Continued from The Capitalist Scam (Parts 1
& 2).
The Invalidity of Unequal Wages
At first, equal wages for all types of labour seems
anti-commonsensical and socially dysfunctional, but the AEM declares (like many others) that this view is the
product of conditioning and emotional manipulation that goes on
continually from the time we are born. The AEM also concludes that the
desire to be highly paid motivates just as many unacceptable, ruthless,
and nasty acts as does the competition between privately owned
companies. In other words, we still
have the same problem that we expressed earlier, which is, whenever you
allow people to have more wealth than others (and all that goes with
it), ruthless people, dominating people, frightened people, and greedy people will do whatever
is necessary in order to be and remain one of these people, thus causing
the endless social, economic, and environmental problems we experience
currently. And because we have come to accept the rationalisations that
support unequal wages, our own (conditioned) attitudes are also helping
to reproduce these problems. We are brought up to be pro-capitalist
(and pro-democratic), to see elitism as fair and elite people as
deserving, and to desire wealth.
If you recall from our 'Why
We Know that All Elitist Societies are
Invalid'
web page, we stated that all elitist societies are created by those
people who gain
control over the law and policy-making processes creating or
maintaining laws and policies that
serve to advantage themselves in relation to other people. With
regards to wages within capitalist societies, those in control of the
law and policy-making processes have increased the
economic value of the skills and
attributes required to do their job, and they have increased the
economic value of the
compensation associated with the working conditions and
circumstances of their job. Conversely, they have decreased the economic value of the skills and attributes not required for their job,
and they have decrease the economic value of the compensation
associated with the working conditions and circumstances that are not
required for their job. Fortunately for our new capitalists (i.e.
businesspeople, managers, and politicians), this was not something they
had to openly campaign for because justifications for why they
should receive a higher wage than other people were already in place. As
such, this part of our capitalist constitution is also a legacy of the
previous feudal form of rule, and many other forms of elitist rule.
However, according to our capitalist forefathers, higher wages and
elitism were not the problems. The problem for these ambitious elitists was the royal family's
control over the society and it's bounty. Indeed, they perceived unequal
wage as a strong incentive to motivate people to apply themselves to the
best of their abilities, thus serving to improve the society (just as it
has always been regarded within all elitist societies). And to sell this
idea to the people (even though the people didn't really have any choice
in the matter), they did what politicians still do: they avoided any
discussion about how capitalism is going to be extremely beneficial for
themselves, and instead focused on how capitalism would benefit the
society.
As capitalism was created by politicians
who were also successful businessmen, jobs that require management,
business, and political skills have become the most rewarding
occupations within the capitalist world. These skills entail a number of
skills, which we will discuss shortly. Generally, the bigger the
business, the bigger is the manager's salary will be. Likewise, the
chief managers of democratic nations or regions (i.e. politicians) are
the highest paid people in the national or regional governments.
We also stated that the rationalisations that support higher wagers filter
down throughout society to explain why anybody receives a higher or lower
wage than anybody else, and that this serves to create social
support for this form of corruption, which was also already in
place. One has to remember that within an
economically stratified (capitalist) society, in which everybody is
required
to economically fend for themselves, everyone is usually motivated to
take advantage of any legally accepted economic windfall that comes
their way, regardless of its invalidity or unfairness, and this also
refers to the fact that almost nobody knocks back a pay rise on the
grounds that they don't deserve more. That is, much of
the social
support for unequal wages is bought, and this is a form of
corruption. And in economically motivating these people to accept their higher
wage, these individual high paid workers become part of socially,
economically, and politically powerful group of people who use their
economic, social, and political power to maintain their advantages and
control in relation to other workers,
and this is a form of domination brought about by collusion and bribery. You may suggest that low paid
workers can also unit together in order to empower themselves in
relation to those people on higher wages, which of course they do when
they join workers' unions. Also, because there are many more low paid
workers, they would be more empowered in relation to those who are
already receiving a higher wage. However, there are several reasons why
they will never achieve the same high wage that others do within our
capitalist society.
