A Letter from Anonymous

Dear Abbot:

I would like to add to this post to the best of my working class ability, or at least present the working class perspective.

Our government is run by rich capitalists.

Many government workers up ‘til the recent deregulation of utilities are working class.

I have noticed that most employers in similar industries pay close to the same wage, and sell their product for similar price. There is not competition when the choices are pre-agreed upon by the "Competitors"

Slight differences is wages are not worth the effort when you may have to move your family or spend most of you time away on the road.

Most people I know who spend their careers on the road are divorced or in dismal relationships.Management does have the opportunity to underpay labour when it can make labourers compete with each other for the work.

I may work for 20 dollars, but what do I do when the next guy will work for 16?

The rich capitalist will never lose. Even when "let go" from a job their compensation, share options and salary earned while in the job is enough for anyone to live on for several lifetimes. What incentive is there to pay the workers well when the result would be a loss in your own chunk or the cash?

Anonymous


Dear Anonymous:

First, thanks very much for writing. It is great to hear different views.

You blame the plight of the working class on “rich capitalists.” To begin with, “rich capitalists” in the Marxist sense are a bogeyman. It is too much to say they do not exist—Theresa Heinz Kerry is certainly one, and you might have a case that “our government is run by rich capitalists,” in the person of Paul Martin—but they are rare, and much less influential than you seem to think. Blaming everything on a conspiracy of “rich capitalists” is the class equivalent of blaming everything on the Jews.

A capitalist is supposed to be someone who makes his living on the investment of capital, instead of working for a living. I guess that describes the average retiree, but not a separate class. It is contradictory to speak of a “rich capitalist” being “let go” from a job. Such a person is by definition an employee, not a capitalist.

I guess technically he’s a member of the working class… but to put it so makes essentially everyone in Canada “working class.”

When you look at this sort of thing, the thing that becomes obvious is that Marx’s ideas and Marx’s analysis of society has been proved completely wrong over time. But you are apparently still basing your world view on it.

It is more useful to talk of the “blue collar” and “white collar” distinction. Blue collar workers work largely with their muscles; white collar workers work largely with their brains. Our government is indeed run by white collar workers, and by a party whose support comes from white collar workers. The blue collars favour the Conservatives; white collars vote Liberal and NDP.

On this basis, it is fair to say that “many” government workers used to be blue collar: the postmen and the cops on the beat, the linesmen at hydro, the street sweepers. But surely they have been a minority of government workers for a long time. You cite utilities in particular. I used to work for Ontario Hydro. Two giant office buildings in downtown Toronto, full of people working at computers and pushing papers. No doubt there were linesmen out there somewhere in the field, but we never heard saw them, heard of them, or thought of them. Similarly, for every cop on the beat, how many desk jockeys are there in a provincial police force? I wonder.

You say, of the private sector, “There is not competition when the choices are pre-agreed upon by the ‘Competitors,’” and that similar products are always offered at about the same price.

Note that, if you could prove that competitors are agreeing in advance on products or prices, you would have a case against them in law: this is illegal restraint of trade. But even if it were not illegal, they could not get away with it over time, because a new competitor could enter the field and destroy them with a cheaper or a better product. When there is restraint on new products—and there is—this is necessarily something imposed by government. This is why we should be suspicious of government regulation and government interference in the marketplace. Big government tends to protect vested interests.

I think you are factually wrong to say that similar products always have the same price. Do you do the shopping in your family? I find wide variety in the prices of quite similar products: toilet paper, say, can vary in price 100% depending on brand. The one place where price does not seem to vary is, again, where government has fixed prices: for eggs or cheese or milk.

You object to having labourers compete with each other for work, and ask, what can you do if you want $20 an hour, but the next guy will do the work for $16?

While businesses may not collude to fix prices, labourers are already completely free to collude to fix wages. That’s called a union. Unfortunately, though legal, it still does not work. Any company that sees its wages forced up to the point that it is no longer competitive is out of business. Any government that intervenes to prevent this—as most have—just loses an industry. Because they cannot impose their wages on foreign workers.

But there is an alternative. In a free market, one’s wages really can vary, based on your market value as an employee. If you can make five widgets an hour, while the next guy makes only three, you can expect to get $20 an hour, while he gets only $16.

One way to do this, of course, is to work harder. Another way is to increase your productivity by developing better work skills. Another way, indeed, is to move to a new market where there is a labour shortage. You are free, of course, to decide that the boost in wages is not enough to make you want to move; or the increase in wages is not enough to make you want to work harder, or to improve your skills by, say, taking a night course. That’s your choice.

And this, in turn, is the incentive to pay workers well: because it gets and keeps more productive workers. This increases their profit, or their market share.

Good luck.

Abbot