What is the dollar value of...

[curtis290]

Kuci, be a dear and summarize his response to me.

It's not worth reading that much in order to encounter what I'm sure is either one of the half-dozen least interesting common economic fallacies or simple incomprehension and stupidity.

My response to you and Oerdin was two paragraphs...you can't even get through that? All I was doing was responding to your ridiculous claim that Speenhamland only effected the 'low end' of the income spectrum...as if early 19th century England was a modern, developed economy with a large middle class and only a small portion of the population working for the living wage of 3 shillings a week.

That's one of the many parts I don't understand about his claim; according to him, virtually everybody was caught by the 3 shilling a week top-up. Which means that the country's farms, workshops etc. were being run by.....?

They were run by a small population of wealthy people who pushed to get rid of Speenhamland in 1834. You don't actually think the English countryside had a large middle class in the early 19th century, do you?

Apparently nobody in England worked until the early 19th century....

Do you actually equate people working with the existence of a modern labor market? Do you think hunter-gatherers, since they worked, were part of a capitalistic labor market? Stick to physics and economics please, leave history to others.

[Solomwi]

That's one of the many parts I don't understand about his claim; according to him, virtually everybody was caught by the 3 shilling a week top-up. Which means that the country's farms, workshops etc. were being run by.....?

Apparently nobody in England worked until the early 19th century....

They worked for the sheer pride and joy of sacrificing for their nation and being part of something greater than themselves, of course.

[KrazyHorse]

Curtis' claim appears to be that the 3 shilling a week top-up affected so many people that it precluded a labor market from forming but not so many that most people didn't work.

Way to go, ****.

[Solomwi]

All that free labor being handed out. People back then knew what sacrifice meant.

[KrazyHorse]

They worked for the sheer pride and joy of sacrificing for their nation

Die volk, please.

[curtis290]

They worked for the sheer pride and joy of sacrificing for their nation and being part of something greater than themselves, of course.

Curtis' claim appears to be that the 3 shilling a week top-up affected so many people that it precluded a labor market from forming but not so many that most people didn't work.

Way to go, ****.

All that free labor being handed out. People back then knew what sacrifice meant.

ARE YOU F*CKING RETARDED

As I repeatedly claimed throughout the thread, they got rid of Speenhamland because people stopped working: what you guys just said.

This is where you guys prove your intelligence and/or your motivations. I repeatedly claim that Speenhamland caused people to stop working and just live on the relief the parishes gave them. You claim I'm wrong and insult me. Then you say that Speenhamland would cause people to stop working, and therefore that I must be wrong. Either you are completely retarded and didn't understand what I had repeated throughout the thread: that Speenhamland prevented the workings of natural mechanisms of the labor market because there was no incentive to work, which is why they got rid of it. Meaning you agreed with me. Or, you just were attacking everything I say because you disagree with my viewpoints. You even disagreed with me and said that I was wrong when I wrote EXACTLY THE SAME THING YOU DID.

Either way, you've completely lost any credibility here, and I'm going to bump this several times so people can see. So much for KH being the smartest guy on the planet.

[Solomwi]

You might want to keep better track of the things you say, ****.

If there is a law increasing minimum wage that states that the parish will pay for the workers to receive minimum wage, why would you increase their salaries, especially when you don't have any problems hiring anyone since everyone (they all live in abject poverty) would be willing to work for that salary?

[curtis290]

You might want to keep better track of the things you say, ****.

That quote referred to someone's (flash's) claim I believe that Speenhamland would have no effect because employers would simply pay more than the 3 shillings. This wasn't the case because there were still enough people that continued to work because they didn't want to lose their dignity and become paupers. They received their share from the parish and didn't receive a wage from their employers. People continued to be employed because the system didn't extend everywhere (it wasn't national), so there were enough people that would work for the 3 shilling wage. Additionally, the living wage from the parish was more easily guaranteed by those working rather than the paupers simply collecting relief. But the primary reason reason was that people actually didn't want to work for more than the 3 shillins. What's the point of toiling in a factory for five shillings when you didn't have to work for three?

As I've stated before, real wages went down to zero. Eventually, the people that continued to work (and many did, because they had dignity and didn't want to become paupers, unlike the welfare queens of today) simply received no pay from their employers, and received the living wage from their parish. Those that didn't feel like working (most people by the end of Speenhamland) just sat there, and received the living wage from their parish.

I have history on my side, and any text about Speenhamland will support my claims. Solomwi, flash, and KH all seem to think that Speenhamland should have functioned just fine. Except that it didn't, it was considered a disaster by the the Poor Law Commissioners' Report of 1834 (it described it as "universal pauperism," in other words, everyone went on welfare) since it prevented the natural mechanism of the labor market (what I've been saying all along if you've actually read what I've written), and was repealed by the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834.

It's proof that you guys are arguing with me just for the sake of arguing. Speenhamland was a disaster and they abolished it in 1834 so that the natural labor market could function properly. I have explained this repeatedly: I've repeatedly made the claim that Speenhamland prevents capitalism from functioning properly (the commissioner's report agreed with me), and from what you and KH have written, you BOTH AGREE WITH ME. So why the attacks, why the insults? You clearly just want to contradict everything I say, whether or not you agree with it, because you don't like what I have to say. I'm making the claim that Speenhamland prevents capitalism from functioning properly, and I'm getting attacked by a bunch of laissez-faire capitalists who are trying to contradict me by advancing the claim (unsupported by history) that it should have worked fine.

[Solomwi]

So... now they kept working again?

I'm making the claim that Speenhamland prevents capitalism from functioning properly, and I'm getting attacked by a bunch of laissez-faire capitalists who are trying to contradict me by advancing the claim (unsupported by history) that it should have worked fine.

The only thing I can gather from this is that you understand your own posts as little as you do ours.

[KrazyHorse]

I don't think he understands the difference between "the labor market didn't exist" and "the labor market had some distortions in it".

[KrazyHorse]

I glanced at his most recent post, and he actually does appear to be making the claim that people kept working without any hope of making more than what they would make without working, simply because they wanted to work

[KrazyHorse]

I guess the act of scratching at the dirt was so noble and fulfilling that they would do it for free...

[Solomwi]

Yep. Except that he also agrees with us that people wouldn't work if the employers behaved as he described. But then, everyone was willing to work for the minimum wage because they were so poor.

[giblets]

Wait, did the speenhamland thing give money to people who didn't work? I thought it was just wage supplements for people who did work to make sure they could afford to buy bread.

[KrazyHorse]

Ask yourself why it doesn't matter whether or not the requirement was that they were employed...