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If this narrative is so true, why do people spend fifteen years of their lives in a oversea sweatshop making less than a dollar a day and in safety conditions that can result in death? Why is the widespread corporate HR policy to allow annual raises in the 1-3% range, yet inflation increases at roughly 4%, resulting in new hires frequently making more than long standing employees? Why is it that tech companies that hire high skilled all agreed to work together in collusion to not pay what the market demanded but keep wages frozen so they could pad their bottom line?

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Savar_building_collapse

www.buckconsultants.com/portals/0/publications/press-releases/2012/NR-2012-1108-Buck-Survey-2013-Comp-Planning.pdf

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation

The dream of the symbiotic relationship between employee and employer completely breaks down in large scale macro-economic scales of corporations. The larger and more wealthy an organization is, the more it can dictate terms to the worker, with little fear of reprisal. After all, filling a position in a large company isn't a real concern - just overwork the remaining employees (after all, you can make them salaried and don't have to pay an extra dime) to cover the gap until you find someone who can work for the same amount. Craftsmanship and quality are no longer commoditized in the vast majority of professions, giving employees little to make an argument with to be paid more.

Yet inflation, particularly in medical costs and housing, continues to grow, while global wages are stagnating. It's becoming more and more expensive to be alive, yet companies are not having to respond to market demand, simply because the employee has no recourse outside of quitting, often to take a job which earns the same or less pay... if they can get a job at all.

The concept of the magic of economics bringing balance to The Force of employee-employer relations is just as much of a farce as the proletariat all working together in perfect harmony for the greater good that communism preaches. The service is never needed by a corporation nearly as much as the wage is needed by the employee, especially in a world of constantly rising costs. Without a regularly updated minimum living wage, companies will continually stick at the lowest possible wage, regardless of costs the employee may have, with the employee simply either sacrificing and doing without (increasing their chance to become a burden on the system) or working multiple jobs just to keep their meager lifestyle intact.

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In terms of the oil industry, there would be very little opportunity cost lost. Why? Because the oil industry consistently shifts their refining and drilling efforts to match market supply. If the price of oil drops, they only work one shift in a facility designed to accommodate three. If the loss of productivity was truly a concern for the oil industry, they could shift production quite easily to allow down time at any facility hat needed upgrades.

The Fed never forced banks to give loans to anyone who could not afford it. The Community Reinvestment Act used sound credit requirements for all low income housing loans, as opposed to the "redline" loan amounts and credit criteria the industry used in the housing sub prime bubble to cause the collapse. The CRA has been in place since the 70's and never caused problems... but suddenly just nine years after the GBLA repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, regulation put in place following the Great Depression and which was specifically designed to avoid ANOTHER Great Depression, we have the worst Depression in history caused by the exact banking behavior it was designed to prevent.

Of course, "evil Federal Treasury forcing companies to collapse the economy" is just so much more convenient a narrative.

You make my point for me.

The goal of the state is to care for its people. To ensure prosperity of its populace. The company's goal is to make money. In a moderate free market form of governance, it is the state's role not to get out of the way of the company, but to set the rules through which all companies work to best benefit the populace. The best way to do this is to build a system where both the company and the populace can not only pursue, but achieve their goals simultaneously.

Third world economies have terrible wages, horrible working conditions and dangerous safety standards. This isn't because there just isn't another company out there to raise the standard to attract the best workers... the company has no incentive to do so. They can offer a dollar a day in conditions where people can die and have no shortage of fodder to run through the machine.

Do you know why industrialized countries have minimum wages? Safety regulations? Overtime pay? Employee benefits? It's because the workers unionized, not because any company saw their collective worth increase. Companies in these countries didn't wake up one day to the glorious realization that their employees could switch from one sweat shop to the next... why would they care? There were always more people willing to take their place, always another person craving money to replace even the skilled managers or educated accountants. It wasn't until employees banded together into collective bargaining groups that halted production that companies paid what the employees demanded... which was different than what the employers thought they were worth.

Following numerous stops in production over the years, governments became involved as the halts had serious effects on their economies, so they stepped on. First as mediators, later as legislators, providing baseline worker rights and benefits to reduce the chance of strikes and production halts across their entire economy.

None of this plays by the rules of free market economies, yet it creates a stronger work force and a more advanced economy, producing more wealth and effectiveness than the solution the company would choose on their own terms.



A gross oversimplification.

First off, let's say Bobby gets replaced by a robot... a robot John engineered, that Rachel marketed + contracted, that Richard installed and that Lewis is certified to maintain. Even with robotic job replacement (nowhere near a reality for most industries and positions), it's never a total net negative. Improved profit margins by the company as well as an entire subset industry devoted to its growth is wealth transition, not wealth lost.

In addition, the company Bobby works for may make the rather simple realization that training Bobby to be as skilled as Jenny is a better investment, since onboarding a new employee costs nearly three times their annual salary in reduced productivity and failed employee retention. A worker's skill and value is not some static number that can never change, but is a constantly fluid set of skills and experience that is being built on every day. Jobs where your workers have no potential to become better or learn new skills are jobs that will be replaced by robots eventually anyway.



There's nothing more to be said other than "I'm right, you're wrong, no need to be bothered with facts or actual data?" Okay then.