First, greater numbers of similar
workers serves to disadvantage these workers in the negotiations over
wages (between employees and employers) because one becomes much
easier to replace, particularly when one performs unskilled or
semi-skilled labour. This may initially seem fair to most people, but being
easier to replace doesn't mean that one's labour is worth less. It
means that one has less bargaining power, and it is this lower bargaining
power that is being abused to rip these workers
off. Conversely, because people in high skilled jobs are harder
to replace, their bargaining power is increased, and this is abused to
rip employers off.
Second, low paid workers, who are not
noted for their intellectual abilities, tend to believe and trust what
learned people
tell them. That is, they are brought up to believe that they
should be paid less than higher paid workers. Therefore, they do not
seek equal wages. In other words, people with intellectual abilities are exploiting our
ignorance and our insecurity about our intellectual abilities to
trick us into believing that they are worth more when they are not.
Third, allowing the concerns of
employers to influence the wage negotiation process means that the
negotiation process isn't actually determining what is fair or valid.
Instead, it is determining what employers are prepared to pay (which
is a very different thing), as though employers don't have a conflict
of interest between what is valid and what is in the best interests of
their company and themselves. And such negotiations are conducted with the
incorrect assumption that there is nothing invalid about the private
ownership of businesses, and therefore there is nothing invalid about
the arguments, goals, and concerns of employers in these negotiations
over wages.
Fourth, low paid workers usually need
to rely upon communicators and legal experts (including unions) to fight their wage cases
for them. Unfortunately, people with advanced communication skills and legal
qualifications are
two of those groups of workers who are already economically advantaged
within the capitalist society because two of the main reasons (which we
will discuss the invalidity of shortly) for why businesspeople and
politicians claim higher wages are because of their advanced
communication skills, specialised knowledge, and their intellectual abilities. In other words,
while these people may fight for a wage increase for low paid workers,
to fight for equal wages is to fight for losing one's economic
advantage as a communicator or a legal expert. And because they are
not prepared to lose their economic advantages, they are therefore
supporters of unequal wages and capitalism in general. As such, communicators
and lawyers are never truly representing those workers that they claim
to be representing, and are instead one of the major reasons why the
idea of equal wages isn't fought for.
Fifth, the people that lower paid
workers are appealing to for higher or equal wages (eg. a wages
council) are also
communicators and legal experts (i.e. intellectual labourers), and they too have no intention of
giving up their economic advantages within the society, particularly
when they believe in the rationalisations that support their higher
wage, which is what most people tend to accept when they
receive a higher wage. This also explains why those people who are
involved in intellectual labour will have a much greater chance of
receiving a wage rise (i.e. because they are appealing to other
intellectual labourers). And this is why a lawyer has come to
receive an income of 5 to 10 times that of most other workers. We hope
that it is obvious that the labour of lawyers is not worth this much
more, and that it has only occurred because lawyers are highly
involved in the law and policy-making processes, which is why this
trend will continue.
Sixth, companies will never be able to
bring low paid workers' wages up in line with high paid workers because
most companies couldn't afford to do so. The trick is to bring high
wages down as well as to raise low wages, but once set, lowering wages is
strongly resisted by any group of workers, especially by those highly
paid workers who are in charge of companies.
While these reasons serve to keep certain
peoples' wages low, none of these reasons have actually stopped equal
wages from being achieved because sadly, nobody has actually tried to
achieve equal wages before. This is no surprise because equal wages
contradict most elitist constitutions, and the national wage case is not
a forum in which constitutions are changed.
Let's now examine those criteria that are
said to raise the economic value of one's wage. From what we have
already claimed, to determine what these criteria are, all we need to do
is to determine what types of labour businesspeople, and politicians
(i.e. managers) perform, and what conditions they endure when performing
their jobs.
