The remedy was somewhat implied, if only in broad terms: dissolve the State. Though, that post wasn't really intended to explore potential remedies. I also wasn't referring to any sort of utopia. Freedom from coercion is a basic principle of natural law, ethics, and morality--it doesn't require any utopian society. I'm not especially fond of your proposition because it ignores what I view as the more core, fundamental, root problem underlying this entire issue. Quite simply, if there were no initial coercion being employed by the State to acquire the funding necessary to begin these public projects--let alone hire public employees--the issue of their salaries and benefits wouldn't even exist. Aside from that, I'm just generally against the notion of force being used to produce a desired outcome; though it could also be argued that since aggression isn't technically being initiated in the case of such a mandate, it could be arguably within moral parameters. Further than that you'd also run into the issue of determining who or what decides what the 'fair market value' of any particular labor should be. This would likely just lead to more bureaucracy which is typically never a good thing.
Nice appeal to emotion. Your posts just get worse and worse. Teachers jobs were never cut because the Federal Government moved in and started 'bailing out' states that were on the verge of firing teachers. New York, and New York City were affected. However, you're completely missing the point--the point is that we're paying ridiculous salaries to people who, by all means and measures (Except for the volume of free ebooks they're giving away), are incompetent, and clearly exploiting the game to milk every dime they can out of tax payers, because that's what public 'servants' do. You'll notice that virtually every major state, every major city, etc., is suffering from a public pension system that is sucking the states dry. My state, New Jersey, is perhaps in the worst fiscal disarray because of the pensions and salaries of overpaid public servants. Just today New Jersey was given a negative credit rating by Moodys (Who have a penchant for rating credit much more positively than is warranted, part of the problem that created the financial collapse in 2008). Currently, State and local Governments are cutting back, trying to patch up the gaping holes in their budgets, and New York is especially bad. At a time when essential (I hate to say essential, because we should just do away with public education and move towards a voucher system) public services are being cut in order to shore up MASSIVE budget shortfalls, we're massively over-paying some asshole who can massage rich people dick better than you or I can, but can't seem to manage a goddamn library.
wat is this i dont even In order to have a 'fair market wage' as you coined it (lol?) you need to have the market determine the wages in the first place. The Smithsonian is managed by the Federal Government, and funded in part, by tax payers. Do you even read the shit you write, or the articles you post? There's no market in determining the wages of the NYPL or the Smithsonian, so I guess the ultimate point is... the fuck 'you talkin' 'bout Willis.
Basically, I can only repeat what I said before, that you are against the idea of a public library, regardless of what they pay the people. I'm sure that you realize, of course, that citizens who hold this view are in a very small minority - even among those in your age bracket. Would you also privatize the Smithsonian? How about the sidewalks*? *tip of the hat to P.J. O'Rourke for a remark he made, years ago, re Libertarians.
Again, as you frequently do when parading opinions that are off the wall, you are resorting to misquotes. Yes, I read the "shit" (your term) I write, and fortunately it's not what you change it to. *bold mine
Predictable. I completely obliterated your argument, so now you shift the focus to me and my views, rather than amending your own views. It was nice 'debating' you. Appeal to majority. Sweet. Sure. Everything should be privatized. That way we don't overpay incompetent public servants for mismanaging libraries and school systems, and such.
If you read the shit you write (Just being honest, honesty is a virtue, after all), you wouldn't have posted that turd about the Smithsonian, because it had little to no relevancy to what you were trying to prove. In fact, it was counter-productive to your goal (of drawing a parallel between the NYPL and the 'fair market wage'), and quite hilariously, solidified my thoughts on managers/executives/et. al, employed by the Government to oversee various institutions. Read: You just proved my point for me.
This is how all 'discourse' with garrison goes: complete disregard or resorting to ad hominem. That's why I suggested that it just wasn't worth it.
Yea but every time I go head-to-head with garrison, I get tons of rep, so it pays off in that way. This bout was particularly profitable for my rep bar. In all seriousness, it's just too easy sometimes.
There is a difference between saying "fair market" wage question, and inventing a new term, which I did NOT do, as in "fair market wage" (your words not mine). You are accusing me of doing something that you did yourself to strengthen your position, which is itself an exercise in futility because people, MOST people, want the public libraries to stay public. As far as the comparison between Paul LeClerc, head of the NY Public Library, and the new head of the Smithsonian, Wayne, Clough, I think that it's very relevant. If you have a better model, I'd like to hear it.
I am glad, in all seriousness, that your minions have given you the rep points. But, other than a little circle jerk group of kids that are still full of piss and vinegar, who don't have enough collective work or life experience to obtain and hold a job at McDonalds, there really isn't very much feedback in your favor here.
I had the inkling that was where you were going. Thus, my statement that this is the real world. Absolute freedom from coercion is a utopic ideal. There will always be forces which make you act against your will: coercive forces. Structuring an ideal around the complete elimination of coercive forces is not a very good idea, IMO. Do you not wish to coerce would be murderers into being peaceful? Do you not wish to coerce thieves from depriving you of your right to property? This is what the law is all about. I guess I would subscribe to the view that there can be good and bad coercion. It is true that in the causal chain the state is at the front. Elimination of the state = elimination of the problem. But is that the best solution? I would say yes (albeit I wouldn't want it to happen over night), but we can't just dissolve the state. When we get a big enough movement going, hit me up lol I would argue that it is moral and coercive. If we're going to use the word coercive to describe anything that makes someone do something against their will, then yes it is coercive. There are definitely some bastards out there who would gladly hire their friends/business partners into the public sector at exorbitant salaries, either just because they like their friend or because they stand to gain something from it. In this case, I would argue that the mandate coerces these people into moral action. I see no other party that is coerced by this mandate. Agreed. I would fathom that it is possible to determine the going fair market prices for labor in the U.S., though. Seems simple enough. If we don't have the data already, we could get it. I don't pretend to know for sure, but it seems so likely
You try and keep all those fucking books organized w/ little shits coming in moving stuff around all the time. And you can't even yell. You gotta be quiet like you're in a library. Imagine the frustration. Not all work is mindless.
As if most people have even devoted any notable measure of thought to the subject. When you add the "absolute" stipulation, then perhaps. It is arguable there will always inevitably be--at the very least--attempted coercion or aggression. All I'm saying is that coercion / initiation of aggression ought not to be condoned or tolerated, and ideally--with respect to moral and ethical imperatives--ought to be avoided at all costs. It's not really about structuring and ideal around the complete elimination of coercion or aggression. It's more about maximizing liberty while minimizing aggression/coercion. With regard to using coercion against those who would employ coercion; once they initiate aggression, they essentially forfeit their natural rights respective to their act of immorality. So, yes, coercion is permissible in these cases--I don't usually describe this as coercion though. I tend to associate coercion exclusively in the pejorative sense where aggression is being initiated, and not in the sense of say... punishment in response to a crime. I didn't bother to clarify these things before simply because I wasn't anticipating getting too deep into ethics in this thread. This is not to say I don't welcome the opportunity, of course. In my opinion--yes, eliminating the State, while certainly not a fix-all, would be a large step in the direction of liberty. Why? The State is one of the most coercive and aggressive entities there is; so much so, in fact, that it could not sustain itself absent of coercion and aggression. One example: it necessarily has to collect taxes by way of coercion to exist. I do agree that an overnight collapse of the State would most likely be both inefficient and unfavorable. Yeah, I kind of touched on this above. Just to reiterate and clarify further, there's a distinction to be made between coercion and initiation of aggression. I may admittedly have used these terms interchangeably, which is my own fault. More to the point: if aggression is already being initiated (as is virtually always the case with the State), then use of force in retaliation is no longer necessarily immoral--in which case I have no moral objections. While I too am sure it is indeed possible to ascertain such a thing, giving such a task to the State would only lead to further problems, IMO. They can't efficiently or properly find their way out of a wet paper bag, after all. The State has a way of letting what should be simple tasks become catalysts for multitudes of other problems.
You also have to think of the administrative tasks that come along w/ that kind of job. I mean, a library is big business, and someone's gotta run that bitch. You can't have em run like shit, (especially the public ones, we want efficiency w/ out tax dollar), SOOOOOO......you've gotta pay a competitive wage. Let's say you're the kind of strong leader than can command a huge salary in the free-market private sector whatever. Then the public wants a library system that's so big, you're the only kind of guy who can actually run it day to day, it takes a unique skill set to perform those kinds of tasks, (i think alot of people are grossly underestimating what it takes to be a librarian in real life) so you've gotta hire someone from a pool of people who have no problem getting good money. So you gotta pay em good money. I'm high, I hope that made sense.
You get what you pay for huh? OK, so the person in charge of that library system 10 years ago making HALF as much only delivered HALF the quality they have today, or is the new guy doing TWICE as good a job? Yeah, you're right, it is RELATIVE. I'm sorry, it's still not worth that amount of money. That's greed and corruption talking. And your suggestion regarding the Presidents salary? The candidates already spend 10 times their salary just fighting to get the job, and no amount of money would be worth the stress for most who would consider the salary more important than the position. Besides, when you're "the man", it's not like you're whipping our YOUR wallet to pay for shit...
The head of the NY Public Library is in charge of 89 branches under him, some of them are huge, it's the third largest library system in the world, and he has been in this job for 16 years. Somebody in Houston, Texas is making 193 thousand for directing one single library, in a university. The new head of the Smithsonian started the job in 2008 at just under half a million a year. Doesn't anybody else see the irony of saying that the NYPL head, who earns $689,000, is making "too much"?
I never said the word 'fair'. I said the market should decide how much the asshole is paid. Never said anything about 'fair', because 'fair' is a loaded word. Stop projecting. Thanks. Sweet, another appeal to majority. You're not very good at this whole 'critical thinking' thing, are you? There isn't a model, because most museums are funded and run by Governments at the State and Local levels. Perhaps that's why people are outraged over this guys exorbitant salary. He would probably be paid less if there was real market competition. You still haven't explained why this idiot deserves to get a quarter of a million dollar raise from one year to the next. What did he do to deserve such a substantial wage? People who do far more important jobs than head a library make many times less than this guys RAISE in a single year, and that's not even including his total salary prior to his quarter of a million dollar raise. So far we haven't come across anything that shows he deserves such a gigantic raise, and in fact, there is a multitude of reasons pointing in the direction that he doesn't deserve such a raise at all, due to his gross mismanagement of the NYPL.
I only wish that more people like this "asshole", and "idiot" were in charge of more educational institutions in our society. I'd rather have somebody with a brain for culture, who is totally ignorant regarding bookkeeping and accounting (not that LeClerc is), than a philistine, low paid or otherwise, that is incapable of determining shit from Shinola in cultural matters. The salary of the head of the Orange County, Fl, library system, Mary Anne Hodel, is $192,025. Fist of all, there is no way in holy fucking hell, no matter how many branches they have, that Orange County, or anywhere else other than the Smithsonian, comes even close to having the resources of the Central library on 5th Avenue and 42nd Street in NYC - but for argument's sake we'll say that all libraries are equal, as are all library directors. LeClerc, in NYC, has 89 branches under him. Since his salary is $689,000, he is paid approximately $7,750 per branch. Ms. Hodel, on the other hand, is paid $192,025, to direct 14 libraries in Orange County. This is approximately $13,716 per branch. If Dr. LeClerc's salary was based on the number of branches, and paid on a scale of what Ms. Hodel is getting per branch, his annual salary would be approximately $1,220,724 - almost twice what he is currently receiving. Orange Library Director’s Salary Bump Draws Fire – Central Florida Political Pulse – Orlando Sentinel