How does this work in practice? It is your wage is reviewed annually and adjusted, or more frequently? Do employers give raises for good performance or do you expect to just get a raise based on inflation?
Employers typically take this into account and reduce the performance based raise they give by the amount. It's great for the low performer or easily replaceable people who get a raise they otherwise would not have gotten and bad for the top performer / more sought after profiles because employer look at the total costs and thus have less legroom for individual increases. It acts as an equaliser in that sense; but the best and brightest are getting way more few kilometres away (it's not like Belgium is a huge country; almost every lives less than 1.5 hour away from the border).
For the companies that are less able to pay that automatic inflation; it can be pretty hard/expensive to fire, because the employment laws are quite protective. So the usual solution is to just not hire. Big companies are also finding ways to reduce their headcount and transfer the risk on smaller structure; such as using sub companies and franchising models. Thos inherently reduce employee job security and stability. Unions are fighting this as much as they can; without any success.
Companies that need local workforce (retail, ...) adjust their prices accordingly. As an example the same pack of pasta costs ~40% more in Belgium than in France. Many people take their car and drive significant distances to cross the border buy food.
How are the citizens in the least regulated doing on that front?
Yea....
Anyways, the device in question would simply not have existed if there wasn't for competition. His comment is thus evidence of its content being false.
Plenty of nation that are not lawless but are effectively unregulated in the matters being discussed.
And they do not fit your supposition.
Really...
Can you provide an example?
Worker protection against harrassment being a blatantly obvious one.
The type of discrimination women face varies from state to state. In 123 countries there are no laws to stop sexual harassment in education, and 59 countries don’t legislate against it in the workplace.
That lack of regulation inherently keeps women out of the workforce, specifically due to the lack of regulation.
Need I iterate more blatantly obvious examples?
You wrote:
>>>>How are the citizens in the least regulated doing on that front?
Now you're noting that some countries don't have specific workplace condition mandates. Not having said law doesn't mean they meet the ideals noted, of having laws establishing a free market, while lacking regulations that restrict voluntary exchange. To elaborate: in order to prove classical economists' and libertarians' claims about the free market being optimal are wrong, you'd have to show far more than these cherry-picked examples.
Your argument is sloppy, and when I request for more vigor, you lash out to create a flame war. This is not intellectual or scientific.
I'm absolutely justified in demanding you support your claims with evidence, and your belligerent responses are not justified, no matter how morally superior you believe yourself to be.
You said "Can you provide an example of poorly performing economies which "are not lawless but are effectively unregulated in the matters being discussed"?" And that's what I was replying to.
I provided an entire class of people who are harmed in such nations, of which too many exist.
Just because they don't share your preferences doesn't change the fact they meet the criteria you set forth.
I'd argue it's because economic productivity is not the only input into well-being and quality of life.
Put differently, do you think a lower quality of life is a worthwhile tradeoff if it raises productivity? What about the inverse?
Then why does it seem to be the exact opposite?
If fact, if you want competitiveness you need to prevent a fully free market.
No matter how many times this is explained, people still continue to make this incredibly simple and enormously consequential mistake.
If we're taking the reductionist view that economic output is the only important measure of society, then people need to understand that means maximizing competition not maximizing a free market.
I've seen no indication of that.
Isn't this just a cleverly worded tautology? It's like saying healthy people tend to live longer and happier lives. But is it actionable information? Not really.
No reasonable person could believe you're acting in good faith, right?
Really...
But your caustic response is anything but, so you've become the very thing you imagine me to be: a bad faith interlocutor.
If you can't see it then take a step back and analyze the thread until you can see how others would perceive your reply as such.
Meanwhile, my government mandates that ALL employees automatically get a raise matching inflation. No negotiation possible/needed; employers cannot refuse. Belgium.
Sounds great in theory; in practice Belgium competitiveness index and innovation index is lower than all its neighbouring countries; including France and post Brexit UK.