RoR: Forum

A man with a doctorate in economics engaged in exactly this argument with a woman during her first visit to our RoR in Florida at Merritt Island local discussion group. She felt that the law should compel employers to provide "reasonable" leave terms for new mothers and assure them their old jobs when they decide to return to work. After much heated exchange between them, I asked this woman, point blank:

So, if I understand you correctly, you would willingly put all employers into chains of slavery and compel them to re-hire women who left to have babies whether it benefits the employers or not. Is that accurate?

She replied:

Yes! I would put them in such chains for the benefit of such women. Women need special protections like that.

I have not seen her at another meeting since that discussion. If I recall correctly, she said she never liked Atlas Shrugged that much but saw our notice in the newspaper and sought some intellectual stimulation on a Saturday night.

Morally, I support the idea of equal pay for equal work, though the law needs to remain silent on the issue.

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 8/02, 12:33pm)

Post 1

Wednesday, August 2, 2006 - 12:35pm

Luke -

Was she interested in Objectivism?

Maybe a few quotes from Rand would do well?

Andy.

Post 2

Wednesday, August 2, 2006 - 12:37pm

Andrew, I got the impression she came because the name "Ayn Rand" rang a bell. I do what I can to encourage people to read the books. In her case, I suggested Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal by Ayn Rand. But many people will not take the time to do that, and I do not pretend to explain the ideas better than Ayn Rand can. Perhaps she will surprise me and appear again in the future a changed woman. I will not hold my breath.

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 8/02, 12:39pm)

Post 3

Wednesday, August 2, 2006 - 12:56pm

I bet you get all types showing up for meetings, Luke. We did at GW. Many like the woman you describe. I always found it to be tricky to figure out, in one meeting, if they were a total waste of hope or if they just had this one blind-spot, (or even simply felt like playing devil�s advocate without ever letting on.) In the former case we don�t want them coming back anyway. I always worried that we would identify someone as belonging in the former category, not knowing they were really more like the latter one.

I became certain we were losing people from the latter category. So I imposed a policy of �no attacks on clueless newbies,� against some objections from some members. Sure enough, we had more people coming back for repeat meetings. And some of those turned out to be in the latter category, even though some members had been adamant they were in the former and wanted to hammer them the first night.

It takes time for a person to reject what they have accepted as axiomatic up to that first meeting. I am not suggesting you toss your integrity. On the contrary, answer their points and state in no uncertain terms that you strongly disagree�then try to disengage. Remember: You still get to hammer them if they turn out hopeless, just later, at some future meeting. Until then, see if one or two here and there turn out to be, to your surprise, slow learners who are reachable with reason after all.

Post 4

Wednesday, August 2, 2006 - 1:58pm

Jon, you corroborate some sound practices to which we adhere in our club. Generally speaking, newbies will find their ideas challenged or supported through discussion with reference to Objectivist principles. In the instance to which I referred earlier, the man attacked the woman's ideas but not the woman. If newbies take those challenges as personal attacks, I do not know what to say about it since their interpretations of the events do not reflect the reality of those events.

The only personal attack I have ever witnessed since our club's start in 1999 occurred this year between me and a former local club participant, first face to face and then later on this thread. I have seen other squabbles but they amounted to disagreements over relatively peripheral issues, not fundamental ones, such as this "bitchy wife" story about Lillian Rearden.

Objectivism holds people responsible for doing their own introspection, so I do the same.

Post 5

Wednesday, August 2, 2006 - 9:12pm

As I was browsing through the forum, the article Women Don't Deserve Equal Pay! vividly caught my attention. After scrutinizing the article diligently, I found myself to be in disagreement with several points. First, I shall begin by stating that intellectually, women and men are equal. Functional human beings are all endowed with a mind with which they are given the choice to utilize it as they will. I find statistics to be more speculation than fact. You cannot characterize all women as lacking ambition in the work field. Stereotypes are vicious, destructive notions that often hinder individuals from being properly judged. Certainly there are women that have chosen to raise children instead of cultivating a prodigious career, however, you cannot say that most women feel in this manner, as it is an injustice to say so. As for myself, I am very career-oriented and desire to achieve the utmost possible success for myself. I plan to attend law school and become involved in politics in the future as there are many changes I wish to bring about in our methods of foreign policy. I do not desire to have any children because that is not a life-style that I desire. But, if one was to judge me based on the statistics you provided, one would say that I am an unambitious female that does not strive to attain a steady job. I know many women that though they have children, expect to be treated no differently than their male co-workers. They are punctual at showing up for their jobs and they receive an appropriate paycheck. I also feel that children are not necessarily part of a woman's agenda when she is planning out her life. This brings me to another point that not all men are productive. There are certainly instances where men choose not to pursue a career and instead waste their lives. If an ambitious woman aspires for a glorious career, there are no limits as to what she can achieve.

One's gender absolutely DOES NOT determine their success or attitude in the work field. Whether it be men or women, a person chooses how much they are willing to sacrifice in order to be productive. However, supposing that a man and a woman work the same number of hours and are both proficient and diligent at their jobs, there is no reason why they should not be payed the same amount of money. What type of employer would say, " well, you certainly worked as hard as your male counterpart, however, I feel that because you are a woman, you are statistically less inclined to achieve and therefore, you paycheck shall be less," I certainly would not want this person to be my employer.

I do agree with the point that men do not hold women back as they can choose whether or not to have children. This is quite true. However, the fact to say that they achieve less because they statistically work fewer hours is absolutely ridiculous. There are women that choose to compromise their work capability for their children and then there are those who do not choose motherhood or put their children in daycare so that they can accomplish what they desire. There are plenty of incompetent men in the workforce that have caused economic ruin to themselves and fellow employees. This fact is so not because they are men but because they have chosen to act unjustly.

Furthermore, I find the mention of hormones to be absolutely preposterous. Though the male hormone testosterone make them more aggressive, one's mind chooses the level of ambition. However, it is true that men can perform certain occupations that women cannot. The example of mining profession is an appropriate demonstration of this. Though men and women are intellectually equal, physically, men have the benefit of being stronger and able to perform more tedious work. Certainly women are more likely to pursue a job that involves more the use of their mind rather than their strength.

If we shall shift over to politics for a moment, one can observe various women that have played a critical role in our government. Though I disagree with her stance on political issues, Hiliary Clinton has made no secret of her ambitions for office. This woman is a mother and according to your statistics, she should not have achieved or been aggressive in her career as much as a man would. Look at Dr. Condoleezza Rice who became Secretary of State on January 26, 2005. Prior to this, she was the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, commonly referred to as the National Security Advisor, since January, 2001. This woman certainly encountered several obstacles in order to arrive to the point of her career where she is at the present moment. If one goes further into the past, one shall read about a gifted doctor by the name of Elizabeth Blackwell. When she graduated from New York's Geneva Medical College, in 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman in America to earn the M.D. degree. In her time, women were expected not to think or cultivate ideas, but rather, raise children and leave the important matters to "the man of the house." Isn't this woman yet another example of an individual that defied statistics?? In the 1930s, Amelia Earhart defied the male dominated world of flight and soared beyond all boundaries that had been established for women. A male acquaintance of her's attempted to persuade her into a life of child-rearing and marriage. However, her passion was so vivacious for soaring the majestic skies, that she would allow to person to hinder her from achieving her dreams. If I were to refer to statistics, they would tell me that Amelia could not be so motivated as she lacked the "wonder male" hormone of testosterone.

From the primitive days of man, where his dwelling included a cave, his clothes made of animal skins, and a fire as his only source of warmth, the structure of human society came into existence. The man was stronger than the woman, therefore, he was the one to hunt and bring home he food to survive. The women were in charge of caring for the young and preserving the food for later consumption. Thousands of years later, this same basic social structure is prevalent in many circumstances. There are quite a number of families in which the male is the sole provider and the woman takes care of the household and the children. However, in modern society, women are given the opportunity to access the vast dimensions of self-sufficient employment. Women can choose whether or not to commit to a family or to achieve a profession they desire. I do not blame men if women seem to be less productive in our society, but I do blame those that continue to spread a primordial philosophy of inferiority. Women are people as well as men and as such, anytime they are employed, they must be payed based upon their merits. Should I be an employer, I would not pay well a woman that has children and is not productive in her work field as a result. However, to stereotype a gender as being inferior to another, is an irrational and despicable notion that must be rooted out of philosophical thought. When one comes into this life, he or she comes arrives with nothing but their mind. The quality of one's life betters when one says, " I do think." With these words, an individual has taken the immense task of acting as a rational individual that comprehends the critical concepts of life and will achieve the greatest possible to them. Whether it be a man or a woman, the mind is equal and either gender can be as successful as the other if they so will it.

(Edited by Laura Maria D'Agostino on 8/03, 7:35pm)

Post 6

Thursday, August 3, 2006 - 1:28am

Luke, you wrote,

Morally, I support the idea of equal pay for equal work, though the law needs to remain silent on the issue.

Morally, I don't support the idea of equal pay for equal work. That idea is a relic of the Marxian labor theory of value -- of the idea that the amount of work a person does determines how much his product should be worth. But, of course, it determines no such thing. It is only what a buyer is willing to pay for it that determines its value. A product on which someone did very little work could be worth a lot if someone is willing to pay a lot for it. Similarly, a product on which someone did a lot of work could be worth very little, if no one is willing to pay very much for it. But it's no surprise that leftists support this idea, given its Marxist legacy. The only thing that determines what workers should be paid is whatever their services are worth to employers, just as the only thing that determines what merchants should be paid is whatever their goods are worth to consumers.

Demanding equal pay for equal work is tantamount to demanding equal price for equal cost. Just because a merchant incurs certain costs in making a product available to consumers doesn't mean that they are obligated to buy his products at a price that covers those costs. If consumers don't want what he's selling at that price, then he will have to sell it for less. If the guy down the street is selling a product whose costs are the same as yours, but for which consumers are willing to pay a higher price, it doesn't follow that you are the victim of an injustice.

Nor does it follow that if men are paid for doing a certain amount of work, women should get the same pay if they do the same amount of work. It depends on whether or not what the women are doing is valued the same as what the men are doing. The value of a person's labor is determined not by how much work he or she does, but by how valuable the work is to the people who are paying for it. This latter idea is what Austrian economists call a "subjective theory of value" in contrast to a labor theory of value. A subjective theory of value is one that depends on the buyer's preferences, not on the cost to the seller either in terms of work or in terms of monetary expenditure.

The notion of "equal pay for equal work" rests on an ethics of duty. It depends on the notion that the buyer has a duty to pay a certain amount for a product or service even if the buyer doesn't want to pay that amount -- even if he or she doesn't value it at that price. This is where the Marxian labor theory of value meets a Kantian ethics of duty in an economic theory of self-sacrifice. You the buyer must sacrifice your interests to those of the seller, even though the seller has nothing of any value to offer you. You must sacrifice your money for his sake, because he has expended a certain amount of useless work that is of no value to you. That in essence is the premise of "equal pay for equal work." It is about as far from a system of capitalism and free trade as one can get. It has no place in a society in which individuals are free to choose their own values and decide for themselves what they wish to pay for them.

- Bill

Post 7

Thursday, August 3, 2006 - 4:40am

Bill,

Thank you for refuting the "equal pay for equal work" nonsense. It saved me the effort and did a better job than I would have.

Post 8

Thursday, August 3, 2006 - 6:06am

There are specific reasons that we can give as well as to why a woman in the same position, in the same company, doing the same amount of work and equally qualified as a man, would be paid less than a man in that same position in that same company doing the same amount of work. As the article this thread is talking about indicates, women statistically leave work more than men do to start families and have children. If you run a company and a woman in a position leaves, or you have made a statistical judgement she is likely to leave, you would tend not to pay her as much as a man that would be more loyal to your company, stay for a longer time, and thus offer more labor value to your company. Turnover is expensive, training is expensive, and establishing a repertoire with an individual takes time and investment. It's not that women are inferior, not in the slightest. It's what women choose to do with their lives that explains for this wage gap. It is purely a reflection of an individual's actions, not their gender.

Post 9

Thursday, August 3, 2006 - 6:07am

Bill wrote:

The only thing that determines what workers should be paid is whatever their services are worth to employers, just as the only thing that determines what merchants should be paid is whatever their goods are worth to consumers.

Bill, I meant an "apples for apples" comparison. If I hire Smith and Jones at the same time and have both working for me for the same amount of hours daily doing the same quality of work and the same kind of work with the same productive output, I will pay them the same wages. Gender does not even play a role in this instance.

If your argument still applies to Smith and Jones, I would like to see why.

Perhaps you mean that Smith does a better job than Jones of negotiating salary upon hiring. In that case, I can agree with you. However, that can create other problems of "office politics" and backstabbing and so forth that result from workers feeling, justifiably, that some get treated worse than others for no good cause whatsoever. So I still see a moral incentive to pay equally for equal performance.

I will, of course, reject in whole the feminist notion of "comparable pay for comparable work" as it has no basis in the reality of free markets.

EDIT: I confess a sense of discomfort with judging the future performance of individual women based on statistics. So I will moderately dissent from the article we discuss in this thread and the corroborative support of John Armaos. Perhaps some hard experience as an employer would change my mind. I know I have seen several women at NASA who took full advantage of numerous training opportunities and then left to become full time parents. But one can make the same argument about people in general who take such training and then leave an employer to work elsewhere. So employers need more power to account for training costs regardless of gender.

EDIT: Laura Maria D'Agostino, I found your post interesting but very hard to read. Could you please edit it for paragraph breaks?

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 8/03, 6:29am)

Post 10

Thursday, August 3, 2006 - 7:48am

Luke the other thing to note as well is women statistically tend to take more frequent leaves of absence then men do. Why this is important is due to most companies offering a progressive payscale to employees based on the amount of time an employee has put in to the company. Or another words, wages are determined by experience. So when women take more frequent leaves of absence, they are in essence putting on hold their career and foregoing some time accumulation in experience. If I could write out a graph I think I could better explain. It's not even necessarily the case as you say that you prejudge a woman candidate based on statistical models. (although that can occur)

To try and illustrate, take a career woman who works for the same company her whole life but has taken frequent leaves of absences due to pregnancy and other family planning. Then let's measure out the total amount of work hours she's put in to the company measures as (y):

(y)_________________

Now for a man that hasn't taken these frequent leaves of absence, measure as (x):

(x)_________________________

Since men stick with a job longer, and have fewer breaks in their career, they have graduated so to speak to higher levels of pay from their employer. Essentially the woman in this example is constantly trying to catch up in experience to compete with the man in this example.

Post 11

Thursday, August 3, 2006 - 8:28am

Would it be fair to say that since insurance companies can justifiably use statistics to determine insurance rates based on gender, age, medical and driving history, etc., that employers can justifiably use statistics to determine wages using the same "unchosen" and "chosen" qualities?

I have always found it odd that insurance companies can legally use statistics based on "unchosen" qualities like age and gender to determine "unequal" premiums while employers cannot do the same to determine "unequal" wages. I guess insurance companies have better lobbyists than do employers! I recall feeling annoyed that I had to pay higher automobile insurance premiums as a single man under the age of 25 solely because of the poor driving records of other men in that category. So I still find this use of statistics morally questionable, to say the least.

John Armaos, your argument about unequal experience leading to unequal pay makes perfect sense intellectually and ethically. I like it much more than appeals to statistics because it relies on chosen qualities of an individual without resorting to collectives with unchosen qualities. Hence, it falls much more in line with the Objectivist virtue of Justice.

Post 12

Thursday, August 3, 2006 - 9:48am

Bill wrote:
The only thing that determines what workers should be paid is whatever their services are worth to employers, just as the only thing that determines what merchants should be paid is whatever their goods are worth to consumers.
Bill, I meant an "apples for apples" comparison. If I hire Smith and Jones at the same time and have both working for me for the same amount of hours daily doing the same quality of work and the same kind of work with the same productive output, I will pay them the same wages. Gender does not even play a role in this instance.

If your argument still applies to Smith and Jones, I would like to see why.

Perhaps you mean that Smith does a better job than Jones of negotiating salary upon hiring. In that case, I can agree with you. However, that can create other problems of "office politics" and backstabbing and so forth that result from workers feeling, justifiably, that some get treated worse than others for no good cause whatsoever. So I still see a moral incentive to pay equally for equal performance.

Okay. Thanks, Luke, for the explanation. Your view is not as objectionable as I thought. But consider this: Suppose that Jim Jones and Anna Nicole Smith are being paid the same wage, say, $10 an hour, when along comes Sylvia Brown who says that she'll do Smith's job for $9 an hour. Brown really needs the work and is willing to bid down the wage in order to get hired. Well, if Smith wants to keep her job, she's going to have to be willing to meet Brown's offer; otherwise, it's in the employer's interest to fire Smith and hire hire Brown at a lower wage. So, rather than lose her job to Brown, Smith agrees to work for $9 an hour. Now we have Jones working for $10 an hour and Smith working for $9 an hour, both doing the same quality of work and the same kind of work with the same productive output. Where's the injustice? Smith can't reasonably object, because her cut in pay is due to competition from Brown, not to any arbitrary discrimination on the employer's part. Nor can she blame the employer for wanting to hire Brown if Brown is willing to work for a lower wage. That's just good, honest competition. Nor can she blame the employer for retaining her at a wage that she is willing to accept in order to outcompete Brown for the job. That too is just good, honest competition.

The whole notion of equal pay for equal work is based on an intrinsic theory of value, of which the labor theory of value is but one version. "Equal pay for equal work" ignores competition, on which a truly free labor market is based. It also ignores the right of a worker to bargain individually with the employer. Today, of course, collective bargaining is mandated by existing labor law. Our entire view of what is proper treatment for wage-earners is mired in the dogmas of collectivism and egalitarianism. A truly individualist society would spurn any such notion as "equal pay for equal work." The only vestige of individualism that remains in this culture is expressed at the level of business enterprises. No one would think of demanding "Equal price for equal service," according to which two supermarkets selling the same products would have to sell them for the same price. Competition is readily accepted in this realm, but when it comes to workers selling their labor services, it's a different story.

This, again, is due to the influence of Marxism and of the labor movement. Collectivism is only capable of seeing people as members of groups, e.g., Labor and Management; Workers and Capitalists. So Labor has one common interest; Management, another. The idea that the economic interests of individual workers could be different, just as the economic interests of individual capitalists are, has never crossed their minds. Any difference in how workers are treated or in how they are paid must be evidence of an injustice, because egalitarianism is collectivism's only moral compass. It is this insidious idea of income equality that needs to be rooted out, if people are ever to understand and fully appreciate the value of a free society.

I will, of course, reject in whole the feminist notion of "comparable pay for comparable work" as it has no basis in the reality of free markets.

Yes. Thanks for clarifying that.

