Hal wrote
> In principle there are people who are motivated to lie awake at night
> worrying about farm workers, just as there are those who lie awake at
> night worrying about grocery customers. These are the employers of
> the farm workers.
Yes, I had forgotten about them. Under suitable conditions (e.g.,
if there is enough freedom) what you say will occur.
> If they can offer better working conditions, they can increase
> their profit margins, just as providing better selling conditions
> in the supermarket will increase profits of market owners.
The mechanism that you allude to here might not be clear to all the
people reading this. What Hal is saying is that by offering better
working conditions, an employer can attract workers. If one employer
is successful enough, then he can drive out of business those bosses
who fail to provide such benefits (unless those other businesses are
receiving government assistance, or are part of a "program", or
have some other non-market advantage). The reason that those other
employers will go out of business is that they will find it too hard
to get workers. Obscene profits also help: If an employer finds a
way to make great gobs of money (and the government doesn't quickly
find ways of punishing him for doing so), then other entrepreneurs---
who are equally "greedy" (we should say 'self-interested') will
quickly imitate the guy who is making "obscene" profits. But
in order to be competitive (i.e. try to drive the first employer
out of business), they will have to either lower the prices of the
goods that they charge the consumers (so that the first employer
can't find customers) or raise the salaries of their employees (so
that the first employer can't find workers).
This is how the system does and should work, despite the short-term
transition costs when there are either too many workers in a field,
or not enough, or too few entrepreneurs, or too many (who are forced
to resort to layoffs). This system has made a number of countries
very rich and very powerful, but even in those very countries, the
process described here is hardly understood and seldom appreciated.
> I think the reason why the motivation doesn't work as well for farm
> employers (and employers in general) compared to sellers, is that it is
> harder for people to change jobs than to change supermarkets.
Yes, but often (to continue to use my example of the supermarket
manager) the employer *does* also think about how happy his or
her employees are, and worries when the Safeway down the street
has found a new package of benefits or something for employees
that raises the pressure on him or her to do the same.
> right away, but providing better jobs will have relatively less of an
> effect because people don't like to change jobs, for a lot of reasons.
Yes, the effect is slower, I'm sure.
The real problem with the farm workers is that there are so many poor
people outside the United States, especially in Mexico, who will gladly
take the jobs despite the conditions. As Brian Philips remarked,
> We must consider this... what would be the situation for these people
> if the farmers had no jobs to offer them? Would you rather the children
> eat or have them have daycare by a parent? Perspective here is important.
I think that what liberals would like to do is to decide on a certain
fixed number of people who can come (period!) to work in the U.S. from
other countries, and *not* let them bid against each other for the
privilege. That is, to take our southern border as an example, some
fixed individuals would be permitted in AND THEN NO MORE, and then
the federal government would force the growers to pay them minimum
wage (which would be about fifteen dollars an hour if the liberals got
their way---ever tried to live on less?), and if the growers went
bankrupt, well, in the immortal words of Hilary Clinton, "Don't blame
me if a lot of under-capitalized companies go under."
Lee
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