Government mandates, forces by pain of stinging legal penalties, corporations of a certain size to provide money for health care, of most kinds, to its employees.
Health care is ridiculously expensive, since its costs are occult, because they are occcult, but also because of mundane reasons like lawyers and the insane expectation of perfection. Anyway, once a company reaches a certain size, government tells the company it must part with the bucks.
Now there is never any justification given for this. None. The company is expected to act in loco parentis because it is a company—of a certain size. This is not a reason, but it is given as a reason. There is no real justification for this, a truth which now seems lost, a truth which nobody really wants restored.
The effects are these. One, to make the employee see the company as a master. How else can I get my health taken care of if not for my Employer? Costs of health become hidden at this point. Which causes them to rise.
Two, some companies cannot afford the tax and so fold, downsize, or merge with larger entities. Mergers are more common, though a better term might be absorptions. For consider it is not only health care, but companies are increasingly mandated to pay for vacations for employees (“family leave”), and for myriad other things. Such as “minimum wage”, which pressures and forces the closer of smaller businesses.
The consequence must be that the more requirements faced by companies, the greater the consolidation into fewer, more powerful corporations.
Three, as corporations and government are seen as the founts of all that is necessary, families and communities must weaken. Smaller companies, those smaller than the size required to become an open wallet, lose the ability to compete with larger monoliths. They thus whither or disappear. It’s a wonder companies have not yet been asked to pay for all meals for all family members. I predict this will come in the form of food subsidies or the like, after which the euphemism Employer for Master will be complete.
There is no reason to go to to your family when you can petition government or your employer to take care of a need. As long as you are putting in your endless labor, you see it as your right to receive these “necessities.” Slaves are never without rights. They must be clothed, housed, and cared for lest the work go undone. The amount of caring is in inverse proportion to amount of labor available.
Is there any proof of this theory? Yes. We “A country of monopolies“, says Axios.
The big picture: While his is a dramatic rendering of the state of American agriculture, Petersen has a point: across industries, the U.S. has become a country of monopolies.
* Three companies control about 80% of mobile telecoms. Three have 95% of credit cards. Four have 70% of airline flights within the U.S. Google handles 60% of search. The list goes on. (h/t The Economist)
* In agriculture, four companies control 66% of U.S. hogs slaughtered in 2015, 85% of the steer, and half the chickens, according to the Department of Agriculture. (h/t Open Markets Institute)
* Simlarly [sic], just four companies control 85% of U.S. corn seed sales, up from 60% in 2000, and 75% of soy bean seed, a jump from about half, the Agriculture Department says. Far larger than anyone — the American companies DowDuPont and Monsanto.
As we have reported, some economists say this concentration of market power is gumming up the economy, and is largely to blame for decades of flat wages and weak productivity growth.
Given that it is lobbyists working for corporations that draft most laws for Congress to sign, and that the larger corporations become, the more they can afford top lobbyists, thus the more laws and regulations they will bend their way. Corporations are naturally more dictatorial the more they are like a monopoly, at least is profit is their main motivation.
Thus the government requiring corporations treat their employees like (not chattel) slaves, the larger and fewer the corporations, the weaker the family, and the more staid the economy.
There is no way to break free from this. Not unless we are willing everywhere to acknowledge an employer’s responsibility ends with providing fair wages for a job well done.
Few or no employees are willing to give up their perquisites at this point. That an employer should pay for health “insurance” now seems as obvious as the sun rising in the east.
Not for the last time we conclude that it is our softness which will be our doom.
Bonus prediction! Well, not so much a prediction as a kind of warning. Will the government eventually become so beneficent that it requires most adults to belong to a corporation? (Of which the government is a large example.) After all, we can’t have people going without necessities only corporations can, and must, provide.
Incidentally, think of what would Yang’s $1K per month do to the people?
Ray Dalio is both successful and thoughtful. He recognizes that there are problems, especially of the poor falling behind. The proposed solution is top down system redesign.
It’s long, and if you don’t want to read the whole thing, skip to the “What I Think Should Be Done” section in part 2.
https://www.economicprinciples.org/Why-and-How-Capitalism-Needs-To-Be-Reformed/
If this is representative of the best thinking by our leaders, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
I thought C. Northcote Parkinson addressed this thoroughly in “Parkinson’s Law”, which shows how bureaucracies naturally expand.
This link gives a synopsis of the argument:
http://www.berglas.org/Articles/parkinsons_law.pdf
I can’t agree more regarding the idea the USA has become a country of monopolies. However, you forgot a major player in the game, THE BANKS and IMF.
It’s the natural evolutionary direction of all systems to move toward inequality. A few large channels route most of the flow and many small ones handle what’s left over or distribute flow out at the ends of the channels. It’s a matter of immediate efficiency. Think river systems and deltas. Human systems follow the same imperative. That doesn’t mean its a good situation; it just is.
There are only two solutions to the economic and parallel social problems this structure generates: 1) learn where to profit from it (e.g., own stock in the corporations), 2) have a populace adhering to egalitarian ideals (e.g., the early Christian communities described in Acts 2:44-46; “… with one mind …” ).
This is Belloc’s “Servile State”, essentially. Huh. Most of the articles on the “Servile State” I’ve read have been trying to explain why it didn’t happen. Prematurely, perhaps, though?