LABRST 1C03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Small Business

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25 Jan 2018

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One"s class is de ned by their position in the process of creating social wealth, including: One"s relationship to the means of production : ownership. The extent of control over ones own labour: autonomy. Some workers work under others but still have autonomy or a managerial role. The extent and type of control over others" labour: power over. One"s share of and extent of control over the social wealth and especially the surplus wealth produced. Classes are in a power relationship with each other which is both unequal and con ictual: exploitation. Con ict in this because workers work hard and deserve more, but the owners have also worked hard to get where they are. There"s risk in becoming a owner ( nancial risk to get where they are) and there"s also risk in being a worker (physical risk in production process). Class location is shaped by one"s experience of other relations of sociological al.

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We ^[49] have seen that the capitalist process of production is a historically determined form of the social process of production in general. The latter is as much a production process of material conditions of human life as a process taking place under specific historical and economic production relations, producing and reproducing these production relations themselves, and thereby also the bearers of this process, their material conditions of existence and their mutual relations, i.e., their particular socio-economic form. For the aggregate of these relations, in which the agents of this production stand with respect to Nature and to one another, and in which they produce, is precisely society, considered from the standpoint of its economic structure. Like all its predecessors, the capitalist process of production proceeds under definite material conditions, which are, however, simultaneously the bearers of definite social relations entered into by individuals in the process of reproducing their life. Those conditions, like these relations, are on the one hand prerequisites, on the other hand, results and creations of the capitalist process of production; they are produced and reproduced by it. We saw also that capital â and the capitalist is merely capital personified and functions in the process of production solely as the agent of capital â in its corresponding social process of production, pumps a definite quantity of surplus-labour out of the direct producers, or labourers; capital obtains this surplus-labour without an equivalent, and in essence, it always remains forced labour â no matter how much it may seem to result from the free contractual agreement. This surplus-labour appears as surplus-value, and this surplus-value exists as a surplus-product. Surplus-labour in general, as labour performed over and above the given requirements, must always remain. In the capitalist as well as in the slave system, etc., it merely assumes an antagonistic form and is supplemented by complete idleness of a stratum of society. A definite quantity of surplus-labour is required as insurance against accidents and by the necessary and progressive expansion of the process of reproduction in keeping with the development of the needs and the growth of population, which is called accumulation from the viewpoint of the capitalist. It is one of the civilising aspects of capital that it enforces this surplus-labour in a manner and under conditions which are more advantageous to the development of the productive forces, social relations, and the creation of the elements for a new and higher form than under the preceding forms of slavery, serfdom, etc. Thus it gives rise to a stage, on the one hand, in which coercion and monopolisation of social development (including its material and intellectual advantages) by one portion of society at the expense of the other are eliminated; on the other hand, it creates the material means and embryonic conditions, making it possible in a higher form of society to combine this surplus-labour with a greater reduction of time devoted to material labour in general. For, depending on the development of labour productivity, surplus-labour may be large in a small total working-day, and relatively small in a large total working-day. If the necessary labour-time = 3 and the surplus-labour = 3, then the total working-day = 6 and the rate of surplus-labour = 100%. If the necessary labour = 9 and the surplus-labour = 3, then the total working-day = 12 and the rate of surplus-labour only = 33â %. In that case, it depends upon the labour productivity how much use-value shall be produced in a definite time, hence also in a definite surplus labour-time. The actual wealth of society, and the possibility of constantly expanding its reproduction process, therefore, do not depend upon the duration of surplus-labour, but upon its productivity and the more or less copious conditions of production under which it is performed. In fact, the realm of freedom actually begins only where labour which is determined by necessity and mundane considerations ceases; thus in the very nature of things, it lies beyond the sphere of actual material production. Just as the savage must wrestle with Nature to satisfy his wants, to maintain and reproduce life, so must civilised man, and he must do so in all social formations and under all possible modes of production. With his development this realm of physical necessity expands as a result of his wants; but, at the same time, the forces of production which satisfy these wants also increase. Freedom in this field can only consist in socialised man, the associated producers, rationally regulating their interchange with Nature, bringing it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by the blind forces of Nature; and achieving this with the least expenditure of energy and under conditions most favourable to, and worthy of, their human nature. But it nonetheless still remains a realm of necessity. Beyond it begins that development of human energy which is an end in itself, the true realm of freedom, which, however, can blossom forth only with this realm of necessity as its basis. The shortening of the working-day is its basic prerequisite.