- Bill

Post 13

Thursday, August 3, 2006 - 10:16am

Bill I agree with you 100 percent. But I think the gist of the original issue is explaining why in a competitive labor market there exists a wage gap based on gender and not just something that is based on individuals competing for a job. Yes it makes sense that individuals should compete for jobs, and it's obvious that individuals competing for these jobs would be taking wage offers that differ from one another. But if we were to graph this out and take gender into consideration there is a clear wage gap and explaining this as individuals competing for wages I don't think gives us a full explanation. There is a gender wage gap, which I maintain, and there is plenty of data to back it up, that it's not because of a sexist workplace but because of lifestyle choices among women.

If there is an equilibrium wage reached, and all things being equal, gender shouldn't be a factor. But all things are not equal because women cannot be as competitive with men if they statistically take frequent leaves of absence. They just simply can't choose to leave work and still make irrational demands of getting equal pay with men that don't leave work.

Post 14

Thursday, August 3, 2006 - 10:51am

Bill, I agree with the essentials of your points. An employer would have to set his own internal hiring and compensation policies in a way that attracts the best people for the best price. So some occasions would call for a policy of "equal pay for equal work" and others would not. This depends entirely on the culture the employer wants to create according to his own unique values system compatible with market constraints.

I will amend my closing statement in Post 0 of this thread to say:

"Morally, I support paying each employee, as a unique individual, a compensation justifiable within the context of a free market. The law needs to remain silent on the issue."

John wrote:

They just simply can't choose to leave work and still make irrational demands of getting equal pay with men that don't leave work.

Sadly, many feminists do just that in the name of "egalitarianism." Fortunately, cultural changes will further erode the credibility of such demands. These include:

The rise of the knowledge age worker who relies on brains and not brawn and can often earn more money at home than in a traditional workplace.
Commensurate with the previous point, various studies showing that women can multitask better than men, thus suiting them better to a knowledge age occupation.
The growing acceptability of the "stay at home" dad who raises the children while his wife works.
The equalization of life insurance rates between men and women due to the increased workplace stress, and consequent decrease in life expectancy, of women today compared to a generation ago.

What I am trying to say here is that the whole face of the global economy has changed to the point where women have many options today they did not have in the days of their mothers and grandmothers. I contend these opportunities for women would have arisen regardless of the various intrusive, fascistic laws forcing employers to treat women and men equally.

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 8/03, 12:00pm)

Post 15

Thursday, August 3, 2006 - 11:27am

Very true Luke. And in fact if you look at the wage gap between genders over the last 50 years it has significantly decreased.

Something else I wanted to add Bill and I are taking different economic approaches and we are both correct. Whereas Bill is offering a more microeconomic analysis, I am offering somewhat of a macroeconomic analysis.

I can't help but think though because biologically, women are the ones that get pregnant, not men, that we will most likely always see somewhat of a wage gap between genders in the workplace.

Post 16

Thursday, August 3, 2006 - 11:47am

True, John. That biological fact will not go away soon.

Note, however, that my wife was working right up to delivery. With our first, she was at work the same day she delivered. (She didn�t deliver at work, but came home, had dinner then went to the hospital and delivered.) She took off the three months the law allows her before going back, though she would not have without that law. She would have been back at work very quickly. Medical science will continue to improve until the time from work required will be comparable to that of a man�s time off for the flu.

Post 17

Thursday, August 3, 2006 - 11:59am

I know a local woman Objectivist who owns a State Farm Agency. She returned to work very quickly after her hysterectomy. As a consequence, she has very little tolerance for any extended sick leave whining from her subordinates. She is one tough cookie!

Speaking of reproduction, evidently work has progressed on artificial wombs that can grow mammals outside their mothers. I read an article about it somewhere recently though I cannot recall where. Imagine this technology perfected for humans. The good news is that eventually women who want their own children would no longer have to bear them nor need to rely on surrogate mothers. The bad news is that the anti-abortion nutters might use it as a cause to ban abortions in favor of fetal transfers to artificial wombs! At whose expense? Well ...

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 8/03, 12:05pm)

Post 18

Thursday, August 3, 2006 - 12:08pm

Luke -Very astute, point well made.

Post 19

Thursday, August 3, 2006 - 12:13pm