toldailytopic: Should there be a mandated minimum wage?

[Newman]

Absolutely not.

Look at the consequences: A mandated wage floor pushes out of work the very people it is purported to help. A wage floor only helps skilled/union labor, politicians, and the few unskilled laborers that luckily, somehow, hold on to their jobs after the wage floor increase.

Look at human rights: no rights are violated in a mutually agreed upon transaction involving labor and pay. The government has no business in enforcing something that does not involve the violation of somebody's rights. You don't have a right to a high wage.

Look at the theory: It's completely arbitrary. Who defines the cost of living? Who decides what the wage "should" be? Why isn't it already adjusted for inflation (hint: politicians need votes)? Why is $7.25 legal but $7.249 illegal?

Consider consent: If somebody consents to a certain wage, why should you put them out of work because you think their wage should be higher? What right do you have making some work illegal because you think the wage isn't high enough?


BTW, I make way less than minimum wage at my current job. $180 a week @ 55 hours a week. That's $3.27. The black market prevails. Go agorism.

 

[kmoney]

Absolutely not.

Look at the consequences: A mandated wage floor pushes out of work the very people it is purported to help. A wage floor only helps skilled/union labor, politicians, and the few unskilled laborers that luckily, somehow, hold on to their jobs after the wage floor increase.

Look at human rights: no rights are violated in a mutually agreed upon transaction involving labor and pay. The government has no business in enforcing something that does not involve the violation of somebody's rights. You don't have a right to a high wage.

Look at the theory: It's completely arbitrary. Who defines the cost of living? Who decides what the wage "should" be? Why isn't it already adjusted for inflation (hint: politicians need votes)? Why is $7.25 legal but $7.249 illegal?

Consider consent: If somebody consents to a certain wage, why should you put them out of work because you think their wage should be higher? What right do you have making some work illegal because you think the wage isn't high enough?


BTW, I make way less than minimum wage at my current job. $180 a week @ 55 hours a week. That's $3.27. The black market prevails. Go agorism.

In wage negotiations, do you believe an employer and an employee have equal power?

 

[Samstarrett]

No. Newman summed it up for me quite nicely.

 

[Samstarrett]

In wage negotiations, do you believe an employer and an employee have equal power?

I can't answer for Newman. For myself, I'll say no, of course not. Each party has the amount of power dictated by supply and demand. Employee negotiating power varies directly with some factor of the employer's demand for the employee's services and inversely with some factor of the supply of those services, give or take a constant. The opposite is true for the employer. I still don't think this affects the question of whether a voluntary transaction violates any rights.

 

[Nick M]

In wage negotiations, do you believe an employer and an employee have equal power?

Yep. You are still thinking about people with out any job skills. Like Trad or somebody similar.

 

[Frank Ernest]

Bring on the nickel/hour sweat shops.

You have to go to a socialist country for that. :jolly:

 

[Traditio]

Look at human rights: no rights are violated in a mutually agreed upon transaction involving labor and pay. The government has no business in enforcing something that does not involve the violation of somebody's rights. You don't have a right to a high wage.

You really should consider reading Onora O'Neill. There is a power disparity between employer and employee. This inhibits the ability of the employee to make free consent.

 

[Traditio]

I can't answer for Newman. For myself, I'll say no, of course not. Each party has the amount of power dictated by supply and demand. Employee negotiating power varies directly with some factor of the employer's demand for the employee's services and inversely with some factor of the supply of those services, give or take a constant. The opposite is true for the employer. I still don't think this affects the question of whether a voluntary transaction violates any rights.

Samstarrett: I have a very simple moral question for you. Do you think that human lives (our very well being) should be determined by the arbitrary laws of supply and demand? Is human life itself just another commodity?

If you answer "yes," then you should very seriously be concerned about the state of your immortal soul. You might just be going to Hell.

I say that human life is not a commodity. He is not merely a means to an end. The human person is an end-in-himself.