Intellectual Labour
Because politicians and businesspeople
declare that they employ a range of intellectual skills, as well as rely
upon intellectual labourers, intellectual labour has been raised in
economic value within capitalist societies. And the more
intellectually demanding one's job is, the higher one's pay will be. The
justification for this is because workers with higher qualifications are
able to perform more complex or
difficult tasks, which are vital for the society and the further
development of society and technology. And higher
wages provide incentive for people to learn and further develop their level of
expertise in a particular field of employment. As such, workers who
develop greater physical skills (eg. tradesmen) will also receive higher
wages than those who don't (eg. labourers), but those workers whose job requires greater levels of expertise in
physical labour will never receive as much pay as those who require
greater levels of expertise in intellectual labour (unless one's
physical labour underwrites the profits generated in one's own privately
owned business), because politicians and managers don't perform physical
labour in their jobs. However, this claim that
people who are involved in higher levels of intellectual labour are worth more
than those people involved in lower levels of intellectual labour relies upon certain assumptions, which do
not stand up to scrutiny.
First, this criteria for higher pay makes the assumption that
gaining the knowledge that underwrites intellectual labour (via
education, training, or experience), and performing higher levels of intellectual labour
requires one to put in a bigger effort or to undergo
some greater sacrifice. Most of us tend to believe (what we have been told by
intellectual experts, as though it is an obvious fact of life) that because these jobs, and/or the education that is required to
acquire these jobs are difficult objectives for us to achieve, they are
difficult for everyone to achieve, but this is not so. If one is mechanically
orientated, one will do well in mechanical environments, and if one is
intellectually orientated, one will do well in intellectual
environments,
but one will probably make a lousy mechanic. We all have our various aptitudes, and intellectual skills are just another group of necessary
skills. Many of us find
learning easy and rewarding,
particularly when we like the industry we are in, and many of us have
the strong desire to be involved in specific types of intellectual labour. Further, most of us
would rather avoid physical labour, or mundane or
repetitive work, and perceive it as requiring a much bigger effort to
endure. From our own research, we are sure
that if we offered most people who are involved in intellectual labour (e.g.
politics, management, law, medicine, or science) the opportunity to be a
bricklayer or to be employed in some other physically demanding job, for
the same rate of pay per hour that they receive now, most of them would
not take us up on the offer. Why not? Wouldn’t they be getting a
bargain doing this low valued, low pressure, and this intellectually
undemanding work for the same wage as their highly intellectual current job? And if they would not
accept our offer, then why would we pay them anymore than a bricklayer
or any other physical worker? Further, we are reasonably sure that we could
offer many people involved in intellectual labour even lower wages than a bricklayer and they still
wouldn’t change jobs. In actual fact, our intellectual abilities
save us from the hard work, and we should be thanking our lucky
stars that we can avoid it by being smart. And for those of
us who do find that succeeding within the intellectual world is tough going, we do not have to do it if we do not want
to, but many of us still do, and often for low wages (and student wages) for
some years, because its not as tough as working in physically demanding
jobs for the rest of our lives. As such, it is apparent that intellectuals do not
really believe that their
work, or the process of acquiring knowledge are more demanding or
requires more of a sacrifice than
does performing physical labour, so why do you? Therefore, there is no reason
to provide extra economic incentives to seduce people to enter into
occupations that require intellectual labour. The incentive of
avoiding hard physical labour is enough for starters. However, in the
AEM's Egalitarian society, the more qualified people become, the more
they are able to direct their career towards the type of work they want
to do. Further, when people choose to enter into a particular field of
intellectual or physical labour, they are expected to develop their
skills throughout their working lives and to help achieve this, we
provide free on-the-job training and education, which means that nobody
makes any personal sacrifice to develop their area of expertise, and
that there is no excuse for not doing so. And those people who are
motivated to develop their intellectual abilities during
their spare time will usually be rewarded by getting to where they
want to go faster.
