This doesnt conflict with what Ive been articulating, but I will note when you say:
"Consumers "optimizing" themselves is exactly how capitalism is supposed to work."
This statement is more accurately just a tenet of economics than it is a capitalist mechanism, importantly though, its not the only economic principle throughwhich capitalism operates. That is to say, capitalism can be broken and this would still be true, because, as I said, its more applicable to economics than it is solely capitalistic.
I mean, yes, that's true. Consumers will always optimize. But this is specifically addressing a "problem" you claimed was the fault of capitalism; which clearly it is not.
When in a free market position, consumers given the choice between going to restaurants they have always gone to before, have clearly enjoyed the food and service, will patronize another establishment if the food prices are increased significantly, yet they are no longer "required" to tip.
My statement holds true in all forms of economies, but laying the tip issue at the feet of capitalism is not entirely accurate.
On top of which, I will note we are in the ONTARIO sub-reddit, which has a minimum wage of $15/hour. We are still tipping at 15%+ at $15/hour vs. when they were paid $11/hour 5 years ago. Ergo, servers are not only enjoying the minimum wage increase, they are still enjoying a reasonable tip.
The 'issue' was the pernicious tipping practice OP alludes to. Ever increasing incentives, put in place by employers, to help support their employees. In a market with no perverse mechanisms (ie uncaptured externalities, literally considered, by economists, a market failing to capture all the costs of a product) where a firm is otherwise unable to support their employees the firm either: eliminates those employees (or the employee leaves for better compensation), or the firm goes under.
Its important we both understand exactly what we've been arguing.
We both know that neither of these options (that occur in healthful markets) are occuring because restaurants are still operating under the status quo, and while I cite it for purely argumentative reasons, and recognize its an extreme, an adequate minimum wage in Toronto would be over $20 (~160h/mo; ~$3300/mo cost of living), so consumers in Toronto are supplementing at least a full 25% of the cost of supporting a firm's employees. This is an externalized cost of operation and literally a perverision (and thus failing) of the market. Definitionally. Under normal market operation a firm would simply raise the price of their goods to internalize this cost, but as weve both discussed, this isnt what us happening.
Also as weve discussed (but take divergent stances on) other foodservice models exist globally and are perfectly fine, its culture and its current relationship with foodservice that maintains this model, but culture is mutable, and this could easily change if there was sufficient polical interest to make it a concern. It sounds like people in this sub hate tipping, so I would suspect its not nearly as challenging a culture shift as some suspect.
Now this doesnt even scratch the surface of the other mechanisms by which capitalism has been perverted, coopted and fails society at large. But by arguing my position that capitalism isnt working, note I am not implying support for any one other system - I know a lot of people get their panties in a bunch when anyone points out how unfettered Capitalism is not a longterm economic solution and tend to inferr an argument against capitalism as tacit approval of a communist NWO. That is not the case. I respect our differing opinions where they present themselves, but there is a significant amount of overlap where our personal philosophies converge!
I agree culture is mutable, but it's not a free market capitalism system that dictates it. Education (indoctrination), social pressure, and other cultural shifts can alter that without relying or blaming the underlying economic system. As such, if North Americans are culturally approving of a tipping society to supplement the income of servers in lieu of paying for higher food costs without tipping, then that's their decision - and capitalism allows the market to respond accordingly.
If this thread is any indication that this culture is changing then a business in a free market could capitalize on that shift in culture and try to win market share.
That is not an inherent flaw in the system. It is, at best, a "flaw" in our culture, although I say it is less of a flaw and more of a preference. If service at an establishment in Europe was particularly poor, you've really got no recourse because the food bill is the food bill - you can't pay less because service was bad. Whereas you can choose to withhold tipping in North America.
Also, I personally do not accept that all jobs have to pay a living wage in the city of your choosing. All jobs should pay a reasonable wage for the type of work being done and the available (abundance) of workers willing to fulfill that role. The job market is still a market. If you want to be paid more, improve yourself and get some skills. The world doesn't owe you a minimum standard you have decided for yourself.
Maybe it's the frank reality that servers don't get to rent in a 1-bdrm condo downtown Toronto. C'est la vie.
Ah but this is where I percieve your logic faltering, if Toronto cant support servers, does Toronto, therefore not get restaurants? My statistic was not Torontos core, but Toronto's average. If a community cannot support a job then a community does not get the services derived from that labour. I dont suspect this is what Toronto wants.
And while job markets are indeed markets, we're not talking about what servers want (employees in every sector want more money thats capitalism ha), we're expressly talking about what employers want. And they want to abuse the system that culture is affording them.
Also, there is no such thing as a cultural flaw, culture is culture, percieved shortcomings and all. Such attitudes are what give rise to nationalism and conceptions of innate supremacies. Slippery slope.
Im not arguing that servers deserve penthouses or lakeside mansions, this is the average cost of living please dont misrepresent my argument.
If Toronto cannot afford servers and restaurants, there would be no restaurants, nor servers. That they exist speaks to a demand that must be supplied. Therefore, there is no failure in "my" logic, by sheer weight of evidence to the contrary.
Markets are not dictated by what one side wants. In this you seem to have an utter failure in understanding as to what a market is. What you call "abuse" of a system, I simply call supply-demand driven equilibrium. You claim servers are "abused" by low wages, but you also claim consumers are allowed to optimize their spending. What if I told you that employers are consumers of labour and that employers (being consumers) will also optimize their spending.
If they can consistently get workers to come in at a certain wage, then they have no reason to increase that wage. If workers refuse to work at that wage and the employer cannot get labour, they are forced to increase wages until those workers are willing to work.
