Denkverbot

mativka wrote:A ja sam sinonim za što? :)

nikakov sinonim, nego je reko da ne će kozati di je pogrješka osim ako ga neko drugi ne pito

kic wrote:

aben wrote:theres time to think and time not to.

više me sad privlači ova zemlja, no-thinka..

Meni tako većinu vremena :)

aben wrote:

mativka wrote:A ja sam sinonim za što? :)

nikakov sinonim, nego je reko da ne će kozati di je pogrješka osim ako ga neko drugi ne pito

I mene gurneš?:)

kic wrote:

aben wrote:theres time to think and time not to.

više me sad privlači ova zemlja, no-thinka..

jel to govoris za online debate s neznuncima, ili u reali?

kako argument more pokvoriti odnos? to je nemoguce. u zustroj raspravi ljudi obicno ispolu glupost, a unda ih iskusni debater doceko na volej. i? ubijen je argumenat, a ne osoba.
u slucaju da je argumenat bi osmisljen, ali los, tin bolje, jer ubijanje losih argumentov koristi svima.

ako se argumentacija ne izvede, jo ne mislin da se unda odnos temelji na lazi. ne izreci ne znoci lagati. ali nuzno znoci da je to povrsan odnos.

poznato je veliko prijateljstvo chestertona i georga bernada shawa, u kome su zajeno pekli kobasice, a preko debata se klali ko srbi.
to je po meni ideal prijateljstva. to su ljudi ki su suprotstavljali svoje oprecne filozofije bez iti malo utjecaja na prijateljstvo. cant you see, people are not philosophies.

subjektivna istina, imos primjer?

ne znam šta bih mislio o izrečenome gore, mislim da je pozitivno što se Shaw i Chesterton nisu klali i u reali-

vjerojatno je to ideal koji je teško dostići, jer u meni nešto grebe da ako su praktično poklonici svojih riječi ne bi trebali zajedno okretati burgere tako lako, ali dobro, mislim da su pametniji njih dva od mene pa ne znam ni sam, volim što postoje različite mogućnosti, u prijateljstvu, ljubavi i sličnim odnosima, to su najbolje veze u životu i ne mora biti sve po knjizi

praktični poklonici? da su praktični poklonici takovih ideja da tribo pobiti ljude drukčijih uvjerenja, unda ne bi tribali okrićati hamburgere. ali ako je jedun peder, a drugi misli da je pederastija bolest, unda ne vidin razlog za ne biti prijatelj.
meni idejne rozlike među ljudima, uz uvjet da poštivaju non agression principle, predstavljaju bogatstvo, i  prijatelj iskin ne dilin širok idejni jaz mi zapravo ne tribo.

An Example of Good Friendship – G.K. Chesterton and George Bernard Shaw

Posted on July 24, 2013by Tim
G.K. Chesterton and George Bernard Shaw were great friends who rarely saw eye to eye in their personal philosophies. Note in this passage from his book Heretics how Chesterton praises Shaw’s good sense while criticizing his inability to grasp what most people understand: humanity is worth something but progress for the sake of progress is a waste of time.

After belabouring a great many people for a great many years for being unprogressive, Mr. Shaw has discovered, with characteristic sense, that it is very doubtful whether any existing human being with two legs can be progressive at all. Having come to doubt whether humanity can be combined with progress, most people, easily pleased, would have elected to abandon progress and remain with humanity. Mr. Shaw, not being easily pleased, decides to throw over humanity with all its limitations and go in for progress for its own sake.
If man, as we know him, is incapable of the philosophy of progress, Mr. Shaw asks not for a new kind of philosophy but for a new kind of man. It is rather as if a nurse had tried a rather bitter food for some years on a baby, and on discovering that it was not suitable, should not throw away the food and ask for a new food, but throw the baby out of window and ask for a new baby.