What does the reading say? What are the key concepts in the reading? Write a paragraph summarizing the reading.

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WRITE a one-sentence summary of each paragraph!

The False Income-Inequality Narrative

BY JASON L. RILEY

Published in the Wall Street Journal on Sept. 29, 2015

An enduring theme of the Democratic presidential race has been income inequality, coupled with an enduring belief that America's affluent reached their status at the expense of the poor and the middle class.

Bernie Sanders speaks of little else on the stump. And when not busy dissembling on her handling of email correspondence at the State Department, Hillary Clinton will tell you that the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top. If Joe Biden gets in, expect more of the same. The vice president is said to be contemplating a 2016 bid in large part because struggling middle-income families may have trouble relating to Mrs. Clinton on inequality given her high living since leaving the White House.

This theme, in any case, seems to resonate with voters, which is no huge shock in the sixth year of an economic recovery. Envy and resentment fuel class warfare and lackluster economic growth throughout the Obama presidency have made people less optimistic and more inclined to fault others for their circumstances. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll this week reports that four-in-five Americans âwere either angry because our political system seems to only be working for the insiders with money and power or anxious and uncertain. After all, the economy still feels rocky and unpredictable or both.

Liberals want to address income disparities through wealth redistribution by taking money from more productive people and giving it to the less productive in the name of fairness as the left defines it. They want to raise income taxes, expand the welfare state, lift minimum wages, and strengthen the bargaining power of unions. Mr. Sanders has been the most explicit about this, even going so far as to propose a wealth tax. Our economic goals have to be redistributing a significant amount of [wealth] back from the top 1%, the senator said in July.

In reality, the left has overstated the problem. And all the focus on divvying up existing wealth instead of creating more risks making matters far worse for the people they are trying to help and the country in general. To the extent that the expanding welfare state allows more people to live without working and therefore without earning income or developing their own human capitalâsupporters of the welfare state are contributing to the very income disparities they so much decry, writes economist Thomas Sowell in his new book, âWealth, Poverty and Politics.

Mr. Sowell is the author of more than 30 books over the past four decades, many having to do with what drives different social and economic outcomes among different groups in the U.S. and elsewhere. In his latest tome, he draws from this well of research to do what he has done so well for so long: question basic assumptions behind public policy and follow the facts where they lead him.

One common assumption is that proportionate or random outcomes are the natural order of things and that gaps or disparities are evidence of something wrong. In fact, huge disparities are the norm, not the exception, because the demographic, cultural, and political factors that influence the development of the human capital that makes people productive also tend to be unequal.

In 2013, only 9% of U.S. women with college degrees who gave birth were unmarried, versus 61% of women who were high-school dropouts and unmarried. Harvard's Robert Putnam reports that children from professional families will hear 19 million more words than their working-class peers before the first day of kindergarten.

These children don't have the same prospects. Equal opportunity, in the sense of being judged and rewarded by the same standards as others, cannot possibly mean equal life chances for children born and raised in these very different settings,writes Mr. Sowell. The fact that life is unfair is not the same as saying that a particular institution, or a particular society, is unfair.

The argument that social mobility is a thing of the past in the U.S. also is disputable. Longitudinal studies by the IRS and others that measure the progress of individuals over time show that the American dream is alive and well. One such paper, published by the Pew Charitable Trusts in 2012, measured whether a person has more or less income, earnings, or wealth than his or her parents did at the same age and concluded that the vast majority of Americans had higher incomes, while 50% had greater wealth.

