Revealing story at FoxSports here.
Turns out Wozniacki doesn't concern herself with finances, barely keeping track of the nearly $10 million a year she earns in endorsement deals with companies like adidas and Rolex, among others.
"I never think about my brand," the 24-year-old Dane told WSJ. "I want to do well for myself and my sponsors...but I feel no pressure, because I don't play for the money.
"I have enough to eat, buy nice shoes," Wozniacki said. "For me, it's about the tennis and the trophies. I'm not motivated by money."This young lady is in the "rations" cohort of mankind vs. many others who remain in the "wages and debt" cohort.
She has worked herself into a position where she is doing what she wants to do (and seems to be very good at doing) and has all she needs; she has obtained what to her has become an income guaranty.
She is a "slave to Tennis" or a "Tennis warrior", content to slave/war for Tennis while receiving what to her are (very) robust rations as her means of subsistence and provision.
I would offer this as empirical evidence that, with the establishment of a universal income as a new economic policy, it would hardly result in "everyone would stop working".
39 comments:
Good point Matt. In my experience, many scientists/researchers/engineers/computer people are similar. They love the work that they do and probably couldn't even tell you what they make.
Thanks for saying that, Matt.
.
When I used to interview for jobs and the interviewer would ask me what kind of salary I was looking for, I would always say that I wanted to be paid fairly compared to other employees at the company were paid. Beyond having enough to live on, fairness is what matters.
The interesting thing is that many people at the top are like this, which is why the incentive theory of work is woefully inadequate.
Look at Warren Buffet who lives modestly for his wealth and goes to work every in his mid-eighties because he loves it.
Look at Bill Gates, who retired from Microsoft and now work tireless on his service projects, which he pays for instead of getting paid.
Bucky Fuller once said seriously to create a number of Bell labs with all the tech goodies that scientists and engineers could possibly want and turn people who wanted to play with those resources while funding exploration.
He predicted that the outcome would be tech innovation that when scaled would pay for the R&D expenses thousands of times over.
Where would the personnel come from? Free education from pre=school to PHD for those who wanted to pursue it.
Bucky's basic solution to the world's problems was to raise the general level of education, provide affordable, clean and renewable energy, and create a culture in which creativity and exploration are encouraged and supported.
What did he think were the chief obstacles to do this? Ignorance, imaginary lines drawn on maps that create separation, and militarism.
The answer of the sages has been to raise the level of collective consciousness, for this results in increased appreciation for universality, less petty desire and narrow individualism, and less obsessive and narcissistic (pathological) social behavior.
According to them the problem is that a low level of collective consciousness results in cultural pathology based on immature individual disposition that is fixed on satisfying narrow desire and not being able to see that this is actually counterproductive by reducing everyone's potential share. It also constricts one's own growth in the direction of maturity and unfolding of inherent human potential.
In this view, individual desire is to be transcended through natural growth (maturity) that unfolds full human potential, which is realizing unity in diversity and that the nature of life and indeed all reality is bliss. To miss growing into that inherent potential is the booby prize.
Capitalism, being based on self-interest, is the result of a low level of collective consciousness that a culture of capitalism promotes a low level of collective consciousness. The way to break this cycle is to raise the level of collective consciousness. How? Inquire of those who have trod the path and know the way, and put into practice what they say.
What goods does she produce?
Entertainment, which is a service. Actually entertainment is a broad category and occupies a large place in a developed economy. Which is one of the reason for a lot of the kerfuffle over intellectual and artistic property rights to protect gains from that type of transaction.
Why is a sport figure paid so much to perform by way of prize money, advertising? Etc. Because it’s the central aspect of a sprawling industry that links directly to the rest of the economy through marketing and advertising.
What contribution to society does hit make. Sportsfans, music fans, etc, think it is a lot judging from ticket sales and seat prices, for instance.
Then there is the question of what celebrity is worth. Is economic rent involved?
Mar,
right the only thing that matters is the next iPhone....
What does a fisherman produce?
Mercantilism isn't everything....
I wonder how Wozniacki is categorized in the unemployment survey.
Sometimes I think that the fall in the nation's labor force participation rate results from larger portions of the workforce that do not participate in old fashioned 9-5 jobs but earn their cheeseburgers in other ways.
Sometimes I think that the fall in the nation's labor force participation rate results from larger portions of the workforce that do not participate in old fashioned 9-5 jobs but earn their cheeseburgers in other ways.