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These two men would debate each other on stage and then dine together afterward, admiring the intellect and integrity of the other. Chesterton’s part in this friendship, as you can see in the quote above, was not to blindly boost Shaw no matter what he said or thought. Rather, he saw this friendship as a place where he could talk things through, hash things out, and come to disagreement if warranted.
Do you have friends like that, friends you can come to disagreement with? I think the Bible tells us this is a good type of friendship.
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Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses. (Proverbs 27:5-6.)

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And as Paul tells us under the New Covenant, there is grace when believers disagree even on doctrinal issues:
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All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. (Philippians 3:15.)

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I admire Chesterton for many things: his clarity of writing, his intellect, his incisive wit. But I also admire him for his example of what real friendship looks like. I want to be like him.[/size]

mativka wrote:

aben wrote:

mativka wrote:A ja sam sinonim za što? :)

nikakov sinonim, nego je reko da ne će kozati di je pogrješka osim ako ga neko drugi ne pito

I mene gurneš?:)

pa ča, to je samo rečenica

evo jedna debata shawa i chestertona, 

poče sun čitati, i prošli su me trnci od uzbuđenja;

...and it is my business to
tell you--is that Mr. Chesterton and I are two madmen. Instead of doing
honest and respectable work and behaving ourselves as ordinary citizens.
we go about the world possessed by a strange gift of tongues....

http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/debate.txt

ebenica wrote:
pa to i mislim, 

Krivo sam te shvatila. :)

čitam, sjajni su!

kic wrote:
čitam, sjajni su!

You have only to call someone by some name like Bolshevist
or Papist.

Mr. Bernard Shaw proposes to distribute wealth.
We propose to distribute power.

romanopisac > dramatičar

For instance, certain passages
in Mr. Chesterton's speech tempted me to get up and smite him over
the head with my umbrella.

MR. CHESTERTON: Among the bewildering welter of fallacies which
Mr. Shaw has just given us, I prefer to deal first with the simplest.
When Mr. Shaw refrains from hitting me over the head with his umbrella,
the real reason--apart from his real kindness of heart, which makes
him tolerant of the humblest of the creatures of God--is not because
he does not own his umbrella, but because he does not own my head.
As I am still in possession of that imperfect organ, I will proceed
to use it to the confutation of some of his other fallacies.

:^^

Why not enact that no person shall live in this community
without pulling his weight in the social boat, without producing
more than he consumes--because you have to provide for
the accumulation of spare money as capital--who does not
replace by his own labour what he takes out of the community,
who attempts to live idly, as men are proud to live nowadays.

zamisli da imomo ovakov denkverbot:)

aben wrote:

uglovnomu, moja poanta je da se ne smimo mišati u odluke odraslih ljudi. prisila stvarnosti nije ni pravedna ni nepravedna. u razmjeni se uvik pretpostavljo da postoji neravnoteža, koju unda razmjena dovede u balans. ako je razmjena dobrovoljna, unda se moro zaključiti da je i pravedna.

ovo ne razumin na ča se odnosi.
ali, jepeta ot mit da nis nika bi u kapitalizmu, da ga nis iskusi, da sun smišan...i sve je krivo, jer sun i bi kapitalis, i trenutno sun kapitalist i poslodavac, samo to je jednostavno nebitno. 
ono o čemu jo govorin su ideje, a ideje ne ovisu o mon statusu, ni o mojin iskkustvu. 
ka jo govorin, unda se oslanjan na velikane pisane riječi, na brdo literature tj na iskustva mnogih. ča mi moje iskustvo tote more reći? sve i da sun razvi firmu veličine amazona, kako bi mi to pomoglo da znun je li minimal wage štetan ili ni? 


 



iskreno, ne mislin da ste ni ćoravi, ni glupi.
ono ča mislin je da ste površni, emotivni, disrespectful, prvoloptaški i da ne čitote.