 

[bybee]

Samstarrett: I have a very simple moral question for you. Do you think that human lives (our very well being) should be determined by the arbitrary laws of supply and demand? Is human life itself just another commodity?

If you answer "yes," then you should very seriously be concerned about the state of your immortal soul. You might just be going to Hell.

I say that human life is not a commodity. He is not merely a means to an end. The human person is an end-in-himself.

If wages do not allow a worker to maintain minimum standards to sustain life we will shortly have no workers left alive!
I think the contentious area is how much above minimum standards ought wages to be set?
The workers at the most basic level need to be protected.
Yet, jobs are often forfeit when minimum wages plus benefits rise to a prohibitive level for small businesses.

 

[Nick M]

Samstarrett: I have a very simple moral question for you. Do you think that human lives (our very well being) should be determined by the arbitrary laws of supply and demand?

As opposed to your arbitrary redistribution of wealth? You hypocrite. Stop trying to steal other peoples money.

 

[Traditio]

If wages do not allow a worker to maintain minimum standards to sustain life we will shortly have no workers left alive!
I think the contentious area is how much above minimum standards ought wages to be set?
The workers at the most basic level need to be protected.
Yet, jobs are often forfeit when minimum wages plus benefits rise to a prohibitive level for small businesses.

The minimum standard shouldn't be the sustaining of life. The minimum standard should be the sustaining of dignity and decency.

 

[Traditio]

As opposed to your arbitrary redistribution of wealth? You hypocrite. Stop trying to steal other peoples money.

The real thieves are employers and the rich:

"The rich usually imagine that, if they do not physically rob the poor, they are committing no sin. But the sin of the rich consists in not sharing their wealth with the poor. In fact, the rich person who keeps all his wealth for himself is committing a form of robbery. The reason is that in truth all wealth comes from God, and so belongs to everyone equally. The proof of this is all around us. Look at the succulent fruits which the trees and bushes produce. Look at the fertile soil which yields each year such an abundant harvest. Look at the sweet grapes on the vines, which give us wine to drink. The rich may claim that they own many fields in which fruit and grain grow; but it is God who causes seeds to sprout and mature. The duty of the rich is to share the harvest of their fields with all who work in them and with all in need." (St. John Chrysostom).

 

[some other dude]

Samstarrett: I have a very simple moral question for you. Do you think that human lives (our very well being) should be determined by the arbitrary laws of supply and demand? Is human life itself just another commodity?

If you answer "yes," then you should very seriously be concerned about the state of your immortal soul. You might just be going to Hell.

I say that human life is not a commodity. He is not merely a means to an end. The human person is an end-in-himself.

So if I hire Trad, I own his life?

 

[TomO]

The real thieves are employers and the rich:

"The rich usually imagine that, if they do not physically rob the poor, they are committing no sin. But the sin of the rich consists in not sharing their wealth with the poor. In fact, the rich person who keeps all his wealth for himself is committing a form of robbery. The reason is that in truth all wealth comes from God, and so belongs to everyone equally. The proof of this is all around us. Look at the succulent fruits which the trees and bushes produce. Look at the fertile soil which yields each year such an abundant harvest. Look at the sweet grapes on the vines, which give us wine to drink. The rich may claim that they own many fields in which fruit and grain grow; but it is God who causes seeds to sprout and mature. The duty of the rich is to share the harvest of their fields with all who work in them and with all in need." (St. John Chrysostom).

ITT All wealth is given by GOD equally....HE just has a minor distribution problem. lain:

 

[some other dude]

The minimum standard shouldn't be the sustaining of life. The minimum standard should be the sustaining of dignity and decency.

You want to see dignity and decency? Check out Chinese immigrants without a penny to their names working sixteen hour days to survive.


You want to see the opposite? Check out the inner cities where people have been told they're entitled to a minimum wage by self serving politicians.

 

[frostmanj]

Samstarrett: I have a very simple moral question for you. Do you think that human lives (our very well being) should be determined by the arbitrary laws of supply and demand? Is human life itself just another commodity?

If you answer "yes," then you should very seriously be concerned about the state of your immortal soul. You might just be going to Hell.

I say that human life is not a commodity. He is not merely a means to an end. The human person is an end-in-himself.

I smell a straw man here. Should human lives be determined by supply and demand? Of course not. But, that's not the subject here. Human labor is.

You demean a person when you tell him that he can't fend for himself and therefore has to have government provide for him. In this case forcing a private business to pay a wage that is dispropotionate to the value of the labor.

As to power between a employer and employee, you make the assumption that the labor pool is not mobile and can not move to better opportunities. If a person's labor is truly of more value than what an employer is offering, he will move to a better paying opportunity. If the employee does not have the skills to demand better, then he needs some opportunity to enter the job market.

I have a master's in management. Let me give you a very simplified example:

Let's assume I run a burger joint with a wage cap of $8 per hour to be profitable. If I have to choose between hiring one skilled employee at $7.25 per hour who can produce 20 burgers per hour versus two unskilled employees at $4 dollars per hour who can produce 15 burgers per hour each, I would naturally choose the two employees and make the extra 10 burgers per hour.

If you put a minimum wage on me, I am forced to hire one worker and not work to my business's maximum output (hurts my profitability). That single employee will need to be someone with experience for me to be profitable. I will have to raise the unit cost of my burgers to maintain profitability. (I still have to pay for my building, buns, burgers, condiments, etc.) I can't risk a new worker.

The end effect is one less worker hired. Two entry level workers still looking for a job. A $2.75 per hour less in the economy. And more expensive burgers.

 

[Buzzword]

If wages do not allow a worker to maintain minimum standards to sustain life we will shortly have no workers left alive!
I think the contentious area is how much above minimum standards ought wages to be set?
The workers at the most basic level need to be protected.
Yet, jobs are often forfeit when minimum wages plus benefits rise to a prohibitive level for small businesses.

This is where the rubber meets the road for me on this issue.

My father has owned and operated a computer sales/repair business since 1988, and in that time has become the sole provider of those services in my hometown, apart from Wal-mart.

For a variety of reasons, he has never employed more than three people at a time, and has always paid well above minimum wage.
(mainly because I would generally take care of most minimum-wage-employee tasks there without pay...under coercion as the son of the sole proprietor)

I think a middle ground for the minimum wage issue, between protecting employees against corporate abuse AND protecting small business from being bankrupted by government regulation, would be to create a graded minimum wage system based on the number of people a business employs.

More employees = higher wage floor.

 

[Traditio]

I smell a straw man here. Should human lives be determined by supply and demand? Of course not. But, that's not the subject here. Human labor is.

It comes out to about the same. A man labors to get the things that he needs to live well.

You demean a person when you tell him that he can't fend for himself and therefore has to have government provide for him.

Welcome to civil society. Recommended reading: Politics, Republic, Leviathan, etc.

In this case forcing a private business to pay a wage that is dispropotionate to the value of the labor.

You can't separate the value of labor from the dignity of the employee. Human labor isn't just another commodity.

 

[some other dude]

You really should consider reading Onora O'Neill. There is a power disparity between employer and employee. This inhibits the ability of the employee to make free consent.

I've been chewing on this, wondering why it sounded so familiar and then it finally came to me.

Trad, you're making the same argument that radical feminists make regarding consensual sex vs rape. They argue that, because there's a power disparity (economic, physical, political) between men and women, women are inhibited from making free consent to the act of sex, and therefore all sex is rape.

 

[frostmanj]

You can't separate the value of labor from the dignity of the employee. Human labor isn't just another commodity.

How is legislated charity a builder of dignity? I would argue that the longer unemployment lines due to the artificially shrunken labor market due to minimum wages is in fact detrimental to dignity.