Second, it makes the assumption that the
people who are capable of performing intellectual labour are more rare
and more difficult to replace,
and therefore the supply and demand logic of the marketplace allows
these people to expect higher wages. This is actually what is currently
occurring within the marketplace of employment, but as we discussed
earlier, having more bargaining power doesn't mean that one's labour is
actually worth more. Any rarity that is exists, exists
because we deliberately limit access to these intellectually demanding
jobs, and we also limit access to the education and training required
for these jobs. And in certain occupations (e.g. medicine, management),
this is done deliberately to artificially increase the value of the job
within the marketplace. In reality, there is a rarity of jobs that require
intellectual labour, and there is an oversupply of people who are capable
of doing these jobs, and who want these
jobs, which is why access is limited. To demonstrate this point: in the
USSR, when communism (which was not really communism) was in full swing,
doctors received an average wage, but there was no shortage of people
who were still willing to become doctors. In fact, in the 1980's,
doctors made up around 1.5% of the workforce in Australia, whereas
doctors made up 3.4% of the workforce in the much more populated USSR,
and in spite of a funding problem in the USSR, they still managed to
push the frontiers of medical research and development (and in many
other areas of technology). Incidentally, the AEM
doesn't care if one really is a rare talent (e.g. Elvis). This still
doesn't mean one should have more than others. Rarity is just yet another
invalid excuse to fulfil one's immature desire to have more than others.
Therefore, we conclude that the only
reason that intellectual labour has been raised in economic value is
because the people who created our constitution considered themselves to
be involved in intellectual labour. It should always be remembered
that the money required to fund intellectual labour provided by
the managers of businesses and communities, and many other occupations, is
provided by the productivity of those workers who actually do the
real/physical work. As such, to be demanding a higher wage for
performing intellectual labour is to be abusing the trust placed in the
hands of intellectuals by the society, and to display one's ingratitude
towards those physical workers who make intellectual labour
possible.
Advanced Communication Skills
Another primary type of labour performed in
management (and legal services) is communication labour (and it is also
required to gain such jobs). As such, the more one's job requires
advanced communication skills, they more pay one is likely to receive.
Advanced communication skills do not just refer to speaking and writing
well, but mainly to those communication skills required by management,
such as....
- Debating skills
- Mediation and negotiation skills
- Handling complaints
- Sounding authoritative and
confident
- Sounding sincere
- Public speaking skills
- Diplomacy skills
- Selling skills
- Self-presentation
- Maintaining composure under fire
While it is impossible to deny the
importance of communication skills, particularly within modern
societies, once again we say, such advanced communication skills are
just another set of necessary skills that some people have an aptitude
for, and some don't. In fact, we undoubtedly have a enormous oversupply
of people who are capable of performing these skills, people who love to
hear the sound of their own voice, people who desire to be the centre of
attention that public speaking provides, and people who crave the
adoration or respect of the society. Such people will gladly take on
these jobs without being paid more (rather than perform physical labour),
and those that don't desire such things don't usually seek such
positions, even for higher wages. As such, the only reason these skills
have been raised in economic status is because they are required for
managerial and political occupations.
Being the Winner
There are also greater economic rewards associated with being the
winner.
That is, the winner is said to deserve more than the loser, and when
you are at the top of a large pile of winners and losers, you
deserve the most, regardless of the skills or education you
possess. And the winner is paid more because successful businesspeople and politicians gained their success by winning in the
competition to gain the most consumers or votes.
However, there is also no valid reason why the
winner should receive more pay than the loser, and the fact they winners
do receive more often serves to motivate competitors to cheat in whole
range of ways (depending upon the type of competition) if they think
they can get away with it. And often, cheats have nothing to lose
because if they don't try something underhanded, they won't win anyway.
The only reward that is required for those who are good at what they do
(other than receiving the admiration and appreciation of the society) is
that they get to keep doing what they are good at, whereas the losers
may need to develop their skills further, or find new fields of
employment. However, when you examine the world of business or politics, you will notice
that one may not actually be the best at what one does in order to win.
For example, the best salesperson may not have the best products to
sell. A politician may have won the election, but this doesn't mean that
he/she will be the best representative of the people who voted for
him/her. The person who became the leader of the party because they won the most internal support may have bribed
those supporters with favours or promises of promotion. Achieving
economic growth doesn't mean that others couldn't have achieved the same
thing, and usually government and businesspeople acquire profession advice on what the best
thing to do is. Often, the difference between winning and losing is
inconsequential in relation to skills. For example, in order to compete, one first has
to win the competitive job, and this often requires a different type of
competition because employers look for certain qualities that indicate
that one is competitive, even though these qualities do not have
anything to do with one's level of expertise. These skills are
particularly practiced by managers and politicians because their job
requires them to deal with the public, and they include....
