In the United Kingdom, a third of people claiming government assistance are in employment. Over 50% of those buying their first home get gifted money from their parents to do so. Starting from nothing means playing a rigged game. It's like playing Monopoly, where one player starts out with half of the cards and everyone else thinks they can win if they strategise well enough.

Many core economic theories that are taught about productivity and pay are wrong. Anyone living in the real world can see that marginal productivity and price theory are wrong. If the game was perfectly fair, these theories may have some weight, however there's a multitude of factors that skew the board. Poor compensation does have consequences, and they may be felt by individual businesses. However, by and large, these consequences are offloaded on to the rest of society.

Thankfully the UK didn't follow France into the anarchy that was the French Revolution, and Earl Grey could make them see reason. But damn did we come close.

The threat of violence that the worker wielded against their employer was indeed a good incentive to keep things amicable.

Nowadays, we don't know where the Lords necessarily live, the size of the Lords private armies don't need to be more than a handful of security guards, and AI/Robotics is diminishing the need for that handful of guards at all.

Think he’s wrong about this being close to blowing up. Think that’s coloured by his own personal situation. I suspect unfortunately the powers that be correctly read the situation as significantly more room to squeeze.

It might read as bad to usa ears but keep in mind there are people breaking down ships with zero safety, zero job security, low pay, bad equipment and certain heath impact etc. People will bear crazy stuff and still show up to work

When the incentives of workers favour burning buildings rather than working for wages, the next step is either to use force/control or to rebalance wages.

If we assume that services jobs will be, primarily, the jobs that survive automation, the cost disease might also swamp the Coasean Singularity.

Today is international workers day and we are sharing a capuccino with my colleague.

"X. Employee, 19xx-20xx, beloved and refined human resource; dutifully sacrificed health and happiness to maximize shareholder value."

He either worked for federal government for too long or just thinks world owns him something. Probably the latter, based on him being 4 months in unemployment and stating "Employment inquiries should check the TXT record on job.spacedino.net for contact info."

If nobody pays their workers well: All companies suffer from a disaffected, burnt out workforce that is unable to consistently perform at the best of their ability. As well as many industries suffering from the fact that their products are non-essential. If you're paycheck to paycheck, barely scraping by rent, you're not going to bother buying a new board game, pick up a book, get the latest and greatest console, or its overpriced games.

If some pay their workers well, and others don't, the companies that do will be at a disadvantage financially against their competitors. A healthier and happier employee almost certainly directly results in higher profits, but not to an extent that matches or outpaces the increase in wages required to reach that point.

If all of them pay their workers well, workers become less financially stressed. They do their job better, because they are healthier, less exhausted, etc. This also results in the exact opposite of the first case above: People have more money, they can spend more, you make more profit from people spending more across the board.

This is part of the reason that minimum wage laws are actually really important, and why the fact they have stagnated for so long is such an issue. It breaks the prisoners dilemma game by mandating that everyone together makes the group-optimal decision over the individual-optimal one.

Or, you know, we could also try UBI! Or help free up discretionary spending power by nationalizing the most essential goods and services (targeting the ones that are the least elastic). It's not like we aren't lacking in options that would work to alleviate the issue here.

I don't know why median house prices are even factor at all in what you think you wage you a wage you accept would be. If you can't afford a house, that means you have to lower your standard of living. There are lots of people who live in less than median houses. That's part of the way averages and statistics work. If you don't like the median house prices, you may have to look at what's going on in your city that the house prices are so high. There are certainly issues in Silicon Valley that need to be addressed, but they are not issues of wages. They are other issues that they need to address. You are always welcome to live in a house that is lower than the median wage and that may be what is needed in order to afford something.

Signed, Anyone who you'd like to care

I'm interpreting this as venting, but the attitude on display here is madness. It is totally unreasonable to throw these sort of temper tantrums because an employer isn't adding crazy high wages to what is already a quite pleasant and comfortable desk job. One of the issues tech workers have is that even at a slightly lower wage than median it'd still be a much better deal than what an average worker is being offered.

People do far more work for far less money to a high professional standard. And trying to burn down a business because the person offering you the best deal you can find isn't what you imagine yourself to be worth is entitled to an undignified extent.

> This society has been arranged around using currency to purchase necessities, because some people decided that necessities are not guaranteed.

It's crazy to me that we've advanced to the point that we could guarantee necessities (we know how to grow enough food and extract enough natural resources to do so), we still hold to the above. And before you shout "Communism", guaranteeing necessities doesn't necessarily mean communism. It just means there's a floor that everyone is at, and then what you earn from your labor (which varies depending on the labor) is on top of that.