That, at least, is definition that we can debate. The question is: should every job to every person pay at or above the peverty level? And does this mean a single person, or a family of 4 (or of 6…)?
No, no… I don’t mean that at all. Quite the opposite-- prices fluctuate for all kinds of reasons. That’s part of the whole point of keeping government OUT of the market-- ie, to allow prices to fluctuate as needed. As **Shodan **said, prices are no more than information. If you cloud the information, you reduce people’s ability to act efficiently.
I think it is incumbent on the MW supports to spell out what the trade-off are for society. What do we LOSE due to the MW? How much is employment affected and what is the price increase? Once we know those things, we can determine if there is a more cost effective way of accomplishing the same goal. The problem, of course, is that it’s next to impossible to know those things-- and that is one of the key problems with things like the MW. We are unable to determine their adverse effects.
You’re right, I didn’t say that. The question is: Given poverty, what is the best way for government to act?
Shodan, I’m sorry. I’m honestly trying not to be rude or snarky or hostile here. But it really does sound to me like you’re saying, “I’ve got mine, Jack, so to hell with you.”
Throughout the ages, the upper classes have exploited the lower, and there was always some ideology or theory around that provided some kind of justification for the practice. We have been told that slavery was inevitable, that the inferiority of others necessarily meant that some must be masters and others slaves. The ancient Greeks maintained that a man who could not endure slavery always had the option of suicide; whites in North America told themselves that child-like, incompetent blacks obviously needed their kind masters to take care of them. We were told that the laws of economics inevitably meant starvation wages, brutal working conditions and 72-hour work weeks for ordinary working people. We were told it could not be helped that children were losing fingers and hands in factories.
It was all a crock. And what you’re peddling here sounds like a crock, too.
It’s easy to believe all this stuff when you’re not the one holding the shitty end of the stick, but the law of supply and demand is not a god whose every dictate must be obeyed without question. Just as the law of gravity does not necessarily mean that we cannot fly, so the law of supply and demand does not necessarily mean that our society can’t provide some kind of decent life for all its citizens.
Again, I apologize if I’m coming across as boorish or angry here, but it’s just that I’m *so damn tired * of hearing that “Supply and demand! Supply and demand!” mantra endlessly chanted, as if the mere invocation of Divine Law defeated any opposing argument.
That’s a good question, and one that gets a lot of debate. IMO, our government does a pretty decent job of fleshing out such things. Right now, liberals seem to thing the federal MW is too low, and conservatives think it’s too high. Probably a pretty good indication that it’s at a reasonable level. I wouldn’t presume to say I’m a better judge of what the MW should be than the people who actually study such things.
I just don’t see any evidence that the MW is hindering the economy. Do you?
I think it’s incumbent on the person advocating the removal of the minimum wage to demostrate a compelling reason to do so.
And let’s say, for the sake of argument, that some businesses might make more profit if we eliminate the MW. I don’t think that’s a valid reason, in and of itself, to do so. We also have to ask ourselves what kind of society we want to live in. Do we want to have a segment of society that is paid poverty wages, even if it does mean more profit for businesses? You have to weigh both sides of the equation. As an extreme example, one could argue that ending slavery was bad for the economy of the South; but you can’t make such arguments in a vacuum. There are other considerations besides profit; we’re Americans, not Ferengi.
So like I said, if you think there’s a better way to ensure that people aren’t getting unfairly low salaries, I’m all ears. It’s just that the MW seems to work pretty well. If anything’s killing the economy, it’s defecit spending and over-extension of our military forces abroad. MW would be far down on my list of things to worry about.
You don’t think “companies have to pay as much as workers are willing to work for” is a tautology? Couldn’t we re-state that as “Workers are not willing to work for less than they are willing to work for”? That doesn’t strike you as tautological?
Several have been put forth in this thread and afaik you haven’t even commented on them.
Does it? I ask because I’ve seen no actual proof one way or the other.
Agreed on both counts.
Other reasons have been put forth…again, afaik you haven’t commented on them. Prices of goods and services potentially would lower on those goods and services impacted by MW. Potentially more jobs would be available at the lower end (see Shodans comments on labor cost verse labor worth).