- Promotional and self-promotional skills
- Self-presentation skills
- Declarations of one's commitment and
self-motivation
- Speaking with authority and confidence
- Stable work history
- Previous success
- Good references
Other than previous success, none of the
above skills will help you acquire most jobs within the AEM's Egalitarian
society. We pay more attention to what people do and have done in the
workplace, rather than the show they perform.
Other less discussed, but highly regarded qualities
for managers and politicians, which gain
increased respect from those above one, because they demonstrate
just how competitive and ambitious one is, include....
- Back-stabbing skills
- The ability to work a mob
- No shame
- A thick hide
- No conscience
- Advanced arse-licking skills
- A willingness to sell one's soul for
money
- A willingness to evade tax
- A willingness to collude with others
- A willingness to conspire with others
- A commitment to ridiculing objectors
- Passing the buck skills
- Being a convincing liar
- The ability to cry on demand
- The ability to fake sincerity on demand
- Coercion skills
- No compunction about using people for
personal gain
- Having powerful friends
- Side-stepping questions
- A willingness to win by cheating
- A knack for denying responsibility
while appearing to be a responsible person
- Digging for dirt and defaming others
- Unashamedly displaying one's success and/or wealth
- Exploiting/abusing one's position
- The unquenchable belief that one is
worth more still
It should be noted that because these
personal qualities are not officially recognised amongst the claims for
higher wages, they are not applicable to raising the wage of other
workers who might display them. In fact, one could be sacked, or even go
to jail for displaying them in other occupations.
Being Higher in the Chain of Command (the old favourite), and the
Size of One's Chain of Command
Being higher in the chain of command is the
most powerful criteria there is for justifying why one should
receive more pay than others because as you
have may have deduced, most other criteria are found in other jobs that pay
much less than
the wages of managers of big businesses or politicians. This criteria generally justifies why anybody who is in
charge of other workers will receive a higher wage than those he/she
is in charge of. The reason why we referred to this criteria as
'the old favourite' is because it has been the reason why the leaders of
all materially stratified societies have claimed the right to be more
economically, socially, and materially rewarded in relation to all or
most other workers within the society. Even though this criteria, like
all other criteria for higher wages is the product of abuse of power
(i.e. people in control promoting the economic value of what they do for
a job), there are several sub-criteria (other than those already discussed)
for why one is said to deserve more
pay for being higher in the chain of command, and why one is said to
deserve even more as the size of one's chain of command increases (or
as the size of the profits increase). They
include....
- Being more indispensable
- Having more responsibility
- Dealing with more stress
- Working longer hours
It is actually true that one becomes more indispensable
as one moves up higher in the chain of command because,
as we have mentioned, there is restricted access to education and
training of management and politicians. Further, because there is also a
smaller supply of managerial and political jobs out there, only a small
percentage of the society sets about becoming managers or politicians.
And there is an even smaller supply of managers that have enough
experience to manage big companies, which is one of the reasons why they
are regarded as being even more indispensable, and thus worth more
again. But being more indispensable doesn't mean that one's labour is worth more
even if that person's skills are actually a rarity amongst human beings.
In fact, there are some people who specialise in certain areas of
technology for example, who are far more rare, and thus far more
indispensable than even the highest paid managers or politicians, and
yet they do not receive as much pay as the managers they work under. As we have
already mentioned, being a rarity increases one's bargaining power against
employers over wages, which is a form of blackmail, and this doesn't
mean that one's labour is worth more. However, as
we have seen time and time again, being more indispensable doesn't mean
that one is indispensable. Nobody is indispensable except for people
such as Archimedes, Albert Einstein, or Charles Darwin. In the AEM's
Egalitarian society, managers and politicians actually become far more
dispensable because we deliberately spread the job of management and
politics between more people, rather than to have fewer people in such
positions working longer hours. And because many people will also
eventually be involved in multi-occupations, we will also have a greater
supply of part-time managers and politicians. Both of these strategies
serve to create a larger pool of managers and politicians from which we
can easily find replacements for existing managers and politicians.