Ako vidimo da neka odrasla osoba čini štetu drugoj (prevarit će je i iskoristiti), a ta druga osoba je npr. mentalno zaostaloj ali je također odrasla, znači ne trebamo se miješati jer su oboje odrasli, a s obzirom da nema fizičke prisile to je ujedno i pravedno?
Abende, čitaš li ti sebe? Ne znam kamo si zabrijao i je li moguće da uz sve pročitano imaš tako uzak pogled na međuljudske odnose, ono, poput jednosmjerne ceste bez početka i kraja, ali stvarno nekad imaš takve zaključke da posumnjam u tvoju inteligenciju. 


Ma ništa ti ne more reći. Kad se slučajno opečeš vrućom kavom, a ti nemoj vjerovati da te boli, ako to tamo u toj literaturi nigdje ne piše. :D

Eto, takvi smo. Ne čitOmo. Ili čitOmo, ali ne pravu literaturu. Ne navodimo, čije misli citiramo, usuđujemo se misliti samo svojom glavom i zato nismo u pravu mi nego ti koji si pun tuđih misli, citata i zaključaka. Imam osjećaj da se ne razumijemo jer ne raspravljam s tobom nego s tim nepoznatim uglavnom pokojnim autorima. 



Abene, nemoj samo čitati nečije političke ideje, probaj malo čitati i o ekonomiji, shvatiti kako funkcionira tržište, pa ti te definicije dobrovoljnosti neće biti tako nejasne. 

Nije kapitalizam donio napredak čovječanstvu, nego ljudi vizionari. Istina je da su oni svoje vizije mogli bolje prezetirati u kapitalizmu, jer se uvijek netko našao tko je skužio koliko može zaraditi na njihovim idejama, pa ih je prisvojio pojedinac (primjer Tesle i Edisona), a u socijalizmu ih je prisvajala država u ime naroda.


I za kraj: i u socijalizmu i u kapitalizmu vidim i dobrih i loših strana. Ideja komunizma je jednako pravedna kao i ideja kapitalizma (obje ideje imaju cilj boljitak čovjeka), ali ono što se izrodilo iz tih ideja nije ni blizu izvornim idejama. 
Meni osobno je bilo jednako i u jednom i u drugom uređenju jer sam oduvijek živjela samo i isključivo od svog rada. 

P.S. I kad smo već spomenuli čitanje, sad kad nema Šejkera, pročitaj ponekad Melkiora. Vidi se da je dečko mlad, da je puno čitao, ali ne koristi tuđi nego svoj mozak. ;)

violator wrote:Ebeni, evo odgovora, ako ti se cita.


----

Izvan četiri zida

U mojem naselju živi djevojčica koja već drugo ljeto terorizira susjedstvo. Ljudski je biti znatiželjan pa poželjeti saznati tko stoji iza tog prodornog, iritantnog glasa što ledi krv u žilama i koji se od 10:00 do 23:00 oglasi svakih dvadeset sekundi. Kad vrisne, povremeno izletim na balkon ne bih li je ugledao. Prčvoljak u lila trenirci, neznatno viša od metra.
U nekoliko navrata poželio sam otići do parka i pitati je čemu to urlanje i to baš svaki put kad joj netko priđe. Ili ako joj ne priđe, ako netko novi stiže na igralište, ako netko odlazi kući, silazi s ljuljačke, penje se na klackalicu, kad netko prošeta psa, ako cestu pretrči mačka…
To dijete radarskom osjetljivošću opaža stvari oko sebe i sve primijećeno prati prodornim krikom koji između zgrada, pojačan zidovima, stvara eho koji će jednog dana, siguran sam, srušiti minaret na islamskom centru, zvonik na crkvi, bukobran na zaobilaznici, odići će šaht s tla i razbiti nečiji auto… netko bi mogao i poginuti.
Posljednji put kad sam odlučio sići do parka i bez nervoze je pitati u čemu je stvar, baš netom u trenutku kad sam prišao vratima i dohvatio kvaku, shvatio sam da tom djetetu, koje i samo nije više od kvake na vratima, ne bih mogao pogledati u oči. Ne bih imao snage ništa je pitati. Suočavanje bi bilo sto puta gore iskustvo za mene negoli za nju.
Jer možda je taj park između zgrada jedino mjesto gdje uopće smije nešto reći, gdje si može dati oduška da bude svoja, mjesto gdje osjeća da može bez opterećenja skrenuti pažnju na sebe, biti slobodna, biti i svoj i svačiji centar svijeta. Tko zna što se događa u njezinoj kući između četiri zida, u njezinom životu, u glavi, u srcu? Sudeći po tome kako se ponaša, ništa normalno. A meni je, kukavički, lakše slušati kako vrišti dok joj lice ne postane purpurno, negoli je zamišljati kako kod kuće mora šutjeti.