I don’t think anyone is saying in this thread that MW laws are a major drag on the economy. Certainly not John Mace. Myself I commented earlier that this was the case if you want to hunt back through the thread for it. Its not a major hinderance on the economy as it is now. Its just not the optimal way to help out the poor IMHO. As I’ve said repeatedly a better way is to let the market set the price of labor and then to provide direct assistance to those people who are having troubles from general funds. I believe John Mace has advocated this both in this thread and in threads in the past. Why is it better? Because it removes artificial hinderances to the market, removes distortions and allows the market itself to determine salaries as well as the price for goods and services, while helping out the poor who can’t make ends meet with direct assistance from general funds. Whats wrong with this idea?
As I think debaser said earlier, since we are stuck with the thing, the current level probably is about as optimal as it can get. You are correct there. I guess what most are getting at is why do we have to have it at all, if it distorts the prices of things, potentially removes jobs at the low end for the very people who need them, and there are better ways of achieving what you obviously want to achieve…namely helping out the poor.
Perhaps you’d like to detail a better way then…as in your own mind basic capitalism is a ‘crock’. Whats your alternative?
It strikes me as obvious, not repetative. Perhaps you could tell me why you think “companies have to pay as much as workers are willing to work for” is a tautological statement to you. To me its like saying ‘apples cost as much as consummers are willing to pay’ or ‘PCs are priced such that customers will buy them’, etc. Obvious to those who have even a basic understanding of the market, but not repetative IMO. Why toss this out in any case? Even if it is repetative, is there something inherently wrong with my statement? Or did you think I didn’t know what a tautology was?
How do workers know what they are willing to work for? How do companies know what to pay?
Companies have to pay as much as workers are willing to work for. Every worker is willing to work for a different wage though. Conceptually, the company will ask the worker willing to work for the lowest salary. If he doesn’t take the job, they ask the next lowest and so on. The aggregate of all these interactions is the market salary for a given job.
Basically “companies have to pay as much as workers are willing to work for” is the Demand Curve of the classic S/D graph. “Workers are not willing to work for less than they are willing to work for” is the Supply Curve. Where they intersect is what companies will actually pay.
I keep asking what these alternatives are and I never get an answer. Could I have a quote or a post number or something? Geez, throw me a bone here.
Well if you don’t see any proof that it’s damaging the economy, then you can’t really say it’s damaging the economy, now can you?
When did I say there was only one argument? My comments on other arguments would be similar - we can’t look at them in a vacuum. Let’s go back to my slavery example: There are actually some really great arguments for slavery, but there’s a really big argument against it, i.e., we don’t want a society that enslaves people.
So let’s look at the arguments:
So we have potentially lower prices on some items, at the cost of having some people living in poverty. Not a good trade-off, IMO.
Perhaps, but I don’t think having a plethora of low-paying jobs that nobody could live off of is a very good solution to the problem of unemployment. It might look good on paper as far as unemployment statistics go, but what good is it if people still can’t feed their families?
Glad we agree.
I know you said that, but I disagree, and I really don’t think you have made a compelling case that welfare is better than MW.
But as near as I can determine, your claim that MW hinders and distorts the market is nothing but a bald assertion. You admit there’s no evidence that it’s hindering the market, yet you claim that it does.
The main problem is that it increases the size of government. How would you implement this without raising taxes? General funds don’t just grow on trees. And raising taxes hinders the economy. In this case, the cure is worse than the disease, especially since nobody has demonstrated that there actually is a disease.
A. I don’t believe your way is better.
B. “Helping the poor” is a slanted way of looking at it. You’re trying to make it sound like welfare. Let’s call it “requiring employers to be fair”, instead.
Oh, are we making up strawmen now? O.K., In your mind, anything short of utter anarchy is a crock.
Well, no offense back, I hope, but I don’t see where you got that.
I am not passing a value judgement, I am making an observation. And I think you again are confusing morality and markets.
I am not saying, “This is how things should be”. I am saying, “This is how things are. Changing them is not nearly as easy or straightforward as many politicians claim, all courses of action will have costs as well as benefits, and no legislation on earth can revoke the Law of Unintended Consequences.”
