Twenty three years ago today a massive offshore oil platform near the Shetland Islands called Piper Alpha – responsible for more than a tenth of all oil and gas production in the North Sea – exploded and burned, killing 168 men and leaving 61 survivors in various states of injury.
The disaster was initiated by an innocent enough mistake coupled with bad luck. The day crew shut down a gas pump, which provided electricity for the platform, for maintenance and left a written notice for the night shift that the pump should not be restarted under any circumstances. Unfortunately the night crew did not find the warning, and when the backup pump malfunctioned they attempted to restart the first pump to keep the platform's power supply functioning. The subsequent explosion triggered a chain of events that resulted in the massive fire you see in the video.
The initial explosion was not large enough to destroy the platform, and nearly all of the crew could have escaped with their lives if the disaster ended there. But it didn't. Two other connected nearby platforms, Tartan and Claymore, pumped all of their own gas/oil to Piper Alpha, which in turn pumped it to an onshore refinery. After the initial explosion on Alpha, the other two platforms continued to pump gas (which burns, FYI) because the owners, Occidental Petroleum, was concerned about the costs of shutting down all three platforms. Apparently when oil/gas production is shut down and pumping ceases, it takes many days and a lot of effort to get the process started again. This was despite the fact that two years prior the company conducted a study and concluded that a fire fed by the massive inter-platform pipes connecting Alpha, Tartan, and Claymore could not be extinguished and would result in total destruction.
So the crew supervisors on Tartan and Claymore – clearly able see Alpha burning furiously just a mile away – continued pumping gas to it because their bosses on the phone told them to. Shockingly, a second and even larger explosion followed. Rescue of the Alpha crew became impossible at that point. Most jumped 100 feet into the North Sea, choosing drowning over burning. After the second explosion, the crews on the adjoining platforms finally (and far too late) shut down.
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A third, massive explosion occurred anyway, killing two men on a boat attempting to rescue the drowning crew.
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Thankfully most of us don't have to work on anything as unavoidably dangerous as an offshore oil platform.
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That said, this has been your friendly daily reminder: Your employer has your best interests at heart. The free market, not regulation, will protect you. Do not think; always do as you're told. Remember those three unassailable truths and I don't see what could go wrong.
J. Dryden says:
It's a pretty simple pair of equations:
Shit Gets Regulated: Shit Costs More.
Shit Doesn't Get Regulated: People Occasionally Die/Suffer.
And since the number of people who die/suffer is relatively small compared to the number of people who will pay more as a result of regulation, and it will always, *always* be easy for businesses and their duly paid representatives in government and the media to persuade voters that regulation is worse for them. In Reagan's day, you'd simply call regulation "communism" and that would be that, but the past 30 years have revealed that you don't need a phony boogieman to scare people into allowing corporations unfettered freedom to pursue their 'Belgian Congo' business model. Just stress how all those extra nickels and dimes and quarters add up at the pump, the cash register, the toll booth, and sit back and let people be selfish assholes.
Xynzee says:
First thing I tell the new kids when they start is that 1st of all the owner doesn't care about them, he'll just get someone else to replace them. Yeah compo is nice, but two working hands are better. So they need to take care of themselves 1st.
2nd of all I don't really care about them, I just don't want to have to do anymore worke than I have to so I'd rather not have to do their share when they go to hospital (this part I say with a cheeky grin), so I'm going to work in such away so that they go home in one piece and I prefer they do the same for me.
Natalie says:
Also, feel free to touch burners on the stove while they're on, lick the lead paint off the walls, and eat all the E. coli infused sprouts you want on that sandwich. It won't hurt.
Thanks for this one.
Middle Seaman says:
The post describes logical insanity. Pump gas into fire because otherwise we'll lose money. Faced with two facts: fire and loss of money, the decision in today's world is: prevent loss. That choice is axiomatic. It is also insane.
This is exact what the debate on budget cuts is about. The country is on fire; many millions are unemployed, we produce nothing, but we also owe a lot of money. Let's stop the loss, let's cut the budget, let's set the whole country on fire.
The Republicans were always insane, the Democrats used to be sane (not anymore) and Obama is an idiot.
Enjoy the insanity, enjoy the fireworks, everyday is the 4th.
Stop crying Otto!
carrstone says:
How easy it is too blame the bosses for your own stupidity. I mean, who thought that leaving a note would absolve him from all responsibilty – if it really was left. And who stands a mile away and continues to pump gas while looking at the flames? Taking the article's rant to the next level, should't we absolve the guards at Auschwitz from blame as well?
Whatever happened to thinking for yourself and using common sense? You really must use a better argument to make your point, Ed; making witty comments about caring employers doesn't cut it, of course they care about productivity 'cause that puts bread on their table.
Jimcat says:
I think that carrstone has missed at least part of the point. Ed addressed the workers' responsibility: "the crew supervisors … continued pumping gas to it because their bosses on the phone told them to." Also, "Do not think; always do as you're told."
The problem is not just with bosses who give moronic instructions. It's also with people doing the wor, who may have important information that their bosses don't have, never stopping to consider whether their instructions may be moronic, and whether it wouldn't in fact be better to do something different.
Sarah says:
@carrstone: Thinking for oneself and using common sense is exactly the point that Ed was trying to make. Thing is that he's also arguing for the legal right to be able to do so without fear of losing one's job. I've worked in jobs with bosses who wanted to be able to treat me the way these oil workers were treated–and I did get hurt on the job, although since I wasn't working with flammable substances my injury wasn't quite so dramatic–and I've met people with idiotic bosses as well. A job search is a drawn out process which right now is averaging roughly six months, and it's very easy to say "just go find another job" when you're not the one who's suddenly faced with the decision to do exactly that or do something really stupid in hopes of keeping the job you already have. Bosses care about productivity because that puts bread on their table, true, but doing what the boss says is what puts bread on the workers' table–and it's the workers who suffer from the power imbalance in the deregulation fantasyland.
Ben says:
carrstone's comment perfectly illustrates why we're fucked. There could not be a more perfect example of the falsity of the proposition "the free market takes care of all safety considerations, and no regulation is needed."
The bosses killed workers in pursuit of profit. Full stop.
There just isn't a more clear failure of the free market to consider the safety of its workers. Logically. It can't exist.
Faced with the Platonic Ideal of free market failures, carrstone feels the need to respond with a bizarre potpourri of accusations and assumptions, the only common thread of which is that they badmouth workers and excuse literally anything in pursuit of profit.
This is a marvel of social engineering. carrstone doesn't own factories. He (?) didn't write that from a Wall Street office. Those views are hurting him, not helping. And yet, faced with an air-tight empirical example that demonstrates their falsity, he throws out accusations and Godwin and whatever he can to defend it.
We're fucked. They won.
Sarah says:
@Ben: I recently saw where many people consider a 40 hour work week to be "part-time" which is really sad considering what people went through to get that 40 hour work week. I can't blame carrstone too much since I drank the libertarian neocon kool-aid too, years ago, and it was only after I started reading history and had my own nasty experience with power-tripping employers that I became a liberal. I suspect that we'll have to go back to what it was really like in the Gilded Age (12 hour work days, no weekends off, no vacations, slave wages, and tens of thousands of people hurt or killed on the job with no worker's comp or death benefit) before people will wake up and realize what Randian "philosophy" is really about.
Ben says:
@Sarah,
I don't really "blame" anyone for the views they hold; I was a mean little libertarian teenager too at one point. Carrstone just perfectly illustrated how debilitating to logic and compassion political ideologies can be. You're probably right that the results will have to start showing up in daily life before people connect the human devastation with the ideology. Which is another way of saying: we're fucked.
chris says:
When we studied this in our chemical engineering general practices class the story was a little different- mainly that the shut down of piper alpha led to a back predsure that channeled the gas toward it and that to turn off the other drills required (IIRC) managerial access codes. The study that followed this accident pointed out two things ed sorta missed: first that "note" was a paper form and thus much work was done to streamline redtape and second that the living quarters were built directly above the pumps which is now illegal. Briton actually implemented some serious reforms like separating the leading office from the safety bureau, something America didn't think snout until last year.
dee and cap says:
Geez, people are so obsessed with saving lives these days. Once upon a time it didn't matter so much if you died, because people were dying all the time anyway.
If I could help out Rupert Murdoch and increase his fortune by 0.00001% by dying, then I'd gladly do it.
lulz.
acer says:
@carrstone:
So if your bosses are shitting on their own workforce, risking lives and annihilating the planet ("'cause that puts food on their table"), the solution, from a "personal responsibility" standpoint, is… a worker revolt?
Libertarian fail. Your economic betters are not pleased.
Caleb says:
Yes, the free market is dangerous. Engaging in dangerous activities means people die sometimes. Hence: dangerous. Good thing government regulation comes along and reduces the chance of death to 0%, right?
This post is ridiculous. So far as I can tell, the authors’ argument goes as follows: unregulated operations are dangerous because the owners of said operations only care about profits. This lack of caring leads to an unacceptable level of danger to the workers in those operations. Therefore, government regulation is needed to eliminate the danger to those workers. Implicit in this argument is the assertion that government regulations effectively eliminate the danger. This is obviously false. No matter how heavily regulated, any operation which engages in inherently dangerous activity will eventually fall victim to that danger. The laws of chance dictate that.
The response, I presume, would be something along the lines of: ‘Government regulation reduces the danger from an unacceptable level to an acceptable level by imposing safety costs and procedures the owners would otherwise not implement.’ To which I respond: unacceptable by whose definition? Skydiving may be unacceptably dangerous by some people’s standards, and acceptably safe by others’. Should we ban skydiving because some people find it too dangerous?
ladiesbane says:
Some people have a survival reaction that amounts to, "If I live through this, I'll still have a job and my family won't be homeless, but if I am the guy who turns off the pump, I'll be fired." If a worker uses fear of not being able to provide as motivation to get out of bed each morning and go to a job that is dangerous, hot, and back-breakingly hard, his self-conditioning doesn't disappear in a moment. It's not all corporate overlords and fools at the switch. Too, some people panic when standing on a bomb watching nearby things explode. You don't really know until it happens to you.
What we DO know is that the daily operations of some types of industry, even without explosions, destroy the workers, the environment, and uninvolved neighbors. I grew up very close to Libby, MT, home of both the vermiculite mine that caused widespread asbestosis (with the explicit knowledge and permission of the W. R. Grace company); and the mill that dumped known poisons into the ground water (Champion Lumber and subsequent owners.) It's an easy drive to the Berkeley Pit in Butte, where the acidic, heavy metal-rich pit water is rising fast and will reach the water table in a few years. No explosions, no panicked guys making judgment calls — just a standard operating procedure of "screw you, I got mine."
Without ranting about productivity over safety, tort reform, the paltry sum paid by Union Carbide to the diminishing survivors in Bhopal, or the Supreme Court favoring corporate over individual rights, I'll close by pointing out that the companies go where the resources are. As bad as we have it, imagine working in a Chinese mine, at home or abroad. Worker safety is a joke, and environmental protection doesn't make the list. India and Russia are screwing themselves as well, but the Chinese are exploiting Africa in ways the Dutch never dreamed. American companies are some of their customers. But hey, keep those iPads coming!
acer says:
@Caleb:
I see your brilliant point. And I'm going to cease reading this site until it proposes an EXACT amount of "collateral damage" that can be reasonably allowed in the pursuit of profits and perpetual growth, and an EXACT prescription for how to get there. Preferably one that everyone can agree on.
Look. The point is that the American dialogue has shifted so unbelievably far to the pro-business, anti-regulatory Reagan right in the last 30 years that even TALKING about re-regulating industry and shoring up what's left of the new deal is dismissed as SOSHULIZM!! As long as everyone from Tea Party hillbillies to mid-level execs to bratty collegiate Heinlein fans is embracing extreme libertarianism, I think there's value in doing what Ed routinely does and reducing that ideology to the evil, unworkable crock of shit that it is.
Arslan says:
"Yes, the free market is dangerous. Engaging in dangerous activities means people die sometimes. Hence: dangerous. Good thing government regulation comes along and reduces the chance of death to 0%, right?"
HUURRRR!!! REGULATION CAN'T REDUCE THE CHANCE OF DEATH TO 0% SO WE SHOULDN'T WORRY ABOUT IT!! ALSO WE CAN'T OBJECTIVELY ESTABLISH SOME STANDARD TO MEASURE WHETHER AN ENTERPRISE IS UNACCEPTABLY DANGEROUS, ERGO WE SHOULDN'T CONSIDER IT!! HURRRRR!!!
Why the hell haven't you gone Galt yet?
Monkey Business says:
Corporations are, by definition, amoral. They are gigantic, soulless entities whose sole motive is the generation of profits.
It is up to the individuals guiding the company to act in a moral or immoral manner. Unfortunately, most of these people, despite being good people, also weigh things on a scale that balances profit versus risk. This is why regulation is important. The government exists as a counterbalance to industry, establishing rules and guidelines so that amoral corporations will make "moral" decisions, or pay a penalty for not doing so.
buckyblue says:
Libertarian free-market arguments are that people will make rational, economic decisions. Libertarians must not get out much or ever talked to another human being. Who leaves a note to tell the next shift to not turn on the pump or we'll all blow up. That's strait out of some Austin Powers Goldmember movie. Or who tells their workers to keep pumping gas onto the fire or we'll lose money. Seriously. Marx had it right, the seeds of capitalism's destruction are already within capitalism. It will kill itself, unless we can force rational decisions on people through government regulation.
don says:
Caleb, you've reminded me of some poll results I saw somewhere recently – maybe even here but I don't care enough about you to go find it – which documented the shockingly high number of people who, even as they are receiving specific federal government benefits, believe that they receive nothing from the government. How can you actually be attending school on a Pell grant and think you're not getting something from the government? I don't know, but apparently there are people who do.
You are also this fucking stupid, Caleb. You have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how safe and pleasurable your life is because of government regulation of the free market, and I can only hope that you're still a teenager. Why do I hope that? Because 1) there's then a reasonable chance that you'll lose this ignorant affectation of yours as you mature, or 2) failing that, there's a reasonable chance you'll live long enough to really need work when your free market overlords have finally won, and those pesky, market-stifling regulations are gone for ALL the jobs, not just the ones that are beneath you, and you lose both your hands in an unregulated shredder accident or maybe a little slip-up in an unregulated elevator, and (absent any "regulated operations" relating to emergency services in your free-market community) you bleed to death while trying to drive yourself to a hospital, your stumps spouting arterial blood out the window. If I'm not already dead from poisoned meat or an underground PG&E gas pipe explosion, I suppose I'll get some sad, pointless schadenfreude out of the very brief news item about your personal failure.
By the way, you do understand that skydiving would just be called "jumping out of a plane to your certain death" if not for parachutes? And that parachutes are manufactured according to FAA standards, which assist considerably in making skydiving an "acceptable risk" for almost all of those rugged individuals who engage in it? That's right, Caleb. That's how stupid you are.
Arslan says:
Perhaps it is ironic that the belief that humans consistently make rational decisions is one of the most irrational beliefs of all.
Elder Futhark says:
Frak!
Neal Deesit says:
Fifty years ago, Stanley Milgram at Yale conducted his now-famous experiments that measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience. The participants were subjects who as the "teachers" in a purported "learning experiment," proved themselves overwhelmingly disposed to give the "learner" electric shocks.
In Milgram's first set of experiments, 65 percent (26 of 40)of experiment participants administered the experiment's final massive 450-volt shock, though many were very uncomfortable doing so; at some point, every participant paused and questioned the experiment, some said they would refund the money they were paid for participating in the experiment.
Milgram summarized the experiment in his 1974 article, "The Perils of Obedience", writing:
In the Piper Alpha offshore platform disaster, the bosses on the phone had much more authority over their employees than Milgrim's experimental scientist had over the "teachers." It shouldn't come as any surprise that the employees did as they were told.
mothra says:
Oh, you don't gotta go all the way back to some North Sea disaster to point out how little corporations care for its workers (particularly in dangerous, fossil fuel extraction industries). All you need to do is pay attention to what the investigation into the Upper Big Branch mine explosion has uncovered. Massey Energy gleefully sent its workers into dangerous mines, ordering them to shut the fuck up about the mine not following safety measures and all the while assisted by a Bush-gutted Mine Safety and Health Administration (gutted at the bidding of Massey Energy and their buddies, of course). It's classic–Massey wouldn't shut down even a minute because they'd miss out on profits. Fuckers.
Sure, sure–you could say "well, those miners didn't HAVE to work in that awful mine," but the thing is that they did. In that particular part of the US, coal mining is the only way to make a half-decent living and the companies really do still control the towns. Speak out against Massey? Yeah, and lose your job and maybe get knee-capped. It ain't pretty when the company owns the town…and the government.
Caleb says:
@ acer:
I’m not saying exactitude is necessary. I’m saying that the process you use to estimate acceptable levels of danger and the process those workers use are the same. The fact that everyone reaches a different result means either 1) someone is wrong, or 2) there is no “acceptable” level of danger. If 1), how do you know yours is right? If 2) why force others to adhere to your level of “acceptable” danger?
@Arslan
You misunderstand my point. I’m not saying that regulation is irrelevant if is fails. I’m saying that if regulation fails to completely eliminate danger (by shutting down the profitable activity) then it is inherently trading some safety for some profit. This is exactly what these greedy businesses are doing. The process is the same. What makes businesses immoral and regulations moral if they both trade profits for lives?
@Monkey Business
What makes government any more moral than business? Both trade a certain amount of risk for a certain amount of reward. Both decide to allow a certain amount of risk, which costs lives. The rewards accrue to the decision makers, either in the form of monetary profit or in the form of political power and prestige.
@buckyblue
What guarantees that government regulators will make any more rational decisions than private actors? Are government actors more rational, more moral, or more wise than other people? What incentive do they have to work in any other way than what is ultimately self-interested?
@don
I do not deny that government provides many goods. For the cost, I hope it would. If you throw a massive amount of money at a problem, you are bound to get some sort of a solution.
But you can’t point to a government program that provides some benefit and say that it is worth it. You must take in opportunity cost as well. Is the course of action taken more valuable than the second-best alternative? If yes, then it is worth it. If no, then the course taken, even if it created some benefit, was actually a net loss.
Your planned fate for me in an unregulated environment is amusing. But it assumes much. Would I voluntarily operate a dangerous shredder or elevator? Perhaps, if the benefits were high enough. But they would have to be fairly high. Otherwise, I would manually shred, and take the stairs. Same with an unregulated parachute. I either trust the parachute or I do not. If I do not, I trust someone else to tell me it is safe, or I do not. If I do, then I go skydiving. If I do not, then I do not. What does it matter if that person is in the government or not?
Caleb says:
@mothra
You make a good point. The reliance on regulation presumes the fairness of the regulator. This presumes the independence of the political system from economic influences. This is not a safe presumption. When economic interests influence the political system, is it safe to assume that regulatory authorities are acting in the interest of those with comparatively little economic influence?
Major Kong says:
"Thankfully most of us don't have to work on anything as unavoidably dangerous as an offshore oil platform. "
Does a Boeing 757 count?
ladiesbane says:
Remember when Bush II put Dr. David Hager on the FDA's Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs? Appointing an outspoken Christian conservative to advise on whether the morning after pill should be sold over the counter is a joke. But government transparency allows us to make a stink about it. Private regulation is not required to be transparent, much less subject to oversight or peer review.
Nothing in life may be guaranteed absolutely, but if workers are trained to work safely, are equipped with the proper gear, and are drilled in how to react in a crisis, the best result possible is obtained. Part of the faith a worker may have in his employer is based on what lengths they take to promote safety, and emphasize the priority of safety over profit. Intel is one company that uses part of its huge profits to make their workplace incredibly safe, but smaller companies can't afford to do much more than comply with OSHA. But trusting oil companies to self-regulate is about as meaningful as Hager's appointment to the FDA.
Major Kong says:
Oh for the good old days before regulation, when workers had "choices" in the free market.
You had your choice of:
Dangerous, low-paying, soul-crushing Job A
or
Dangerous, low-paying, soul-crushing Job B
or
Dangerous, low-paying, soul-crushing Job C
acer says:
@Caleb:
No one fucking said the government is a purely benevolent force.
IN THEORY, Democracy balances the concerns of all the people, occasionally infringing on one technocratic MBA shithead's "economic liberty" to protect another citizen's life and limb. The New Deal, grossly oversimplified, was one example of the government protecting the little guy from the tyranny of bankers and businessmen. (Neither here nor there, really: It also created a lot of wealth for a lot of people over time – wealth that did not come from deregulation – and allowed America's middle class to enjoy the sort of lifestyle that let its children memorize Rand and Heinlein in unprecedented comfort.)
The results have been, of late, less than encouraging. We're on the fast track toward dictatorship of the dollar. Before we quibble over fractions and you show off more of your catchy B-school vocab, let's acknowledge that that's a) happening and b) not a good thing.
Monkey Business says:
@Caleb:
What makes government any more moral than business? Both trade a certain amount of risk for a certain amount of reward. Both decide to allow a certain amount of risk, which costs lives. The rewards accrue to the decision makers, either in the form of monetary profit or in the form of political power and prestige.
Businesses are motivated by profit. Governments are motivated by providing for the public safety and welfare.
When it comes to assessing risk (kind of my specialty), different entities have different views on what's acceptable. Some entities think that one in a million is too high; others think that one in a hundred thousand is too high. And then there are companies that think that the level of risk is never too high.
However, there are plenty of entities that believe that it's okay to accept risk on something that's a one in ten, one in a hundred, or one in a thousand chance, simply because the solution is so expensive as to make it cheaper for people to be injured or killed than it is to fix.
This is the purpose of regulation. To ensure that companies are covering at least up to the one in a million level, and if they're not to give people the ability to seek redress against them for failing to do so.
Moreover, there are things that government can do that private industry cannot, because you can't and shouldn't make them profitable.
Shane says:
Which burns, fyi. HAHA
Caleb says:
@ladiesbane
How often does that happen, and at what levels? What role does government “transparency” or subjection to peer review play? The level of detail and complexity in your average regulatory system means nearly all major decisions go unrelieved once implemented. Very rarely do any other than the obviously disastrous or politically charged MacGuffin policies actually get axed. (Even then, not so much. Look into farm subsidies some time.)
How do you know that the best possible results are obtained? Are there no other improvements to be made in workers’ safety anywhere? If not, then why aren’t those improvements implemented? Are there not outdated safety procedures that take for time and effort to comply with than they are worth? If not, why aren’t they eliminated? Having OSHA standards in place and having optimal safety procedures in place is not the same thing.
As everyone here has made clear, corporations are greedy. They will maximize profits to their best ability. Losing workers costs at least some money. You have to retrain new ones, perhaps pay them higher to take on the now obvious risks. If there are procedures that the corporations know of that will reduce their costs of replacing workers for cheaper than it costs to replace them, then the corporations will do so out of pure self-interest. These procedures may not be much, but they are not nothing. Once again, this is the same balancing calculus made by government regulatory regimes. The only difference is the outcome.
Once again, you people must answer one of two questions: 1) If there is a “right” amount of safety over costs, what is it and why? 2) If there is no “right” amount of safety over costs, and therefore subjective, why should one group’s valuation trump another’s?
@Major Kong
There were no good old days. Human well-being has been and is on an ever-increasing rise, brought on by an unprecedented level of wealth. This wealth has allowed us to allocate more resources to personal bodily safety in all our endeavors. There is no evidence that any of this safety is value-added by regulatory control.
@acer
In theory, yes, that is what democracy does. But theory and practice are quite different. We cannot compare ideal forms of regulation and government, we can only compare alternatives that exist in the realm of possibility. In reality, there is little incentive for political actors to promote anything else but their own self interest. They also have an incentive to ally with politically motivated factions to accomplish their goals in exchange for power. There is little to no incentive to protect the “general welfare” or pursue objectively optimal policies. To paraphrase a politician: “efficiency has no constituency.”
I’d like to see your evidence for the New Deal creating wealth. Redistributing wealth, yes. Protecting the political interests of the middle class, maybe. (Change it to white, Christian, and male “middle class” and we’d probably agree.) But there is a difference between evening out the distribution and increasing the average. There is an even bigger difference between correlation and causation. I don’t know how you would even go about measuring the overall effects of sweeping national programs like the New Deal.
I don’t know what “dictatorship of the dollar means” much less if it’s happening or if it’s a good thing. You will have to fill me in.
@Monkey Business Says:
“Businesses are motivated by profit. Governments are motivated by providing for the public safety and welfare.”
Are they? The vast majority of human experience says otherwise. Humans are humans, whether in government or in business. Humans are motivated primarily by their own self-interest, whatever they define that to be. These motives range from “good” to “bad”, however you define them. Unless proven otherwise, I assume that the motives are roughly the same for any given institution. You must look at systematic incentives, then, if you want to understand what drives the decision making of any given institution. What incentives do regulators or politicians have to pursue optimal policies? Precious little. The logic of political action dictates that those most active in the political process are those that stand most to gain from it. They will have the most influence on the outcome of the system, and will drive its policies toward their own ends whether socially optimal or not. On the other side, collective action and information problems prevent those harmed by those policies from effectively organizing in opposition. The more power embodied in the political system, the more motivation there is for factions to capture it. There is nothing inherent in government that incentivizes pursuit of socially optimal policies.
“…because the solution is so expensive as to make it cheaper for people to be injured or killed than it is to fix.”
All solutions hit this point. There is always a point where you let someone be injured or killed because the solution was too expensive. There is no getting around it. The only question is: where is the right point, if it exists?
“This is the purpose of regulation. To ensure that companies are covering at least up to the one in a million level, and if they're not to give people the ability to seek redress against them for failing to do so.”
And what makes 1/1mil the right number? Why not 1/2mil? Surely there are workers who would prefer a 1/2mil chance of being killed to 1/1mil? Why not given them what they want? What about the workers who are okay with 1/.5mil? Should they not be allowed to work under those conditions if they are willing?
“Moreover, there are things that government can do that private industry cannot, because you can't and shouldn't make them profitable.”
Such as? (Not that I disagree, I just want to see what you say.)
Major Kong says:
OK, let's use a real-world example, since Caleb only likes to talk in theoreticals.
The Meat Packing industry.
Meat packing used to a unionized, blue-collar job that, while hard work, paid a decent wage.
Through years of deregulation, mergers and union-busting it has been turned into an incredibly dangerous, low paying job that they can only get illegal immigrants to do.
dee and cap says:
Caleb, every time you paste from MS Word, a kitten is killed.
Just sayin'.
Sarah says:
Maybe it's just me, but when I see the name Caleb I think of the last season of Buffy and the sanctimonious preacher dude (played by Nathan Fillion) who turned out to be a psychotic, demon-worshiping asshole. Seems like an appropriate comparison.
@Major Kong: the meat packing industry and immigration in general seems to have come full circle. The reason why it was unionized in the first place was because it was originally a dangerous job that only immigrants were willing to do, and there was a lot of anti-immigrant sentiment at the time they were doing it (google Sacco and Vanzetti if you've never heard of them; the documentary of their story is available on Netflix). Upton Sinclair wrote "The Jungle" with the intent of highlighting the terrible condition under which these poor schmucks were working, but the book became famous because people reading it caught on to what was being produced and how contaminated it was, and realized what they were eating. This was how the Food and Drug Administration got its start, and there are a lot of people alive today who would not be were it not for FDA regulation.
Tim says:
@Caleb
I just had to chime in on these.
Why is government more moral than private business? I don't know, probably because I need to buy shares in a company in order to vote, and even then it's mostly ignored (thank you weak shareholder control) and insignificant compared to the control of others. Yes, money does influence political campaigning, but I don't need to pay to vote yet. The government is not inherently moral, but I and everyone else can vote in order to make it act morally and just. The same is not true of a private business.
