I got a great idea! Let’s just pass a law that makes it illegal for anyone to live in poverty, and mandates a minimum 1% annual economic growth. Then we will never have to worry about recessions or being poor ever again!
I know, really? Hah! I’ve been arguing with “classical” anarchists. You know, the ones who believe property is theft, and a mutually-negotiated wage is exploitation? They believe without gov there, anytime someone seems to be making more than their employees, people would just swarm in and take control of the business. Yanno, something tells me even at its minimum computer manufacture requires a larger group of people than one person to make a chip. Much less all the phases of manufacture. Much less run companies capable of even handling a small fraction of the demand out there. Much less the ones that are doing actual chip design. To say nothing of other industries. And as Ben&Jerry found when they tried to get a “caring capitalist” in charge, one who would work for only multiples of what the line-level workers will, good CEOs actually do a job in a company. They don’t just sit up top and sip margueritas.
Those ‘anarchists’ may be a little (or a lot) off, but they’re totally on our side, because when voluntaryism establishes itself and they realize that people will not surrender property regardless of what they think of it, they’ll be bummed for a little while but then realize they can legitimately obtain property, then designate whatever land they ‘own’ to be ‘property-free zones’. We’ll all be happy.
And the bubble-square is a great concept. I hope to see more of him.
Wow, those are some smart bubbles. The problem with a minimum wage is it effectively denies employment to those who’s skills are worth less than the wage price floor. These are people who need employment the most. It is illegal under local, state and federal law to invite a homeless person from the alley into your shop so he could sweep and take out the trash for a few bucks and a meal. Benevolent store and bar owners were I live do this in spite of the law, as they should.
The Left Iron Fist blows the square bubble straight out its ass, heh. The Right Iron Fist blows a cylindrical one that spouts crap about how we can’t let businesses fail and the rightness of aggressive war, or something, heh.
Giggan, yeah, one advantage is so long as they compensate somebody for it initially, without taxes they can drop out as much as they feel comfy with. Run their little communes to their hearts’ content. The issue is they want to keep taking and taking from anybody they perceive as too rich. And many of them don’t even want to stand beside ancaps because they don’t think we’re really anarchists. Something about still perpetuating a structure of power and authority.
Ganja, younger workers just getting in, really old workers who just want to supplement their pensions or other savings but can’t do anything intensive anymore. It raises unemployment and crashes employability, if the minimum wage is actually higher than the basic cost of living in an area. Most of the big cities, you need more’n minimum wage to even have a low-end loft. Of course, one of the other issues is that “minimum wage” is not the only minimum. There’s also “miminum standard of living”, which includes all kinds of modern conveniences, building standards, etc. which mean houses cost more than they should just in their overhead. I mean, what would I face if I tried to buy up a bunch of, say, storage units and turn them into low-cost housing? “No, you can’t do that! It’s inhumane!” Hell, I couldn’t even put in the coffin hotels that Japan enjoys so much. There’s all these rules, and they just mean that people at the bottom have almost nowhere to turn but government. And yanno, there’s this phrase that describes the situation precisely to me: Government is a disease masquerading as its own cure.
I got a great idea! Let’s just pass a law that makes it illegal for anyone to live in poverty, and mandates a minimum 1% annual economic growth. Then we will never have to worry about recessions or being poor ever again!
Legislatin’ is fuuuuuun!
I know, really? Hah! I’ve been arguing with “classical” anarchists. You know, the ones who believe property is theft, and a mutually-negotiated wage is exploitation? They believe without gov there, anytime someone seems to be making more than their employees, people would just swarm in and take control of the business. Yanno, something tells me even at its minimum computer manufacture requires a larger group of people than one person to make a chip. Much less all the phases of manufacture. Much less run companies capable of even handling a small fraction of the demand out there. Much less the ones that are doing actual chip design. To say nothing of other industries. And as Ben&Jerry found when they tried to get a “caring capitalist” in charge, one who would work for only multiples of what the line-level workers will, good CEOs actually do a job in a company. They don’t just sit up top and sip margueritas.
Those ‘anarchists’ may be a little (or a lot) off, but they’re totally on our side, because when voluntaryism establishes itself and they realize that people will not surrender property regardless of what they think of it, they’ll be bummed for a little while but then realize they can legitimately obtain property, then designate whatever land they ‘own’ to be ‘property-free zones’. We’ll all be happy.
And the bubble-square is a great concept. I hope to see more of him.
Government is for squares.
Wow, those are some smart bubbles. The problem with a minimum wage is it effectively denies employment to those who’s skills are worth less than the wage price floor. These are people who need employment the most. It is illegal under local, state and federal law to invite a homeless person from the alley into your shop so he could sweep and take out the trash for a few bucks and a meal. Benevolent store and bar owners were I live do this in spite of the law, as they should.
Government isn’t just for squares. Government is such a horribly bad idea, it’s for cubes.
The Left Iron Fist blows the square bubble straight out its ass, heh. The Right Iron Fist blows a cylindrical one that spouts crap about how we can’t let businesses fail and the rightness of aggressive war, or something, heh.
Giggan, yeah, one advantage is so long as they compensate somebody for it initially, without taxes they can drop out as much as they feel comfy with. Run their little communes to their hearts’ content. The issue is they want to keep taking and taking from anybody they perceive as too rich. And many of them don’t even want to stand beside ancaps because they don’t think we’re really anarchists. Something about still perpetuating a structure of power and authority.
Ganja, younger workers just getting in, really old workers who just want to supplement their pensions or other savings but can’t do anything intensive anymore. It raises unemployment and crashes employability, if the minimum wage is actually higher than the basic cost of living in an area. Most of the big cities, you need more’n minimum wage to even have a low-end loft. Of course, one of the other issues is that “minimum wage” is not the only minimum. There’s also “miminum standard of living”, which includes all kinds of modern conveniences, building standards, etc. which mean houses cost more than they should just in their overhead. I mean, what would I face if I tried to buy up a bunch of, say, storage units and turn them into low-cost housing? “No, you can’t do that! It’s inhumane!” Hell, I couldn’t even put in the coffin hotels that Japan enjoys so much. There’s all these rules, and they just mean that people at the bottom have almost nowhere to turn but government. And yanno, there’s this phrase that describes the situation precisely to me: Government is a disease masquerading as its own cure.
I think many of you are missing the best part of the punchline. The laws of nature dictate that film bubbles a curved exterior surface.
I think there was a very very subtle ‘economic bubble’ pun there….
Great comic! Loved this strip.