Pavlov's Bitches and the rise of the Ramenista Class

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12oz Soy Raspberry Mocha
Egg-pastry thingy

We're all pretty familiar with Ivan Pavlov's work with dogs.  At least the part about drooling.  But old Ivan produced a conditioned response - that the dog would anticipate the arrival of food when it heard a bell - so that the dog would produce saliva.  He was not trying to associate a particular behavior that would result in a food reward, though that is the standard technique for dog trainers nowadays.

So what do you think Pavlov's dog would learn if you gave it a big old juicy steak, not when a bell rang, but whenever the dog did anything.  What would you get if you gave a dog a steak even when he crapped on the carpet?

You'd get Donald Trump.

Okay, cheap shot.  To be fair, I'm not talking about all CEOs or businesspeople in general.  But there is a predominant kind of thinking right now that says if you're rich, then you deserve it - and if you're poor, you deserve it even worse.  Not everyone subscribes to that philosophy, but it remains so pervasive that our entire economy has been fundamentally crippled because of it.  And, as I argued in one of my first blogs (Of Food Stamps and Smart Phones), it is psychologically crippling our people as well.  This shaming of the poor, whether it was cynically contrived or the simple result of protecting the rich man's ego from guilt (or responsibility), allows for this very unhealthy economy to continue.

Our economic structure is so skewed right now that basically no one is getting paid what they deserve.  How can you deserve to work hard, full-time, and and not be able to take care of yourself, let alone a family?  And how can you deserve a multi-million dollar a year salary when the employees of your company have to ask for government assistance to feed their children?  If your people are not thriving, then your business is not thriving and you, sir - or madam - have not earned your yacht. 

Here's another way to put it: $15,080.  That's what a full-time 40 hour a week worker earns in a year, gross.  Assuming that person works from age 18 to age 65 (47 years, right?), they will earn (without adjusting for inflation) $708,760 in their working lifetime.  Do we really think that anyone's work is so important, so irreplaceable, that they deserve to be paid more in one year than a hard-working minimum wage worker will be paid in their entire lifetime?

It was reported this week that income inequality is the highest it has been since right before the Great Depression.  That should alarm you.  It was also reported that 95% of the economic recovery has gone to the wealthiest 1%.  That should piss you off and alarm you.

Fortunately, it has pissed off fast food workers, and other low-wage workers around the country - the Ramenista Class - who are beginning to protest and demand a real living wage.  Again, minimum wage has fallen so far behind the real cost of living that it would take a radical readjustment to catch it up to what it should be.  And I know that are many nay-sayers out there, and many a small businessperson is shaking their head, saying, "There's just no way I could pay my people anymore - I'd go out of business!"

And the truth is, yeah, they might go out of business - if they were the only ones paying a living wage.  But it is a myth to say that it cannot be done.  There are innumerable economists out there who are saying that not only can we do it, but we need to do it or we're never going to have a sound economy.  And after all, the money you keep out of your employee's pocket is money you keep out of your customer's pocket, too.

There was a study by a (I think "progressive") think tank, Demos, that said that if the major retailers (Walmart, Target, and a few others) were to raise their base wage to $12.25 an hour, they would raise tens of thousands out of poverty, create jobs, reduce other social costs, and boost the overall economy.  Could they afford it?  Pretty easily.  And if they passed the cost on to the consumer?  Pennies per shopping trip.

The main difference is that those giant retailers make up such a large percentage of the low-wage labor force compared to a single small business.  So the actions of that handful of employers would have a far-reaching impact over the basically insignificant impact of that mom-and-pop shop that wants to do right by their workers.  There is some percentage, I'm sure, that represents a 'critical mass' needed to move the economic baseline without the intervention of government.  Apparently, these mega-retailers could do it on their own if they just chose to.

So far, that doesn't seem to be happening.  Nor does it seem that the government will be moving that line any time soon.  And so, the Ramenistas have arisen to demand it.  It seems the market will not bear this pseudo-indentured servitude anymore.

I give that Miller's Fistpump.