In other studies, Pew has found generational stagnation but the authors have noted that it didn't apply to immigrants. If low-income immigrants can rise even when the native-born don't, writes Mr. Sowell, that strongly suggests that American society continues to offer opportunities to move up economically, but that not all groups make the same use of these opportunities.

Mr. Riley, a Manhattan Institute senior fellow and Journal contributor is the author of Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed (Encounter Books, 2014).

redalpaca572

Read the articles and consider two people, Mon and Shaman, that can produce 2 goods, shrimp and mobile apps.

If Mon and Shaman devoted themselves to shrimp and mobile app production, the chart below shows how much each person can produce per hour.

Complete the first table by showing how many shrimp and mobile apps each person would produce if they did not specialize.

	Hours worked per year			Total amount produced if each person devotes all their working hours per year to each good.
		Shrimp per hour	Mobile Apps per hour	Total Shrimp	Total Mobile Apps
Mon	3500	50	1
Shaman	2000	10	5

In a world hungry for cheap shrimp, migrants labor overtime in Thai sheds

By Jason Motlagh, Published: September 19, 2012

Jason Motlagh/For The Washington Post - Burmese migrant workers peel shrimp at a processing factory in Samut Sakhon province in Thailand. High standards allow the factory to export its seafood to the United States.

MAHACHAI, Thailand â At an age when she should have been in a classroom, Thazin Mon discovered her knack for peeling shrimp. To help support her Burmese migrant family, the 14-year-old pulled 16-hour shifts, seven days a week, for less than $3 a day. âI am uneducated, so I work. I have to work bravely,â she says.

Although she was the best peeler in the factory, speed was never enough. Mon was beaten if she slowed down, she said, and when she asked for a day off to rest hands swollen with infection, her boss kicked her and threatened rape.

Thanks to a bottomless appetite for cheap shrimp in the West, Burmese migrants such as Mon are the backbone of a Thai shrimp industry that is the worldâs third largest. The United States is Thailandâs top customer, accounting for a third of the countryâs annual shrimp exports.

Rights groups say that overseas demand for shrimp products in greater volume has fueled a culture of exploitation in the Thai industry. They insist that the failure of foreign companies to sufficiently verify the origin of the shrimp they import allows abuses to persist.

âIf you look at the cost of shrimp overseas, itâs very, very cheap, and that comes from the exploitation inherent in the shrimp industry,â says Andy Hall, an expert on migration at Mahidol University who tracks Burmese labor in the Thai seafood industry.

Brisk business with major U.S. retailers such as Wal-Mart, Costco, Samâs Club and Red Lobster pumps more than $1 billion in revenue each year into the Thai economy, the second largest in Southeast Asia. As Thai living standards have risen, a shortage of unskilled labor has attracted tens of thousands of Burmese migrants looking to escape the poverty and job scarcity that has gripped their homeland for decades.

Most head to Samut Sakhon province, the heart of the processing industry just south of the capital, Bangkok, where modern facilities line the highway alongside fast-food chains and car dealerships. The more prominent factories are the size of football fields, with neon signage and billboards that feature smiling children. But thereâs a darker side behind the scenes, activists say.

Of an estimated 400,000 migrants at work in the province, only about 70,000 are legally registered. The rest are employed illegally in anonymous peeling sheds that supply the larger companies that must fill massive orders from abroad. At this lower end of the supply chain, according to migrant activists, crooked brokers and employers trap scores of Burmese in abusive conditions tantamount to slavery, particularly in the shrimp industry.

âThe small factory owners know that most of their workers are undocumented, so they can control the workforce however they want â such as locking workers in until they finish their work,â says Sompong Sakaew, a labor activist based in Mahachai, the provincial capital. âThere are also teenagers between 12 and 17 years old in the workforce.â

Sold into waking nightmare

Problems for Burmese migrants typically start as soon as they link up with brokers who promise steady work and a decent salary, only to sell them into a nearly inescapable cycle of debt bondage.

