NationStates Jolt Archive

This proposal should meet with wide acceptance, and is important in establishing justice among men.

Protecting the Wage-earner
A resolution to reduce income inequality and increase basic welfare.

Category: Social Justice
Strength: Significant
Proposed by: Sanctavia
Description: This resolution is simple. All governments shall enact laws to protect the wage-earner and see that he is not unjustly tricked out of his wages, nor that he is unjustly exploited.

Just a suggestion, Sanctavia. You've posted two proposals today, and at least the first one met with fierce resistance. This one is pretty vague, and I'm guessing you'll see more resistance.

I'm going to suggest that you
* post to the forum FIRST,
* ask for input,
* listen to the input
* edit your proposal
* listen to feedback on your edits
* and only then consider posting

You'll find your audience far less hostile if you give them a chance to contribute BEFORE it hits the submission queue.

Ok, thank you for the advice.

I am baffled though that you think this would get more opposition. Is it just because it is vague? (I would have thought that a plus because individual nations are a little more free to interpret it).

Just a suggestion, Sanctavia. You've posted two proposals today, and at least the first one met with fierce resistance. This one is pretty vague, and I'm guessing you'll see more resistance.

I'm going to suggest that you
* post to the forum FIRST,
* ask for input,
* listen to the input
* edit your proposal
* listen to feedback on your edits
* and only then consider posting

You'll find your audience far less hostile if you give them a chance to contribute BEFORE it hits the submission queue.
When will your tabling mechanism be implemented :wink: :?:

Just a suggestion, Sanctavia. You've posted two proposals today, and at least the first one met with fierce resistance. This one is pretty vague, and I'm guessing you'll see more resistance.

I'm going to suggest that you
* post to the forum FIRST,
* ask for input,
* listen to the input
* edit your proposal
* listen to feedback on your edits
* and only then consider posting

You'll find your audience far less hostile if you give them a chance to contribute BEFORE it hits the submission queue.
When will your tabling mechanism be implemented :wink: :?:

Ok, thank you for the advice.

I am baffled though that you think this would get more opposition. Is it just because it is vague? (I would have thought that a plus because individual nations are a little more free to interpret it).

There is a very fine line between being too vague and being too specific. And even if you walk carefully, you will still receive opposition from people who feel it should lean more one way or the other. In all honesty, I think you'll know that you have it right if you get an equal number of complaints from both sides.

Yes, it is too vague. I'm pretty new to this, so I am no expert Frisbeeteria <sp?> seems like a pretty good person to take advice from when it comes to props.

There seems to be a fine art to proposing resolutions. Proposals need to be vague enough that they don't stomp all over a nation's perception of sovreignity. I like to think of this as a nation coming to the UN, looking at a proposal and then saying, "No uh uh, you're not the boss of me."

However, the proposal must be specific enough such that it actually does something and makes the member nation adopt the LETTER of what has been written.

I haven't ever written one, but I imagine a statement in a proposal must have measures by which a nation can adhere (specificity), but not take away every sovereign right they perceive as their own (vagueness). For example, "... eliminate any warhead whose effect, when detonated, creates a fallout within 20 miles of any national border." Or, more apropos to your resolution, "Provide a standard of living wage that is not lower than 15% below the median income of the member nation."

I'll probably get attacked for speaking above my experience, but that's the kind of stuff I feel I could analyze as having a position for or against.

Hope it helps...

The representative from Topless Polecats shouldn't worry about being attacked all that much. We, too, are a young nation, and many of our statements have been well-recieved by the older nations. How people percieve your arguments has less to do with how long you've been around and more to do with how well-spoken, knowledgeable, and persuasive you are. So far, you seem to be on the right track in all three departments; lets not give up hope yet?

With that in mind, I'm going to have to side with the opposition on this proposal, for the perceived vagueness problem that has been covered. Unless you can specify a specific number or percentage or statistic that a nation has to achieve in order to be considered adequate, we cannot measure the value of the proposal. We don't know if "equality" happens when everyone is at poverty level or if everyone has a Jaguar in their driveway, and thats a pretty substantial difference that should be cleared up before anyone can take action on the proposal.

Sincerely yours,
Daniel M. Hillaker
Minister of Foreign Affairs

[double post]

This proposal should meet with wide acceptance
All governments shall enact laws to protect the wage-earner and see that he is not unjustly tricked out of his wages, nor that he is unjustly exploited.
I am baffled though that you think this would get more opposition
All right, here goes.

You won't get wide acceptance from Frisbeeteria. We're a Corporate Oligarchy, and the Employer is the Government. Citizen-employees are cared for quite well, by typical corporate standards, but we're not going to stand still for somebody telling us what constitutes exploitation of the workforce. That has the potential to bring down our government, so naturally we're against it.

You'll find similar arguments from despotic tyrants and dictatorships. "What business is it of yours to regulate our exploitation? We're members of the UN too." Oddly enough, they'll be joined by the libertarians and anarchists. "We don't need more rules - a citizen's sense of civic responsibility is more than adequate to keep such factors in line. Why must we create a bureaucracy to support a law we don't need?"

The true communists join the party. "What need have we for such a law? The very term 'wage-earner' is untranslatable into our language. Our perfect communism takes from each according to his ability and gives to each according to his needs. Trickery? Explotation? Unheard of and irrelevant under our system."

Ah, but what of the non-wage-earners of the world? Do we do nothing to protect them from trickery and exploitation? It seems that if we don't pay them, we're not subject to this law. Aren't you reintroducing sanctioned slavery?

The capitalists speak up. "You speak only of wages, but what of the exploitation of the tools of capitalism? We earned our money the old-fashioned way - through dividends and capital gains. Now you seek only to protect the mindless employees on whose behalf we toil? What of our protections? We demand a level playing field!"

I'm sure there are others, but I trust I've made my point. You are trying to fit a size 8 shoe on an entire roomful of feet, and for some folks it's gonna either hurt or fall off. One-size-fits-all proposals just don't work.