``...Actually, this is cheap cynicism that shows a mistaken grasp of the nature of markets and business activities....
The law and threat of legal sanction, civil and criminal, is incapable of keeping people in line if they are not generally pretty decent to start with. You know this, too. ...Essentially every transaction you make in the market depends mainly on your trusting in the ethics of business people..'' jks
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Well, if I accept the charge of cheap cynicism and ignorance, then perhaps you could be persuaded you are sugar coating a swindle from a position of greater understanding than mine?
Every transaction in the market depends on my trust in the ethics of business people. Yes. That is correct. My trust is compelled by my completely subservient fealty to Capital.
However, I have also noticed that such trust, never mind fealty, is not reciprocated. In fact, I must demonstrate in concrete and completely objectively measurable terms that I can be trusted with Capital's promise of money. On the other hand Capital seems to have no obligation and indeed provides no measure at all to demonstrate itself trustworthy with my money.
For example, I am paid only after I have performed work. Notice this is a one way flow of trust. I trust them to pay me. They have no obligation and in fact do not trust me to work. And, it seems to me that the only reason Capital pays me, after I have performed work, is exactly because it is required by law to do so. Grateful, I am too, that there are such laws. Although I suspect it would cost me more than I have ever been paid to get such laws enforced against an employer who didn't pay me.
Perhaps you have never performed work for which you were not paid. Perhaps you have. I have. It is an interesting experience because it is a useful illustration of the completely asymmetrical arrangement of trust and power between labor and capital. I suggest it is exactly this asymmetry that renders the entire transaction between labor and capital beyond the realm of any ethic, except that of power.
I was caught in an curious dilemma. If I quit, then how will I compel payment? If the employer no longer depends on my work, what reason will he have to pay? If I don't quit, how long am I willing to work for nothing and trust my already discredited employer to finally come through with a check? My answer to this dilemma was two months.
I was never paid. I filed a form and co-signed a letter of complaint with a fellow worker and sent it off to the state fair employment practices commission (or some such). We never heard back from the state.
Evidently, you have to hire a lawyer and sue the employer in court. If you don't have punched time cards or don't have independent records of your work, how do you prove you worked? Well, there is no proof, except your word. Yet, if you sue, the burden of proof is on you. I could show I was hired only if my employer produced the employment form which of course I trusted him to keep.
The employment form said nothing about how much I was to be paid or even hinted at the fact I was to be paid at all. It merely gave the usual details of name, address, phone number, qualifications, passed employment, and other items that demonstrated I could be trusted to perform the kind of work I applied for. Technically this formed didn't indicate that I was hired at all. It did have the title, `Employment Form' across the top, but then I was the only one who signed it. On the other hand, I was never shown a bank statement that demonstrated my employer had enough money to pay me. In fact the idea that I might need to have such evidence before I started to work would be considered ludicrous. As far as I know, no employee has a right to demand their employer produce a bank statement showing sufficient funds to meet payroll.
Well, what can I say? Mistakes were made. There are flaws in the system. However, in the larger view and upon reflecting on the fact there is no alternative, it is probably the best of all worlds, since of course it is the only world.
CG