~ Zoran Žmirić / Kaleidoskop

:)

Da. Moguće je.

ok, i really enjoyed that.
belloc je svrši vizionarski.

Ra wrote:

aben wrote:

uglovnomu, moja poanta je da se ne smimo mišati u odluke odraslih ljudi. prisila stvarnosti nije ni pravedna ni nepravedna. u razmjeni se uvik pretpostavljo da postoji neravnoteža, koju unda razmjena dovede u balans. ako je razmjena dobrovoljna, unda se moro zaključiti da je i pravedna.

ovo ne razumin na ča se odnosi.
ali, jepeta ot mit da nis nika bi u kapitalizmu, da ga nis iskusi, da sun smišan...i sve je krivo, jer sun i bi kapitalis, i trenutno sun kapitalist i poslodavac, samo to je jednostavno nebitno. 
ono o čemu jo govorin su ideje, a ideje ne ovisu o mon statusu, ni o mojin iskkustvu. 
ka jo govorin, unda se oslanjan na velikane pisane riječi, na brdo literature tj na iskustva mnogih. ča mi moje iskustvo tote more reći? sve i da sun razvi firmu veličine amazona, kako bi mi to pomoglo da znun je li minimal wage štetan ili ni? 


 



iskreno, ne mislin da ste ni ćoravi, ni glupi.
ono ča mislin je da ste površni, emotivni, disrespectful, prvoloptaški i da ne čitote.

Ako vidimo da neka odrasla osoba čini štetu drugoj (prevarit će je i iskoristiti), a ta druga osoba je npr. mentalno zaostaloj ali je također odrasla, znači ne trebamo se miješati jer su oboje odrasli, a s obzirom da nema fizičke prisile to je ujedno i pravedno?
Abende, čitaš li ti sebe? Ne znam kamo si zabrijao i je li moguće da uz sve pročitano imaš tako uzak pogled na međuljudske odnose, ono, poput jednosmjerne ceste bez početka i kraja, ali stvarno nekad imaš takve zaključke da posumnjam u tvoju inteligenciju. 

da si provela barinku isto vrimena čitajući koliko rugajući se mon  osnovnoškolskon referatu, ne bi pisala ovakove stvori. 
u referatu sun reko da je za kapitalizam potribno osigurati dvi stvori. ona pod (1) čini ov straw man ništavnin.

Ma ništa ti ne more reći. Kad se slučajno opečeš vrućom kavom, a ti nemoj vjerovati da te boli, ako to tamo u toj literaturi nigdje ne piše. :D

ako se opečen is kafun, boliti će me. ako želin pisati o boli, unda morun konzultirati čovječanstvo.
sve i da sun razvi firmu veličine amazona, kako bi mi to pomoglo da znun je li minimal wage štetan ili ni? 

Eto, takvi smo. Ne čitOmo. Ili čitOmo, ali ne pravu literaturu. Ne navodimo, čije misli citiramo, usuđujemo se misliti samo svojom glavom i zato nismo u pravu mi nego ti koji si pun tuđih misli, citata i zaključaka. Imam osjećaj da se ne razumijemo jer ne raspravljam s tobom nego s tim nepoznatim uglavnom pokojnim autorima.   