Min Oo, 28, a Burmese farmer who lost his home in a flood, said he paid a broker the equivalent of $500 to smuggle him across the border to Samut Sakhon, with the guarantee of a minimum-wage (about $10 a day) factory job. Instead, he said, the broker sold him into a waking nightmare, with 18-hour workdays in a shrimp-processing factory and net earnings of no more than $20 a week, leaving almost nothing to send home.

In some cases, migrant workers and rights groups allege, police officials or their relatives hold an ownership stake in unregistered peeling sheds. More commonly, the critics say, the authorities or those they protect shake down undocumented workers for bribes to supplement their incomes, knowing that the migrants would rather pay up on the spot than be deported to Burma.

Despite occasional police action and robust anti-trafficking laws, Sakaew, the labor activist, estimates that fully a quarter of the 1,200 to 1,300 factories in Samut Sakhon province are unregistered and, therefore, ripe for abuse. With so much profit-induced apathy on the Thai side, activists say reform pressure must come from Western companies whose trade partnerships drive the shrimp industry.

Codes of conduct

It is difficult to establish precise links between the larger Thai companies that process shrimp of dubious origin and the Western companies whose consumers increasingly demand ethical sourcing.

To do business overseas, Thai companies must qualify for membership in the Thai Frozen Foods Association, which adheres to globally recognized codes of conduct and carries out unscheduled inspections. Spokesman Arthon Piboonthanapatana asserts that anyone found guilty of labor -abuses would be expelled. In more than three years of inspections, he said, this has never happened.

âIf the shrimp is from TFFA members, I can 100 percent guaranteeâ that it is produced without labor exploitation, he said.

But critics say that until the Thai shrimp industry requires larger factories to provide records of lower-level suppliers and follows through with random inspections, the shrimp it exports will remain tainted by human trafficking and labor abuses.

For the past three years, the State Department has given Thailand a poor grade on human trafficking, citing it among countries that do not fully comply with the minimum standards for efforts to combat the problem.

After the release of the departmentâs report in 2012, Thai Foreign Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul said his country would improve its performance by strengthening cooperation among agencies tasked with fighting human trafficking.

Motlagh reported with a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

More world news coverage: - Turmoil in Egypt stalls talks on U.S. aid - Suicide blast kills 12 near Afghan capitalâs international airport - U.S. troops to cut missions with Afghan forces - Read more headlines from around the world.

Google reportedly acquiring Waze app for $1.3 billion

News ends months of rumors on deals with Apple, Facebook, or Google, according to Globes; Waze source refuses to comment

By David Shamah June 9, 2013, 7:20 pm

Waze co-founder Uri Levine at a Jerusalem conference in May (photo credit: Flash90)

After dating at least three of the biggest tech companies in the world, it appeared Sunday night that Waze was finally getting the ring â one worth $1.3 billion, according to a report in the Israeli business newspaper Globes.

Thatâs the sum Google has reportedly agreed to pay for Waze, the Raâanana-based crowdsourced driving and navigation app with 50 million users around the world. The figure is $300 million higher than Facebook reportedly offered to pay for the firm earlier this year.

A company source contacted by The Times of Israel had no comment on whether talks with Google (or any other party) were on or off. âWe donât comment on rumors and speculation in general,â the source said.

The purchase, reported by Globes citing an anonymous source, would be the biggest buyout yet for an Israeli consumer firm, far outstripping Face.comâs $60-million sale to Facebook last year. Indeed, it is believed that it would be the biggest sum paid for any app, ever.

In May, it was rumored that Facebook had offered nearly $1 billion for Waze, but negotiations broke down several weeks later, apparently over Facebookâs insistence that Waze move its R&D from Israel to one of Facebookâs existing facilities, in the US or Britain. Several weeks later, it was reported that Google was interested in Waze, and that the search giant had offered as much as $1 billion for the company as well.

Previous rumors â earlier this year â had Apple as a prospective Waze buyer, with an offer of $400 million for the Israeli company.

