I've worked a variety of manufacturing jobs; from medical manufacturing of catheters the size of fishing lines with three inner diamters, running 5 story oven stack extrusion lines, laser etching tooth insert threading, and suface coating PTFE into sheet material for military radar and industrial applications, to grunt work factory assembly lines making the rubber gun butts for Ruger.
They all carried serious risks of bodily injury, and some far more so than others - but this is what's crazy to consider: the difference in wages we are talking is no more than $3 per hour. Meaning, that grunt work where you could lose your hand to a steel injection mold was $9, the teflon coating job where someone working third shift on the machine I ran was struck in the skull with the peg-end of a steel 72+ inch roller pin holding a full 300 yard roll of coated fabric, nearly (millimeters from), resulting in her having a steel plate surgically placed - that position paid a whopping $12 in 2014.
I've worked as a line cook, over 5 years, and as a driver, 6 years. None of these paid well, and all are inherent of risks. It's always seemed silly to me when you zoom out of this picture and see it like this; the more your job pays the less it exposes you to physical harm.
One of the common defenses of capitalism is that the capital owner is risking capital so should get to enjoy a disproportionate amount of their profits. The standard rejoinder is: "what exactly are they risking? If the capital owner is wiped out, they simply become a worker like everyone else".
I remember reading about the life expectancy of people who have worked construction all their working lives. The life expectancy in this same was (IIRC) 59. The life expectancy of the guy who owns the construction company was over 80.
So who exactly is taking a risk here?
To your point, you can look at an awful lot of incredibly dirty and dangerous jobs in undesirable locations and they pay surprisingly bad. As an example, underwater welding on North Sea oil rigs pays $100-160k. That is an incredibly dangerous job that wrecks your health. Even if there isn't a risk of acute injury or death, often it wrecks your body. And this fact also gets lost every time the idea is resurrected of raising the retirement age. How exactly is a construction worker or an airport baggage handler meant to work until 68 instead of 65 exactly?
On top of all that, the people who are getting paid very little in a possibly dangerous job can often cost a fortune if they screw up. International shipping tends to use fairly low paid sailors from countries like The Phillipines. The cost of a screw up can be hundreds of thousands of dollars a day when they might be earning as little as $30.
> the capital owner is risking capital so should get to enjoy a disproportionate amount of their profits
Anyone who advanced that ‘defense’ has a poor understanding of economics.
Risk is not an essential element of capitalism. Some investments are effectively risk free. ‘Disproportionate’ return seems to be something you’ve just made up. There’s no mention of the proportionality of returns in any economic treatise I’ve ever read.
Lastly, there’s nothing to defend. There’s simply the observation that if there is no return on capital then there’s no reason at all to provide capital. Nobody has ever come up with a working alternative.
In that case most capitalists and owners don't understand capitalism, because there are only two standard arguments - one is the one about risk, and the other is that everyone should be grateful when a capitalist creates jobs at all.
As for defences - capital is just political power by other means. If the capitalist is wasting money on yachts while workers can't afford food and housing, the return is morally disproportionate, and the usual outcome is socially catastrophic, in various possible ways.
Capitalism reduces every transaction to personal opportunism, with no concept of broader consequences. That's a shockingly stupid way to run anything - as we're all about to find out.
> Capitalism reduces every transaction to personal opportunism, with no concept of broader consequences
It is people who ALWAYS reduce everything to personal opportunism (no matter capitalism or not). Capitalism is the smartest way to run anything exactly because it is build on concepts of broader consequences of that fact.
> if there is no return on capital then there’s no reason at all to provide capital.
Untrue. Capital accumulates. People have desires for their world/society/community beyond their own wealth. They want to see certain things happen, and owning capital puts a person in a position to influence whether it does (or does not).
sans_souse · · focus · HN ↗
They all carried serious risks of bodily injury, and some far more so than others - but this is what's crazy to consider: the difference in wages we are talking is no more than $3 per hour. Meaning, that grunt work where you could lose your hand to a steel injection mold was $9, the teflon coating job where someone working third shift on the machine I ran was struck in the skull with the peg-end of a steel 72+ inch roller pin holding a full 300 yard roll of coated fabric, nearly (millimeters from), resulting in her having a steel plate surgically placed - that position paid a whopping $12 in 2014.
I've worked as a line cook, over 5 years, and as a driver, 6 years. None of these paid well, and all are inherent of risks. It's always seemed silly to me when you zoom out of this picture and see it like this; the more your job pays the less it exposes you to physical harm.
jmyeet · · focus · HN ↗
I remember reading about the life expectancy of people who have worked construction all their working lives. The life expectancy in this same was (IIRC) 59. The life expectancy of the guy who owns the construction company was over 80.
So who exactly is taking a risk here?
To your point, you can look at an awful lot of incredibly dirty and dangerous jobs in undesirable locations and they pay surprisingly bad. As an example, underwater welding on North Sea oil rigs pays $100-160k. That is an incredibly dangerous job that wrecks your health. Even if there isn't a risk of acute injury or death, often it wrecks your body. And this fact also gets lost every time the idea is resurrected of raising the retirement age. How exactly is a construction worker or an airport baggage handler meant to work until 68 instead of 65 exactly?
On top of all that, the people who are getting paid very little in a possibly dangerous job can often cost a fortune if they screw up. International shipping tends to use fairly low paid sailors from countries like The Phillipines. The cost of a screw up can be hundreds of thousands of dollars a day when they might be earning as little as $30.
mr_toad · · focus · HN ↗
Anyone who advanced that ‘defense’ has a poor understanding of economics.
Risk is not an essential element of capitalism. Some investments are effectively risk free. ‘Disproportionate’ return seems to be something you’ve just made up. There’s no mention of the proportionality of returns in any economic treatise I’ve ever read.
Lastly, there’s nothing to defend. There’s simply the observation that if there is no return on capital then there’s no reason at all to provide capital. Nobody has ever come up with a working alternative.
TheOtherHobbes · · focus · HN ↗
As for defences - capital is just political power by other means. If the capitalist is wasting money on yachts while workers can't afford food and housing, the return is morally disproportionate, and the usual outcome is socially catastrophic, in various possible ways.
Capitalism reduces every transaction to personal opportunism, with no concept of broader consequences. That's a shockingly stupid way to run anything - as we're all about to find out.
MentalM · · focus · HN ↗
It is people who ALWAYS reduce everything to personal opportunism (no matter capitalism or not). Capitalism is the smartest way to run anything exactly because it is build on concepts of broader consequences of that fact.
PaulDavisThe1st · · focus · HN ↗
Untrue. Capital accumulates. People have desires for their world/society/community beyond their own wealth. They want to see certain things happen, and owning capital puts a person in a position to influence whether it does (or does not).