You know this. We all know this. One can only arrive at such ridiculous conclusions by trying to avoid the clear facts with pointless philosophical run-arounds.
"our planned fate for me in an unregulated environment is amusing. But it assumes much. Would I voluntarily operate a dangerous shredder or elevator? Perhaps, if the benefits were high enough. But they would have to be fairly high. Otherwise, I would manually shred, and take the stairs. Same with an unregulated parachute. I either trust the parachute or I do not. If I do not, I trust someone else to tell me it is safe, or I do not. If I do, then I go skydiving. If I do not, then I do not. What does it matter if that person is in the government or not?"
You probably live in Suburbia, and coming from those of us who also live in Suburbia (but pay attention to the outside world), I'd like to remind you that there are other places in the country which provide almost no choice to workers in regard to safe jobs that pay enough to support your family. You know, like 90% of the actual country.
ladiesbane says:
Caleb, I don't get your point. What is it you think is bad about OSHA? Why is a minimum national standard of safe operations a bad idea? It changes over time, as technology, public opinion, and changing data come in, which is how MSHA replaced the Coal Act, and so on.
You don't "let someone" be injured or killed; you do everything you reasonably can to avoid it, and to deal with accidents immediately and properly. It's not a matter of there being a "right number", but a good faith attempt to keep the number as close to zero as possible. Even if you don't trust the government to set guidelines knowledgeably and responsibly, companies are free to exceed those standards, and some do. But don't you think the government imposition of workplace safety is an improvement over workers dying of phossie jaw and the like? That's what happens when heavy industry regulates its own safety. Given our current Supreme Court, you may see those days again.
Likewise, OSHA plus workers compensation prevented employees from suing employers for anything less than gross negligence, but guaranteed them safe conditions, and the right to wage replacement and free medical. Of course, this may be going away, too. More employees are being allowed to sue, which is fueling some companies to limit or discard the work comp system. So an imperfect compromise that still does a great job for a lot of people might go away, along with other worker rights and protections. Would you be in favor of that, as it removes a degree of governmental interference? I'm not being sarcastic; as I said, I am trying to figure out where you stand and what your point is.
So many politicians are owned that they should wear NASCAR jumpsuits with corporate sponsor patches, just so we know who we're really dealing with. But do you really think workers want to work in less safe conditions? If so, they can move to Asia or Africa; it's a free country. (Until they leave, of course.) But here, employees can blow the whistle, call reporters, contact their government representatives, call labor ombudsmen, or, if lucky, talk to their shop stewards. I'm not sure what else they can do, or what else there is to do. Is this bad?
But your "Such as?" to Monkey Business is an easy one. Probably the biggest industry that should not be for-profit is health care. I don't know that the public tab should cover the most radical procedures if there is a slim chance of success, but it is unconscionable that anyone in our country not have basic care. It's less expensive when there is no profit margin, too, of course. So thanks for asking.
Caleb says:
@Major Kong I’d like to see you data for injury rates in the meatpacking industry. Table 1 in this paper really doesn’t support your narrative: http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1989/01/art1full.pdf And yes, there are more immigrants (illegal and not) working for less in the industry. More power to them. This is how economic progress is made. How many well paid copy typists or blacksmiths or glass-blowers do you know? Technology replaces skill and manpower, and the skill needed to operate the replacing technology usually is lower than the manual skill required. Lower skilled workers are made more productive, and higher skilled workers are forced to find another, more productive use for their skills. Would you rather the immigrants go unemployed?
Ben says:
Caleb,
You're abstracting the point away into absurdity. And you have to, because the point is pretty simple.
The profit motive alone will not result in an acceptable level of safety for workers or the environment. It just won't. Sorry. If you don't think the oil company in Ed's example acted in an obscene manner, read A Civil Action, or read up on the use of asbestos in industry. Hell, at the Massey mine that mothra brought up they kept two separate sets of books to mislead the miners about how dangerous their work was. If you really need to be provided examples of businesses that clearly violated proper safety of workers and the environment, you're not paying attention.
You keep asking how we can determine the "right" amount of safety, and how we can privilege one group's interpretation over another's. Another, perhaps more informed way to ask that question is "there is some minimum standard of safety that businesses must meet in treating their workers and the environment. Given that the profit motive is not sufficient to ensure all businesses meet this minimum standard, what can we do to get all businesses to do so?" In order to ask this question, all we have to know is that businesses alone won't value worker and environmental safety to an acceptable degree. Which we do. In spades.
The alternative to the anarcho-capitalism you seem to be advocating is a somewhat jury-rigged system of regulations, torts, media inquiry and bureaucracy that put alternative power structures in place that value things other than profit. Will it be perfect? No. But at least it will provide some protection against groups the profit motive would grind into dust.
acer says:
@Caleb re: The New Deal:
Even St. Milton Friedman, in his memoirs, acknowledged that some government corrective of the Depression was necessary. It wasn't perfect (obviously, the free market would never privilege white male theocrats), but it worked. Give it up, man.
acer says:
@Ben:
Caleb's response, anticipated:
What do you mean by "ground into dust"? You'll have to show me some figures on that. And, as a well-educated bourgeois libertarian, I always have the right to cross the street and patronize the entrepreneur who WON'T grind me into dust.
Followed by an incredibly long, numbingly pedantic reply to ladiesbane about how you can't PROVE OSHA gave anyone "economic liberty" they didn't enjoy under the Robber Barons.
@Caleb:
"Dictatorship of the dollar," or complete political, social and cultural domination by the wealthy, conservative, Social Darwinist establishment, is the only logical outcome of your ideology, as implemented to your liking. Read this, if you want, although it won't cause you to question yourself:
http://www.zompist.com/libertos.html
Sarah says:
@acer, thanks for that link. I am swiping it.
I would suggest that arguing with this dude Caleb is a little bit like trying to discuss college algebra with someone who has not mastered fifth grade arithmetic. He obviously has male privilege and he probably has white middle or upper class privilege as well, and the viewpoint from that kind of an insulated environment makes it difficult to empathize with groups which suffer varying degrees of oppression. He needs to suffer a traumatic injury for which he is unable to get any compensation, either on the job or via use of a defective consumer product, or suffer a fool of a boss who makes unreasonable demands on him while paying him a subsistence wage, or live through some other such injustice which knocks some reality through his skull and makes him think a little harder about what it is he is advocating, before he can be reasoned with. Otherwise, it's like arguing with a two-year-old.
Major Kong says:
Every conservative from an early age is taught to parrot the line "The New Deal didn't end the Great Depression, World War II did".
Now, while technically true, they never really think this one all the way through.
World War II was pretty much the New Deal on steroids.
A.B.A.B.D says:
@Caleb: You wrote "Human well-being has been and is on an ever-increasing rise, brought on by an unprecedented level of wealth. This wealth has allowed us to allocate more resources to personal bodily safety in all our endeavors. There is no evidence that any of this safety is value-added by regulatory control."
So, in your view, the federal regulation to require installation of seat belts in all automobiles, and various state regulations requiring the use of seat belts by vehicle occupants, among other regulatory requirements, has played no role in increases in driver and passenger safety?
eau says:
Kudos, all, for trying to help Caleb pull his head out of his ass.
All together now, HEAVE!
carrstone says:
@JimCat, Sarah, Ben Acer et al.
I sense manufactured righteous indignation in your replies, flavored with a spoonful of political correctness and a liberal helping hackneyed, led-by-the-nose socialist dogma – there's no fear that there might be an outburst of original thought here.
If you had been on the platform and had seen the flames, would you have turned off the pump? And if not, why not? If you would have, you've made my point, if not …
I'd bet that you think that regulations in the workplace are necessay to protect the worker from the caprices of the bosses, not that they're necessary to protect the workers from their own stupidity.
And if you think your boss is an asshole, then aren't you the bigger asshole for working for him?
eau says:
@carrstone- regulations are there to protect people from BOTH greed AND stupidity, you witless goon.
Arslan says:
"You misunderstand my point. I’m not saying that regulation is irrelevant if is fails. I’m saying that if regulation fails to completely eliminate danger (by shutting down the profitable activity) then it is inherently trading some safety for some profit. This is exactly what these greedy businesses are doing. The process is the same. What makes businesses immoral and regulations moral if they both trade profits for lives?"
I don't like to get into moral issues, but I think it's pretty clear that human life is more important than someone's profits. Suppose for a minute that Piper Alpha was part of an enterprise run not by stockholders, bankers, managers, etc., and instead it was run by the workers collectively. Obviously they have a profit motive because even if the distribution is far more equitable, they would still experience a huge raise. But do you think they would tolerate life-threatening conditions if they ran things? Highly unlikely. Ditto with the mines operated by Massey Energy in the States, a company which had over 1,000 violations in the months leading up to the Big Branch mine disaster in 2010.
@Carstone:
"I sense manufactured righteous indignation in your replies, flavored with a spoonful of political correctness and a liberal helping hackneyed, led-by-the-nose socialist dogma – there's no fear that there might be an outburst of original thought here."
Coherency. Get some.
Sarah says:
"And if you think your boss is an asshole, then aren't you the bigger asshole for working for him?"
There's an average of 4 or 5 job applicants for every available job opening, and that includes jobs with bosses that are both assholes and non-assholes as well as jobs that require no or low skills and jobs with advanced degrees. Which makes what I was saying about college algebra and fifth grade arithmetic particularly apt, since only someone who flunked math would think that this situation is not a problem. So, no, you asshole, I don't think I'm a bigger asshole for working for a boss who was an asshole to me. I was doing what I had to in order to survive. Let me know when you've had to work at a low wage job when you can't find anything else, and pay your bills with what you make from that job, and then you can lecture me on working for assholes.
smelter rat says:
I'm deeply touched by Caleb's concern for illegal immigrants. I'm practically in tears.
carrstone says:
@ eau
As an employer, happy to reward initiative, I might well agree with you if it weren't for a fact that most of them, if asked, will tell you that they do not need nor want the protection that the Nanny State prescribes
@Sarah
As far as I know your 4 to 5 numbers are right but it's not 'applicants' but 'unemployed' – if only they'd research where the work is and then go there instead of reading blogs during the day. Before you begin whining about, "This is where I live …", remember that you're in charge of you; if you think otherwise, you'll live a life full of disappointment.
I notice, though, that it's always about you; "…a boss who was an asshole TO ME…"? TO ME? There are many levels of assholeness and the ones that will do you the most damage are probably not aimed at you. If they are, however, you have an altogether different problem.
@ Arslan
You cannot be serious – collective ownership guarantees equitability? So pay among trade union employees is as equitable as it was in the good ol' USSR?
I'm sorry my little construct did not raise a smile but is your rejoinder really the best you can do?
mothra says:
carrstone:
wow. overprivileged asshole much?
acer says:
"Cognitive dissonance" – the phenomenon that causes "self-made" shithead libertarians to go full Boortz after you've blasted shotgun holes in their arguments.
xynzee says:
@Caleb: Let me see if I understand you correctly. You're drawing a comparison between a dangerous work activity and a dangerous recreational pursuit? You're comparing carrots to candy bars. You do realise that don't you?
One is a necessity, and one is a luxury. This is apparent to all but the libertarians it would seem. If my diet consisted mostly of Mars Bars and I get sick and die, the general reaction is what a silly avoidable tragedy, and what an F-wit!
If however, I eat carrots and get sick and die because the farmer was using pesticides that concentrate in the food source or because of bad food handling practices at a salad bar, the general response is that this kind of thing is unacceptable. We then look for other means of delivering the same result. Yes, that means may mean higher costs but human life is considered more important. Or at least it used to be.
Now then, everyone here agrees that all responsible and capable individuals should work. There's no getting around this rather unpleasant fact of life. Work is a necessity, not an option. I'm sure even you agree with that.
Sky diving on the other hand is not a necessity, but recreational pursuit. My rent won't go unpaid if I don't do a drop, therefore I get to sleep under a roof, with food in my tummy. Yes, I understand if it's your vocation… blah blah blah. However, there's a big difference between a recreational sky diver and a pro, and the more often one does something the more the odds go in favour of something going wrong. Someone once said that if you really stop and think about it, that to be the best sky diver in the world really only requires patience. At some point the people above you will do something wrong and die.
As a rock climber, I'm anal about my gear. Personal policy is if I drop something, it's wasted. Simple as that. Rope regularly replaced so and so forth. I only climb with with my own gear or with people who I know are as anal as I am, as I then know the history of their kit. Still doesn't mean that it's not dangerous, but I'm certainly trying to keep the odds in my favour. This also tends to be the case amongst climbers and from what I've heard about sky divers. For some reason though, as soon as sky diving and rock climbing start getting done for profit, then the care of the gear starts to go down. Ever look at the difference between a rented kayak and someone's personal kayak? Do it sometime.
Ultimately though, I can remove *all* risks from rock climbing simply by not pursuing that activity. As it's something that is only for pleasure, *this* is possible. We've already established that on the other hand, I cannot, not work.
Now then let's look at mining. Do you even have a clue about underground coal mining? Other than coal is taken from under the surface of the earth? What they do is find the coal seam, dig under it and then collapse the roof of the tunnel to extract the coal. In other words cause a controlled cave in. With coal mines come some really lovely gases. All of them flammable. Ever heard of the miner's safety light or the canary in the coal mine? The canary being highly sensitive to the coal gases would die fairly quickly in high gas environments. Yes the PETA people would be in a flap, but human life is considered more important than a canary (or should be). Today we have equipment that's a far cry more sensitive and reliable than any canary. However, you're several *miles* underground in a small enclosed space, and gases easily concentrate or when they drop the roof it releases one of these these gas pockets. This job is deadly, and that's that. We need to extract coal for a multitude of reasons, and somebody's got to do it, and someone needs work to buy stuff. Like food, homes and iPods etc. And they need a job to do this. Do I really need to spell out this part to you? This is after all Econ-101.
