Tag
Markets
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The Floor and the Exit
The last essay settled what the dividend is. This one is about what it does, and the most important thing it does is not feed you. It frees you. A floor no employer can take away is the power to walk, and the power to walk is the only thing …
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The Cap
The hardest piece of the settlement, and the most attacked. A ceiling on what the people at the top can take, set as a multiple of the floor. It does almost nothing as redistribution, which is why it has to be defended on other ground.
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It Was Never Property
When Sony deleted movies people had ‘bought,’ the internet answered with a slogan: if buying isn’t owning, then piracy isn’t theft. The grievance is real and the words are wrong, both halves of them. Copying was …
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The Floor and the Share
Strip the settlement down to the two commitments that do the real work, a published floor of dignity and a real share of the surplus, and you have the part that needs no apology. They are not generosity. They are what you owe once you see …
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What We Refuse to Count
Almost everyone, left and right, agrees that pay should track value and that some people are worth many times what others are. They argue about the multiple. The premise underneath is the thing worth examining, because the multiple is …
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The Button Marked Buy
Sony deleted movies people had bought, and the internet fired back: if buying isn’t owning, then piracy isn’t theft. I get the anger. But the slogan is wrong twice, and the wrongness is exactly why the people saying it keep …
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Sometimes You Have Bread
There is a joke going around: with capitalism, sometimes you have bread lines; with socialism, sometimes you have bread. It is funny because it is true. The market’s worst day is a line. The planned economy’s worst day is an …
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The Third Answer
Most of adult life is spent at work, which makes the firm one of the main places human beings actually live together. The two answers our age offers for how owners and workers should relate are both forms of war. There is a third, and it …