No doubt this is happening to some degree. The invisible economy has been expanding since the Sixties. It's different from the unpaid work of the informal economy. It's people banding together to create a parallel economy. It tends to be a cash, barter, and sharing economy that doesn't leave a paper trail, so it is difficult to measure. But it also includes aspects that are on the grid" such as coops, some of which have grown quite large. The New Pioneer coop that started in Iowa City has now expand to another store in the adjacent Coralville and is in the process of building a new store in Cedar Rapids about 25 miles away. Iowa City and Cedar Rapids are joined by a corridor along I-380.
Iowa also has a history of utopian communities.
Is This Heaven? Iowa's Utopian Communities
I have lived in such communities beginning in the late Sixties and have visited many more. This is much larger and more well established phenomenon that many realize.
She probably produces more value than the average FIRE sector CEO anyway.
Ok, she is no doubt more productive than me, and I'm an idealistic and hardworking civil servant (for all the good that does me), but does not everything you guys say point to the need for a job guarantee not a universal income? That is, at least if we take what MMTers tend to say to heart: too much money chasing too few goods, and all that.
Marian, you might find some thoughts by Peter Cooper of interest - Supporting a Basic Income Guarantee on Incentive Grounds as well as Some Reasons for Guaranteeing Both an Income and Job
Clonal: thanks for the links; I'll check em out. Incidentally, not against income support, only AFTER job guarantee, but as I say, I'll read the link pieces you recommend.
Mar,
I think the JG would work for the 'wages and debt' cohort but it seems to me to come up short with the 'rations' cohort...
Agree with Clonal check out the writings of PeterC and our Tom here from what I view as the 'rations' perspective... Marx is often in view with this cohort... it seems they just dont want it to be a 'quid pro quo' or a 'wages and debt' relationship...
Seems to me they would rather it be 'slaving' or 'warring' while being provided 'rations' by a higher authority (Tennis?) than themselves or the other person with whom they are working with (Serena Williams?)....
so with the UI they would be being provided 'rations' from a higher authority (govt institution) while they would be then happy to 'slave' or 'war' for their fellow members of mankind doing what they wanted and what they were good at...
they dont seem to look at it as "well, I'll only do something for you if you agree to then do something for me..." seems to me they simply recoil at this pov... perhaps seems crass or cheap...
they want to work, but they dont want it to seem that the only reason they are doing what they are working at is because they are going to get paid wages...
rsp,
Mar,
PeterC wrote this recently:
"Viewed from one side, the side of workers,.... that to obtain a unit of the currency, workers need to perform x amount of socially necessary labor time. Currency value, under this definition, is therefore a measure of difficulty in accessing what in a monetary economy is essential to workers’ survival, and, together with the general price level, is an indication of the degree of coercion that is being exerted on them to sell their labor power to an employer."
So this 'coercion' is in view...
contrast this with young Caroline W here: "I... feel... no... pressure..., because I don't play for the money..." Caroline does not consider herself 'coerced' at all... she is happily 'warring/slaving' for Tennis....
"Now to the worker, the wage is not reckoned as a favor, but as a debt." Romans 4:4
the "debt" or "wage" relation creates an enforceable legal obligation that they know they must legally comply with (they DO reckon authority here so they are not as libertarian as they sometimes think they are...)
This cohort simply does not want their relationships with others of mankind to be viewed as 'coerced' in any way, shape or form.... this ultimately should be accommodated in some way for them imo...
rsp,
Yeah, and Paul was fine with slavery (in the context of the times). Jesus is not on record of ever having spoken out against slavery either.
Taking the NT as literally today is looked on by many biblical scholars, historians, and theologians as naïve. It's like originalist interpretations of the Constitution that look to what the Founding Fathers thought. Well, there slavery in the Constitution, too.
The world moves on.
Clonal: Thanks for the link, but I find Peter Cooper's argument rather weak, and thoroughly demolished by Neil Wilson' entries in the comments section. BIG to my mind would moderate but essentially reproduce current forms of dependency (what is BIG but welfare at a higher level), risks creating a kind of unemployment hysteresis "lite", risks further dividing the earning classes (who under the JG can organize themselves in self-defence against those who would impose unemployment), and would likely socially marginalize recipients. Moreover, I suggest that in an economy where effective demand is sufficiently supported, there will be sufficient personal savings in the system, sufficient charitable spending, sufficient co-operatisation and mutualisation that alternative, artistic and other endeavour will be relatively easy to resource. So, I say, JG first, income guarantees AFTER.
Moreover, I suggest that in an economy where effective demand is sufficiently supported, there will be sufficient personal savings in the system, sufficient charitable spending, sufficient co-operatisation and mutualisation that alternative, artistic and other endeavour will be relatively easy to resource.
Can you support that assumption with evidence, or is it a belief?
Matt Franko: I largely agree, though I think we would do better to focus less on the "social license" that the JG offers participants (as opposed to BIG recipients), and far more on the option that allows earners to organize in self-defence, solidarity, and electoral force. There is a disquieting anarchism to the comments of some supporters of the BIG. It is disquieting because it is on the surface so attractive -- having seen how corrupt, coercive and imbalanced most of our governmental systems are, some seem to dream of a world where they can live altervative lifestyles free from the drudgery of everyday wage slavery. I get the emotional appeal! Yet, ya can't be alternative AND part of a universal income program -- unless, that is, you are part of the elite that imposes it! Talking of Marxism, the JG would come closer to the mantra of "from each according to his ability to each according to his knees." Practically, if you want to be freed from coercion, the best option is the co-operative movement, IMO. There, you will be relatively less coerced, although the implications of tax-driven money will still apply.
Tom Hickey and Matt: Each according to his KNEES indeed! needs! Needs, I mean!
Tom: I make that assertion partly from evidence, partly from belief. I worked in Canada for quite a few years in developing policy for not-for-profits and the broader social economy (in the non-Marxist sense). I think the data (from StatsCana and other voluntary and non-profit sector surveys) is quite clear that funding for not-for-profit economy rises very much in the sense I suggested, where there is sufficient effective demand. Of course, there is also downloading to the sector when auterity hits and effective demand declines, and this can drive greater use of the sector, in its myriad alternative forms, but invariably the sector is at the same time overburdened and ever more dependent on the whims of austerity-minded policy makers and the social responsibility industry. So mine is more belief than evidence, but fairly consistent with the data I know.
I have speculated that the JG would be more radical than that if it were design to give workers freedom from the necessity to accept job offers just to stay in the game. This would plant a bomb at the heart of capitalism by circumventing one of its chief tools, the buffer stock of unemployed.
But in this is not sufficient to overcome the neoliberalism and oligarchic democracy. For that deep cultural and institutional are also required. This change is not going to come about by making workers at the bottom free of having to accept a socially unacceptable situation. The BSU is just on tool in the neoliberal toolbox. There are lot more that need to be addressed.
Agreed. But you have to start somewhere.
I agree that a JG is the place to start. It would be a game changer.
Marian,
In modern states that exist now, where artificial scarcity is enforced in private property law, it is fair that all people are compensated by the state. Call it a resources dividend or whatever. It is the state that enables the private enclosure of resources needed to live. As it is now, the private entities doing the enclosing bear almost no cost in doing it. The state pays all of the enforcement costs and receives most of society's ill will that would otherwise be directed at those doing the enclosing.
Jeff65: sure, that is a fair description of how modern power works. But what of it? It's not fair? Don't you see that these moral dimensions, even where they are true, are largely irrelevant? I don't want to COMPENSATE the earning classes for injustice, I want to EMPOWER them to seize a bigger portion of the real goods, leisure, environmental and personal safety, and power in society. JG does that better than any other option I know, and promises to provide revolutionary changes without revolutionary conflict or rhetoric. (Except here - shshshshsh.)
Marian,
A JG isn't going to empower anyone beyond having a little control over their immediate future - a BIG does the same. The empowerment argument is less offensive moralizing, but it is still moralizing, IMO.
Besides, you'll still have a significant group who is not impaired, but wont take up or cooperate with the JG. In the latter case, they'll make misery for those who have signed on to the JG with good intentions. This will produce as much moralizing as the present situation.
I see the big advantage of the BIG as its inclusiveness. The JG will simply rearrange the divisiveness of the situation we already have.
I think any JG is at a near 100% risk of being morphed into humiliating work for the dole schemes proposed or already in place.
Again, the prime importance of the JG is its effect on aggregate demand and elimination of involuntary unemployment: that is what is empowering: the effect on the macroeconomy. BIG appears not to have the same effect, since for it to lift anyone out of poverty, it has to be set so high that it will drive inflation to socially unacceptable levels. See Randy Wray and Pavlina Tcherneva's work on this.
Marian, you might find this monograph of interest - Bring Back the WPA: Work, Relief and the Origins of American Social Policy in Welfare Reform
This is a must read for anybody interested in a JG - the WPA has to be a model for any JG program - both for its success, as well as why it was ultimately short lived, and was never resurrected.
" it has to be set so high that it will drive inflation to socially unacceptable levels. See Randy Wray and Pavlina Tcherneva's work on this."
Its not 'work', they are elaborate assertions....
And well if that is what they think then they might as well sign on with the NAIRU people... and are complicit with the concept of an army of unemployed...
