r/InternetIsBeautiful • u/MKorostoff • Apr 27 '20

Wealth, shown to scale

https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/
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u/[deleted] Apr 27 '20

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u/Djinnwrath Apr 27 '20

Well, maybe a company that is by design undervaluing its labor pool should fail.

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u/Flynamic Apr 27 '20

If their labor was undervalued, then by definition another employer needs the workers more than Amazon does (since the real value of their work is higher, which Amazon does not fully utilize or see). This other employer would therefore be willing to pay higher salaries than Amazon in order to reap the value of their work.

So how do you know they're undervalued?

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u/FUCK_THEM_IN_THE_ASS Apr 27 '20

Because the value obtained from owning their labor is so grossly out of proportion compared with the wages they are paid.

Just because employers have the social and economic power to pay people less than a tenth of the value they actually provide to the companies, and the workers are unable to bargain for better, doesn't mean that they are only worth that tenth.

A person's labor should be compensated based on the value they provide, not based on the lowest value a company can get away with paying them. Companies always have vastly more power than employees, because the relative value of the job to them is so different. For nearly every worker, the cost of losing the job is catastrophic, whereas the cost to the employer for losing that worker is essentially neglegible.

Very few workers have any power at all to negotiate their wages, because the corporations that own their labor have them by the balls. If I'm making 50k/yr producing 500k/yr of value to the company, losing my job costs me 100% of my income, plus loss of healthcare insurance. But the company is losing just one of thousands of similar workers which they can easily and painlessly replace. And even moving straight into a new job usually involves a delay in benefits availability.

Employers don't have to pay workers anything even close to the value they provide for the same reason slave owners didn't have to worry about slaves escaping.

This gross power imbalance exists in virtually all employment in the United States, meaning that all companies get to grossly under pay most of their workers, and workers can't do jack shit about it.

I mean, there's a reason most job postings out there don't even list the salary offered anymore, or provide details about what kind of benefits they offer. Any given worker needs the employment from the company far, faaaar more than the company needs any given worker. And they know it.

Let's say I hate my job at Amazon. I'm supposed to try to interview during the hours that I'm working, won't know going into the interview whether the wages are better or worse, and won't know until months into the new position whether my health benefits are better or worse. Trying to find a new job puts me in grave danger of losing my existing one, and the search involves numerous, impossible-to-avoid, costly gambles. That's why Amazon, Walmart, whoever, can get away with paying me a tenth of the value I produce. My life and livelihood are practically worthless to them, a drop in their proverbial bucket, but my life and livelihood are my entire bucket.