this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2024

738 points (96.4% liked)

Work Reform

10197 readers

219 users here now

A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.

Our Philosophies:

All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.

Our Goals

Higher wages for underpaid workers.
Better worker representation, including but not limited to unions.
Better and fewer working hours.
Stimulating a massive wave of worker organizing in the United States and beyond.
Organizing and supporting political causes and campaigns that put workers first.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

738

There are Minimum Wages, Why Not a Maximum Wage? (www.counterpunch.org)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

134 comments fedilink hide all child comments

(page 3) 37 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago

In the mean time, decorate some pikes with billionaire noggins. The problem might fix itself if extreme wealth becomes a mortal liability.

Trickle-down economics works like a piñata - you gotta crack it open before anything starts to trickle.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago

The Hamster from The Hamster Dance 2.0 makes maximum wage

My favourite line from the song.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago

Tax rates used to extend over 100% in the USA. The IRS lost the case. They were limited to all of the money earned, not more.

So there used to ba maximum wage.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 months ago

because the people in the top end are paid via stocks and not actual hard currency.

[+] [email protected] -17 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (12 children)

Call it crab bucket, but I would hate to work in a system where my labor value is capped by someone other than me, or the person I'm selling it to.

Edit love downvotes with no rebuttal. Any system where a laborer is told they cannot market services at a rate accepted by a client is an oppressive system.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Why would you need to have total freedom there? There are plenty of rules and regulations in place for many things. If we as society can agree on a reasonable ceiling, why would that be an issue? What is your worry?

If there would be a cap on the hourly wage or total income the chances of you ever reaching it would be slim to none, and if you did.. congrats you won capitalism, be happy.

It feels similar to the "hate paying taxes" and "I'm self made". Paying taxes is a privilege, more is better, as it means you have more. Self made does not exist, more than half of everything anyone achieves is luck, starting with the birth lottery and going from there.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I think "freedom" resonates emotionally in different ways for different people. If you try to pass a law making it illegal to drink bleach, I will oppose that law. I certainly don't want to drink bleach, but right now I have the freedom to drink it and you would be trying to take away that freedom. It has value to me even though I intend never to exercise it.

Taxes, unlike drinking bleach, are a matter of trade-offs. I'm not categorically against them. However, I don't buy into the argument that I shouldn't oppose them as long as I will never have to pay them.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago

Well I guess I would say that if obscene wealth disparity is against public interest, which it is. We should curtail it. Personal freedoms that rub against public interests are always going to be a point of contention, that's why we would need good laws, not just willy nilly ones.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The big fish to catch is untaxed earnings of the hyper wealthy. Any attacks on the potential of labor is anti worker.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I agree that if there is anywhere to start it is taxing assets like stock portfolios and other vehicles the billionaire class uses to avoid taxation.

The whole trickle down economics did not work, it's time we start trying rising tide economics, as it lifts all boats.

But anti labor is a stretch depending on where you draw a line. There are amounts that cannot be explained by mere labor.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

So some dude accused me of being a troll and I'm certainly not, and I'm certainly interested in this topic. I just care about taking actual actions to affect change.

I believe this would shield the hyper wealthy from further fairness, they would hide behind this.

I further believe this would be corrupted to manipulate true laborers by targeting different professions and tax classes after the fact.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago

So we have common ground on the fact the primary focus is the robber barons. Any changes should start with addressing the avenues only the robber barons have to avoid taxation and work their way down.

But slippery sloping the fact there are people out there with millions of dollars of "salary" is also nonsense. CEO's do not add that kind of value, there is a big network component at work.

Then there are several different scales for the first 100K of income to differentiate, but then above that it stops.. F- that.. if there is a top scale it should be at 99%. Just watch how quick there will be intermediate scales. But no one will be able to convince me that salaries above a certain amount can be defended. Where that amount is.. I don't know.. it can be high.. but a ceiling is easily defendable.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You're never going to have to worry about it. If you won the lottery every week you wouldn't be close to what these people have.

Your labour value is already massively capped by the super rich. You earn a fraction of what you produce for others.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

"these people" don't have what they have from wages. They have it from stock backed loans and similar.

Any legislation policing what someone in my job can earn is hurtful to the worker.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Mind you, people probably don't think of your standard high earner they they think of an income cap. They think of people who make four (or even five) digits an hour, a rate that maybe high end lawyers can match. Maybe.