I’ll repeat an analogy I used earlier. Certainly it is a terrible thing that sometimes, people freeze to death, but you don’t blame that on the thermometer. And you can’t warm things up by passing a law that says, “From now on, everything is thirty degrees warmer in the winter.” It is likewise a terrible thing that some people are poor because the value of their labor is so low that they cannot find a job to support themselves. But you can’t - and this is the key point - you can’t change the value of their labor by passing a law changing nominal wages. You can swap the costs around, as I mentioned earlier, and hide them or shuffle them off. But unless you address the factors that set the cost of labor wherever it is, you cannot change the value of the labor.
You can educate people so that their labor is worth more. You can encourage investment so that the supply of available jobs is increased. You can pass laws that make it illegal to hire children, and thus free up jobs for adults who are less easily exploited. You can eliminate the deficit so that more capital is freed up to increase investment in things that really encourage growth. But you cannot simply say, “OK, now you can’t work for less than X amount of money”. Because that does not address the real factors that determine the cost of labor.
Now it is possible to look at the costs and benefits of something like minimum wage legislation, and decide that they are worth it. “Yes, we realize that an increased minimum wage will increase the entry costs to the labor market for those at the very bottom. But we have decided that this is worth it, because of the benefits to others”. As I say, this is possible. I may or may not agree, but it is a reasonable position. What is not a reasonable position, in my view, is someone who says that any economic proposal has only benefits and no costs, that it is guaranteed to work as advertised, and will have no consequence besides the ones you want. Someone who says that is lying, almost automatically.
Maybe it was a good idea to reduce the work week in France to 35 hours. But, apparently, many are deciding that the costs are not worth the benefits. Maybe it was a good idea to subsidize bread in the old Soviet Union, so that it was cheaper to feed pigs on finished bread instead of feed grain. Maybe it is a good idea to raise the minimum wage to $20 per hour.
But if we are going to do any of those things, I for one would like to do it with my eyes wide open and fully aware that it probably isn’t going to eliminate poverty any better than the thousand-and-one other ideas that have been tried.
Well, I was tossing his own word back at him. It wasn’t my intention to make a strawman saying that if its not capitalism its anarchy. My intention was to get him/her to post some thoughts on non-capitalist type alternatives, since my reading of his/her paragraph is that capitalism and the underlieing mechanisms are a ‘crock’. If I misread his/her intent I’m willing to be corrected.
A. Obviously or we wouldn’t be debating this.
B. I disagree this this is ‘requiring employers to be fair’. Fair defined how? WHy is it fair to require employers to pay more than the labor is worth to them? Why is it fair to consumers to pay more for goods and services in a hidden tax than they would otherwise have payed. And finally, if your intent is NOT to help the poor but to be ‘fair’, who defines ‘fair’? How do we measure ‘fair’? By who’s standards is it ‘fair’. I think you are mincing words here…the intent of MW laws is not to be ‘fair’ but in fact to help people at the low end of the scale.
I doubt it would cost that much money…it would entail more a modification to existing government programs agencies than making new ones from whole clothe. And if it cost a bit more from general funds (I doubt it would, but for arguements sake I’ll go there), I’m confident things could be juggled so that it remained revenew neutral and required no new taxes. In addition there is the very real possibility it would open up more jobs at the low end of the spectrum as well as lower certain goods and services (and have a ripple effect on others, lowering them as well). Basically though we are both merely speculating here on what effect it might or might not have.
No, I claim it CAN, not that it DOES (as currently implimented). There is contridictory evidence that I’ve seen in other threads as to the impact it has in its current implimentation. Raise MW though (as several groups are trying to do) and it certainly WILL have a very real and measurable impact. As I’ve said repeatedly in this thread, the current implimentation of MW laws has a small effect on things over all, and if we have to have this, the way it is today is probably as near to being optimal as it can be. I just happen to think there are better ways of achieving what you and others who support MW laws are REALLY trying to achieve…ways that don’t distort the market at all, and don’t have the potential to grow and seriously distort it in the future.