We can't have someone light a ciggie in these conditions, but they will. No matter how old I get the human animal's propensity for stupidity never ceases to astound me, and many stupid people I encounter have grad degrees. The equipment they operate in these conditions has special shielding to prevent sparking. Let's see I've got a choice between an $120,000 dump truck or a $210,000 dump truck, both are comparable in all specs bar one, one has the engine shielding. Oh and I have to buy 100 of these (that's dumpers alone). Which do I buy? Do my sums, put some really smart actuaries on the job, who calculate that the CBA risks say I should go the $120,000 one. As I'll come out ahead even in the lawsuits. That's how business make their decisions. Can we say Pinto? Perhaps take a look at the history of the Pinto as a prima facie evidence of this. So they send an open pit dumper into a coal mine and KABOOM! Loss of life! **AVOIDABLE** loss of life.
The Government now steps in and says, oh, remember how the actuaries calculated that it would cost less to purchase the open pit equipment for underground mining? Here's a fine that not only makes up the difference, but exceeds it. In Australia, the OH&S inspectors have abilities that the cops don't have. They can show up on your door step and you *have* to let them in, if you drive your car on to a work site they can make you open your car up for inspection. If they find a laptop cable that doesn't have *that* site's label on it, there's a fine for you. In Australian mines, if an employee dies on a mine manager's watch, that's the end of his career in Australian mining and with Australian mining companies. This means that it's now personal to him, versus the company's interests.
Yes life is life is lethal and you certainly aren't going to get out of it alive, but someone should have a reasonable expectation to come home in one piece. Take a look at the fishing fleets up in Alaska, where many captains in order to cut costs don't even supply simple things like PFDs. And given the kit one has to wear in those conditions, you go in you're going down quickly.
Regulation is about mitigating and reducing some of the factors that could go wrong, yes sparks still happen in coal mines that trigger explosions. However, there's a big difference between one happening because someone was cutting corners, and a digger blade striking a rock causing a spark. One's premeditated and with a profit motive and the other… well s* happens eh?
This also goes both ways. OH&S is not just the employer's responsibility, it's *everyone's* (see my first post). But because people are lazy and act stupidly, we need regulations to make people do these things. Therefore in many industries, you don't use the appropriate safe kit, you get sacked, end of story.
Your reply to Don is gold! Pure Gold! What's this, "Would I voluntarily operate a dangerous shredder or elevator? Perhaps, if the benefits were high enough. But they would have to be fairly high." Nonsense?
Let's see your small business in Libertarian Fantasy Land fails. You've got to eat, and keep a roof over your head. What are you going to do? The only job going is doing the paper shredding for the Koch Bros. Is *eating* enough of a "benefit" for you? Or do you live in fantasy world that you're never going to be exposed to a down turn in the market and that your "employment insurance" will cover you? Are you some how special and immune to these things? You sound like my brother. He's in the USAF, and then has the brass to bitch about Gov't spending, and making it affordable for people to have health care. I tell him quit the AF, and go to work for himself, then I'll listen to him bitch. I always get an "Aw gee, but I don't want too." So you're operating your Koch owned faulty shredder, you're tired from having to work back to back shifts to pay for your meds and ooops! There goes your hand, because the owner was too cheap to replace the guard that had broken. Yeah, compo's nice, but having both hands is better.
I wonder how desperate these guys were:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/australian-miner-william-joynson-had-bags-packed/story-e6frf7jo-1225958885425
Someone I know, knew someone who was thinking about purchasing this mine. They told him you could hear methane escaping from the seam as they were inspecting it.
One thing that economists fail to take into account are people's mental states. For a social science, it certainly fails in this regard into trying to understand the total person. While a smoker knows the facts about the harm smoking causes them, plus the financial outlay, and the physical addiction is gone after 10 days, people still continue to smoke. Why? What motivates them? Economists say it's their "choice". Well duh, I see that, but why? Give me a real answer. The economic data is that smoking is not in their self interests, from all perspectives, but they still behave this way.
Where I work, some of the guys have to clean the ovens with Easy-Off. Do you know anything about it? This is one of those "you've got to be kidding that it's still on the market" products. Chemical active ingredient is: NaOH. Aka caustic soda, the active ingredient of Drain-O. So now instead of a nice semi-stable crystalline, it now gets atomised for all and sundry to breathe and get in their eyes. Before they were only given a paper filter mask, fat lot of good that's going to do. An OH&S guy came through one day, and now they have proper plate filter masks.
One of my managers instructed me to do something that was unsafe. I looked at him and said no-way, he threatened to fire me, I then pointed to him the OH&S poster on the wall, and said read second column fourth para. He cannot force, threaten or otherwise coerce an employee into doing an unsafe act. *Nor* can I be fired. I sure as heck haven't been promoted, but I still have a job.
As for your: "What makes government any more moral than business?" Do I seriously have to explain this to you? Particularly someone who seems to be as well read on libertarian economic thought. Well as your gurus seem to work with assumed knowledge of something that I was taught in Sophomore (high school) year business classes, I'll explain it to you, now write this down:
The… point… of… a… company… is… to… maximise… profits… for… the… share… holders.
That's it. They have no other raison d'etre, than that. Their only responsibility is to their share holders. They're not here to be nice, they're here to protect personal assets from liability and allow a group of people to act as a single unit, allow the company to continue to function if one or more of the shareholder leave, and so and so forth. Maybe find some older text books from the dark days of when they actually educated people.
xynzee says:
Oh and Caleb: Re your point about the nuke plant employees.
Here's what I've looked for: I give the applicants a set of over 100 plotted points, a pencil and ask them to derive the mean average of the plotted points. They now have 2 minutes.
Do you have the answer for me?
@Carrstone: What's going on in people's heads is more real than reality. This is how I describe depression. Imagine looking at something, it's there and very real. You know you can reach it, and touch it, but you are unable to.
It's like you're standing on your side of the Grand Canyon, and waving telling me how great it is over on your side. Between me and you is this whopping great pit, and no idea how to get to your side. How did you get over there? Sometimes one person is shown the path, by another. Others stumble upon it and find it themselves. Perhaps instead of standing on your side criticising and waving. You walk around and show someone the path. Now they *know*.
I'm doing work experience, and there's a grad in the company I'm doing this for. We had to get some data from one source into anther format for use. She used to type it into the software herself. Using my related experience from another industry, I gently showed her how to get from A to B without typing. Now she knows.
carrstone says:
@mothra
Okay, you got me – I know who my father is
Sarah says:
@mothra: he says he's an "employer." That's a designation of privilege right there. Betcha he mistreats his employees and likes being able to do it legally.
Arslan says:
"@ Arslan
You cannot be serious – collective ownership guarantees equitability? So pay among trade union employees is as equitable as it was in the good ol' USSR?"
Hi dumbfuck…did anyone say that collective ownership(which in many cases didn't even exist in the USSR) guarantees equality? Nope? Ok then, bad news, you're retarded. Good news, you now probably qualify for state or federal benefits.
Now pay attention VEEEERY closely, cretin. The issue was about the attitude toward safety if the workers owned the enterprise. It is inconceivable that the workers on the other rigs would have kept pumping gas in if there wasn't the slightest fear that they may be fired over it(or got an order telling them to keep it running).
And for the record, while historically socialist states generally didn't have total equality of pay(which isn't a goal of socialism anyway), they all had a far better distribution of wealth and far smaller differentials in pay than most capitalist nations.
eau says:
@carrstone – "As an employer, happy to reward initiative, I might well agree with you if it weren't for a fact that most of them, if asked, will tell you that they do not need nor want the protection that the Nanny State prescribes."
As an employee, I can guarantee that your employees are telling you whatever they think you want to hear. Their livelyhood depends on how you, their employer, feels about them. Also, YOU or someone YOU hired, hired these people. Nonrandom sample much?
Tim says:
@ carrstone
"As an employer, happy to reward initiative, I might well agree with you if it weren't for a fact that most of them, if asked, will tell you that they do not need nor want the protection that the Nanny State prescribes"
As previously mentioned, there's a selection bias here. On top of that, many social programs and safety precautions which are non invasive (looking at you, TSA) are supported by people when posited as a single issue. When you ask people loaded questions such as "do you like overbearing nanny states?" or "do you like employers grinding your hands to pulp in dangerously old machines?" of course you get a specific response. Most people don't want to roll the dice with their own life. Most who do often regret it (cancer survivors who had their policies rescinded and lived off medicaid suddenly want socialized medicine) and change their minds when it personally afflicts them.
"As far as I know your 4 to 5 numbers are right but it's not 'applicants' but 'unemployed'"
No, you moron, it's applicants. Part of them are already employed and looking for new employment. Some are unemployed, but not all of them.
" – if only they'd research where the work is and then go there instead of reading blogs during the day."
You make the assumption that there is good work that people can do. This rugged individualism bullshit forgets that if everyone were to do this, we would still not have enough jobs for people (the aforementioned 4-5 applicants for every position). Individualism does not solve long-term structural issues with our systems of capitalism and governance, you goddamned tool.
"Before you begin whining about, "This is where I live …", remember that you're in charge of you; if you think otherwise, you'll live a life full of disappointment."
Personal responsibility is important. To a degree. If say, my girlfriend's sister, for example, has MS, which usually requires expensive interferon-B preventative treatments besides the expensive diagnosis process, she has a few options. The primary one besides forgoing treatment at all is to be locked into an employment provided health insurance plan.
Now, lets say, for example, she is in her early twenties. Without the recent health care legislation, she would be dropped from her parent's provider while in college, and because she has a pre-existing condition, she is completely uninsurable in the private market. Because that law did pass, she would be covered until 26. Which means by then a full-time position that provides healthcare must be attained, or she would be unable to pay for her care. That has a number of effects. First, it limits the possible length of a college education, and secondly it creates "job lock" where she would need to be in a job in order to be able to treat her condition. Thus her mobility would be limited and more importantly, the danger of losing her job would be much more directly harmful.
Thus your narrative of personal responsibility falls apart. Our society provides lackluster support for those who cannot cure themselves miraculously of disease, who cannot shed off the burdens of a sick family, or a bad school in a bad neighborhood. By blaming people for everything that happens to them as well as everything you do, you are essentially simply saying that what happens is deserved, regardless of the true origin. Such lack of compassion is astounding.
I notice, though, that it's always about you; "…a boss who was an asshole TO ME…"? TO ME? There are many levels of assholeness and the ones that will do you the most damage are probably not aimed at you. If they are, however, you have an altogether different problem.
"You cannot be serious – collective ownership guarantees equitability? So pay among trade union employees is as equitable as it was in the good ol' USSR?"
That's a terrible comparison. First, the USSR did not have worker ownership (cooperatives existed at times, especially during NEP, but all primary industries were fully state run with state appointed managers). Second, trade unions were banned. Next time, understand the place you are talking about before you make a comparison so shitty it makes me wonder whether you got your "education" about the Soviet Union from the back of a 1950's cereal box.
carrstone says:
@sarah
That's exactly right; given that the laws of the country are created by the people you elect then I, as an employer, by remaining within them, cannot be mistreating the employees. Or do you have a different understanding of 'mistreat'? So – your options are: come to a new understanding with your employer, resign or change the law – good luck with that.
@eau
I can assure you that how the employer feels about his employees is totally irrelevant in the business's business of remaining in business. It's the yield from the cost of the erg that matters and its naive of you to assume that your boss doesn't know you're brown-nosing him. He has to be able to rely on your input and if he can't he will need to deal with you – however, rest assured, it's never personal when he fires you.
carrstone says:
@arslan
So you would posit, you smooth talker you, that the problem is the owners? Certainly I would agree that worker ownership appears to have some merit but you seem to ignore, firstly, that it's the product's ability to perform according to its promise that matters to the customer, secondly, that the customer doesn't care about company structure and its ownership, thirdly that business is not so much about profits as it is about continuity and, lastly, that human nature is the most likely spoiler; especially the last point inevitably raises its head after a time. When the euphoria of the new has settled into the deadlines of the ordinary workaday, man remains a greedy, venal, ambitious jealous creature, not motivated by what he hasn't got but by what his neighbor has. That's why no system carries a long-term guarantee of success while strife is part of the human condition. I mean, you portray that beautifully in the way you address me, it's always personal to you, isn't it?
So, full circle, if the owners are the problem, what happens when all are owners? I wish you were right but look around you (and at yourself with your attitude!) – are they all likely bosses? Be honest, they all want a share of the profits but not the responsibility and personal risk that goes with it.
Sarah says:
@carrstone: so now you're whining about how the mean old liberals are taking away your prerogative to be lord and master of your domain and making you treat your employees like sentient human beings. What do you want here, sympathy? Go fuck yourself.
Arslan says:
"So you would posit, you smooth talker you, that the problem is the owners? Certainly I would agree that worker ownership appears to have some merit but you seem to ignore, firstly, that it's the product's ability to perform according to its promise that matters to the customer, secondly, that the customer doesn't care about company structure and its ownership, thirdly that business is not so much about profits as it is about continuity and, lastly, that human nature is the most likely spoiler; especially the last point inevitably raises its head after a time."
Pay attention here, we are not talking about that. We are speaking about the higher likelihood that workers would put their own safety over profits. Sure, more money is always nice, but it's hard to enjoy if you're dead, missing a couple limbs, or burnt on over 60% of your body.
"Human nature" as a constant, definite thing, does not exist. An appeal to human nature is a logical fantasy.
"When the euphoria of the new has settled into the deadlines of the ordinary workaday, man remains a greedy, venal, ambitious jealous creature, not motivated by what he hasn't got but by what his neighbor has. That's why no system carries a long-term guarantee of success while strife is part of the human condition. I mean, you portray that beautifully in the way you address me, it's always personal to you, isn't it?"
No proof of this statement. For every example of someone acting in a selfish or greedy manner, we can find plenty of examples of people doing just the opposite. In fact if the world were full of self-interested, greedy bastards, mankind could not have a society and we most likely would have died out a long time ago. See Ha Joon Chang's chapter on this very subject in 23 Things They Don't Tell you About Capitalism.