Abene, nemoj samo čitati nečije političke ideje, probaj malo čitati i o ekonomiji, shvatiti kako funkcionira tržište, pa ti te definicije dobrovoljnosti neće biti tako nejasne. 

odovna nis čito nišće o političkin idejami. sustavno siguro ne od 2010. zanjih deset godin sustavno čitun isključivo ekonomiju.
i znoš o čemu govoru? o dobrovoljnosti. 

Nije kapitalizam donio napredak čovječanstvu, nego ljudi vizionari. Istina je da su oni svoje vizije mogli bolje prezetirati u kapitalizmu, jer se uvijek netko našao tko je skužio koliko može zaraditi na njihovim idejama, pa ih je prisvojio pojedinac (primjer Tesle i Edisona), a u socijalizmu ih je prisvajala država u ime naroda.

naravski da ni kapitalizam, shit woman, to je metonimija. ljudi uvik donosu i odnosu prosperitet, naravski. ali prosperitet je moguć samou okviru kapitalizma. 
a da ti odgovorin na ot shot da je neko prisvojio, zarodi na vizionarima;

upravo je zoto kapitalizam jedini mogući okvir za prosperitet- ako ne postoji neko ki je slobodan zaroditi na vizionarima, vrlo je vjerojatno da se vizija ne bi širila. ljudi su radi nerazumjevanja ekonomije uvika mrzili prekupce, tvrdeći da nepošteno zarađuju. istina je da oni igraju ključnu ulogu u svetom mehanizmu zvanim kapitalizam.

I za kraj: i u socijalizmu i u kapitalizmu vidim i dobrih i loših strana. Ideja komunizma je jednako pravedna kao i ideja kapitalizma (obje ideje imaju cilj boljitak čovjeka), ali ono što se izrodilo iz tih ideja nije ni blizu izvornim idejama. 

Meni osobno je bilo jednako i u jednom i u drugom uređenju jer sam oduvijek živjela samo i isključivo od svog rada. 

koje su dobre strone socijalizma?
koje su loše strone kapitalizma?


ideja komunizna je apsolutno nepravedna bez obzira na nominalni cilj. tu nemo sumnje. a jednostavno je i zoč; to je totalitarna ideja.

znoči, ako jo stavin u cilj raj na zemlji, a ko metodu predložin da se ubiju svi muški na zemlji, a sve žene podčinu meni, koliko je vridno tu ideju procijenjivati po proklamiranom cilju?

P.S. I kad smo već spomenuli čitanje, sad kad nema Šejkera, pročitaj ponekad Melkiora. Vidi se da je dečko mlad, da je puno čitao, ali ne koristi tuđi nego svoj mozak. ;)

frashu je nasušno poribno početi čitati i slijediti ideje razumijih ljudi. hes a mess razine longislanda. međutin, njegove su teškoće emotivne, a ne intelekualne naravi. un je nešto nesritan izutro, pa propagiro pesimistički idejni krajobraz. 

kad un sredi svoj život, sredit će se i njegov world view.

aben wrote:


frashu je nasušno poribno početi čitati i slijediti ideje razumijih ljudi. hes a mess razine longislanda. međutin, njegove su teškoće emotivne, a ne intelekualne naravi. un je nešto nesritan izutro, pa propagiro pesimistički idejni krajobraz. 

kad un sredi svoj život, sredit će se i njegov world view.

slično bi se moglo reći za tebe kad te kapitalizam kakvog propagiraš lupi po glavi još bolje po džepu promijenit će se tvoj world view na tvoju verziju kapitalizama. za sada uživaj u tvom parasitic jobu koji opet nema veze sa socijalizmom jer nije ti socijalizam dao parasitic job nego korumpirana vlast u državi. ti ustvari živiš u sistemu koji još treba dobiti ime. možda postoji ja neznam jer ne čitOm.