Further, we can deliberately move these people around to work in different
businesses so that we can compare their performance against the
performance of other managers, and to do this means that no manager is,
or feels indispensable.
There is also no doubt that people who
are higher in the chain of command do take on more responsibility and
often endure more stress, but these reasons can't legitimately be used to claim
the right to a higher wage (especially when control of the society
was gained by force, which is how higher wages for those who are higher
in command began). As with intellectual labour, taking on more
responsibility and/or dealing with more stress is the price one pays for
missing out on doing hard physical labour. That is, once again we can
say that given the choice between being higher in the chain of command
and doing physical labour, for the same pay, most people will choose to
be higher in the chain of command. Of course, this is already known, as
many people in lower and middle management are often required to work longer
hours for a salary that would be less than the wage of those workers
below them if those workers were working the same long hours. It may be
true to say that many people can't handle responsibility or stress, but
many people also can't handle doing repetitive or mundane work. And once
again, many people like being important, desire to be in charge, thrive
on having responsibility, enjoy the challenge of problem solving, and
aren't overly affected by stress. This is similar to people who like to
host parties, even though it costs them money to do so. Consider amateur
team sports for example. Certain players desire to be the captain, which
entails more responsibility and stress, but nobody gets paid anything.
From this example we can see that certain personality types desire to be the leader
or/and to be in charge, even when there are no
monetary rewards. Such personality types can be extremely beneficial for
the society, as can all personality types. However, this doesn't
mean that one should receive more pay for fulfilling one's own needs and
desires. Quite simply, many people want to be in charge of
companies or communities for various reasons, and they will continue to
want these jobs even when there is no money in it. After all, the AEM is
seeking to take control of the nation and we are not complaining about
the extra responsibility or the stress of the job, and we won't just be
in charge of the community; we will also be in charge of every business. Incidentally,
in the AEM's Egalitarian society, managing businesses,
including big businesses, will become far less stressful (See our 'A
More Humanised Workplace'
web page for an explanation about why this is
so).
As far as working longer hours is
concerned, the AEM considers this to be a valid reason for higher wages,
but this could apply to any type of worker. However, in the AEM's
Egalitarian society, most workers, including those who are higher in the
chain of command, will not be required to work longer hours (although we
know that many workers will choose to in order to remain competitive and
because they can't leave their job alone, but these people will not be
paid extra). And when one is asked to do overtime, we won't normally pay
people more, but will offer time off work, extra holiday time, earlier
retirements, or longer long-service leave, or we may offer other deals,
such as to allow that person a chance to move closer to job he/she is
trying to acquire.
Also, many employers are prepared to pay
more to those people who are higher in the chain of command because they
fear certain consequences associated with these people leaving their
company, even though these reasons are not included within the criteria for claiming a higher
wage. For example, many employers fear replacing a manager that they
already know they can trust with someone who they don't
yet know whether or not they can be trusted to do the job responsibly or
honestly. Many owners of businesses are actually afraid to go on
holidays because they have to trust their managers with the company's
bank accounts, and it is not uncommon for managers to abuse this trust.
Also, managers have access to knowledge about the company, the owners of
the company, and the secret ingredients or processes required to produce
the company's superior goods, and when they leave the company, they may
take this information to the opposition. As such, part of the high salary
that is received by those who are higher in the chain of command is associated with buying
confidentiality. This is akin to managers blackmailing companies, or
companies paying protection money to managers. In the AEM's Egalitarian
society, these types of concerns will no longer exist.
In this institutionalised capitalist domination fantasy, our intrepid
managers and politicians tell us that they deserve more because of
their vital role in saving our society from economic disaster. If plumbers were
the ones who gained control of the society, they would be telling us
that they deserve more because of their important role in saving the
society from excretion and storm water. If electricians were
the ones who gained control of the society, they would be telling us
that they deserve more because of their vital role in providing
electric power to the nation. When military leaders gain
control of the society, they tell us that they deserve more because
they save the society from invasion and civil unrest. The point we are
making is that most jobs are vital for the society to continue in the
way that it does, but this doesn't ever mean
that those involved in particular jobs deserve more than others. Every
reason is an abuse of the power given to them. Even though he was
referring to communist Russia, the pigs in George Orwell's book,
"Animal Farm" did exactly the same thing as our political and
business leaders (and other intellectuals) have done, in that they gave
some lame excuses for why they should receive more than the rest.