But let's agree that there is "strife" in the human condition(largely due to the existence of class-based society). It can never be completely eliminated, but it can be largely alleviated. If strife is a necessary evil, why must it always be on the working class, also known as the class who actually produces wealth?
"So, full circle, if the owners are the problem, what happens when all are owners? I wish you were right but look around you (and at yourself with your attitude!) – are they all likely bosses? Be honest, they all want a share of the profits but not the responsibility and personal risk that goes with it."
That is a ridiculous argument. Collectively owned enterprises and business exist all over the world today. Risk? Oh right, I forgot, rich people take risks(which never seem to involve their lives), so this somehow benefits society. It does in the same way one takes risks playing a slot machine.
I'll tell you what happens when we're all owners. Everyone works, and nobody gets more out of society than what they put in to the best of their ability. The days of an idle, lazy, minority ruling over the working majority come to an end. Will the world still have problems? Of course. But we will be able to face those problems without the bullshit of the bourgeoisie weighing us down at every turn.
Arslan Amirkhanov says:
"That's exactly right; given that the laws of the country are created by the people you elect then I, as an employer, by remaining within them, cannot be mistreating the employees. Or do you have a different understanding of 'mistreat'? So
Arslan Amirkhanov says:
original post cut off….
"That's exactly right; given that the laws of the country are created by the people you elect then I, as an employer, by remaining within them, cannot be mistreating the employees. Or do you have a different understanding of 'mistreat'? So
Arslan Amirkhanov says:
original post cut off….
"That's exactly right; given that the laws of the country are created by the people you elect then I, as an employer, by remaining within them, cannot be mistreating the employees. Or do you have a different understanding of 'mistreat'? So
carrstone says:
@sarah
Ah, poor baby, did I offend you? Your mean old liberal doesn't scare me, though because I've got mine.
You're 180 degrees off target, though. What successful business people do is to plan for the future in a stable economy. That's why they're not against legal restrictions, they love them because they are the known world.
And that's why the current situation is such a disaster; the government wittingly or unwittingly attacks that stability by enacting spurious laws, by interfering in individual markets, by printing money recklessly thus ruining the US's international creditworthiness and by being so focused on party politics that they've forgotten to do what we pay them for.
Tim says:
"You're 180 degrees off target, though. What successful business people do is to plan for the future in a stable economy."
Except in you know, banking, where you make yourself so large you'll destroy the entire sector if you go down. Then you make enormous bets in derivatives for short term profits to give yourself bigger bonuses. Seriously, if the "masters of the universe" are committing such asshattery, it really stands to question exactly how much executives really care for the companies that make them their money and whether they actually give a damn about the future.
"That's why they're not against legal restrictions, they love them because they are the known world."
Unless it stops them from making as much money. What you're referring to is the usage of regulations to stop new competition. Entrenched businesses do like that.
"And that's why the current situation is such a disaster; the government wittingly or unwittingly attacks that stability by enacting spurious laws"
You're assuming that stability can be found without government intervention, which shows a gross misunderstanding of our current financial problems. Unless you're one of those morons who thinks the CRA made the financial crisis (and ignore the enormous amount of lobbying done in order to open up subprime lending).
"by interfering in individual markets"
Don't be one of those people. The government interferes in almost every situation by the laws it sets down. Those laws, while you may see them as "neutral", simply are not. They favor certain parties and certain results by the way that they function.
Secondly, you assume that the private market doesn't naturally interfere with the market, which would be absolutely wrong. If left to their own devices (this is where the government setting the baseline by laws means government acceptance or forbidding of every practice) price distortions are a way to make money without providing anything useful. Look at the unbelievable spikes in the commodities markets that don't reference supply vs consumption as their basis, rather, they are only that expensive because more people are buying up futures. More people buying, nearly the same amount actually using it. The end result is a huge transfer of wealth that is of questionable honesty and use to society.
But hey, the free market can't make mistakes, right?
"by printing money recklessly thus ruining the US's international creditworthiness"
Uh, assuming you actually look at long-term interest rates, which you probably don't, you would notice that we are at historic lows. There has been a slight increase in credit default swaps on US government debt recently, pretty much synonymous with the concept of a politically caused default.
As well, "printing money recklessly" sounds a lot like hyperinflationist rhetoric. Maybe you should look at core inflation numbers.
carrstone says:
@arslan
Of course the newly appointed worker/owner would be charmed by being told that he's going to earn more money and that the safety regulations are the best in the sector, bla, blah, blah. It's like getting married, initially the sex is great, then you get used to it and then you start wondering what the guy at the next table is having – people eventually adjust back to what they can't hide: self-centered, greedy, venal etc. – what I said earlier.
And don't give me that crap about altruism – you have to be dead to be a saint; the ones who are left here on earth are too busy trying to survive to bother with that crap; oops, I don't mean to offend, but you should have realized by now that people do things for two reasons: the good reason and the real reason. It's the good reason that gets you the sainthood for everyone to see, the other often remains hidden.
I'm afraid your suggested reason for the existence of society is on shaky ground. Man likes to move in groups constructed on the basis of similarities under a unique banner for others to join for only one reason – it increases the likelihood of survival, his and the group's – on his own all the other greedy bastards would, in some cases literally, eat him alive.
The working class produces the wealth? It's not worth pursuing that old hoary trade union red herring. If they did, why aren't they rich? Why don't they just take over the means of production and… oh, they tried that, didn't they? And, anyway, having worked in Africa for more than 20 years, they are rich given that wealth is a relative thing. You are right, though, about Ha Jung Chang, he is entertaining, sort of on a par with Neal Boortz's 'They Would Say That'.
The Utopia you describe in your last para is never going to happen because there is no such thing as the perfect solution. Economists forget that economic theory is only the aggregate of myriad decisions made in the real world, a world in constant flux. That's why they're so good at explaining why things happened the way they did and so bad at predicting what's going to happen.
In that real world, the businessman uses economic theory not for it's predictive value (it has so little of that) but rather as the test-bed on which to determine whether a new idea (often contrarian in nature – the word says it all) has a chance. I mean, if economics were predictive, even someone like you could follow the numbers, become rich and devote all your time to changing the world.
Have to go now and put a new nail in the top of my baseball bat. Then I'm off to the factory to motivate the workers.
Tim says:
"And don't give me that crap about altruism – you have to be dead to be a saint; the ones who are left here on earth are too busy trying to survive to bother with that crap; oops, I don't mean to offend, but you should have realized by now that people do things for two reasons: the good reason and the real reason. It's the good reason that gets you the sainthood for everyone to see, the other often remains hidden."
This really reeks of projection. Just because you don't act upon (or have) good motives does not mean others are the same. It's amusing that people are so insecure with the possibility of altruism existing that they have to deny it.
carrstone says:
@Tim
Well, well and where do you get your information on how the world works? Have you figured out yet that it's all a game and you've got to know the rules in order to play?If not, you'll be a drone like so many of the others in this blog, complaining about how badly your boss treats you.
Do I notice a touch of jealousy about the 'bigger bonuses'? I think that the amount people earn is irrelevant as it's contractually fixed and it's for the owners of the business to curtail or encourage what you might call the 'excesses', after all, the money reduces their profits, not yours. You should rather express concern about the waste of your tax dollars on flights of fancy like stimulus programs; this is YOUR money, not theirs.
What I would say is that in 2008 when the shit started rising, they should have let all the exposed banks as well as Fannie and Freddie go to the wall. It would have made little difference because they're not doing any good to those in need of loans now, are they? I know, those clever Feds and politicians predicted Armageddon but we'd be over it by now. All markets need certainty to prosper -if you don't believe me, look at the other US recessions (there are international examples as well!) and the effect government interference had on the economy then – particularly FDR's New Deal was on a par with today's Hope and Change.
I think the Gov is failing me whereas its job is so simple: it should protect me and enable me to do the things I want – no more, no less; it should not be preoccupied with attempting to fulfill its political agenda which would include enacting laws that are written in support of creating a new world order.
Because of the lack of leadership, lack of a budget plan and general kackhandedness of the Gov, the banks are sitting on vast numbers of re-possessed houses they're not getting rid of and companies have reserves but are unwilling to invest because they don't know which way the Gov is going to jump. And I blame the Fed as well, printing fait money and fiddling as it does with the lending rate (which, by the way, is not to be equated with the inflation rate) – did you know that this institution is totally autonomous and that, since its 1917 inception, the US has lost 83 cents of its value, mainly because it messes with the lending rate?
That said, the market is never wrong because the price is the price. And who is the speculator, anyway, the seller or the buyer?
carrstone says:
some more @ tim
Projection is what they do in a cinema or is it a Psych 101 term? Lemme tell you, what looks like altruism to you may be the worst kind of self-aggrandizement to someone else. It's no wonder that, on the Pyramid of Needs, altruism is on the top tier, almost unattainable except by a few and I don't want to spend easter like that – not because I don't believe, but because I don't think humanity is worth it.
Of course I do care for some things:I would sacrifice myself for my loved ones but for the neighbors? I don't think so! Would I go to war? Only in a case of clear and present danger TO ME and MINE. As I said to Arslan elsewhere, people do things for 2 reasons, the good and the real. We all think we know the good reason Mother Theresa did what she did but only the really arrogant claim to know the real reason!
Caleb says:
@Sarah
If you’re trying to insult me, comparing me to Nathan Fillion is not the way to go about it. :)
@Tim
“…but I and everyone else can vote in order to make it act morally and just.”
Assuming two things: 1) enough people agree on and are willing to promote similar enough definitions of morality and justice and 2) enough people know the correct actions and policies that lead to moral and just outcomes. Neither assumption should be presumed.
For1), an example: Consider labor unions laws. There are some people who think laws that support labor unions are good. There are also people who think laws that support labor unions are bad. Both frame their claims in terms of morality, justice, and economic efficiency. These are absolute claims, and contradictory. At least one faction must be wrong to some degree. Now, it just so happens that the vast majority of labor union members and those who would benefit directly from those laws fall within the former group. It also so happens that that business owners and others who would be harmed by those laws oppose them. Which is more plausible: that A) those who support and oppose these laws respectively do so because of an honest, objective determination of what would benefit society as a whole and maximize general welfare; or B) those who support and oppose these laws do so because doing so is in their best interest, but they frame their position as promoting general welfare to gain democratic legitimacy? The vast majority of human action speaks to the latter option.
2) is equally suspect. Even if voters were selflessly motivated to establish the best policies possible, there is still the problem of discovering what those are. “Search costs” are huge. Just to become informed on one narrow piece of legislation requires vast amounts of time-consuming research and analysis. Now, of course, we pay people to do this. But then you run into agency problems. Even looking into the methodologies and motives of your sources can be prohibitively expensive. Suppose a voter did all of this, and became the best, most informed, and most objective voter possible. What next? His vote is just one vote among thousands or millions. The chance that his highly costly informed vote changed anything is miniscule. Why incur all those costs if there is likely no pay off? So why not do what most voters do: make decisions based on hastily-gained knowledge, preconceived notions, or 15 second spot ads? As people have already pointed out, people are generally ignorant and irrational. Does this change once they enter the voting booth? If not, then why would you say the government’s incentives stem from a more rational source?
“You probably live in Suburbia…”
Who I am and where I live have no bearing on the validity or invalidity of my arguments.
@ladiesbane
“What is it you think is bad about OSHA?”
Inherently, nothing. Third party standard agencies are common, in the private and public spheres. My problem is with coerced standards, where no competing alternative is available.
“Why is a minimum national standard of safe operations a bad idea?”
It might not be. More than likely, there is an optimal level of investment in safety for most people in most industries. But that doesn’t mean that 1) anyone knows where that is 2) it’s the same for all industries, or 3) it isn’t constantly changing.
“It changes over time, as technology, public opinion, and changing data come in, which is how MSHA replaced the Coal Act, and so on.”
That’s probably good. But you have to look at the mechanism of that change. Is public opinion a good driver? How often does public opinion drive changes, and what types of change? I would assert that public opinion is largely reactionary, driven mainly by highly visible events.
Data is good, but how that data is gathered and used matters. What incentives do regulators have to gather and implement that data efficiently, other than not provoking that public opinion you mentioned? How are those incentives influenced by considerations of job security, political aspirations, or industry influence?
“You don't "let someone" be injured or killed; you do everything you reasonably can to avoid it, and to deal with accidents immediately and properly. It's not a matter of there being a "right number", but a good faith attempt to keep the number as close to zero as possible.”
Your terms “properly” and “good faith” imply an objective standard. Most people would call not spending $1 to prevent a 50% chance of death “bad faith.” Not spending $1million to prevent .000001% chance of death is probably still “good faith” for most. There’s a number somewhere in your assertions.
We don’t try to keep that number as close to zero as possible. No one does. No one would drive, or fly or drink alcohol if the sole goal of human action was to prevent injury or death. There are other goals, there are trade-offs, and everyone makes them.
“Would you be in favor of that, as it removes a degree of governmental interference?”
Absolutely. I consider statutory limitation of liability just as perverse as statutory imposition of liability. If an employer causes harm through negligence to a worker where they had a contractual or legal duty to avoid, they need to be liable for ALL damages caused. Otherwise, the reduced damage award throws off the optimal cost/benefit prevention.
An example here would be the BP oil spill. BP certainly violated safety regulations, and was fined heftily for it. But the compensatory fund the govt. had BP pay was chump change compared to the actual property damage caused by the spill. The problem was, BP and other oil companies agreed to not politically oppose some of the oil rig safety regulations in exchange for the government putting a (miniscule) cap on liability damages. This deal and many others like it are actually poor means to the ends. Yes, businesses have to follow specific procedures within the regulatory environment. But those procedures (and their enforcement) don’t always lead to a reduction in the harmful activity. Safety procedures are always either speculative or reactionary, and there is almost a way around them. Monetary damages, on the other hand, punish the harmful result rather than violation of the procedure. This makes more sense to me. Who cares that the safety inspection form was properly filled out in triplicate, if the oil spill still happens? We don’t want procedures followed, we want fewer oil spills. If a company manages to reduce their spill rate, who cares what procedure they are following?