A Google-Waze deal would likely not get snagged over location; Google already has several large R&D facilities in Israel, and employs hundreds of engineers here. Integrating the already existing Waze group into the Google infrastructure would be much simpler than getting Waze integrated with Facebook, local social media expert Yotam Tavor told The Times of Israel.

However, it appears that location wasnât the only issue. As recently as several weeks ago â amid the rumors that Google was poised to make an offer for Waze â company insiders were quoted in news reports as saying that members of the Waze board of directors believed that they would be selling themselves short if they âsettledâ for $1 billion â and that they could raise much more with an IPO. How much Waze would fetch in an IPO isnât clear, but if the latest report is true, Google apparently agrees with the Waze officials opposed to a sale.

Google already has its own mapping and driving app, and competes with Waze, but the latter dominates in most of the markets where Googleâs Navigator app is used. As such, Google and Waze are competing in the same space, but most users agree that the Waze app is much more elegant and user-friendly than the Google one.

In addition, Waze has built an active and loyal social network, which is highly engaged with the app, as well as a built-in mobile ad platform. In its latest version, it supplies Google Maps-like recommendations â making it a perfect match for Google, Tavor said.

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	The Outcome Without Trade		The Outcome With Trade				The Gains From Trade
	What they Produce and Consume if they do not specialize according to comparative advantage.		What They Produce if they fully specialize in one good.	What They Trade	What They Consume		The Increase in Consumption
Mon	1.)	Point A	5.)	9.) 10.)	13.)	Point A^*	17.)	A to A^*
	2.)		6.)		14.)		18.)
Shaman	3.)	Point B	7.)	11.) 12.)	15.)	Point B^*	19.)	B to B^*
	4.)		8.)		16.)		20.)

Suppose Mon and Shaman do not specialize according to comparative advantage and exchange but instead choose to be self-sufficient.

Further, they devote half of their hours in each year to each good and they consume everything they produce domestically.

After specialization according to comparative advantage, they exchange 5,000 apps for 75,000 shrimp.

Compute values for the numbered cells.

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What is the opportunity cost of producing shrimp for Mon?

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What is the opportunity cost of producing Mobile Apps for Mon?

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What is the opportunity cost of producing Mobile Apps for Shaman?

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1.) Before specialization, how much shrimp will Mon produce?

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2.) Before specialization, how many mobile apps will Mon produce?

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3.) Before specialization, how much shrimp will Shaman produce?

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4.) Before specialization, how many mobile apps will Shaman produce?

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5.) If they specialize according to comparative advantage, how much shrimp will Mon produce?

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6.) If they specialize according to comparative advantage, how many mobile apps will Mon produce?

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7.) If they specialize according to comparative advantage, how much shrimp will Shaman produce?

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8.) If they specialize according to comparative advantage, how many mobile apps will Shaman produce?

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9.) After specialization according to comparative advantage, they exchange 5,000 apps for 75,000 shrimp, i.e. each country sells some of the good in which they have a comparative advantage for the good in which they have a comparative disadvantage.

How much shrimp will Mon trade?

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10.) How many mobile apps will Mon trade?

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11.) How much shrimp will Shaman trade?

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12.) How many mobile apps will Shaman trade?

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13.) After trade, how much shrimp will Mon consume?

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14.) After trade, how many mobile apps will Mon consume?

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15.) After trade, how much shrimp will Shaman consume?

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16.) After trade, how many mobile apps will Shaman consume?

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17.) After trade, Monâs shrimp consumption increased by how much?

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18.) After trade, Monâs mobile app consumption increased by how much?

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19.) After trade, Shamanâs shrimp consumption increased by how much?

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20.) After trade, Shamanâs mobile consumption increased by how much?

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What is the total amount of shrimp produced if Mon fully specializes in shrimp production?

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What is the total amount of shrimp produced if Shaman fully specializes in shrimp production?

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How many mobile apps will Mon produce if she fully specializes in producing mobile apps?

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How many mobile apps will Shaman produce if he fully specializes in producing mobile apps?

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LABRST 1C03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Small Business

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