Parasitic jobs: The new employees get pay checks, but do not produce anything in return, at least not enough to cover the cost of hiring them. Meaning they get to eat for free. Nice for them, but not very nice for whoever is feeding them. In fact it’s not very nice for the economy as a whole, meaning for everyone, because what the parasites eat is not replaced. After they spend their pay checks, there is less for everyone else.

Moving people from unemployment to a parasitic job is almost as bad for the economy as moving them from productive jobs to parasitic jobs. In both cases, there is less and less to go round for everyone.

Confronting the Parasite Economy
Why low-wage work is bad for business—and all of us.

There are two types of businesses in America today: those that pay their workers a living wage-the real economy-and those that don't-the parasite economy. And all of us who live and work in the real economy should be royally pissed at the way the parasite economy is sucking us dry.

Here in the real economy, we solve the problems, build the things, and pay the wages that make America great. When politicians of both parties promise to attract "good jobs" to their districts or states, they're talking about the kind of real-economy jobs that pay a decent middle-class wage-jobs that provide the income, benefits, and security necessary to participate robustly in the economy as a consumer and taxpayer. It is the real economy that drives both production and demand, and that fills our tax coffers with the money needed to educate our children, maintain our infrastructure, invest in research and development, fund our social safety net, and provide for the national defense.

But in the parasite economy-where companies large and small cling to low-wage business models out of ignorance or habit or simple greed-"good jobs," and the economic dynamism they produce, are in short supply. This is the economy in which tens of millions of Americans work for poverty wages with few if any benefits, often in the face of abusive scheduling practices that make it impossible to plan their life from day to day, let alone month to month.

The difference between these two economies is stark. The real economy pays the wages that drive consumer demand, while the parasite economy erodes it. The real economy generates about $5 trillion a year in local, state, and federal tax revenue, while the parasite economy is subsidized by taxes. The real economy provides our children the education and opportunity necessary to grow into the next generation of innovators, entrepreneurs, and civic leaders, while the parasite economy traps them in a cycle of intergenerational poverty.

The real economy delivers on the promise of capitalism.

The parasite economy relentlessly undermines it.

If, as many on the right are wont to do, we divide our nation into one of "makers" and "takers," it's not the working poor who deserve our derision, but the low-wage businesses that exploit them. These are the real deadbeats of the parasite economy: companies with a business model predicated on a cheap supply of taxpayer-subsidized labor, growing fat on the vast wealth of consumer demand generated by the middle-class wages of the real economy, while leaving employees with little if any discretionary income of their own.

To be clear, I am not making a moral argument for the real economy (though there is surely a moral argument to be made), but rather a cold and calculated economic appeal based on self-interest properly understood. You see, I am an entrepreneur and venture capitalist invested mostly in technology companies that pay the sort of middle-class wages that enable our workers to fully participate in the economy as consumers of other companies' products. That's the way a market economy is supposed to work. We buy your products. You buy ours. But low-wage workers at parasite companies-mostly giant and profitable corporations like Walmart and McDonald's-cannot afford to robustly consume our products, or most anybody else's, in return. The parasite economy is simply bad for business.

At best, a worker earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour can barely manage to the pay the rent, buy some groceries, and maybe a bus pass, leaving little disposable income for anything else. No restaurants. No hair salons. No health club or yoga studio memberships, let alone the latest tech gadget or service from one of my companies. In business, the first, second, and third most important thing is demand. If demand is high, almost any other obstacle can be overcome. Workers earning $7 or $8 an hour cannot demand most products and services. They can barely subsist.