“But do you really think workers want to work in less safe conditions?”
All else being equal, no. We always want more: more safety, more leisure, more reward, more health, ect. But increasing safety incurs costs. Initially, the costs incurred for the safety bought is worth it. (a few bucks for a seatbelt = good trade-off for most people) But eventually, you hit the law of diminishing returns. (a few thousand dollars for a installed roll-cage = not a good trade-off for most people) Given scarcity of resources, there comes a point where people will not buy more safety for less of other things. At that point and beyond, yes, people do and will work in less safe conditions. The problem is, the point of marginal utility (where one extra unit of safety is actually counter-productive) is very different for different people.
“I don't know that the public tab should cover the most radical procedures if there is a slim chance of success, but it is unconscionable that anyone in our country not have basic care. It's less expensive when there is no profit margin, too, of course.”
By this line of argument, what industries should be for profit? Certainly not food production and distribution; eating is just as if not more important than health-care. Probably not housing, either. If costs of production and distribution of goods are reduced by making supply non-profit, why don’t we make every industry non-profit?
@Ben
“The profit motive alone will not result in an acceptable level of safety for workers or the environment.”
Acceptable according to whom?
“Hell, at the Massey mine that mothra brought up they kept two separate sets of books to mislead the miners about how dangerous their work was.”
That would be fraud. Fraud is an old cause of action, recognized by traditional common law standards as malum in se. There is no social utility created by fraud, as it imposes a not-bargained-for cost. You need to separate those issues from what we are talking about here, which are malum prohibitum. There is social utility in voluntarily bargaining for a certain level of danger for savings in costs. The laws we are talking about simply set a certain exchange rate.
“…there is some minimum standard of safety that businesses must meet in treating their workers and the environment.”
This is the premise I’m questioning. There are danger costs most if not all people will willingly incur, and danger costs most if not all people will not. Those costs are dependant on what the benefit is. Most people would not go into a building where they had to dodge spinning blades, Indiana Jones style, for $1. Some may do it for $1 million. A lot would do it for $1 billion. Where is the minimum level, where it is morally wrong for both payer and payee to voluntarily arrange that transaction?
“… that put alternative power structures in place that value things other than profit.”
What makes you think that these alternative power structures are driven by something other than profit? Profit is not just denominated in money. Profit is power. Every human institution is susceptible to corruption, self-interest, and power-driven people. The more power any one institution has, the greater motive ambitious people have to take them over. The idea that government actors are somehow better or less self-interested than any other human being is one of the greatest misconceptions of modern society.
@acer
Milton Freedman supported monetary stimulus as a solution to sudden demand shocks and liquidity trap as seen in the Great Depression. He was a Keynesian in that respect. This does not imply anything other than control over money supply. Friedman was, to the day he died, vociferously opposed to direct policy intervention in the economy. It is the latter subject we are talking about now.
Interesting link. I could spend many hours replying to it. It reminds me of the importance of actually knowing, understanding, and responding to the *best* arguments that your ideological opponents offer. It takes a lot of effort to actually read, discuss, engage with, and understand the ideologies with which you disagree. It takes much less effort to simply listen to the popular distillation, poorly represented, or outright misconstrued arguments of the opposing ideology and knock them down. It is a form of a straw-man argument. I won’t go into the many mistakes that author makes, but I will point out a big one. He states that if you “want a leaner, more efficient government, but don't dream of getting rid of it” then he isn’t talking about you. However, this is precisely what libertarians want. People who want to get rid of the government are called anarchists. This is a very bad misrepresentation, almost as bad as people who call the President a socialist.
@ Sarah
You’re really winning me over with your valid, logical, and reasoned engagement with my arguments.
@A.B.A.B.D
“So, in your view, the federal regulation to require installation of seat belts in all automobiles, and various state regulations requiring the use of seat belts by vehicle occupants, among other regulatory requirements, has played no role in increases in driver and passenger safety?”
Not at all. In fact, I’m sure it did increase safety a great deal (especially the seatbelts). That’s not my argument. My argument is that not all potential safety measures are net positive gains. Some are wasteful. Any institution which decides what measure gets implemented where must weigh both sides of the equation. The institution which does that must have 1) the information relevant to making that decision, 2) the capability of processing that information in a way that produces the optimal policy outcome, and 3) the incentive to put that policy in place and enforce it to an optimal level. Some policies do this, some policies don’t, and some are on the line. My point is broader than that: government institutions have very little incentive to distinguish between policy outcomes.
If government stuck to policies that only mandated the implementation of policies that were almost certainly net-positive, I would have very little room for argument. I could quibble that these policies may not be as responsive as effective as possible. But there’s enough uncertainty that my case wouldn’t be very persuasive. However, government institutions as currently structured have an institutionalized incentive to reach beyond diminishing marginal utility and well into outright counter-productive territory. Why else do we have the FDA busting Amish for selling unpasteurized milk to people who know the dangers of unpasteurized milk and know full well what they are buying? There needs to be a better, more responsive feedback mechanism.
Arslan Says:
July 7th, 2011 at 7:41 am
“But do you think they would tolerate life-threatening conditions if they ran things? Highly unlikely.”
Almost certain. How life-threatening? How much would mitigation efforts cost? They would have to tolerate a certain level of life-threatening conditions. They are, after all, on a small metal platform in the middle of the ocean, pumping highly flammable liquids and gasses at high pressure through fallible metal tubes. You can’t exactly make that into Disneyland. (Not that Disneyland is exactly safe, either.) No, the workers would decide to not implement some safety method that would prevent some remote disaster. Or, more likely, they would decide not to spend huge resources on discovering what new problems can crop up, and get taken unawares just like everyone else.
I think it quite plausible that they would decide to go with *fewer* safety protocols, if anything else. After all, with no owner overhead, the profits of operation go directly into their pockets. They internalize all cost savings from forgoing safety expenditures. Many people display evidence of engaging in highly risky behavior for even a little payoff. Witness: motorcycle riders. There tends to be a similar mentality between motorcyclists and oil rig workers, from my experience. They tend to like the danger, and view the higher pay as pure gravy. I’m not saying it would happen, btw, I’m saying it wouldn’t surprise me in the least.
@xynzee
Re: recreational vs. productive activity.
Working is certainly culturally encouraged. But it isn’t necessary. The other alternatives may not be attractive (social programs, scavenging, begging from friends, family, churches, ect.) but they are there. The difference between the utility of recreation and the utility of production is one of magnitude, not of type. The risk/reward decision you make when you rock climb or when you get a new job is the same. You just place a high enough value on the job that you are willing to take higher risks. Is this ideal? No. The world isn’t ideal.
“As I'll come out ahead even in the lawsuits.”
Here’s your key assumption. The courts already impose costs for this type of decision. The costs can be quite high, often higher than statutory fines. Businesses also have an interest in regulatory safety controls in: 1) statutory limitation of damages (I already brought this up) and 2) claims of plausible deniability. Often being OSHA or FDA (or whatever) compliant is a complete defense to liability. This is insane! Even if the owners knew of a danger (and had an effective way of fixing it) that knowledge does not make them liable if the danger was not contemplated by the rules. This doctrine is the ultimate in proceduralism: Who cares about the result, so long as you followed the rules. I agree that owners of dangerous businesses should pay to mitigate the danger. But that feedback should be through results, not through procedures.
“That's how business make their decisions.”
That’s how everyone makes their decisions, like it or not. It may not be as explicit or formalized as you describe, but it is the same. Oh, and if you dislike the CPA-driven cost/benefit charts, you won’t like how most government agencies make similar decisions. For example, how do you think the state DOT’s decide where or not to put guardrails?
“Here's a fine that not only makes up the difference, but exceeds it.”
They’re simply adding to the cost by a certain, set amount. My point exactly.
“Take a look at the fishing fleets up in Alaska, where many captains in order to cut costs don't even supply simple things like PFDs. And given the kit one has to wear in those conditions, you go in you're going down quickly.”
And how much do those fishermen get paid? A good amount, I believe. They seem to think it’s fair, since they keep fishing. Is it a secret that crab fishing in Alaska is dangerous? Seeing as there is an entire TV show on the subject, I doubt it. There are risks, there are rewards, and there are people willing to take that trade-off. Why should we stop them?
“However, there's a big difference between one happening because someone was cutting corners, and a digger blade striking a rock causing a spark. One's premeditated and with a profit motive and the other… well s* happens eh?”
There’s no difference, other than cost and probability. The owner could invest in an exotic, expensive blade made of ceramic that needs constant replacement, but won’t spark. The owner could seal up the entire mine, suck the air out to create a vacuum, and issue pressurized suits and vehicles to his workers. No air, no fire. Lives saved. I could keep going, each solution more exotic and expensive than the last. But that won’t happen. I don’t think many people want that to happen, last of all the mine workers. They’d rather take the risk of fire and keep their jobs.
“The only job going is doing the paper shredding for the Koch Bros. Is *eating* enough of a "benefit" for you?… So you're operating your Koch owned faulty shredder, you're tired from having to work back to back shifts to pay for your meds and ooops! There goes your hand, because the owner was too cheap to replace the guard that had broken. “
If that’s my only job option, and it is that dangerous, then I would forego working. I would move in with friends or family, and find to do *something* productive. Maybe I’m a half-decent wood-worker, perhaps I can do basic car repair cheap, maybe the little old lady down the street will pay me below minimum wage under the table to weed her garden. There are always alternatives.
“While a smoker knows the facts about the harm smoking causes them, plus the financial outlay, and the physical addiction is gone after 10 days, people still continue to smoke. Why? What motivates them? Economists say it's their "choice". Well duh, I see that, but why? Give me a real answer. The economic data is that smoking is not in their self interests, from all perspectives, but they still behave this way.”
Way to get at the heart of the matter. I was going to bring up smoking, but you beat me to it. Smokers encapsulate the distinction between my philosophy and yours. For a while it was assumed that people smoked because they did not think it was bad for them. (Probably somewhat justified, but not as much as people think. Even in the early 1900’s people commonly referred to cigarettes as “coffin nails.”) Once that issue was cleared up, the policy makers focused on nicotine addiction, cultural perception and the health effects of second hand smoke. Today, we have dozens of addiction treatments. Smoking is right above chewing tobacco and licking toilet seats in terms of cultural perception. Smokers are being banned from even standing near occupied buildings. Sky-high taxes make the habit hit where it hurts most. PSA’s show the most graphic and stark results of smoking imaginable. Government and private institutions have gone all-out in stamping out this practice. The only measure left would be to ban it. Yet, those stupid, intractable people keep engaging in this pointless, destructible habit. Why? Because they choose to. It’s called “choice,” yes. It’s also called free will. You have to accept that, at the root of people’s motivations, is a decision they made that might be different from yours. You can nudge, hint, suggest, or coerce to get people to do what you want sometimes. But not all the time. There are times when some other person knows all you know, calculates all you calculate, looks at the decision you made, and says: “no.” You may call it stupidity. I call it freedom.
“The… point… of… a… company… is… to… maximise… profits… for… the… share… holders. That's it. They have no other raison d'etre, than that. Their only responsibility is to their share holders. They're not here to be nice, they're here to protect personal assets from liability and allow a group of people to act as a single unit, allow the company to continue to function if one or more of the shareholder leave, and so and so forth.”
You look at motives, I look at results. Yes, companies are self-interested. All humans are. Companies will do anything do make a buck, up to and including making something of value for someone else. In fact, that’s typically how you get people to give you stuff you want if you can’t use force. What motivates government actors? Self-interest, just like their private counterparts. What happens if a company makes a bad product? You don’t buy it. To make you buy it, the company has to improve. The company either improves, or fails. What happens if a government makes a bad policy? Well, you can lobby against it. But even if you fail, tough. Even if the policy is bad, it continues. There is little incentive to fix it. There may even be an incentive to keep it in place, if the thing that makes the policy bad benefits a particularly powerful faction.
Arslan says:
"Of course the newly appointed worker/owner would be charmed by being told that he's going to earn more money and that the safety regulations are the best in the sector, bla, blah, blah. It's like getting married, initially the sex is great, then you get used to it and then you start wondering what the guy at the next table is having – people eventually adjust back to what they can't hide: self-centered, greedy, venal etc. – what I said earlier."
Oh I'm sorry, were you going to make an argument here, or just reveal more idiotic assumptions here?
"And don't give me that crap about altruism – you have to be dead to be a saint; the ones who are left here on earth are too busy trying to survive to bother with that crap; oops, I don't mean to offend, but you should have realized by now that people do things for two reasons: the good reason and the real reason. It's the good reason that gets you the sainthood for everyone to see, the other often remains hidden."
Sorry, your proposition here can be easily falsified, using Karl Popper's black swan analogy. All I need is ONE act of altruism and your whole world of unfounded assumptions collapses. Luckily, there are thousands of such acts, maybe even millions, every day.
The problem is that you live in a fantasy world where you assume your cynical assumptions are true.
"I'm afraid your suggested reason for the existence of society is on shaky ground. Man likes to move in groups constructed on the basis of similarities under a unique banner for others to join for only one reason – it increases the likelihood of survival, his and the group's – on his own all the other greedy bastards would, in some cases literally, eat him alive."
Again, appeal to nature fallacy.
"The working class produces the wealth?"
Yes, dumbfuck. They perform the services and build the products, which are sold, hence wealth is created. Let's imagine an economic model where there are only investors with capital, and no laborers. You can't. Labor produces wealth.
"It's not worth pursuing that old hoary trade union red herring. If they did, why aren't they rich?"
Good lord, how old are you? I want to know how bad your developmental disorder is. You don't even know what I mean when I say produce wealth, do you? Do you have a car? Ok, that was built by workers, either directly or maintaining and operating the machines which build them. They were not built by bankers, investors, or professional managers. The nifty thing is that those people can be taken out of the equation, and you can still have a working economy. The opposite is not true.
