[ethbro]

The biggest problem, when I look at the American labor market, is that it seems physically unjust.

The sweat of a person's brow and the wear and tear on their body should have some intrinsic value above and beyond what the market will bear.

That someone working as a farm hand, mover, framer, or roofer gets paid a pittance compared to what I earn for sitting in a climate controlled office, moving my fingers, and thinking? I can't reconcile that with any definition of "fair."

UBI is perhaps one way to address this. Wealth transfer to increase robotics usage and physical mechanization / automation application is perhaps another.

But no one should end up with a broken body at 65 just because we stopped aspiring to do better by each other.

[eli_gottlieb]

>That someone working as a farm hand, mover, framer, or roofer gets paid a pittance compared to what I earn for sitting in a climate controlled office, moving my fingers, and thinking? I can't reconcile that with any definition of "fair."

We all know manual labor isn't that productive, so there's an upper limit on how much the laborer can be paid (the marginal productivity). The problem is the exploitation: the wages unorganized workers receive are far, far below their marginal productivity.