7 ms·

The "good argument" for having a minimum wage is that without it, wages will be pressured down, because every business on the planet wants wages as low as possi

by Retra 11y ago

The "good argument" for having a minimum wage is that without it, wages will be pressured down, because every business on the planet wants wages as low as possible, and they generally have the means to achieve this. It has nothing to do with job creation: it's about having jobs that are not basically slavery. It's for job quality, not quantity. Besides, you're just assuming people should be employed at "fair market wage." The political process is part of the market, and the fair market wage is determined by what is politically determined to be fair (AKA, minimum wage) just as much as it is by employers' demands. As a business, you are not entitled to a profit. Especially not at the expense of your employees welfare.

fche 11y ago
"As a business, you are not entitled to a profit. Especially not at the expense of your employees welfare." That's funny, but true. You know what else is at least as true? No people are entitled to employment, especially at a loss to the business.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- chillwaves 11y ago
  You think people are not entitled to employment? Are they entitled to survive? Are you going to be the one to break the bad news? Let's find out what happens when you tell large segments of the population they have no right to a livelihood. I am going to wager the cost to the wealthy will be much higher than an increase in the minimum wage.
  - jrmurad 11y ago
    In case this is not obvious to you... to be entitled to employment (or anything) means someone must provide it. If nobody is voluntarily hiring a man, you would force someone to hire him because this man is entitled to employment? How would you feel if I told you that there's someone I know in need of employment and YOU must hire him? Oh, and if you don't, I'll fine you or lock you up.
  - atemerev 11y ago
    People were never entitled to employment. The very notion of a job as the primary mode of earning one's living was born relatively recently, some 200 years ago (then, it meant mostly manual labor). It survived the transition to information economy, but current AI progress may finally put end to it. This is as inevitable as the appearance of middle class during the first industrial revolution. The progress cannot be stopped.
  - curiousgeorgio 11y ago
    Maybe you're confusing (as many do) entitled with having the freedom to do something. Entitled: believing oneself to be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment If I don't qualify in any way for a job at your business, let's find out what you say when I force you to hire me because of an argument that I'm inherently deserving of that job. I'll just sit on my butt all day, and you pay me. Sound good?
  - brainfire 11y ago
    I assume everyone who argues that there's no right to employment is also arguing in favor of a guaranteed income - decoupling survival from employment.
    - fche 11y ago
      That would be an erroneous assumption.
Pyxl101 11y ago
You're using an inadequate notion of what a "good argument" is in this context. You have not made an argument for why a price floor is necessary or desirable. I could just as easily say, "The good argument for having a maximum 'price of bread' is that without it, bread prices will be pressured up, because every bakery on the planet wants prices as high as possible, and they generally have the means to achieve it." You can say that all you want, but you haven't provided a justification that it's actually true, or that the situation warrants legislation of one interest over the other. You haven't given a justification or any consideration to the tradeoffs involved. Do you know what happens when real countries try to impose a limit on the price of bread? Starvation. The Soviet Union tried to establish a limit on the price of bread. Since the actual cost to grow wheat, bake bread, and transport it to cities was high, the supply chain couldn't make a profit (or even break even) selling at the government-specified price. So they stopped, and mass food shortages resulted. That's what happens when you tamper with the economy. Gorbachev finally fixed the problem by transitioning away from a planned economy to a free market: http://www.nytimes.com/1990/05/23/world/evolution-in-europe-gorbachev-plans-to-double-prices-of-food-next-year.html http://www.nytimes.com/1990/05/23/world/evolution-in-europe-... By allowing the price of bread to rise significantly, bakers and bread suppliers could finally turn a profit (i.e., not take a loss) selling bread, and so they began to do so. This is how the market forces of supply and demand lead to efficiency and achieve the right outcome. For example, if a crisis happens, then food becomes scarce; when food is scarce, people are willing to pay a high price for it; and because people are willing to pay a high price, this creates an incentive for people to go to extraordinary lengths to provide food there and reap the benefit of that high price. If you establish a price floor, then you're tampering with the economy in a complex way. You had better be prepared to reason about the economic deadweight loss (e.g., unemployment, shortages) that will result, and you should be prepared to provide a thorough justification for why the benefit of that legislation justifies the cost you're imposing on the economy through deadweight loss. Equating jobs to slavery is an outrageous argument, and disingenuous. Slavery is the act of taking away someone's freedom and forcing them to work for you without choice. Jobs are a free market - anyone is free to work a job that's offered to them, or not. They can quit and look for a better alternative. That is the market pressure that forces wages up: if employees have a better option, they'll take it.
- 11y ago
atemerev 11y ago
True, every business on the planet wants wages as low as possible. This is, of course, correct. On the other hand, every employee on the planet wants her wage to be as high as possible. This is also obviously true. This creates law of supply and demand. Google can't hire a decent software engineer for, say, $30000/year, because other companies will immediately offer more, and supply of talented software engineers is quite limited, even globally. But unskilled labor can be hired for much cheaper, as supply is nearly limitless. I don't know, they don't teach this stuff anymore in high school / colleges, or what?
- Al-Khwarizmi 11y ago
  How does this contradict the parent comment? Minimum wage obviously doesn't affect Google engineers, it affects the unskilled labor with near-limitless supply that you have mentioned. The idea is to prevent that kind of labor from becoming basically slavery.
  - atemerev 11y ago
    Slavery is forced labor. I don't see anything forced here. Salaries for unskilled labor are driven down by lack of demand for unskilled labor, and nothing can be done about that. What can be done is adjusting employees' skills to the areas where demand is still high. Coding bootcamps are one obvious possibility, but there are others. Everyone can learn new things. You, personally, can help these people, too. Hire an Uber (I am sure it helps many people survive; I had my share of tough times, and I'd sure could have use it as some source of income; unfortunately, it was before Uber was a thing where I live). Buy something on Etsy. Spend money locally. Etc, etc.
    - Al-Khwarizmi 11y ago
      If you have to accept a pitiful wage in order to barely subsist, that is effectively forced labor. In practice, the only alternative is to starve. Which is why a labor market without basic income or some other kind of safety net is not a free market at all. Not everyone can learn everything, but even if that were possible, if everyone in the world knew e.g. how to code decently, coding would be a minimum-wage job too. There is just not enough demand for jobs to make everyone valuable, and automation is just making this more pronounced.
jackcosgrove 11y ago
The way to stop downward wage pressure is for people to control how many offspring they have. I hear a lot of utopian talk here about leisure economies and basic incomes, but how about some utopian talk about a world where no child is ever born into a family without a plan for that child's future?
marknutter 11y ago
Then why do only 4% or so[1] of workers in the US make the minimum wage? Wouldn't, by your logic, far more employers pay people at minimum wage if their only goal was to pay people the lowest amount legally possible? [1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/09/08/who-makes-minimum-wage/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/09/08/who-makes-mi...