Generations later, it was perceived as normal, fair, valid, logical, and
necessary that the pigs should get more, and our society is no
different in this regard.
Other Social Problems Associated with Unequal Wages
As with many other issues associated with economic stratification,
unequal wages require quite of lot of expensive human resources (or
social infrastructure) to administer them, which would not be required in
an Egalitarian society. For example, we will no longer need the
Industrial Relations committee because there is never going to be any
more arguments about wages between employees/unions, employers, and
the government, and this harmonious social situation will serve to
create a far more harmonious workplace culture, which will also serve to
create a far more harmonious society. Currently, in our capitalist
society, this is an expensive three-way fight that will never end
because there will always be economic conflicts of interest.
Unequal wages, particularly those
between managers and the workers of a business, nurtures an 'us and them'
mentality, and this serves to create a lack of respect for each
others working efforts and working conditions, which is obviously
detrimental to the culture of the workplace and
society.
Because unequal wages provide incentive
to acquire higher qualifications, and because universities and other
institutions of higher or vocational education make their money by
providing such courses, and because individuals are required to acquire
these qualifications before they can acquire the type of job they seek,
far more people undertake these courses than there are jobs available.
This problem is made worse because governments, as part of their quest
to display a reduction in the unemployment figures (as part of the
process of conning the public into believing that they are improving
our society), encourage unemployed people to take up study, which is
said to make these people more employable. Consequently, Australia has literally thousands of people
who are not employed in the field that they have studied, and some
remain unemployed because they are not qualified for anything else. This
unneeded education serves to waste the academic efforts, time, and money of
these individuals. In the AEM's Egalitarian society, this doesn't occur
very much because we
train and educate people as we need to, although people can undertake
free (unneeded) study in their leisure time if they wish
to.
If you could image a culture was created
like an extended family business, you would see that young adults are the main workhorses
within the culture. That is, the society takes advantage of young adults while they
are still strong and healthy, without injuries, and still possess plenty
of stamina. After they have paid their dues in this way, they are able
to move into less physically demanding types of work. And because most of
one's peers go through this process, and because one knows that most
elder person have also been through this process, there is no resentment
about it. In fact, there is the desire to do one's bit for the social
group or family, and a sense of failure and shame when one is unable to.
In our contemporary capitalist society however, because young adults
need to be concerned about their economic future from before the outset of
their working life, they often skip physical labour completely, and
instead go straight to university and then into a professional career.
Also, because junior rates of pay are cheaper than senior rates of pay,
many employers prefer to hire young adults for such jobs as clerks,
secretaries, and sales assistants, and so these young people do not become
involved in more physically demanding jobs either. Further, businesses,
in their need to be competitive, prefer to hire pretty young women to
seduce customers or clients, and so these young adults also skip
physical labour. And while all this is going on, many older adults are
unable to escape physical labour. In most economically stratified
societies, physical labour has become a dirty word: it is what the poor
people do. But physical labour is actually good for you, especially during young
adulthood as this stage of life is an important period of muscle and
bone development, and this serves to keep people much healthier
throughout their lives, which also serves to reduce our medical costs.
In the AEM's Egalitarian society, nobody needs to worry about their
economic future anymore, we will not have junior or senior rates of pay,
and we don't try to seduce customers to buy anything. As such, we will
generally return to what is culturally sensible, where most young adults
will initially be involved in physical labour for most of their working
week, and as they grow older, physical labour will be
reduced.
Lower wages serve to make people dissatisfied with their jobs and their lives.