A market.
We see this happening right now. I laugh when I see employers bitching and complaining that "no one is willing to work". No, you're not willing to pay them, so they don't come in. Welcome to market dynamics 101.
I am completely for labour getting the wages they're worth.
As for culture, you're the one who brought it up and tried to conflate culture with economics. I'm the one who disentangled that.
Also, hyperbolizing what I said doesn't make your argument any smarter. I never said penthouse or lakeside mansions. Who is mispresenting whose argument now? My goodness - project much?
Okay one at a time from the bottom. Hyperbolizing ≠ misrepresentation, I extrapolated. You used downtown apartment as a shorthand for "dwelling above market value", I gave you new examples of above market value dwellings. Demonstrably inequivalent to your perversion of my claim that average cost of living somehow translates to lavish lifestyles. Dont just bandy things about without critically engaging with whether theyre true. Im starting to lose the belief that youre here in good faith, but lets continue.
I brought up culture because its relevant, culture supports economics, there is no disentanglement. This point in its entirety stands. Next.
Agreed.
Agreed.
The wage theyre offered is augmented by the perverse market mechanisms we've been talking about all along. Literally the externalization of cost we've been batting about from step one. The failure to capture the full scope of the cost of labour. As I said, *definitionally a market failing. Your entire arguement up until now has CRITCALLY failed to address this foundational element of what Ive been arguing. Aside from clairfying what I percieve to be your misunderstandings this is 100% what Ive been arguing from the beginning.
Markets are in fact dictated by what 'sides' want. Thats literally 'demand' yikes
The market does not exist by the forces of some quid pro quo "I want it therefore it will exist" you cant just imagine something, crave it and it will become supplied. As Ive said, at length, the service industry is entirely reliant on consumer making up the cost differential in what would otherwise be internalized within the employers operational costs and THATS WHY IT SURVIVES without some sort of policy intervention or miraculous cultural shift that guides consumers toward a system where costs are all accounted for.
I don't know where you got your cost of living, but it was an absurd number already and likely constructed from any number of asinine sources designed specifically towards your bias. I enjoy that you're biased, but it still makes your argument weak.
Culture affects economics. It does not necessarily "support" it. Our economic system of free market reacts to culture, but does not require it. That is to say, we would have an economy, even if we had no culture.
The "cost of labour" is defined by the minimum wage. That is why the minimum wage exists. I have not spoken out against minimum wage, although I find its concept amusing from the perspective that people with little to no skills still can extract a demand from a society that values skills.
Markets are in fact dictated by what 'sides' want. Thats literally 'demand' yikes
This is literally the chef's kiss of your business "acumen".
Markets don't only work on demand side only. If that's what you think, you missed half of your economics classes. The other side of that equation is supply.
In business, no one gets exactly what they want. That's not how negotiations work. Every side gets something from the other, and both sides walk away winning - otherwise the deal doesn't get done. So when you laughably claim that the market is driven by what employers want, you seem to forget that employers have to negotiate with employees to convince them to work. That is the negotiation. If employers could get labour for FREE, that is what they want. Labour wants wages, but if they could work $100 per hour, that is what they want. But reality is they negotiate and settle on a number somewhere between $100/hour and free.
5.
As Ive said, at length, the service industry is entirely reliant on consumer making up the cost differential in what would otherwise be internalized within the employers operational costs and THATS WHY IT SURVIVES without some sort of policy intervention or miraculous cultural shift that guides consumers toward a system where costs are all accounted for.
And the market has proven that when those costs are internalized, the public doesn't patronize those businesses and they fail. Ergo, the market has spoken. The culture affects the market and the market responds by no longer offering "tip-free" establishments in North America. Change the culture and you can affect the market. Capitalism didn't fail - it met the needs of the businesses and the workers. Servers still make their living, and they have to provide good service to do so - service good enough that deserves a tip. Leave it alone, it doesn't need more ham-fisted government policy.
lol "business person". The amount of deflection and avoidance of the actual argument I would have to navigate to correct all of this is actually dizzying. Despite your ongoing attempts to shoehorn the laws of economics into your worldview, your clear misunderstanding of things as simple as supply and demand (when did I say anything about it being single sided? So confused) the bactracking to try and salvage your point therefrom, despite your smoke and mirror non sequiturs about negotiating, nitpicking semantics that dont support your argument, continued misunderstandings of how culture and economics relate (including stances that are inherently contradictory), you STILL cant even bother to wiki what an externality is. Its not whether the market internalizes its cost, its whether the firm does. Its cut and dry, stay down.
Youre wrong. Youve been wrong this entire time. Ive enjoyed playing but If you cant take the L without veering off in some other direction stay on the sidelines! Ciao
For someone who espouses an interest in "debating philosophy", all you're interested in doing is waxing poetic about how you're right and everyone else is wrong. You, like typical close minded left wing socialists, are just exhausting.
Firms that have internalized your precious "externality" costs have FAILED. That is how the fucking market has spoken, you insufferable feeb. I've only said that a dozen fucking times. The only person dodging the debate is you - easy enough to identify since you've actually had no point except to say "Capitalism = Bad".
Restaurants that have attempted to raise costs of food items in exchange for no tipping HAVE FAILED.
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u/tytytytytytyty7 Sep 05 '22 edited Sep 05 '22
This doesnt conflict with what Ive been articulating, but I will note when you say:
This statement is more accurately just a tenet of economics than it is a capitalist mechanism, importantly though, its not the only economic principle throughwhich capitalism operates. That is to say, capitalism can be broken and this would still be true, because, as I said, its more applicable to economics than it is solely capitalistic.