Prices are not going to go up unless the govt agrees to it by either paying the higher prices or lending at the higher prices... COLAs, etc...
The ironic thing is that these elites all work themselves into these positions where they are 'slaving' and no longer 'working' and then when non-elites advocate for the same thing via a UI/BIG, they deny the policy... what a bunch of hypocrites...
rsp,
"some seem to dream of a world where they can live altervative lifestyles free from the drudgery of everyday wage slavery."
Mar,
It doesnt look like there can be 'wage-slavery' that is an oxymoron... one is either slaving for rations or working for wages...
'wage slavery' looks like a phrase used by people to describe a situation of inappropriately low wages.. or "bad pay"... this is bad policy also...
We should want policy such that people are either working for robust wages or slaving for robust rations...
rsp,
That true, but only partially, the really empowering effect is to increase worker freedom from economic pressure and increase worker freedom to negotiate wages in the private sector. An underlying principe of "liberal economics" is controlling cost by wage suppression through reducing labor bargaining power.
The fundamental socio-economic factor is power, which conventional economics avoids mentioning. A society's institutions that determine social behavior is determined by the power structure, and in a democratic society with a capitalist economy the result is oligarchic democracy unless capitalism is bridled to eliminate oligarchy.
Then TPTB say that this is not longer capitalism but socialism. Fine, we need democratic socialism, then, that delivers on the fine-sounding but now false slogan, "government of the people, by the people and for the people."
From the outset of the US, the political issue has been about the above, espoused by Tom Paine and later Abraham Lincoln, and the principle enunciated by first Chief Justice John Jay that those who own the country should rune the country.
A JG, along with removal of barriers to collective bargaining, would be steps in the right direction. But the underlying issue is rebalancing political power to the people and away from "those who own the country," now championed by ALEC and the Chamber of Commerce, for example, as well as an army of well-funded political operatives, think tanks, and lobbyists.
As a result there will be huge opposition to altering the status quo to balance labor and capital & management. TPTB will first try to kill any change and to the degree that they can't, they will water it, divert it and cripple it, and then to whittle it away over time.
There is only one fix for this system and it is a redesign. It's clear that the American experiment has essentially failed politically, too, having morphed into the successor to the British Empire, but ruled by a figure-head president with dictatorial power, who is a puppet for the ruling elite that select US leaders through a corrupt political process.
"Trust the process?"
First, I used the term wage-slavery in the context of a light critique (almost a parody) of a certain romantic way of thinking, didn't I, i.e. as not my own view? Second, I think some people on this site are a little weak on the metaphor: the term wage-slavery has a long and honourable history, from Humbolt to Proudhon to Marx to Chomsky etcd, by way of important cultural figures like Ewan Macoll. From Wiikipedia: "According to Noam Chomsky, analysis of the psychological implications of wage slavery goes back to the Enlightenment era. In his 1791 book On the Limits of State Action, classical liberal thinker Wilhelm von Humboldt explained how "whatever does not spring from a man's free choice, or is only the result of instruction and guidance, does not enter into his very nature; he does not perform it with truly human energies, but merely with mechanical exactness" and so when the laborer works under external control, "we may admire what he does, but we despise what he is." This view, I suggest, is fairly consistent with the ideals of those who strive for a parrallel economy (although they are not big on despising, to be fair).
Wray provides an excellent discussion of the potentially inflationary impact of BIG at http://www.economonitor.com/lrwray/2013/07/09/how-big-is-big-enough-would-the-basic-income-guarantee-satisfy-the-unemployed/
And to Tom, you are not wrong about the effect on labour bargaining power, but, as Wray indicates in the article cited above, an aim of the JG is to so sustain employment and effective demand that a relatively small number are actually on the JG most of the time. So, labour bargaining power proceeds from the macroeconomic stabilization provided by the JG. You and I are agreed on that, are we not?
Clonal: thanks once again for aninteresting piece to read.
So, labour bargaining power proceeds from the macroeconomic stabilization provided by the JG. You and I are agreed on that, are we not?
Yes, I essentially agree with the MMT analysis.
In addition, some MMT economists hold that the JG does not preclude some sort of basic income as an option. This prevents the JG from being turned into workfare, which would be the push from the right.
Most importantly, I see MMT as basically "Keynesian" In the sense of an attempt to save capitalism from itself. I don't think capitalism can be saved from itself because capitalists will be capitalists. The system needs to be redesigned.
Chomsky lays out some basic here:
Noam Chomsky lecture from 1970 (!) -- full text transcript
Government in the Future. Poetry Center, New York. February 16, 1970
MMT is fine as far as it goes but it doesn't go far enough for a lasting fix. Look at what eventually happened to the New Deal. They'll always be back.