by Retra 11y ago

fche 11y ago

"As a business, you are not entitled to a profit. Especially not at the expense of your employees welfare." That's funny, but true. You know what else is at least as true? No people are entitled to employment, especially at a loss to the business.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
chillwaves 11y ago
You think people are not entitled to employment? Are they entitled to survive? Are you going to be the one to break the bad news? Let's find out what happens when you tell large segments of the population they have no right to a livelihood. I am going to wager the cost to the wealthy will be much higher than an increase in the minimum wage.
- jrmurad 11y ago
  In case this is not obvious to you... to be entitled to employment (or anything) means someone must provide it. If nobody is voluntarily hiring a man, you would force someone to hire him because this man is entitled to employment? How would you feel if I told you that there's someone I know in need of employment and YOU must hire him? Oh, and if you don't, I'll fine you or lock you up.
- atemerev 11y ago
  People were never entitled to employment. The very notion of a job as the primary mode of earning one's living was born relatively recently, some 200 years ago (then, it meant mostly manual labor). It survived the transition to information economy, but current AI progress may finally put end to it. This is as inevitable as the appearance of middle class during the first industrial revolution. The progress cannot be stopped.
- curiousgeorgio 11y ago
  Maybe you're confusing (as many do) entitled with having the freedom to do something. Entitled: believing oneself to be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment If I don't qualify in any way for a job at your business, let's find out what you say when I force you to hire me because of an argument that I'm inherently deserving of that job. I'll just sit on my butt all day, and you pay me. Sound good?
- brainfire 11y ago
  I assume everyone who argues that there's no right to employment is also arguing in favor of a guaranteed income - decoupling survival from employment.
  - fche 11y ago
    That would be an erroneous assumption.

