So do I take it you agree that “hiring someone to do nothing” is the equivalent of giving him money - and is, therefore, wealth redistribution?
Yes?
Funny, I know nothing about you. Have you been around awhile?
Actually, the rest of world is right, and you’re wrong.
Well, it does poke the wind out of your gratuitous insults, doesn’t it?
Please don’t feel like you’re my subject. I believe that even stupid people have the right to liberty.
Apparently, your Marxist ideology has led you to believe that the whining of the few outweighs the silence of the many. Do you intend to answer my questions, or shall we just exchange insults until you register your next guest account?
Better idea: why don’t we just wait until anybody actually solicits your opinion on the proper bounds of polite discourse and cordial debate?
Oh? Did the guest solicit yours?
Actually, if this is this is the best you can muster, I rather think I’ll just ignore you from now on.
Just to add: Your caustic posting style aside, I don’t even think I could have a meaningful exchange with anyone who believes that agreeing with the idea of a minimum wage is “Marxist ideology”. Sort of a reverse Godwinism. So even if you weren’t being a jerk, I just don’t see the point in continuing with you.
Same here. But you addressed my explanation, so I guess no harm done.
Although I notice that you still haven’t answered Bricker’s question. Sweetie.
You’ve never heard of “featherbedding”?
But yes, hiring someone to do nothing is giving him money he isn’t worth on the open market, so it is an example of the same sort of thinking that gives us minimum wage legislation. The notion is that people are inherently entitled to a certain wage level, no matter how much (or how little) value they are producing. Same idea with featherbedding - people are presumed to be entitled to a job. Therefore you have laws (or union regulations) that say employers must hire a certain number of workers, regardless of how many they need.
France tried to implement the same idea by passing laws that people could only work 35 hours per week, on the premise that employers would then be forced to hire more people to achieve the same amount of work. This also did not work out exactly as intended.
1)Your example is a bit far-fetched. National security issues are not the same kind of constraints as economic ones, AFAICT. 2) We aren’t talking about owning people, we are talking about owning money, and deciding how to spend it. Violence and coercion against people are excluded both by libertarian standards, and by conservative free-market standards.
And 2a) voluntary whipping comes more under the heading of prostitution, which I believe most libertarians want to make legal. Although I believe that, in many cases, the whippees must pay for rather than be paid for the experience. 
No, wages, providing they are agreed on without coercion (either legislation or whipping) are an exchange of value, not a redistribution of wealth as we have been using the term.
MW laws, by definition, “benefit” those who cannot obtain higher wages on the open market. Thus, since their labor is worth less than minimum wage, the state seeks to raise their earnings by fiat. This is different from a free exchange of value, work for earnings, since the MW workers are getting more than their labor is worth. In the same way, a person hired to do nothing is getting more than his labor is worth. This is especially true if the exchange is brought about thru coercion, which is not a libertarian or free marketer option.
No, MW compels an employer to spend more than he needs to. Therefore, that portion of the wages he pays that is above what would be arrived at thru uncoerced negotiation is money he is compelled to spend.
You are thinking of it as all or nothing. Minimum wage legislation operates at the margins.
The natural flaw of a certain kind of thinking.
You are taking it for granted that businesses cannot react to changing wage levels by hiring more or fewer workers. I would say this is pretty clearly false.
The flaw can easily be exposed by extending the idea. If businesses have an inelastic need for workers, then we could raise the minimum wage to $100 per hour. Businesses, who have a certain level of work that must be done, must hire the same number of workers as they do now. Everyone gets a raise, and we have essentially solved the problems of poverty.
Right?
You are mixing up factors.
It doesn’t matter whether or not I would like living on $5.15 an hour. The value of my labor is not affected by what I like, only what I am worth to an employer. That is part of what I meant by saying the market is amoral. It might be true that I would very much like to make $100 per hour. If I can get an employer to agree that I am worth it, fine - the market amorally sets my wages at $100 per hour. Regardless if I am a morally worthy person or not. Similarly, I might be a saint, but if I am a saint who cannot read or make change, the market is not going to recognize my virtue and raise my wages.
No one has predicted massive business failures. As I mentioned, very few people make minimum wage. That is to say, most people, for a variety of reasons, are worth more than that on the open market. MW operates mostly on entry-level workers, by raising the opportunity cost of hiring, and on outsourcing. Jobs that are worth less than minimum wage tend to get sent to the Third World, where people are willing to work for whatever they can get much more commonly than in the US or Europe.
I think it is the other way around - “setting wages by fiat” or “paternalism” or whatever you would classify your position as being won’t work because there are no unlimited choices in the world.
Limits are a basic fact of life, regardless of the economic system. Thus your notion that businesses have no choice about hiring a certain number of people doesn’t work. Increased labor costs affect the bottom line. This doesn’t go away because you wish it would.
But absent MW, everyone gets to decide for themselves what is in the greater public good.
If you think there is a market for widgits that cost $10 because you pay your workers $20 per hour, go for it. Maybe there are enough public spirited people willing to buy, because the feeling they get from buying widgits from un-exploited workers lets them sleep better at night. You will certainly have minimum wage workers beating down your doors to work for you.
Or maybe the Snidely Whiplash Widow and Orphan Exploitation Company will eat your lunch and drive you out of business. Then your workers get to decide which is better - surviving on $1 per hour, or surviving on nothing per hour.
Perhaps it is better not to work than to work for $1 per hour. Then the workers will not work, and Snidely will have to offer higher wages to attract workers.
Or perhaps the local government will set the minimum wage at $5.15 per hour. Then Snidely has to raise prices. Perhaps the market will still exist. If so, Snidely will kick himself for not raising prices sooner. Perhaps it will not exist, and Snidely goes out of business too. And again, the workers get to decide whether it is better to survive at $5.15 per hour - or nothing.
Regards,
Shodan
I’m not aware of a federal law that requires it, no. I’ve heard of union contracts that specify how many people must be hired to do a certain job, if that’s what you’re talking about. If you want to debate labor unions, start a new thread. I’m not going down your ridiculous hypothetical road. Let’s keep it in the real world.
That’s a strawman. We aren’t discussing “featherbedding”; we’re discussing minimum wage. I reject your notion that ANY law that affects what happens to the “open market” is intrinsically bad. The “open market” is not automatically the yardstick of what is desirable for a society (despite what Libertarians believe). A law may be undesirable, but it is not intrinsically so only because it affects the open market. One can quite rationally be for one thing and against another. If you can demonstrate that a law has a detrimental effect on the economy that outweighs it’s benefits, then I would be against that law. But to be against it for no other reason than that it’s not precisely the same as “the open market” smacks more of religion than of sound, real world economic policy.
And what exactly does the failure of one law in another country have to do with a completely different law in THIS country? The MW law HAS worked out as intended, so I would say that your comparison is inapt.
Why? You said, and I quote:
My example demonstrates that your statement is false, does it not?
Your statement made no exception for national security issues. So I have refuted it.
No, that’s NOT what we’re talking about. We are not talking about money, we are talking about the value of labor. You do not own the labor of others, so your assertions regarding ownership of money are inapplicable to this discussion.
Did I say they weren’t? I don’t think you’re following me.
O.K., IMO you’re being a little loony now.
Did you not say earlier:
?
Money is wealth, right? And wages are money spent for the benefit of someone else, right? So by your statement, wages are wealth redistribution. Q.E.D.
Not exactly. Consider these two statements:
“If you go hunting, you need a license.” <- is not the same as:
“You need a license.”
Don’t know what that means.
Circumstantial Ad Hominem.
If your theory were correct, we would have seen massive firings immediately following the implementation of MW. That did not occur, so your theory is not borne out by the facts. YOU are the one taking things for granted. I am basing my analysis on reality.
No, the businesses would fail. I have said before that it’s most definitely undesirable to set the MW too high. The problem is that you’re thinking in black & white only. You don’t believe that there can be a reasonable MW; that it must either be unreasonable or not exist at all. A business SHOULD NOT have to rely on underpaying its labor to survive, but neither should it be expected to have to pay ridiculously HIGH salaries. What’s wrong with it just being reasonable?
Huh?
The market is amoral, but that doesn’t mean society has to be. I’m sure Nietzsche is spinning in his grave to hear me say it, but you forget that society EXISTS, in part, to make life better for the individual, and to protect the weak from the powerful.
Circular reasoning. You’re arguing that the market ought to be amoral because it IS amoral.
Hmmm…Liberal certainly seemed to imply a strong connection between MW and business failure (although on closer scrutiny he did seem to be mixing in some other factors). I don’t know, maybe you didn’t read his posts?
At any rate, I think the lack of business failures is pretty good evidence that the MW is not the problem you think it is.
What do you mean, “won’t work”? It IS working. It’s working just fine.
What are you talking about? You can’t have it both ways. Either the MW has a detrimental effect on businesses, or it doesn’t. First you said it has little effect; now you’re complaining that it affects the “bottom line”. Which is it?
Not sure what you mean by “for themselves”. We live in a representative society. We elect legislators, who then decide what is in the best interest of the public. You don’t really get to decide individually. That would be anarchy.
Strawman.
Strawman.
Strawman.
Again, this is based on the naive assumption that coercion does not exist, and that unlimited opportunity exists. If the supply of workers in that field is greater than the number of jobs, refusing the job will only result in the employer hiring someone else. Again, read that article, it’s a pretty good explanation of how the playing field is not really level between employer and employee.
I am not Shodan, and neither do I play him on TV, but I think his point is that a wage at market value is paid for the benefit of the employer, not the employee. That is, if you hire me to mow your lawn for $20 (or whatever the “market value” is these days), you give me $20 not so that I will have $20, but so that you don’t need to mow your own lawn. Your $20 was spent for your benefit, not mine, just as my time was spent for my benefit, not yours.