" Why don't they just take over the means of production and… oh, they tried that, didn't they? And, anyway, having worked in Africa for more than 20 years, they are rich given that wealth is a relative thing. You are right, though, about Ha Jung Chang, he is entertaining, sort of on a par with Neal Boortz's 'They Would Say That'."
Yes, if you try something once, and it doesn't work out, might as well stop trying. Unless it's capitalism. Capitalism gets infinite chances for some unknown reason. I'm glad people like you weren't involved in the development of aviation.
And then name is Ha Joon Chang, who really ought not to be compared with Neal Boortz because he is an actual trained economist. Did you foolishly assume that he's just a left-wing mirror image of your countless right-wing pundits who pontificate endlessly about things they know nothing about?
"The Utopia you describe in your last para is never going to happen because there is no such thing as the perfect solution."
Strawman and FAIL. Nobody is suggesting a utopia. Basically this shitty argument is trotted out every time someone dares suggest that there is a better alternative to capitalism. "Better" is supplanted by "perfect" and "utopian".
" Economists forget that economic theory is only the aggregate of myriad decisions made in the real world, a world in constant flux. That's why they're so good at explaining why things happened the way they did and so bad at predicting what's going to happen."
Karl Marx tried to tell them that. That being said, I'm going to take the word of a trained economist over you.
"In that real world, the businessman uses economic theory not for it's predictive value (it has so little of that) but rather as the test-bed on which to determine whether a new idea (often contrarian in nature – the word says it all) has a chance. I mean, if economics were predictive, even someone like you could follow the numbers, become rich and devote all your time to changing the world."
I don't know why you come to that bizarre conclusion, but it is true that mainstream economics made itself irrelevant thus making business school(the other school of economics based on how the world really works) necessary. That being said, that argument applies to the free market ideologues who dominate economics in the West.
"Have to go now and put a new nail in the top of my baseball bat. Then I'm off to the factory to motivate the workers."
And yet bitches like you are the first to cry when the workers protest. It's going to be fun putting plastic bags over your heads in the GULAG.
Tim says:
@carrstone
"Well, well and where do you get your information on how the world works? Have you figured out yet that it's all a game and you've got to know the rules in order to play?If not, you'll be a drone like so many of the others in this blog, complaining about how badly your boss treats you."
Blah blah blah vague status quo boosting with a little bit of personal insulting.
"Do I notice a touch of jealousy about the 'bigger bonuses'?"
No, you don't. I don't begrudge that people earn more (though the relative worth of each occupation I have no problem arguing) than I, but I do begrudge people who make their money upon the ruins of our economy (and even their own banks, which would have imploded short massive government assistance).
"I think that the amount people earn is irrelevant as it's contractually fixed and it's for the owners of the business to curtail or encourage what you might call the 'excesses', after all, the money reduces their profits, not yours."
Except shareholder control has been tenuous at best in controlling executives. On top of that, if you want to see how crooked the price-setting for executives is perhaps you should look into how they use consultants to boost their own salaries and benefits.
But instead you tend to repeatedly argue for the status quo by saying that profit seekers seek profit, and thus they can make no mistakes, what they do must be optimal. Of course, this is a moron's argument that tries to rationalize backward from the results.
"You should rather express concern about the waste of your tax dollars on flights of fancy like stimulus programs; this is YOUR money, not theirs."
The concept of ownership of the money I pay in taxes is one that has been created to try to justify paying less into society. The roads I drive on every day are paid by tax dollars, the schools I have gone to are paid by taxes, the police force where I live is paid for by taxes, the medical programs that benefit both poor and old are paid for by taxes. I may question whether some usage is wise or not, but I am not stupid enough to question whether the money I pay to the government is fair dues (and then just pretend all the benefits I receive are because I'm such a rugged individual).
"What I would say is that in 2008 when the shit started rising, they should have let all the exposed banks as well as Fannie and Freddie go to the wall. It would have made little difference because they're not doing any good to those in need of loans now, are they? I know, those clever Feds and politicians predicted Armageddon but we'd be over it by now."
Uh, no, Lehman's bankruptcy was a disaster. Letting almost every bank (and linked businesses like GE capital which could have taken down GE) go under without doing a proper receivership (and therefore spinning off individual aspects of the business while keeping the business running) would have been an unmitigated disaster. They should not have been bailed out, and the survivors certainly should have been broken up, though.
As for the argument that all would be fine now, that ignores how heavily financialized our businesses are now, and that a genuine solvency crisis in others can create a liquidity crisis in many other businesses in the system that aren't insolvent, but the immediate crisis pushes them over the edge. The "purge the rottenness" strategy always fails.
"All markets need certainty to prosper -if you don't believe me, look at the other US recessions (there are international examples as well!) and the effect government interference had on the economy then – particularly FDR's New Deal was on a par with today's Hope and Change."
Uh, the New Deal (and New Deal esque policies continued shortly after the war such as the GI bill) created huge demand in our economic system. Our economic system is primarily (the number floated around is 80%) consuming, and thus economic policies that benefit consumers benefit the whole system. Policies that benefit producers have limited (but occasionally useful) effects in an economy that relies on domestic consumption.
"I think the Gov is failing me whereas its job is so simple: it should protect me and enable me to do the things I want – no more, no less;"
Such statements are never made from people dying of illnesses they had no ability to control. I wonder why. The rich man wants to pay nothing, because he needs nothing. Big surprise.
"it should not be preoccupied with attempting to fulfill its political agenda which would include enacting laws that are written in support of creating a new world order."
Wow, are you serious? This is an argument-ender as no one who can seriously utter that deserves any respect intellectually.
"Because of the lack of leadership, lack of a budget plan and general kackhandedness of the Gov, the banks are sitting on vast numbers of re-possessed houses they're not getting rid of"
That's because releasing them all at once depresses the market, and they've already depressed the housing market. The better way to deal with this was to deal with write-downs (with clawback mechanisms for rising equity if necessary) to prevent such a huge amount of foreclosures.
"and companies have reserves but are unwilling to invest because they don't know which way the Gov is going to jump."
No. This is stupid. If you look at small business concern indexes, you will see that low demand is the #1 concern. In general, the businesses that are sitting on huge reserves are doing so because they do not see the need to use it. They are making more money by not using it, because demand is insufficient to deem more hiring or expansion necessary. Remember, government can only set the baseline costs of a few factors (and in healthcare, the private sector has determined that up is the only direction those costs are going) but it cannot make a low-demand situation attractive by reducing the cost of labor or other regulations.
"And I blame the Fed as well, printing fait money"
Seriously? Are you actually a hard money deflationist? I thought I was talking to someone who has at least a little intelligence. Guess what: there isn't enough gold, silver, or platinum to base our economy on. Paper money is here to stay, deal with it.
"and fiddling as it does with the lending rate (which, by the way, is not to be equated with the inflation rate) – did you know that this institution is totally autonomous and that, since its 1917 inception, the US has lost 83 cents of its value, mainly because it messes with the lending rate?"
Short term rates. The fed is not totally autonomous, given that there are numerous controls upon it via appointment and that it is under the authority of congress which can mandate it to do whatever it wishes.
"That said, the market is never wrong because the price is the price."
That's a moron's argument. Rationalizing the end result backwards instead of trying to understand the steps that lead up to the end result. Prices can be distorted by a number of actions, and perhaps you should look into that. You know, like fraud.
"And who is the speculator, anyway, the seller or the buyer?"
Both. Some are genuinely hedging transportation costs. Most are not, they are purchasing up contracts and holding on to them because when big betters (IE: hedge funds) are doing the same the price goes up. They in turn sell these to other speculators or genuine distributors, who have no choice but to pass on the higher cost. The reverse is also true; when sell-offs start they tend to push the price further down by making those who were waiting sell quickly, thus depressing the price further.
For someone who is so free market, you don't seem to understand it.
Tim says:
"Assuming two things: 1) enough people agree on and are willing to promote similar enough definitions of morality and justice and 2) enough people know the correct actions and policies that lead to moral and just outcomes. Neither assumption should be presumed."
You misunderstand. Entirely. I speak of CAPACITY. Not end result. A business cannot be swayed as a government can. It is a question of accountability.
"For1), an example: Consider labor unions laws. There are some people who think laws that support labor unions are good. There are also people who think laws that support labor unions are bad. Both frame their claims in terms of morality, justice, and economic efficiency. These are absolute claims, and contradictory."
True, except for the fact that often putting them in moralistic terms (lol, right to work states) is often a cover for a powerful interest.
"At least one faction must be wrong to some degree."
I can agree to the notion that many issues are a pull between two incompatible forces that must be balanced. The argument lies in where that balance is.
"Now, it just so happens that the vast majority of labor union members and those who would benefit directly from those laws fall within the former group. It also so happens that that business owners and others who would be harmed by those laws oppose them. Which is more plausible: that A) those who support and oppose these laws respectively do so because of an honest, objective determination of what would benefit society as a whole and maximize general welfare; or B) those who support and oppose these laws do so because doing so is in their best interest, but they frame their position as promoting general welfare to gain democratic legitimacy? The vast majority of human action speaks to the latter option."
Such is true. Education is important. Also, so is public finance, which limits the influence of these groups.
"2) is equally suspect. Even if voters were selflessly motivated to establish the best policies possible, there is still the problem of discovering what those are. “Search costs” are huge. Just to become informed on one narrow piece of legislation requires vast amounts of time-consuming research and analysis. Now, of course, we pay people to do this. But then you run into agency problems. Even looking into the methodologies and motives of your sources can be prohibitively expensive. Suppose a voter did all of this, and became the best, most informed, and most objective voter possible. What next? His vote is just one vote among thousands or millions. The chance that his highly costly informed vote changed anything is miniscule. Why incur all those costs if there is likely no pay off? So why not do what most voters do: make decisions based on hastily-gained knowledge, preconceived notions, or 15 second spot ads? As people have already pointed out, people are generally ignorant and irrational. Does this change once they enter the voting booth?"
You do not need to read ever line of legislation to be informed. There are plenty who pour over that, and you can read about actual problems from a secondary source (though I would not recommend fox news, if you want accuracy) without massive time inputs from every voter. It is possible to understand society better, but with our disinterest in providing better educational results (the lol fire the teachers if their kids fail campaign does not count) I do not necessarily see this as likely. Still, it is not impossible.
"If not, then why would you say the government’s incentives stem from a more rational source?"
They can. Perhaps you could call it a lucky accident when desperation forces leaders to do the right thing because of the genuine insistence of a numerous and loud group of people who by either providence or good sense promote a plan that is in the best interests of the inhabitants of the nation.
Businesses have no such restraints, which is my primary problem with them. They are only restrained by public opinion (if they want to be) and laws. That is it.
"Who I am and where I live have no bearing on the validity or invalidity of my arguments."
Who you are and where you live modifies the way you see things so strongly that your point of view is inevitably reflective of that. Businessman are almost always more positive about business than government. Government employees are almost always more positive about government than business. Just look at the geographic and demographic maps overlayed on electoral ones.
Myself, I hail from suburbia, but have had experiences that made me question the certainties of the protestant work ethic that supposedly determines our success, of the economic system as a whole, and the devotion of the elites to the betterment of the people.
Realizing that some people have more chances than others is a very important experience. It can make you either arrogant, or humbled.
Tim says:
"Projection is what they do in a cinema or is it a Psych 101 term?"
So I touched a soft spot. Nice to know.
"Lemme tell you, what looks like altruism to you may be the worst kind of self-aggrandizement to someone else."
You're confusing perception with motivation. People do not always act rationally. One of the sources of irrational action is altruism, a desire to simply do something for someone else because you can.
"It's no wonder that, on the Pyramid of Needs, altruism is on the top tier, almost unattainable except by a few and I don't want to spend easter like that – not because I don't believe, but because I don't think humanity is worth it.
Of course I do care for some things:I would sacrifice myself for my loved ones but for the neighbors? I don't think so! Would I go to war? Only in a case of clear and present danger TO ME and MINE. As I said to Arslan elsewhere, people do things for 2 reasons, the good and the real. We all think we know the good reason Mother Theresa did what she did but only the really arrogant claim to know the real reason!"
Only a person incapable of emotionally caring for other people has the need to rationalize away that capacity in others. It's nice talking to the reincarnation of Ayn Rand, though.
bb in GA says:
When Marine Corporal Jason Dunham jumped on the grenade using his helmet to contain the blast (which ultimately shattered his body and eventually killed him,) wasn't he operating out of altruism?
His action saved the lives of several of his fellow Marines. I don't think they teach grenade jumping at Parris Island.
Cpl Dunham is one of our posthumous Medal of Honor recipients.
//bb
Arslan says:
"When Marine Corporal Jason Dunham jumped on the grenade using his helmet to contain the blast (which ultimately shattered his body and eventually killed him,) wasn't he operating out of altruism?
His action saved the lives of several of his fellow Marines. I don't think they teach grenade jumping at Parris Island.
Cpl Dunham is one of our posthumous Medal of Honor recipients."
No BB, our neo-liberal economics gurus would tell us that the altruism displayed by the corporal was in fact an "optical illusion". Cpt. Dunham must have had some hidden, ulterior motive for his action. He clearly weighed the opportunity costs of jumping on the grenade or not jumping on it, and decided that he could profit personally by taking the former option.
Edward says:
Chilling. Did the management have any reason to think that continuing the gas flow would not result in an explosion?
Edward says:
This is probably the future of our economy and the global climate.
Ben says:
BB,
You're the most reasonable conservative I've ever seen in blog comments. You come along with your share of clunkers but you're pretty much always reasonable. Kudos.
Caleb,
Since you keep ignoring things just answer this question: should the government regulate the negative externalities generated by firms?
xynzee says:
@Caleb: In your haste to prove Ed wrong and proudly espouse your knowledge of GMU economic doctrine, you failed to grasp the main thrust of the article. That being the company had a policy that forbade shutting off the other two platforms causing them to pump oil and gases into an inferno. The answer is self-evident. You have an inferno, you *stop* pumping more fuel into it. Yes? The company's SOP should read: Have fire, stop pumping more fuel into it.
