constituency of the top 20% — at best — and a natural opposition of the bottom 80%. Socialism is roughly the reverse of that, depending upon how close one can get to the real thing. And the real thing would pretty much bring along all but the top 1% after people got used to the idea of not having to make those tradeoffs anymore, having a full say in one’s economic destiny, having equal access to all the goods of society, etc. etc. It wouldn’t take long before the natural constituency for real socialism rose to roughly 95-99%.

It’s unlikely the truly privileged elite will ever want it. But, ya know, why on earth should we give a shit? That’s just more of that bizarre tradeoff nonsense.

Conservatives say, “We should be willing to let everyone but the 1% drown, just for the chance at the brass ring.” Liberals, being slightly more sane, say, “We should be willing to let 80% drown, for a shot at a good life for the 20%.”

Actually, and obviously, we shouldn’t even have the power to write off other people, especially not 80% of humanity. Write yourself off if you want. We don’t give you permission to do more than that. Stop thinking your tradeoffs are worth the misery and poverty and ecological disasters that come with your chosen economic system. It shouldn’t be your call.

Anarcissie

Huh?

Under communism, given certain conditions, everyone does not get the same. They get what they need.

Under socialism some get more than others if their productivity varies. This is not plutocracy.

@Chris Warren 138

Random Lurker
It seems strange that someone would upload data without citing the source or context.

Uh? I said: “from the wikipedia page “List of regions by past GDP (PPP) per capita” ”
Here is the link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita

I agree with you, though I think that soviet socialism was still an underperformer (but not as much an underperformer as it is usually made to be).

Plume @131

Only seeing this now, fair points. Sorry to hear about the difficulties you had ….

Random Lurker 02.14.14 at 2:33 pm

Good, – got it.

Around 1990 I did the same exercise using data from the UN Human Development Reports. The Soviet data was quite respectable given that so much manpower was diverted to the military. The Russian Academy of Sciences felt that this was a deliberate tactic by the USA. However in the mid-1980’s Soviet officialdom was concerned about an emerging slowdown.

On the rarity of servers actually making below the minimum wage in tips — this might be rare *on average*, but is very frequently the case during many restaurant’s “slow” periods. And it’s important to note that it is by no means random which servers serve during the “slow” periods. It is very common for restaurants to use the threat of assigning hours during slow periods as a mechanism of maintaining worker discipline.

Regardless of the minimum wage laws, this creates a mechanism by which all servers are subject to large swings in pay at the whim of management — swings which probably do, when they occur, frequently dip below the minimum wage.

Incidentally, another very common practice is for servers who are making less than the minimum wage to be assigned non-serving duties (e.g., cleaning), yet not receive the minimum wage during the performance of those duties.

A very late comment to a good thread, but I wanted to get some feedback on something here.
Do property rights even exist, on wealth above that which is tied to one’s labor?

I can see the moral logic of asserting a natural right to property that is the fruit of one’s labor and effort.
But even the most wealthy superstar performers in virtually any field are compensated only in the tens of millions, not billions.
To get a billion, you need to invest, i.e., gamble, and get lucky. The rewards, the value accumulated, aren’t the result of effort on the investor’s part, but by the labor and effort and talent of thousands or millions of others.

This isn’t to suggest that investors are entitled to nothing- but it does suggest that increasingly high wealth can justly be claimed by society, rather than the investor.

Bit late to the party, so I’m not sure if anyone will see this, but I wanted to put my $0.02 in…

@139
“Does the billionaire have a duty not to be rich? Does it violate ethical principles to pursue money beyond necessity?”
I’ve given a lot of thought to this question, and I would agree the answer to both questions is “yes,” but add that there are a lot of definitions of “rich.” But I think a lot of people would say no to both (possibly with the qualification that we add “as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody else,” which is only more problematic when one considers the cumulative impact of everyone seeking extra wealth seemingly all the time). There is a real difference in worldview reflected in how one answers these questions, which is one of the reasons people on the Right and people on the Left seem to have such a hard time even considering that the other side’s arguments even have the potential for merit. Having lived in South Carolina for a few years, I’ve gotten to know more conservatives and libertarians than I would have ever expected to know, and for lack of a better phrase, they just think differently. While often kind and generous in personal interactions, they’re often incredibly self-centered when it comes to making decisions and practicing ethical behavior. As religious as many of them are, their treatment of other people can be very instrumental (if that’s an appropriate use of the term). And they assume everyone else is like them, and will try to screw them over (the way they would) if given the opportunity. But, yeah. Back to the question of wealth: I know a lot of people who would assume you’re being manipulative by even asking, as their assumption is that EVERYONE wants to be rich, and anyone claiming otherwise is probably lying. When you think this way, it’s easy to justify your own selfishness. (Note: There’s also the whole religion thing: dominion, belief that God will never allow humans to destroy the planet, &c. Which I’ve discovered is a belief that people actually have.)

