Things in my Tabs

[jhameia]

So apparently I'm doing this instead of Sunday Linkfests for the next while.

2008 article that Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote about Bill Cosby: This Is How We Lost To the White Man

People of Colour Organize!: POC Anti-Racist Organizing and Burnout

Erna Mahyuni (whom some of you may know as the NaNo ML for Malaysia!) at TMI: What Minimum Wage Opponents Don't Get (I am personally appalled that there are such people in Malaysia... back in my second year I was asking already what our minimum wage was and I'm just ashamed of us nouveau-rich middle-class scumbags who can't refuse to understand the wage gap.)

The Angry Black Tumblr got a message for Tumblr staff.

Moral Heroes: Betty Bigombe, Northern Uganda activist organizer

Comments

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

Reading the minimum wage article, it's... I guess a little bit like looking into the past with some of those comments. MINIMUM WAGE WILL BANKRUPT US AND CLOSE BUSINESSES. Shock: it doesn't. It closes some businesses, but everything closes some businesses.

It's depressing how the rhetoric is always the same, too, just swap out the currency and the racial scapegoats and it could be about nearly any country.

[karcy.livejournal.com]

(I think you mean 'just refuse'...)

I find that it's really tough to talk about minimum wage in Malaysia because both sides for and against are very emotional about it. I have objections to minimum wage, and it's not because I'm a middle class scumbag who isn't acquainted with poverty, it's because I don't see it as being able to increase the poor's consumer power -- ie. stuff that they can't afford now won't be available after minimum wage implementation. The way some of it's supporters go, it's as though if you make it compulsory for every person to get a minimum of RM 1000 all the things that are currently affordable to someone with RM 1000 will be there. And it won't, because the very concept of some things being a luxury is because it's priced at a range that is exclusive of others.

(as it is, the minimum wage is RM 900, which neither affects the market significantly nor alleviates the poor, at least not in the Klang Valley. I'm interested to know how it works out in East Malaysia.)

At most, I think it prevents cases of severe exploitation, but as a tool for eliminating poverty I feel it's limited -- although I'm willing to be proven wrong.

[fantasyecho.livejournal.com]

It's definitely limited given how the economic system is set up with inflation happening all the time, but you hit the point of it: preventing exploitation. That's what it's supposed to do. It's a buffer. It's not meant to eliminate poverty by itself; that's a system-wide problem that a thing like a pay raise across the board can't fix. But having a minimum wage that is acknowledged, also means that we can start talking about wages as something that can be and should be negotiable, opening up a conversation on costs, supplies, what self-sufficiency means, what is luxury and what is livable, so on so forth. I don't see minimum wage as a way of raising consumer power either. Consumerism isn't part of this equation; survival and some basic dignity is. And without a minimum wage, it's very difficult to maintain them both together.

[karcy.livejournal.com]

I do agree with this.

It's just the sentiment supporting minimum wage that I have issues with, which I found a lot in Erna's article (although, to be fair, she was responding to the thoughts of some people she encountered online) and in some other people sharing her opinions on this -- the idea that it can work to eliminate poverty.

There's some personal anecdata involved too; Erna and I both have East Malaysian roots which made us acquainted with poverty, although she grew up with hers and I mostly witnessed it. I don't think the classmates whom I grew up with had a problem getting the necessities: they could get a basic education, and food. But they had problems getting the 'luxuries': good education, good food. I don't see minimum wage as being able to solve that problem, and to me that's where the problem of poverty (in Malaysia) lies -- it's not the lack of access to the necessities (which the State does give plenty of support in), it's the lack of access to good forms of these necessities, which are part of the free market and will experience a price inflation once it loses their exclusivity. (And yes, I have to admit that determining what is 'livable standard', what the 'necessities' are, would be an entirely different conversation and which I'm not qualified to talk about, but it's strongly related to how people responded to minimum wage issues.)

[fantasyecho.livejournal.com]

I tend to link the issue of minimum wage more to migrant worker issues, myself, particularly wrt to the employment of maids in the various middle-class households I know of, and come from. I think the basic necessities are quite accessible in Malaysia myself, but by no means are they enough for any kind of social mobility (of course, I'm still thinking through my concept of social mobility too...).

The way it contributes to eliminating poverty is tied to the fact that now players on the "free market" (keep in mind that I don't believe in ungoverned markets; someone is calling the shots on determining exclusivity, and maintains an underclass in order to retain value for certain luxuries that really ought not to be luxuries) are forced to consider the effects of their exploitation, and the underclass now have a platform upon which to negotiate for better access (if not consumer power).

I don't think that things like good education and good food should be part of this "free market", at the end of the day. No one should have to barter with profiteers for such things which are to me basic. But they are, and they are thus tied to questions of wage, and accessibility.

And I say this as someone who will totally go out of her way to buy luxury items. But they are trifling things.

[karcy.livejournal.com]

From what I understand, the minimum wage rule doesn't apply to migrant workers. At least, one of the objections raised is that the implementation of minimum wage will mean that the employers who are already exploiting workers will simply hire migrant ones (illegally, if possible).

[fantasyecho.livejournal.com]

That's the next thing: minimum wage should apply to everybody. And while that objection might be true, the fact is that employers are ALREADY hiring migrant workers. Illegal ones, even. They're the perfect fall guys; they're in the country working illegally; why would they complain and risk deportation or jail? With minimum wage in place, applying to EVERYONE, not just citizens, employers would at least come under fire for illegally hiring and exploiting the already-cheap labour from migrant workers. Part of the point of minimum wage is to recognize the value of the workers' labour as equitably as possible. That includes all workers. If it only applies to citizens and employers then move onto exploiting migrant workers as a result, then it clearly proves that our system is unethical (and hella more racist than we already think it is) and I think there's a human rights thing in there too. But first you gotta have minimum wage in place as a set standard.

[karcy.livejournal.com]

I think we both agree on what should happen, and I'm certainly not saying that I share this objection.

That said, you can call me cynical, but I think I'm just being realistic: that scenario you're suggesting isn't likely to happen because Malaysia has a terrible track record of protecting both migrant and workers' rights.

[fantasyecho.livejournal.com]

I'm a pessimist realist myself. I just don't concern with what is likely or unlikely, but what should happen, and figure out ways to get there. My own family has a terrible record with maids and I don't foresee them changing anytime soon, but I can still call them out on their racist, classist shit whenever I can. It's really easy to get stymied with "good idea, but that can't happen!" and kind of defeatist to wave away the possibility. Yes, be realistic: we Malaysians are complete fucking racist assholes towards migrant workers, not just institutional-level but on personal levels too. So we begin the work from that position.

[karcy.livejournal.com]

I think this is moving into completely different territory then what I initially commented on.