STRUGGLE FOR SOCIAL PROGRESS

Complaints from both business and labor about the nature of the laws and the lack of compliance with the law sometimes become frustrating because there never seems to lead to progress. There always seems to be an odd twist to what business owners do in response to labor laws, health care laws, and pension considerations intended to help people. For example, consider the Obamcare, affordable health care act that requires companies to provide insurance for employees if the company has more than 50 employees—they stop hiring at 49. However, what I have to say applies to any law that relates to a certain number of employees or wage levels or levels of pollution: workers who receive tips, or minimum wages, radioactive waste, carbon emmissions, etc. Business owner will try to avoid increasing their cost of doing business. Short of outright lying, this is not something that is evil or wrong; it is normal business practice.

One of the things they do is to convert to part time employees as opposed to full time employees.  If the law says 40-hour workweek is a full time employee and fulltime employees have to be paid minimum wages, they go to 36-hour workweek. No matter what the number is, the business owner figures a way to avoid complying with the law if it lowers profits. Most of them do complain because lawmakers caught them cheating in some way and wrote the laws to correct the wrong. Of course, businesses complain about government interference in their affairs in the form of wanting what they call deregulation; just as bank robber does not want police. However, if government did not interfere they would abuse workers. The arguments form a never ending circular because the they were written to correct such abuses, which they do however, new ways of abuse are invented with every law published. Some might progress is hopeless and give up. The situation reminds me of someone who said the 20^th and 21st century textile industries are proud of their record related to the low number of 8 to 10-year old boys sucked into the weaving machines.

This same principle used in the work place applies to environmental regulations. For example, if the government “interferes” in a manufacturing business and demands that effluent from the business contain less than 1 PPM of some contaminant, when the effluent contains 0.5 PPM the company will oblige by raising the concentration of the contaminant to 1 PPM. The decreased cost of removing less contaminant contributes to the profits. Again, this seems to be counter productive but many other companies have to lower the contaminant in their effluent; thus, benefiting society.

By going to a shorter workweek, businesses have to hire more employees. Once training and other cost associated with hiring more employees are considered, it maybe that the forty hour workweek is economically the best for profits. The invisible hand of Adam Smiths will work its wonder; equilibrium will be reached that benefits the most people and that is progress. We all “profit” from having a cleaner environment even if bank accounts do not show it. It is like walking on a treadmill, you never seem to go anywhere but only because you are measuring the wrong thing.

 RL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated