Walking a mile in another's shoes: blisters or insight?

     I am, perhaps, cursed in my use of language. I am unable to not hear language BOTH literally and figuratively. While this helps in inflicting punishing humor, sometimes it also forces my mind to look at issues from multiple points of view. This is almost always helpful as it is difficult to find many issues that have a single "correct" point of view.
     Of late, there have been various articles chastising people about attempting to write fiction, or non-fiction, from others' points of view. In some ways, this is certainly valid. I, as a pale-skinned male, will never have the insight, history, and experience of someone who has grown up with non-pale skin. I will never have the insight, history, and experience of someone who grew up as a woman. And -- they will never have the insight, history, and experience of growing up as a pale-skinned male. It works in all directions.
     It goes much further, however. I am a short, pale-skinned, early balding, white-haired, bearded, 60-something male, multilingual, U.S.-born but of mostly direct European with a trace of Melanesian ancestry, .............
     In other words, I -- as is true of every person of the approximately 7.6 billion people on the planet -- am unique. No one else has the complete combination of my genetic history, environmental history, and life experiences. I have considerable doubts that it would be possible to raise two clones such that they end up exactly the same at any point in time (the older the more divergent).
     Was Jane Austen able to truly write about Willoughby? Was Isaac Asimov truly able to write about the Mule? Did Ursula K. Le Guin have a similar history to that of Argaven Harge to be able to write about the character? Could Harriet Beecher Stowe directly relate to either Uncle Tom or Simon Legree?
     Back to the title of this blog. The saying goes that one cannot understand another until you have "walked a mile in their shoes". When I hear someone say this, I cannot do anything other than wince. After shoes are worn by someone for a while, they change shape -- they "mold" themselves to the wearer's feet. Some shoes, such as hiking boots, are specifically designed to do this. So, by wearing someone else's shoes, you not only are "stepping into their paces" but are trying to get your feet to react the same as the other person's feet. Bumps, muscles, and bones fail to match up. It is painful, as well as educational, to "walk in someone else's shoes".
     What should it be? Since every one of us is unique, should we be limited to only writing about ourselves? Or is the painful experience of trying to put ourselves into another's shoes a worthwhile stretch of imagination and understanding? Perhaps what is needed is the caution and respect to not try to pretend we know more about the other than we possibly can?
     Although we are all unique, I probably have sufficient commonality with another computer programmer to be able to write somewhat about what that experience is like within another character. I am not a life-long farmer, but I have driven tractors and pulled spring-tooth and fed cattle in the winter. Can I use those experiences within another character? My father was a machinist and a mechanic -- can I use those experiences even though they weren't mine? Can I possibly write about a non-pale skinned programmer even though I only have overlap in experience in the computer science and programming aspects?
     Personally, I hope so. I would hate to lose all of the literature of the world and to have only facts listed, without people, in non-fiction books. The lead character of my first middle-school book is a young woman. Is that bad? I don't think so.

Living Wages are not only affordable -- they help businesses

    It is often said by spokespeople for businesses that "we cannot afford to pay our workers living wages". However, there seems to be no difficulty in paying for increased costs for materials, or energy, or advertising, or increased costs of real estate, or any other such item. As I discussed in my blog about "supersizing", there are a number of things that go into the cost of an item versus its price.

    The composition, or gathering of different parts, of the cost of an item will vary depending on the item. Some things are "labor intensive" which means that labor costs are a higher percentage of the cost. Others are based on scarcity -- or an aspect of "we have what you want -- who is willing, and able, to pay the most for it". In general, for many items, the amount of labor cost within the total cost for things that are actively made by people is a minority of the cost -- call it 30%. For stores that have high "turnover" (things sold quickly and new, replacement, items put on the shelves for sale again), labor costs are much less (such as for mass merchandizing stores) -- perhaps 10%.

    For our discussion, let's just say that labor costs are 25% of the cost of the item.  Doubling the labor costs would NOT double the base cost of the item to sell. It just adds an extra 25% -- so the base cost is now 125% of the former price. Let's say that the retail price (price charged to a general customer) was twice that of the base cost -- or an extra 100%. This means that the price is 112.5% of the original price (100% original cost + 100% original profit + 25% extra labor costs gives 225% which is "normalized" (brought down to a comparison against 100%) to 112.5%.

    Now it is possible (even likely) that the merchant might want to keep their percentage profit rather than the actual amount. So, in the above comparison, the merchant got the same amount of profit as base cost. If we increase the base cost by 25%, the total amount doubled ends up at 125% of the original price (100% of original cost + 25% extra labor costs is equal to 125%; doubled gives us 250% and normalized brings it back to 125%).

    We can see that even doubling the labor costs does not add a huge percentage to either the base cost or a retail price without penalizing the retailer. It can be argued that a 25% increase is still something that people are not willing to pay. After all, people do comparison shopping and retailers have sales, and price cuts (temporary or permanent). If Item X is sold at one store for $1.25 and the very same item X is sold at another store is sold for $1 then many people will choose to buy for $1. What would make people able, or willing, to pay more for products?

    The first reason is that the above analysis is a simplification. Labor costs are NOT the same as wages. Although the blog on "supersizing" uses labor costs as a lump sum, labor costs are actually a combination of wages, benefits, the cost to find someone to work at the job, training, and other matters. Thus, doubling wages does not double labor costs. In reality, it will reduce "turnover" within the workplace and reduce the amount needed to find people to do the job and the training. So, a doubling of wages may actually only cause an increase of 20% overall (these numbers are all examples but probably in a reasonable range) so the product would only cost $1.20.

    The second reason is what do people do when they make more money? Well, hopefully they will save some more. But almost everyone would also spend more. The products may cost a bit more but the business is also creating more customers and a percentage will buy from their store.

    A third reason is that it creates a positive image. I am sure you can think of a company who does not treat their employees well and relies on charities and the benefits paid by taxpayers to subsidize the wages of their employees. Similarly, we can also think of companies who pay their people more than what is "required" and are known for treating their employees fairly and well. Because of these three reasons (and other reasons) these "good neighbor" companies often make a better profit than the ones who sponge off of the taxpayers to increase the owners' wealth.

    The last reason leads into a future blog (maybe the next one). And that is -- it isn't always a matter of "nice people finish last". The above three reasons come into play to help people who do the good, proper, thing benefit financially. Regulations also help -- because the companies who care about people (and environment, and health, and ...) are not penalized because they operate "on a level playing field". That is, if everyone is required to do something good then no company is at a financial disadvantage for doing what is good. Everyone has the same requirements.

    Can you think of other benefits to a company for paying living wages?