Dizchu said:
Highly debatable. The correlation between productivity and wages has diverged dramatically since the 70s so saying with such certainty that a job is wort X amount of dollars is silly. As you said, "economics".
In that case how does one even determine when to expand their employment numbers in the first place? One isn't going to do so if they think it isn't worth the cost, and there are ways that the calculation of what a person's labour is worth is done. It's different for each company typically, but those that last tend to be the ones who have figured out at least a calculation where the worth of the labour is above the wage of the person doing so and expenses by enough to brake even at the least.
Define "successful". There are plenty of companies that are able to make such huge profits because they cheat the system and exploit their (often overseas) workers.
In this case I define it as such: the economy did not collapse entirely and bring an end to the nation in question while doing so. I was alluding to that bit of history in that part.
If there's a McDonald's or Starbucks in every town that'll make your own cafe or restaurant much more difficult to maintain, it's as simple as that. This has been a problem that has increased over the years and a lot of conservatives use the ideals of the 70s, 80s or even 90s as the basis for their economic policy when the world of 2016 is dominated by multinational franchising.
And yet despite the fact there is my country's equivalent to Starbucks and McDonald's in my town (actually it's worst because the per capita rate of them is the same as both those combined for the US) the local dinners are actually doing well for themselves. They've managed to offer a similar but different service that people want, so they're doing well. Though then again this is Quebec, we have a lot of local, independent or province-wide only places here, guess the sky high taxes had something to do with it.
Does that same logic apply to a fast-food place or supermarket that replaces 10 of its employees with a machine? Or an office that replaces a majority of its staff with an automated system?
Given the fines given out in my province for closing jobs due to mechanization, yes.
That doesn't address the fact that there are more unemployed people than there are jobs. Logically not everyone can get a job yet everyone is expected to get a job.
That's a truism, there's always more people unemployed in total then jobs available. That's a reality of life regardless of policy or system. Even communist states where everyone is "officially" employed have this problem.
That's exactly my point though. The fact that self-employment exists means that employees don't necessarily have to work for an employer. Meanwhile an employer that relies on the work of employees would not be able to maintain their business without those employees.
While that's true, the vast, vast majority of work could not possibly be done with only one person, and for such work it's pretty much impossible for the workers to gather the capital required on their own to start and operate such a business.
The system is far from perfect, but it has come to stand the test of time, crisis' and alternatives because so far it's the best we've conceived of. Ironically, due to its nature, if a better system does come about it would actively promote such a system.
The largest determining factor of someone's economic class is their family.
It's actually education and marital status. While those born in the higher class do have an inherent advantage, that won't stop them from falling (in fact here in Quebec one of our richest families had all but one of their children go flat broke because they can't manage money). Upward social mobility is a real possibility for many in the lower class, and in fact in the US somewhere between a quarter and a third of those born in poverty will not die in poverty (ironically the best rate of such upward mobility in the industrialized world).
As it stands the simple means of getting out of poverty is three fold: get a high school education (something only the heavily mentally challenged can't realistically accomplish), get a full time job or part time jobs equating to a full time work week (even if at minimum wage), and don't have children before marriage (which, with the availability of cheap contraceptives, is again realistically achievable for everyone). Do these three things and statistically you will be out of poverty. There are those with this who are in poverty, but at 2% of those who do all three of these things, that's a fair improvement over how things are now.
Again, you're pinning the blame on people struggling to survive instead of the people that can afford to play fast and loose with their money. If the top 1% are able to afford to manipulate the system for their own benefit it is not the fault of the guy struggling to pay rent that the middle-class are getting disadvantaged.
Again I'll mention the fact I live in Quebec, where that guy struggling to pay rent and a bunch of other guys like him have voted incompetents into office who have added so many restrictions and regulations that investment has flown up river and that the only reason the middle class even chooses to stay despite our best financial interest being to go up river with it is our national pride. The only reason the middle and upper class in Quebec hasn't left is because we act irrationally and against our own interests. Because we believe this province can be a Have-Province again, and that the unmitigated failure of socialist policies will make us eventually overturn them for better ones that actually hold up to scrutiny and the test of being put into practice.