I understand that the MMT economists have a particular mission that is different. That's fine and I support that mission as a step forward from the dismal present.
But it is nowhere near far enough and until economic is integrated with the life and social sciences instead of being modeled on physics, academic economics will continue to be a capitalist tool. The foundations are built on prioritizing money and machines over people and the environment, and the cultural and institutional bias is that to reverse the priorities results in socialism if not communism. Thatcher summed it up, TINA, "there is no alternative" to neoliberalism.
Keynes was a conservative and so was Minsky, as are all so-called political liberals today. The Keynesian approach is basically compassionate conservatism.
The vision that is being born exists in the invisible economy, the invisible university, and other invisible parallels to the moribund conventional institutions, and the forward thinking is happening far from the mainstream, so far that most of the mainstream is unaware that it even exists.
Example — during the trucking strike in the Seventies when I was living in DC as grad student and heavily involved in the "countercultural revolution," the supermarket shelves were quickly emptied by hoarders. However, the DFH's had their own coop's that remained fully stocked and even though they were very visible to others, none of the "straight" people ("straight" had a different meaning then) ever went it. It was abundantly obvious that these were parallel worlds existing side by side.
In his 1791 book On the Limits of State Action, classical liberal thinker Wilhelm von Humboldt explained how "whatever does not spring from a man's free choice, or is only the result of instruction and guidance, does not enter into his very nature; he does not perform it with truly human energies, but merely with mechanical exactness" and so when the laborer works under external control, "we may admire what he does, but we despise what he is."
This view is close to the contemporary "liberal" political view. Contemporary liberals are mostly members of the elite that have no connection with non-elite, don’t understand them, and don't want to actually associate with them. The "Volvo liberals" of US politics and "latte liberals" that donate to liberal causes.
While conservatives want to improve "the lower classes," liberals want to improve their lives. But there is almost no concern or investigation of what makes "the lower classes" tick and what they actually want. Hint: they don't envy the rich and want to live like them.
"Hint: they don't envy the rich and want to live like them."
Ha Tom right!
These people probably read this story on Caroline here not being concerned and are like "Whaaaaaaaattttt?????"
LOL! rsp,
Matt, I've already told the story of a family across the street from where I was living a couple years ago winning a 50 million lottery. They chose the 20 million cash after taxes. They used the money to assist family and friends, and gave some to their church, too. The wife, a nurse, had a crappy employer, and quit her job. He was a tradesman who loved his work and his buddies and kept right on doing what he was doing. The only visible difference was a bigger boat in the driveway.
On the other hand, a lot of people that hit a lottery end up ruining their lives and wasting the money. They don't end up living like the rich either.
Different mindsets.
The current labour market structure has some interesting points regarding the "rations" cohort of the population too, for example the insanely disproportionate FIRE sector which probably does not add any value (if anything, it destroys value and sucks other parts of the economy) is seen as many as an opportunity to get "money to do what I want"!
A lot of smart and talented people goes to finance thinking that one day, some day, they will have enough and they will be able to enjoy life having acquired "financial independence" (ofc most times it plays differently, because a lot of people is drown in the "social status" game and swap towards the "wage and debt" cohort as they grow older and rise a family accommodated to certain life style).
There is a lot of people who just seeks a job as an steep to achieve "rations" and be able to do whatever they want (achieve freedom), ofc only a small percentage of the population ever achieves it because of the idiosyncrasies of life.
There is a lot of people who just seeks a job as an step to achieve "rations" and be able to do whatever they want (achieve freedom), ofc only a small percentage of the population ever achieves it because of the idiosyncrasies of life.
Actually, a lot of people do achieve because their desires are fairly limited. There is a cohort that regards "doing whatever I want to do" extravagantly, but from the POV of many that is irrational. The rational outcome they desire is satisfying rather simple goals. Most would like work that they love doing and enough leisure and resources to enjoy time with family and friends. Community is also a high priority for them and a safe, clean environment.
It doesn't take too much to satisfy ordinary folks. There are more than enough resources available in developed countries to do so now just by improving organization and distribution that mostly entails changing the priorities. The developing world is more of challenge, but that's a matter more of organization than lack of resources.
Current priorities, organization and resource use are degrading one of the chief factors in satisfaction, the environment. This is irrational and uneconomical based on rational pursuit of max u. Environmental quality is a major factor in quality of life, and it has huge utility for most people. There is agreement on this pretty much from far right to far left.
'They' have control of energy, they have control of food, they have control of water, they are working on air ... meanwhile we 'work'.
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