As an entrepreneur and investor, I have founded or financed 35 companies across a wide range of industries: manufacturing, retailing, software, e-commerce, robotics, health care, financial services, and banking. I know a thing or two about sales and customers. And I have never been in a business that considered minimum-wage workers earning $10,000 to $20,000 per year as our target customer. Except for pawnshops or payday lenders, a typical business's core customers very likely earn more than minimum wage. It is demand from middle-income workers that supports the small local businesses that create 64 percent of new private-sector jobs and 49 percent of all jobs in America. So a fair question to ask is:

If no business wants customers who make $7.25 an hour, why in the world would we tolerate-or even worse, subsidize-businesses that pay their workers so little?

A leading advocate of the parasite economy is the National Restaurant Association (the other NRA), which has worked assiduously to keep wages low. The federal minimum wage for tipped workers, unchanged since 1991, is a shocking $2.13 an hour. Lest you think all those workers are raking in tips, as a small elite of servers in high-end urban restaurants do, the median hourly wage for restaurant servers, including tips, is just $9.25 per hour. Tipped workers are more than twice as likely as the average worker to fall under the federal poverty line, and restaurant servers nearly three times as likely, according to a 2011 study by the Economic Policy Institute. Ironically, in its 2014 edition of "Consumer Spending in Restaurants," the NRA notes that "[t]he primary influencer on consumer spending in restaurants is disposable income." American households earning less than $30,000 a year-about a third of all households-make up only 15 percent of all restaurant spending, the NRA reports. Can you imagine how much more profitable the restaurant industry would be if one out of three Americans had more disposable income to spend at restaurants? The NRA appears to want every American to eat in restaurants-except restaurant workers.

And it's not just the rise of the service sector that's to blame for falling wages. America has lost millions of manufacturing jobs since 2000, but those that remain are no longer the golden ticket into the middle class they once were. According to a new study from the UC Berkeley Labor Center, the families of one in three manufacturing production workers now rely on public assistance at a cost of $10.2 billion a year to state and federal taxpayers. Blue-collar manufacturing workers didn't earn solid middle-class incomes because they were better trained, better educated, or more productive than their service-sector counterparts, or because their employers were larger or more profitable than the giant service companies of today. Manufacturing workers earned middle-class wages because they were unionized, and as their bargaining power declined, so did their incomes.

I used to take parasitic business practices for granted, believing that they were an inherent and unavoidable feature of capitalism. But the more I examined the evidence, the more I realized that this just isn't true. Some companies just choose to pay their workers as little as possible, and others don't-while some companies have simply never bothered to imagine that there might be any other way. And yes, some companies reluctantly keep wages low in the face of market pressure from more willfully parasitic competitors. But in the end, all of us-workers and business owners alike-pay the price in the form of decreased demand, higher taxes, and slower economic growth.

And yes, these low-wage business models are a choice. While there are parasite companies and parasite jobs, there are no parasite industries or occupations, and there is no line of work worth doing that cannot command a living wage. For every Walmart, there's a Costco. For every McDonald's, there's an In-N-Out Burger. For every single mom waiting tables at the local diner for $2.13 an hour, there's a healthier, wealthier counterpart earning $13 an hour or more (soon to be $15!) in Seattle or San Francisco or in the thousands of real-economy businesses nationwide where management understands that the "minimum wage" is meant to be a minimum, not a maximum.

In any industry there are many different strategies for running a profitable business-some of which honor the contributions of their workers and some that don't. And if these businesses that choose to follow a low-wage model represented isolated incidents, I would shower them with moral opprobrium and leave it at that. But there's nothing isolated about it: It's a pervasive pattern that warps the entire economy. Economists have a name for this sort of strategy; they call it "free riding." And make no mistake-free riding doesn't come free.

According to data compiled by the Brookings Institution, 73 million Americans-nearly one-quarter of our population-live in households eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), a benefit exclusively available to the working poor. I want to underscore this point. Nearly a quarter of our fellow citizens are poor-not because they don't have jobs, but because they or their family members do-mostly working for giant profitable corporations. These are people who labor long hours preparing our food, stocking our shelves, cleaning our offices, caring for our children, and performing the many other tasks and services that define our modern way of life.