I seem to no longer have access to my other blog, so I guess I'll write in this one instead.
I like a lot of online comics, but there are only a few that follow regularly any more, like Girl Genius and Freefall. Phil Foglio, who does Girl Genius, is a master of telling good stories with serious ideas and a healthy dose of humor. He's been doing Girl Genius for some years now, but before that, he did a great sci fi/hard-boiled detective series called Buck Godot - Zap Gun For Hire. I just re-read it recently, and it's still great stuff.
Freefall is a little more subdued, but is still a fun read. It's about an alien octopus named Sam and his interactions with humans, robots, and artificial intelligences. The stories and characters aren't quite as engaging as Girl Genius, and the humor is a bit more low-key, but the writer does manage to tackle some interesting ideas and throw in some nuggets of wisdom every now and then.
However, in a recent strip, he threw in a "nugget" that seems fallacious to me, and I thought I should bring it up and explain what I think is wrong with it. This particular strip should be showing below.
You have two restaurants, one that pays a fair wage and provides benefits to its employees, and one that does not. If you accept the writer's premise that "Ethical Burger" and "Abuse Burger" put out an identical product, then he's absolutely right. All other things being equal, consumers would prefer to pay less than more for the same product.
But in the real world, all other things are rarely equal. His premise that the two restaurants provide an equal quality product with equal service is a very unlikely assumption in reality. In reality, Abuse burger is more likely to put out a poor quality burger with dried out meat and soggy buns, make you wait too long for it, and are more likely to mess up your order, while Ethical burger employees are working hard to make sure you get a fresh, great-tasting burger the way you order it as quickly as they can get it out.
Sure, Ethical burger may occasional have problems, or their employees may occasionally make mistakes, but in general, they're going to do better at providing a good product with good service than Abuse burger employees, since they're not getting paid enough to care that much about their customers.
So if you don't mind a bad burger and poor service, you might still buy from Abuse burger, you cheapskate you! ;-) But many people will prefer to go to Ethical burger, because they will know from experience that even though it costs more, they will consistently get a better burger and service from Ethical burger. So it is far from inevitable that employers who want to pay a fair wage are driven out of business. It is up to the consumers to decide the quality of product and service that they are willing to settle for. If you want better quality and better service, it costs more. As the saying goes, you get what you pay for, and many times it is worth the extra money to get better satisfaction.