(Me, I think the minimum wage is a clumsy but tolerably effective hack around the lack of perfect competition among employers in real markets, so I have no beef with either of you. Just sayin’ is all)
I’m not Shodan either, but I’d say this was pretty obvious. The funny thing is having to explain all this…and then having such statements as “And wages are money spent for the benefit of someone else, right? So by your statement, wages are wealth redistribution. Q.E.D.” as if this were perfectly rational thought. I have no doubt that **I don’t care about your cat ** is earnest in his/her beliefs but…well, its amusing to watch this and wait to see how long until Shodan’s head explodes. This is beyond debate at this point and into the surreal…IMHO.
Myself, I think its a bad system (though I concede it isn’t THAT bad, and it could certainly be worse). If we want to help the poor, then we should help the poor directly through general funds, not this backdoor bullshit. Leave the market be and provide funds to the poor and needy on the front end with direct disbursements from the government…instead of trying to set some false minimum wage. The only good thing about the system IMO is that in reality it doesn’t distort the market too much, nor does it deprive too many folks at the low end of jobs (i.e. there aren’t too many jobs that would be done for much under minimum wage anyway). That said…I think direct assistance to the poor, if thats what we as a nation want, would be better than MW laws.
-XT
It benefits both parties. Certainly wages benefit the worker, do they not?
I agree.
You’re just seeing it from a biased perspective. You’re obviously a fervent Libertarian, so everything Shodan says sounds “reasonable” to you, because you already believe in that stuff. To me, you guys sound completely surreal. Like I pointed out awhile back, you’re so mired in your ideology, that you don’t realize how extreme it is. You actually believe you are in the center, when you are way out on a limb. For example, I’m sure the members of Congress who passed the MW law would be quite surprised to learn that they’re all “socialists”.
But at least I’m making some effort to counter the ridiculousness, rather than just throwing insults like you do. :rolleyes: I know it’s the Pit, and you’re allowed to denigrate, but I wish you could hear yourself as you really come across.
And you are seeing things from your biased fervent quasi-socialist/marxist/loony toons perspective. See how that doesn’t really advance my arguement any by simply sticking a lable on you? Probably not, as it seems your favorite debating tactic. Stick with what works, right? Hey, I don’t think you are scoring many points but if you are happy, I’m happy. Just keep telling yourself I’m a ‘fervent Libertarian’…its obvious that not only don’t you know shit about what a Libertarian IS, you’ve actually never seen one if you think I’m a fervent one.
For the record I DON’T agree with everything Shodan says, as he’d be the first to tell you…I just can follow his arguements, and on this particular subject I agree more with him that with you.
Also for the record I didn’t say that MW laws were socialist…thats just a strawman position you built for me. As to throwing insults…seems to me YOU are the one alienating folks in this thread, not me. No one else has a problem with me…while you on the other hand have managed to piss off many with your whinning and fawning on folks you figure are on your side. I notice that most of them seem to be keeping a clear area between themselves and you, though purportedly they are ‘on your side’ here. But you know what? I’m not trying to argue with you. I’m not trying to convince you. I’m not debating this issue with you. I told you earlier if you wanted to debate this start a thread in GD on the subject…you chose not too, but continued this hijack in the pit of all places. Not a problem. I’m here for the entertainment value to see what bizzare thing is going to come out of you next…and believe me, its quite amusing.
Tootles…keep up the good work!
-XT
I have the distinct mental image of a clown with big floppy feat trying to have a pie fight with the entire lineup of the NY Jets while they’re about to jump on him. All in slow motion. Wonder if I’m the only one.
Sorry I’ve dropped out of this conversation (I know, I know, y’all could barely get along without me). I’m curious, though: what specific proposal for providing funds to the poor via direct disbursements from the government would you consider to be LESS clunky than minimum wage?
Way I see it, the area in which private property is least justified is the area of the ownership of capital beyond that which the owner can personally operate. I see our concepts of ownership to be a social lubricant: it’s a legal construct that keeps the wheels of industry going, and increases productivity, which is very often a great thing (this computer wasn’t made in North Korea). But it’s a convenient fiction, not an inalienable right; and if people want to enjoy that legal construct, gain the profits from holding exclusive rights to tools they’re not personally using, they need to agree to certain other social lubricants at the same time. Those other social lubricants and legal constructs include worker safety laws, environmental laws, and minimum wage laws.
Daniel
Another skimmer here, not taking in every post, but so very grateful to have found yours.
I can’t help but think how very sad and frustrated the thoughtful, intelligent, sensible conservative posters must be that they have been effectively shut out of the most intelligent and reasonable discussion board on the internet by the perfect insanity of their (un-beloved) leader.
Now if those sensible conservatives, from the local neighborhood to Senate, could retrieve their balls and just start standing up for what is right and true and help save us from the insanity…
Have you seen either of them lately?
Awww, come on Luc, that’s not fair and you know it.
We do have some intelligent sensible conservatives on the boards. Often, however, the degree to which they’re Bush apologists is the degree to which they’ve got chinks in their armor.
Maybe something went over my head here, but aren’t “intelligent, sensible conservative” and “Bush apologist” mutually exclusive?
To the degree a conservative supports Bush, yes, I believe that they’re wrong and acting in contradition to the facts.
But even smart people do stupid things. And our country has seen enough division and squabbling. We can either seek to alienate all conservatives (as I read Luc’s statement as doing), or we can seek to build common ground.