This is the type of self regulation that one hopes a company should have. Correct?
Instead, the company made an *economic* decision that turning off the pumps would cost them in the short term, and continued to pump fuel into it.
Yes, someone else on the other platforms should have made a situational decision of *FUCK THAT!* and cut off supply. The result was a horrific loss of life, as well as damaging the oceans and most likely affecting fishing (another important industry). Obviously, you care for no one else but yourself so this doesn't seem to register on your radar.
So *if* the companies are going to have an SOP, that says: Have fire, keep pumping fuel into it, because it's going to affect the bottom line. Then a force needs to step in and bitch slap them and hard. Now the government steps in and says *not again*.
xynzee says:
@Caleb: Really!?! I have no idea of even where to start dismantling you. First of all, I can certainly say that for my ideology I'm certainly consistent. Which is that if someone is able they should work, though there are those times when this is made very difficult for this to happen and this is where the safety nets come in. You go through while preaching the ideology of pure "self responsibility" chop and change at will, but more on that later.
Now then to start, I will now walk you through my analogy of carrots and candy bars.
The only things that carrots and candy bars have in common is that they are edible and offer a caloric intake. That's about it. These are *not* interchangeable goods like the more well known analogy of apples and oranges.
Candy bars are recognised as empty calories and are considered a luxury snack. I do believe that M&M Mars the maker of the Snickers bar though being packed with peanuts would not consider their products as part of a balanced diet. The only people who would have to consume one of their products is a diabetic suffering insulin shock. Candy bars being high in sugars and fats are in essence unhealthy. By not consuming them, I remove the harm that they can do to my body. Eg spiking blood sugars which can lead to diabetes, obesity, tooth decay etc etc. By forgoing candy bars I do not cause myself harm and the net effect is nil.
By forgoing carrots on the other hand I miss out on essential dietary nutrition, fibre as well as calories. I also run the very real risk of night blindness. Therefore good health depends upon eating carrots. Does my eating carrots mean that I will not die? No. I could choke. If at this point you say I could take dietary supplements, again you've missed the point and you prove yourself as someone to be dismissed as a troll.
Therefore if I do not want to die in a sky diving accident, I do not go sky diving. Does this remove the danger of death in a falling related accident eg. I trip over my own two feet, hit my head and die? No. But in order to have a roof over my head and food in my stomach, I need money, and for that I need a job.
"Working is certainly culturally encouraged. But it isn’t necessary."
Really?!? But isn't working the main tenant of libertarian thought? Self reliance and all that? To quote Thatcher and her, "There is no society, only individuals." line. And as I've said already liberals also believe in being personally responsible, and believe that if you can work then work. For us it's an issue of quality of work and/or quality of pay.
The Australians had an unofficial policy for this for many years called the Australian ideal of the Fair Go. This is summed up as: A man should be able to support himself and his family and be able to have a decent standard of living. (Yes it literally was phrased that way, as it was part of the times). Did this mean everyone was paid the same? No. If you were labourer, you got labourer's wages. If you were a solicitor you got solicitor's wages. Only at the bottom end was this really spelt out, so you could still aspire higher if you desired. This is part of the reason Australians are universally hated by all wait and service staff. They don't tip, the reason being is that wait staff are paid an ok wage here.
"The other alternatives may not be attractive (social programs, scavenging, begging from friends, family, churches, ect.) but they are there."
Again see previous comment, ie self responsibility. I noticed that you didn't put in your list, drug dealing or robbery. Again unattractive alternatives but options.
Since when have begging and sponging off others (especially sponging off others) been part of the libertarian lexicon for career choices?
Also "social programs"? Wha…? Social programs? Um, whose social programs exactly? Last time I checked social programs are associated with who?? Oh yeah, Governments. And in order to finance and fund said social programs the money comes from…? That would be taxes wouldn't it? So now you're saying you're happy to pay taxes that go into government funded social programs.
"That’s how everyone makes their decisions, like it or not. It may not be as explicit or formalized as you describe, but it is the same. Oh, and if you dislike the CPA-driven cost/benefit charts, you won’t like how most government agencies make similar decisions. For example, how do you think the state DOT’s decide where or not to put guardrails?"
Do they? Last time I checked people in society also try to make the more right decision for the betterment of society, or merely to be helpful. Today I was waiting for a bus while reading your reply, someone asked if I needed directions. Which I thanked him for, but it was all good. Why would he do this? As an individual the consequences of personal action are personal. This keeps me from driving at 60 through a school zone. If the action and or the result from the action is extreme enough it can cause a loss of personal liberty or even death. Corporations (in particular) and the individuals (to a lesser extent, ie shouldn't there be a number of bankers behind bars?) who make these decisions do not face such a consequence (ie. imprisonment or death penalty). So yes, I may avoid these actions because of the associated consequences. However it's more likely I do not do said action because of a moral decision. I do not speed through a school zone for the mere fact that they reason they have posted a slower speed because of the higher likely hood that I would hit a child. Is it because there's a heavy fine associated with speeding through the school zone? No! It's because hitting people with my car is a bad thing. It's not an economic decision but a moral one, so don't try to make it an economic one. Really? That's how DOT makes it's decisions? So did you know that if there are enough accidents on a section of road, they will redesign that section of road if necessary? Have you checked out the history of the Ford Pinto as suggested? This is a blatant case of a decision to release a vehicle with a known dangerous fault on to the market specifically based on CPA. They could have forgone releasing it altogether, but they chose to release it anyways.
"There’s no difference, other than cost and probability."
What do you mean there's no difference? Are you naturally obtuse or do you practice? Obviously you are now showing where you fail to understand the situation before you. Are you able to see the difference between these two situations:
A) As I drive my car, I come to an intersection that has a red light in my direction, I see someone crossing the road. I speed up, swerve to hit them when they try to get out of my way striking them and killing them.
B) I'm driving my car in icy conditions, driving cautiously and appropriately. A child darts out in front of me, I'm able to avoid hitting the child, however lose control of my car slide it into car parked on the side of the road which lurches into someone striking and killing them.
If you cannot see the difference between the two, and can only argue about opportunity costs and maximising utility, then you are on the wrong forum.
"The owner could invest in an exotic, expensive blade made of ceramic that needs constant replacement, but won’t spark. The owner could seal up the entire mine, suck the air out to create a vacuum, and issue pressurized suits and vehicles to his workers. No air, no fire. Lives saved. I could keep going, each solution more exotic and expensive than the last. But that won’t happen. I don’t think many people want that to happen, last of all the mine workers. They’d rather take the risk of fire and keep their jobs."
Yes we understand you've taken this to the absurd to prove your point. You've also made yourself look like a twit, so give it up. It's the concept of taking all *reasonable* measures. Therefore your choice is between using mine rated equipment v. surface earthwork equipment for the situation at hand.
More to the point – which in your haste to prove Ed wrong and proudly espouse your knowledge of GMU economic doctrine – you failed to grasp the main thrust of the article. That being the company had a policy that forbade shutting off the other two platforms causing them to pump oil and gases into an inferno. The answer is self-evident. You have an inferno, you *stop* pumping more fuel into it. Yes? The company's SOP should read: Have fire, stop pumping more fuel into it.
This is the type of self regulation that one hopes a company should have. Correct?
Instead, the company made an *economic* decision that turning off the pumps would cost them in the short term, and continued to pump fuel into it. Yes, someone else on the other platforms should have made a situational decision of *FUCK THAT!* and cut off supply. The result was a horrific loss of life, as well as damaging the oceans and most likely affecting fishing (another important industry). Obviously, you care for no one else but yourself so this doesn't seem to register on your radar.
So *if* the companies are going to have an SOP, that says: Have fire, keep pumping fuel into it, because it's going to affect the bottom line. Then a force needs to step in and bitch slap them and hard. Now the government steps in and says *not again*.
It is because companies will put tainted meat into cans of food, and try to shrug it off that we have consumer protection laws. Yes it’s “buyer beware”, but there’s common recognition that the buyer can only have so much knowledge, and also that a product should act in an expected way. If I use a ladder in the recommended way and a rung gives way because the company was not using materials that would hold a person who weighs less than 180lbs when they say they would, the law states that this is unacceptable.
"If that’s my only job option, and it is that dangerous, then I would forego working. I would move in with friends or family, and find to do *something* productive. Maybe I’m a half-decent wood-worker, perhaps I can do basic car repair cheap, maybe the little old lady down the street will pay me below minimum wage under the table to weed her garden. There are always alternatives."
Now then let's unpack this little beauty of yours.
One thing that your precious little dogma of libertarianism hinges on is the concept of *perfect* knowledge. Are *you* omniscient? Didn't think so. Economics is predicated on confidence. In order to achieve this confidence in the markets allowing that perfect knowledge is unobtainable. Imagine if in order to purchase something as simple as a McBurger we needed to take a team of lawyers, who would then argue with their lawyers about the nature of the burger and draw up contracts stating what the burger will be like. We'd all starve before then.
You are not going to find out how dangerous the job is until you're on the job. We are arguing about how you get the knowledge about the job, isn’t having the information so you can make an informed decision better than losing your limb?
Yes, some jobs are self evidently more dangerous than others. You can now select which is too much of a risk for your self and act accordingly. Therefore we understand that working with a paper shredder has an obvious level of risk, but is not that excessive provided that the equipment is used as it should be. Keeping one's fingers out of the intake is the most blatant example. During the interview, you ask why the position became available, they say that the person was injured on the job as they put their hand into the shredder. These things happen.
You accept the job as the risk still is acceptable. At this point you are acting on the good faith that the company maintains its equipment. They are not going to admit point blank in the interview that they do not. Expecting them to make such a revelation is unrealistic. Asking such a question would seem very odd, and if the company has something to hide wouldn't hire you. You can make enquiries, you may get something, you may not. If you find out before you accept that the company is dodgy, you can still decline. In this situation you decide that paper shredding is acceptable. What you do not find out is that this particular machine has a fault, and is missing the safety guard. You've got a wife and a kid with CF to take care of, so you need the health plan. What are the risks worth now?
Why do I always feel that you are a fairly recent grad. because, again, what is it about you and this idea that you can sponge off your family and friends indefinitely? The generally accepted rule is: Friends probably not more than a month, family 6mos. tops.
Do you have much understanding about these jobs? Weeding a garden is actually quite hard after a while on the body. Something else you fail to consider is that even going under the table? – Why are you going under the table in the first place, unless you don't want to pay your taxes. If your an example of libertarians view of how to behave in society, you present a rather sociopathic version. Laws? I pay no attention to laws! – However, it needs to be said an illegal Mexican can beat you dollar for dollar in this area even if you both agree that $2/hr is as low as you'll go. It's called personal indemnity. You hurt yourself and you're not carrying your own personal indemnity the person who employs you is now liable. If the illegal, is hurt on the job. Who cares. He's not going to tell anyone because he's in the US illegally.
Yes, I agree that there are always alternatives, however, you'll find that at the low end of the scale there's considerable physical risk for little money. Also not everyone is an entrepreneur. Libertarianism seems to project the personality type of the entrepreneur upon everyone. This is silly. Many people realise quite quickly that they do not have what it takes to run their own business. Libertarians seem to treat this as some kind of personality defect.
"Why? Because they choose to. It’s called “choice,” yes. It’s also called free will. You have to accept that, at the root of people’s motivations, is a decision they made that might be different from yours. You can nudge, hint, suggest, or coerce to get people to do what you want sometimes. But not all the time. There are times when some other person knows all you know, calculates all you calculate, looks at the decision you made, and says: “no.” You may call it stupidity. I call it freedom."
Me: Why is the sky blue?
Caleb: Because the sky is blue.
Did you learn to argue by watching Monty Python?
It appears that my parameter for the argument that the word "choice" (or any derivative thereof) had been deliberately removed from use. So you may resubmit.
"You look at motives, I look at results."
Result: person has been killed. And this tells us what?
Motive 1: Person driving car, hits ice, car slides into parked, which then crushes a pedestrian. Maybe negligent driving, and accidental manslaughter.
Motive 2: Person driving car, hits accelerator, swerves to ensure they hit pedestrian. 2nd degree murder?
"Yes, companies are self-interested. All humans are."
I don't care what the misinterpretation of the 14th Amendment states, Corporations aren't human. If I stick a knife in one, it's not going to die.
"Companies will do anything do make a buck, up to and including making something of value for someone else. In fact, that’s typically how you get people to give you stuff you want if you can’t use force."
Huh? Are you trying to explain to me the function of a corporation?
"What motivates government actors? Self-interest, just like their private counterparts. What happens if a company makes a bad product? You don’t buy it. To make you buy it, the company has to improve. The company either improves, or fails."
Disagree with you here, please explain Lady Gaga. ;-)
"What happens if a government makes a bad policy? Well, you can lobby against it. But even if you fail, tough. Even if the policy is bad, it continues. There is little incentive to fix it. There may even be an incentive to keep it in place, if the thing that makes the policy bad benefits a particularly powerful faction."
Dunno. Care to explain the civil rights movement?
acer says:
Agreed. BB is pretty much my favorite conservative ever.
bb in GA says:
Hosannas and thank y'all for your kindness. I'm sure I print something dumb and/or infuriating next week.
Any spontaneous donations should be sent to Ed or to buy some G&T mugs or something…
//bb
xynzee says:
@bb: You remind me of my sister-in-law who's prolly a N'thnah by your estimation being from the N'ah Carolina, who talks about how that slower kind of considered Southerner who takes a while to ponder the question and then speaks some gold.
"I'm sure I print something dumb and/or infuriating next week."
Nah mate, you keep us real and prevent this from being an echo chamber. If you're ever down under, I'll shout ya's a beer mate.
bb in GA says:
@xynzee
Thanks for the virtual beer!
The Southland is made up of a crazy quilt of cultures and people of all sizes, shapes, and colors. I would never presume to exclude anyone who wants to be here and who identifies.
//bb
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