“The motivation intrinsic to the activity or the desire to act on the need to reduce human suffering are not only preferable but effective. (E.g., we have good teachers who are not motivated by lust for wealth). A serious CEO has the duty not to demand but to refuse the astronomical and unbalanced compensation packages they are offered; and when they don’t refuse, they should be criticised.”
This is an interesting point, and one I don’t see being made as often as is warranted. As an educator, I’ve known so many teachers who were burned out, fed up, or otherwise no longer in it for what most people would hope are the right reasons. Wouldn’t it be better, for all involved, if they could transition to doing something else, without the threat of default or destitution? And re: CEO pay, if anything does a better job of providing evidence that the market system naturally favors those who have already been favored, I don’t know what it is. Are governments corrupt? Sure, some are, but at least they have to hide it, and answer for it when it comes to light. But the corporate structure of many companies is explicitly designed for the extraction and upward-funnelling of value. It might not be illegal, but it sure is corrupt.

“The current imbalance of wealth and opportunities for a decent life is unsustainable.”
This, for me, is the one about which I find it so hard to even picture feeling otherwise. The trends we’re following (more consolidation, more regulatory capture, more privatization, fewer public services, more income disparity), if we continue to follow them, really do point towards some disastrous consequences.

@142
“Construct a society that leaves no one behind, even the formerly rich . . . or one that leaves the vast majority behind just so a tiny few can make it to the top of the mountain. Seriously, how could any thinking, feeling human being choose the latter?”
Unfortunately, many would answer your question, which I think you meant to be rhetorical, with something resembling the following: “Because without the possibility of attaining great wealth, we won’t strive as hard or make/do as much, and the human spirit will resolve into a shadow of its former greatness.” And then maybe top it off with something about how we “need to accept that there will be losers if we want there to ever be winners.”

Oh, and re: tipping, I think the alternative minimum wage has managed to last this long because it works for the both the employer and the employees affected. (Every waiter I’ve ever known probably underreported their tips as a matter of course.) I actually worked at a restaurant where we pooled tips, and split them up at the end of the shift. It worked great, but we were a small restaurant, where we could see the benefits of doing so in action (all staff helping one another out). We also didn’t have a lot of turnover. I could imagine it would not go over so well at a larger restaurant, where there might be feelings that so-and-so wasn’t pulling their weight, &c. But as far as employers calling tips something else, and keeping the money, or redistributing as they see fit, I think most patrons of most restaurants would be offended to find out that was happening.

FuKo @156
Right. That “argument put forth” has always struck me as morally corrupt. If something is worth the effort, is a good thing to do and needs to be done, you should do it and make the effort anyway without the irrelevant “reward” of excess riches; if it’s not a good thing to do and you would only do it with the expectation for excess money as a result (e.g., securitizing home mortgages, merging two cable giants, etc.), you probably shouldn’t be doing that.

It’s part of a larger problem. Economic interactions should be viewed as subordinated to ethical principles; but as it is now, with the reigning market absolutism, we don’t have that: “rational action” means maximizing wealth (“greed is good”), and the profit motive is taken as axiomatic. But this can’t be the only possible foundation for economic activity for the whole future of the human spirit.

It’s not just a matter of ethics, but facts. Are the people who strive and accomplish the most identical with the people who make the most money? You can only get there by having literally no independent standard of accomplishment but money-making. (Which is not even logically consistent, since the price of things can change. Or are we to believe that Van Gogh added no value to those canvasses, but the art speculators who eventually sold them for millions did the real work?)