-Jay .-= Jay Horowitz – OurTakeOnFreedom´s last blog ..Haitians, an Iraq War Vet and an Upcoming Trip to Cabrera =-.

Of course, these relationships are purely consensual. There’s nothing immoral in hiring a worker on a wage or taking a job.

I agree that the wording is imprecise, especially with the political history involved in mislabeling employment as exploitation. I actually edited a version of this post to remove that sentence and replace it with something clearer, but I screwed up and sent an earlier draft to J.D. without first checking.

Don’t you think it’s a little silly for people to be paid for attendance rather than compensated based on production, as most contractors are? Hourly and annual wages create such perverse incentives in the majority of cases.

Even with commissions and bonuses, time-based wages reward a reversion to mediocrity and generate collectivism in the workplace. It punishes efficiency and innovation.

I’m an arch-capitalist, so it certainly wasn’t my intention to posit that cash-for-labor is improper. .-= JC Hewitt´s last blog ..Change Yourself First =-.

I wouldn’t consider the wage system exploitation if kids were presented with other options in school. For the most part, we are all pushed through a kind of conveyor-belt education that puts an unfair amount of attention on getting a job. By the time you graduate high school or college, it’s pretty much expected that you’ll work under someone else for a particular price, and like you said a lot of those people accept whatever job comes along and get trapped.

It’s true that you can’t look out for every person. They need to learn and do for themselves. But I think it’s a great disservice to leave entrepreneurship out of education.

Do I think it should be replaced? Not if it’s what people actually want to do. Do I think it’s the ideal? Absolutely not.

I wouldn’t call it exploitation, but I’ll certainly agree that many people just accept whatever job they come across and become trapped in it.

What I disagree with is the statement that the wage system “functions because so many people are willing to be exploited.” The wage system is fantastic and would function just fine under any circumstances.

Remember, the wage system and what this blog calls ‘wage servitude’ are very different things.

Cheers, Jay .-= Jay Horowitz – OurTakeOnFreedom´s last blog ..Haitians, an Iraq War Vet and an Upcoming Trip to Cabrera =-.

That is to say, even though they are employees they are selling their skill and their time and should be aware that they have the right to be treated with respect and to be fairly compensated. Many people just accept whatever job they come by and get a “slave” state of mind.

You can argue that the wage system isn’t full of people willing to be exploited, but I wouldn’t buy it.

But, “The wage system functions because so many people are willing to be exploited.” – what?!

The ‘wage system’ is just a way of trading labor for a something that is a medium of exchange, unit of account, and a store of value. This removes a lot of inefficiencies in a barter system.

What exactly do you propose replacing it with? .-= Jay Horowitz – OurTakeOnFreedom´s last blog ..Haitians, an Iraq War Vet and an Upcoming Trip to Cabrera =-.

This article from the Harvard Business Review discusses some of the pratfalls of the narcissistic leadership style with reference to Apple and other major companies:

http://www.maccoby.com/Articles/NarLeaders.shtml

I think that “narcissist” is an out-dated Freudian label, although understanding some of the psychological mechanisms commonly associated with it can be worthwhile. .-= JC Hewitt´s last blog ..Change Yourself First =-.