CEOs of large companies can easily make that much, often not even tied to performance but contractually guaranteed. The super-rich make that much simply by existing.

Basically, if your labor (or mere existence) isn't even worth 1000 bucks an hour to your clients you're a peasant like the rest of us and an income cap is probably never going to be relevant to you.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for actually discussing.

It's my understanding that the earnings of the hyper wealthy are derived not through "traditional wages", but instead loans backed by stock, business entities, etc.

So right out the gate we aren't hunting the biggest fish: taxation of the hyper wealthy such that they pay their fair share.

Next, I believe that such a system would be contorted to limit the potential of those at the bottom of the ladder. If we hope to improve the lot of those folks, the conversation should folks on minimum wages, and employment and safety protections

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I agree that going for wages in the traditional sense doesn't catch many of the most relevant income streams. However, I think that a "maximum wage" makes sense as a theoretical construct used to create a sensible income tax scheme.

Essentially, tax brackets and rates could be defined in relation to the median income. Go too far above that (hitting the "maximum wage") and your tax rate rapidly increases, maybe even going as high as 90%. Of course this would have to cover all sorts of income, not just plain money.

This scheme would effectively box people into a certain band of acceptable wealth and would create an incentive to raise wages – after all, if the average worker makes more, so can the most wealthy.

(Also, full agreement on needing to talk about better labor protections. American labor law is really lax.)

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago

Decent points. I don't want to spam my thoughts so I'll keep it short, I fear corruption beyond the very sound ideas you shared.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

All systems are oppressive by that low bar definition ya numbnut.

Would it be unjust for me to make a law preventing you from accumulating so much gold/wealth in one place as to cause a black hole to form? Is that oppressive? Fuck off.

You shouldnt care about edge case scenarios where someone doesn't get to be more rich than they already are when we are talking about solutions to problems, affecting millions of people real people with real problems.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Name calling?

Edit on topic, wages are not how billionaires are made. Wages are the concern of the general public. They would be the group impacted.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You are distracting from the fact that the problem can be solved with easy fixes to the language instead of agreeing that rich people should have a limit on how severe wealth inequality is.

Numbnuts

[–] [email protected] -3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Uncivil, I'm having actual discussion with others. Cya

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago

Look everyone! A sad troll!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

You in particular need not worry about ever hitting that max GBU_28

The goal is to stop the bleeding for those being exploited by billionaires (the entire nation minus ~50)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You in particular need not worry about ever hitting that max GBU_28

But that's just it - they genuinely are worried about exactly that, because they've been convinced by the people exploiting their labour for profit that they too can become a billionaire one day if they just work hard enough and make sure to never remove their tongue from the boot standing on their neck!

This is a live demonstration of propaganda at work.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

One day I might be mega rich and then people like me better watch their step!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Yup, exactly.

load more comments (7 replies)

[–] [email protected] 124 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Is it because the people that we need to worry about don't get paid massive wages? Instead they leverage their massive stock ownership as collateral for loans. And stock bonuses are not regulated or taxed in the same way as real wages.

[–] [email protected] 70 points 2 months ago (10 children)

I'd be fully supportive of a "maximum wealth" limit.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Absolutely, even at something like 100 * min wage. Still a hell of a lot less than what's happening today.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 2 months ago (4 children)

What we need to do is implement "prestige wealth". Once you hit, say, 100m you get your assets sold in order to fund a UBI, but you get a nice pin that marks your achievement.

Every time you prestige, you get a new pin, but the color of the pin changes.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 2 months ago

"You win! 🥳"

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

That still maintains an incentive to extract and hoard wealth. There should be none.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

A sort of "moneygrubbers anonymous"?

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Yeah, we can also make it fun. Once someone has amassed a certain quantity of wealth, make a big ceremony, where the guy is given a trophy that says "I won capitalism". After that, every dollar he makes past the limit is taxed 100%

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

“I won capitalism”

Or we could think outside of the system we've been indoctrinated to believe is the only one that can "work" (by the very few people it does actually work for), and eliminate capitalism altogether so that there is no incentive to extract and hoard wealth in the first place, because those don't serve society in any way shape or form.

load more comments (1 replies)

load more comments (7 replies)

load more comments (1 replies)

load more comments