It would also appear that the lower someone is paid, the less they are
appreciated for the efforts. Somebody once said that it is better to be
poor than to be the working poor. What they mean is that it is better to
put up with the poverty associated with being on unemployment benefits
than to work hard all week to be only a little better off and totally
unappreciated. How true. Low rates of pay are very de-motivational,
especially compared to the social and material benefits enjoyed by those on
high rates of pay. It is very easy to denounce people for not having a
strong working ethic when one has always been well rewarded and
supported in comparison to other people, and when one has no idea about
what it is like to work for low wages and to know that things are not
going to improve much for the rest of one's life. It is a form of
blaming the victims of an invalid unequal wages system, which one's
success within motivates one to deny its invalidity, and to deny that
low wages cause depression, laziness, self-abuse, crimes of resentment,
unemployment, and suicide. Our capitalist leaders are amongst this group
of self-righteous, self-serving, and ignorant people, and because we
still have very unequal wages, this means that they have successfully
encouraged the majority of the society to think likewise. In an
Egalitarian society, you may not get the job you want, but you won't be
economically kicked in bum or feel less appreciated because of it. In fact,
we are sure that many people will be prepared to do the most unpleasant
of jobs when they are just as economically and socially appreciated for
their efforts as anybody else.
To maintain a lucrative job often motivates
people to keep those aspirants who are below them down, regardless of how talented they
might be. To say this
another way, capitalism is not a very nurturing culture. Those with
money or good jobs are not trying to help everybody acquire what they
have, but are instead making sure that other people stay away from their
job so that they can
maintain their privileged place in society. And in keeping people from
reaching their potential, resentment flourishes, and ultimately society
is the loser because we are not getting the best people into the right
jobs.
Throughout this and our other
'Egalitarianism' web
pages, we have demonstrated to you that capitalism is not only invalid
and the product of abuse of power, but that compared to Egalitarianism,
the citizens are economically and socially worse off, it is the cause of
wide ranging and endemic social problems, it is far more inefficient,
it nurtures the over consumption of renewable and non-renewable material
resources, and it is much more detrimental to the environment. What more do
you need to realise that capitalism is one big
mistake?
Now that you know a bit more about what the
AEM represents, and when you have eventually read all of our other web
pages: if you take
the time to think about it, you will start to realise that there are
many other social problems, stressful situations, and nasty acts etc,
which are created by, or motivated within all levels of our capitalist
society, and which would not exist at all within the AEM's Egalitarian
society.
We wrote earlier that nobody was/is powerful
enough to stop the capitalists' control of the society, but this doesn't
mean that this is an unchangeable situation, and the AEM wouldn't be here if it
was. In our democratic society, we can stop capitalism
just by the AEM winning an absolute majority in both houses of
parliament (which is still a very difficult thing to achieve). Up until now, we have been
able to deny any responsibility for the social and environmental
problems our capitalist society creates. We are not the ones in charge,
we aren't powerful enough to stop it, and we have not even been offered
any alternatives. But to continue with capitalism when we could have
voted for Egalitarianism means that we can no longer deny responsibility
for the direction that our society and environment is heading. Not surprisingly, your
contemporary economic and political leaders and the media (i.e. the
people with power and the only voices in our society) continue to announce and
reaffirm how wonderful our capitalist constitution is, in
spite of the mountains of evidence to the contrary. Never
believe them: they are blinded by their self-interested desire for
wealth and power. When the time comes, a vote to stay with the
capitalist constitution is a vote for more of what we have discussed on
this and our other web pages: more institutionalised corruption, more organized crime, more property crime, the reproduction of new heroin and nicotine
addicts, more (child) homelessness, more poverty, more (long-term)
unemployment, more outrageous salaries, etc., etc., etc. So don't
be a part of the problem, and vote for Egalitarianism. However,
until then, the AEM needs your support, so become a member and help
begin this challenge against the contemporary capitalist constitution.
As mentioned at the beginning of 'The
Capitalist Scam (Part 1)' web
page, the AEM also sees that our contemporary form of democracy is also a
scam, largely because it is based upon, and supports most of the same
ideals that capitalism does. Therefore, it is also the cause of another
large set of very serious and completely unacceptable social problems, and
contrary to what is continually being reaffirmed, it
also doesn't
really achieve the goals that it is said to achieve. This is not to say that the
democratic process is all bad, but we will discuss these issues, and
what the AEM is proposing as an alternative, in our 'The
Democratic and Undemocratic Nature of the AEM's Egalitarian
Society' web page.
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