Here’s an exerpt from a blog (yes, I know blogs aren’t reliable sources of info) where it is reported that at least some workers are making more than minimum wage.
From This Blog. These guys have been in NO since Katrina hit. His contact info is on the page if you want to pop in and question his veracity.
If the free market, free enterprise, and unrestrained capitalism is a good thing, let’s go ALL the way. No subsidies, no tax breaks, no depreciation deductions, no shelters, no write-offs for losses, no bail-outs, no bankruptcy for companies (give 'em the same deal as private individuals will be getting soon), no tariffs, no protectionism, no no-bid contracts (make them compete). Make it all competitive and cut throat, in the truest sense of laissez faire. Let the strong eat up the weak.
It isn’t companies that make the country great, companies only serve themselves (as they should). It’s strange that companies use their money and power to influence things in the way they want, but if a union or individual does the same thing, it’s almost treasonous and unAmerican.
Now that’s a little uncalled for. I made a humorous point about the possibility that you might love North Korea. This is why I don’t come to the Pit too often – you all fucking take things too literally and have no damned sense of humor. 
Interestingly, I do. I think it would be a sad, sad day when flag burning is made illegal or prohibted with an amendment. It’s not that I support flag burning (burn yourselves, mo’fo’s), but the acceptance that even the stupidest, most ignorant person in the world can spout off about virtually anything without fear of government reprisals is what makes this country so great. Ooops, I’m making that mistake again. All of the above is essential to this country’s greatness.
severus, why are companies essential to our greatnesss? They’re what produces wealth. Wealth equals greatness.
Yes. If you don’t like it, don’t buy those shoes. That’s the beauty of the free market. As for the union angle, I’m limiting things to the United States and this day and age. We now have OSHA, worker protections, etc., etc., that union members died for in the past. I admire and respect that, and unions in that day were valuable. Can you tell me that threatening strikes and bargaining for a fucking reserved parking spot isn’t making every decent past activist roll over in his grave?
I think a more accurate statement might be that wealth facilitates greatness. Just because a country is wealthy doesn’t make it great, but without wealth it won’t be great.
I defer to your wisdom. It’s really a good point.
You’re arguing my point for me. I don’t think flag burning should be prohibited, either - but that goes to the ideal of free speech, not the people burning the flags. You’re not saying it’s the flag burners themselves who “make this country great” (I assume, since you threw in the “burn yourselves” line), but the principle which allows them to burn the flag; following the same logic, it should be clear to you that saying a free market economy makes this country great is not the same as saying corporations do. Just because you believe in a principle doesn’t mean that every entity that takes advantage of its access to that principle has as elevated a status as the principle itself.
Agreed.
This is where we’re not seeing eye to eye. I never said the word “corporation” – only “company.” When one says “corporation” here in the SDMB it carries a stigma, and everyone automatically assumes I’m defending the bastards at whatever the evil-flavor-of-the-month is, like they have the right to steal the pension fund. All I mean is that companies have the right to whatever profit they earn legally. If that means they can pay 1/2 the minimum wage (well, were it not the legal minimum wage) then they have every right, nay every obligation to do so. There’s nothing about a company that makes it inherently illegal. Too many people (and I’m not saying you) just automatically assume that “business=bad” whereas without business they’d be shovelling pig shit somewhere on their subsistence farm.
No, I agree with you there. Although I do think, increasingly, that when you speak of “companies” these days you’re almost always referring to corporations by default - not a whole lot of companies that haven’t been acquired or merged anymore. Anyway, I’m not against capitalism, and it’s not that I think all corporations (or companies) are evil - I just think the ideals that allow them to operate are more the reasons for greatness than the companies themselves (I do understand that without the companies the ideals would be essentially meaningless, but I guess my point is those ideals don’t get corrupted until they’re put into practice). I think for the most part we agree, though I do admit I tend to see companies (and here I mean mostly corporations) as generally more corrupt than unions.
Now that’s a little simple. What you mean, I guess, is that operating in a free market economy facilitates private initiative, which tends to produce more wealth than other economic systems could, and that a lot of what we are used for as citizens of first-world countries could not exist if our countries weren’t wealthy. I’m not an economist, indeed, I don’t know a lot about the subject, but I think that’s about as good an explanation of capitalism as there could be. And I would agree that this is one of the advantages of a free-market economy.
But on the other hand, I consider a free-market economy, and indeed, any economy, to be more of a tool that we use to try to improve our condition as a nation, and in an increasingly globalized economy, as a world. I don’t worship capitalism, and I don’t have any moral problem with adding constraints (such as labour laws, for example) to ensure that our tool does what we want it to do. Companies, as you said, have a duty to try to make as much money as they should, without regard to who or what they harm in the process. So it is our duty (through our governments) to prevent them from doing too much harm. Companies make money and create wealth, like they should, given that that’s what they’re good at, and the government protects its citizens and the world they live in, like it should, given that’s what it’s good at.
As for labour unions, well, I’ve been an officer in my union (which is a teaching and research assistants’ union at my university) and I’ve left with a good impression of the work they do. We generally have good working conditions, but some departments don’t always respect them, and most of the union’s work is to bring those departments back in line, hand in hand with the employer. Unions should try to improve their members’ conditions, and I believe that it’s what most of them do. There are bad unions, who don’t defend all of their members and who, for example, buy booze with their dues and defend only a few buddies of their president. There are bad companies, who break the laws that they have to respect, or who lie to their stockholders. In every economic system there will be bad actors. But I think that it’s possible to reach a balance, and I absolutely believe that labour unions are still important in today’s world.