Thats fine…I wasn’t attempting to make a compelling case for working welfare over MW laws in this thread either. Its enough of a hijack as it is with us only tangentially dealing with the OP. I’m merely asserting that there ARE alternatives, and that I believe them better. You disagree. Thats fine, its the point of this forum.
It happens.
Well, as I said before, if they can’t feed their families but are making a good faith effort to do so provide direct assistance to them from general funds. I know you dont’ agree with this solution, but I think its viable. And I think there are more low end jobs out there that aren’t currently being offered because the labor worth to a company isn’t worth the labor expense for a company than you think there are. So, for all those folks who COULD be working, and who actually would want to be working it would be a boon…especially coupled with direct assistance.
It only is having people living in poverty if you reject the other half of what I was saying (which you appearently do), which is to provide direct assistance to those people by the government. IMO it is a good trade off, especially if MW laws continue to expand what the MW level is set at, and eventually DO have a serious impact on the economy by doing so.
There are NO ‘great arguments’ for slavery from an economic perspective that I know of. Could you list some that you think are ‘great arguements’ from an economic perspective? Its been shot down by free market types repeatedly in fact. If you want me to go through a list of whats bad about slavery from an economic perspective I’d be happy too, or you could look up past threads on the subject.
Oh, I’m sure if I dig hard enough I can come up with something. The point is that MW as its currently implemented has a minimal impact. The concern though is that there is constant pressure to try and move the level that MW is set at, and some try and set that bar fairly high. This WOULD have a very serious impact on numerous aspects of the economy. My point is…remove temptation from those itching to raise MW to much higher levels and still provide for the poor.
See above…John Mace, Sam Stone and others have made numerous references to this concept, both in this thread and in past threads. I’m not going to hunt them for you, but John Mace actually made a fleeting reference to this on the first page, and you are debating it with me later in your own post. I don’t think anyone really wants to get into the nuts and bolts of it here, especially since they have all discussed it in other threads in the past. The basic concept though is to drop MW completely and instead provide direct assistance to those who can’t make ends meet.
Sorry, XT - I totally missed that that was a response to somebody else. Every other response was to me, and I missed that the last one was Lonesome Polecat, because when you hit “reply”, it removes all the quoted parts. So you can disregard the last thing I said. I thought you were saying I thought capitalism was a crock. My mistake.
Because in the real world, there are more people than there are jobs. So let’s say, as a very simplified example, that there are 100 people competing for 75 jobs, and that each of those 100 people will starve if they don’t work. In a situation like that, an unscrupulous employer can offer ridiculously low wages. If a given person doesn’t agree to work for the ridiculously low wages, the employer can simply offer the job to someone else. People will tend to accept whatever work they can get if the alternative is to starve. Now before you say that that can’t happen, let me remind you that it has happened in the past, and does happen in other countries now.
I believe that’s unfair. You’re absolutely right that “unfair” is subjective. The whole reason we have societies is subjective. We want to make our experience as human beings collectively better. This requires making decisions as to what rules we will or will not have. It’s not a mathematical formula.
Again, I don’t agree with the idea of lower prices at the expense of lower-class workers. YMMV.
We elect representatives, they debate it, and they reach a consensus. They define it, they measure it, and it’s by their standards. And since they are our representatives, it is by extension our standard. No great mystery there.
Sounds like pie in the sky to me. The money’s not gonna come from nowhere.
O.K., but I thought we were debating whether to have it at all, not whether having it too high is a problem. I don’t disagree with you on that point. If the MW were $50/hour, I’m sure it would have a detrimental effect.
Sorry, I don’t follow you. If it’s very nearly optimal, and we’re accomplishing the goal, then why worry about things that would only happen in theory?
That’s an interesting idea, but I’m really not seeing the merit. In effect, you would have the government subsidize workers. For someone who’s so hell-bent on capitalism, it sounds awfully close to the communist end of the spectrum. I don’t see how this acheives your goal of eliminating government interference.
No, tell me. I’d be interested to know. It certainly allowed plantation owners to inrease their profits, didn’t it? I mean, I assume they didn’t have slaves to lose money.
Sorry, can’t help you then. I honestly didn’t see all these supposed references that you keep castigating me about. “See above” and “fleeting references” doesn’t really help. And if you can’t even find them, well…
