this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2023
619 points (92.7% liked)
Political Memes
5357 readers
2198 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
That's just not true.
Let's say a person became a billionaire running a consulting firm. The going rate for consultants at every other consulting firm is paying their employees $100/hour. Our billionaire paid their employees $200/hour.
Are you saying that wouldn't be ethical?
No because if a person a billion dollars by paying someone 200$/h, it means that the worker produced way over that in value for the billionaire.
That's fine that a company takes a cut on that, but to get to a billion dollars, that means that the the company brings in way more than that.
Usually, the salary of someone is roughly half the cost of the employee, so let's say it cost the employer 400$/h for one employee. If the employer add a profit of 10% on that which is pretty reasonable, it would take 25 000 000 man/hour to get a billion dollars in profit. Or roughly 2800 years working 24/7, everyday of the year.
For a more realistic scenario (40h/week, 52 week a year), that's 12 000 years.
That's a scenario where there is only the billionaire employer taking a cut. Add other C-suites taking a chunk too and it gets more ridiculous.
It's not because other companies pay less that means that the company paying more is ethical.
A billionaire that runs a consulting firm undoubtedly caused wages to stagnate, overworked employees, exacerbated inflation, and cost people their jobs. Consulting firms are parasites that leech off the economy to the detriment of workers.
Have you even read the comment you are responding to?
Also, no idea what consulting firms do, clearly.
You have no idea what billionaires do, clearly.
Neither does anyone on here, but at least you don't deny it :)
Ethics within the concept of Production of Commodities (consulting is a commodity in the form of a service) isn't determined by how much someone gets paid with respect to the median or average within said field, but by who owns and controls the wages, via ownership of the firm itself. It doesn't matter how nice the boss is, if the firm isn't democratically owned and operated, there is still a fundamental unchallengable hierarchy.
And in my scenario the person who owns and controls the wages isn't taking the stance of paying the lowest wage the market will bear.
Let's push this a little further though. Let's say the company paying $100/hour is ethical by your definition. And by your definition the comoany paying $200/hour cannot be.
I would argue the second is still the more ethical company, especially when you consider the community it's within. There would be more resources for more people.
Sure, if you want to imagine an impossibility. The reality of the matter is that those who control and own the Means of production will always act in their own self-interest, the "good men of history" idea is Utopian, and still anti-democratic.
Your argument is akin to saying if a Dictator is really nice, even if there's no democracy, it's fully ethical. The lack of ability to contest even a benevolent dictator means the foundation giving the dictator power is itself unethical, even if the way the dictator treats his subjects is ethical.
I fully believe a benevolent dictator has more capacity to be ethical than even the strongest democracy.
And it's ridiculous to argue otherwise.
In reductive terms, there is ultimately the best decision. The thing that is the best. Humans, by definition, have varying capacity, and varying experience. I can say, unequivocally, that younger me was an idiot. And the decisions I make now are much better than the decisions I made when I was younger.
In a democracy you're optimizing for the most acceptance of outcome. People of varying capacities and varying world views will argue their opinions, and results will be the closest to the middle ground that most people can live with.
So yes. If you're maximizing for ethics a single person can do that.
See, I can't agree with anything you say if you believe ends justify all means. It's pure Utopianism, and therefore can't be considered meaningful.
I guess I'm not following your thesis then. Can you say, simply, what you believe ethics are. And why democracies are inherently more ethical
Hierarchy without democratic consent and exploitation are both unethical. Simple as.
What about something like the Salem witch trials.
Everyone agreed they were witches.
There is no such thing as a witch
Democratic actions aren't ethical by themselves. If the Salem witch trials were dictatorlially held by 1 dude, is your argument that it is somehow more ethical?
An action must be democratically accountable and ethical, you need both to actually be ethical.
Are you legitimately anti-democracy?