Pyxl101 11y ago

You're using an inadequate notion of what a "good argument" is in this context. You have not made an argument for why a price floor is necessary or desirable. I could just as easily say, "The good argument for having a maximum 'price of bread' is that without it, bread prices will be pressured up, because every bakery on the planet wants prices as high as possible, and they generally have the means to achieve it." You can say that all you want, but you haven't provided a justification that it's actually true, or that the situation warrants legislation of one interest over the other. You haven't given a justification or any consideration to the tradeoffs involved. Do you know what happens when real countries try to impose a limit on the price of bread? Starvation. The Soviet Union tried to establish a limit on the price of bread. Since the actual cost to grow wheat, bake bread, and transport it to cities was high, the supply chain couldn't make a profit (or even break even) selling at the government-specified price. So they stopped, and mass food shortages resulted. That's what happens when you tamper with the economy. Gorbachev finally fixed the problem by transitioning away from a planned economy to a free market: http://www.nytimes.com/1990/05/23/world/evolution-in-europe-gorbachev-plans-to-double-prices-of-food-next-year.html http://www.nytimes.com/1990/05/23/world/evolution-in-europe-... By allowing the price of bread to rise significantly, bakers and bread suppliers could finally turn a profit (i.e., not take a loss) selling bread, and so they began to do so. This is how the market forces of supply and demand lead to efficiency and achieve the right outcome. For example, if a crisis happens, then food becomes scarce; when food is scarce, people are willing to pay a high price for it; and because people are willing to pay a high price, this creates an incentive for people to go to extraordinary lengths to provide food there and reap the benefit of that high price. If you establish a price floor, then you're tampering with the economy in a complex way. You had better be prepared to reason about the economic deadweight loss (e.g., unemployment, shortages) that will result, and you should be prepared to provide a thorough justification for why the benefit of that legislation justifies the cost you're imposing on the economy through deadweight loss. Equating jobs to slavery is an outrageous argument, and disingenuous. Slavery is the act of taking away someone's freedom and forcing them to work for you without choice. Jobs are a free market - anyone is free to work a job that's offered to them, or not. They can quit and look for a better alternative. That is the market pressure that forces wages up: if employees have a better option, they'll take it.

11y ago

atemerev 11y ago

True, every business on the planet wants wages as low as possible. This is, of course, correct. On the other hand, every employee on the planet wants her wage to be as high as possible. This is also obviously true. This creates law of supply and demand. Google can't hire a decent software engineer for, say, $30000/year, because other companies will immediately offer more, and supply of talented software engineers is quite limited, even globally. But unskilled labor can be hired for much cheaper, as supply is nearly limitless. I don't know, they don't teach this stuff anymore in high school / colleges, or what?

Al-Khwarizmi 11y ago
How does this contradict the parent comment? Minimum wage obviously doesn't affect Google engineers, it affects the unskilled labor with near-limitless supply that you have mentioned. The idea is to prevent that kind of labor from becoming basically slavery.
- atemerev 11y ago
  Slavery is forced labor. I don't see anything forced here. Salaries for unskilled labor are driven down by lack of demand for unskilled labor, and nothing can be done about that. What can be done is adjusting employees' skills to the areas where demand is still high. Coding bootcamps are one obvious possibility, but there are others. Everyone can learn new things. You, personally, can help these people, too. Hire an Uber (I am sure it helps many people survive; I had my share of tough times, and I'd sure could have use it as some source of income; unfortunately, it was before Uber was a thing where I live). Buy something on Etsy. Spend money locally. Etc, etc.
  - Al-Khwarizmi 11y ago
    If you have to accept a pitiful wage in order to barely subsist, that is effectively forced labor. In practice, the only alternative is to starve. Which is why a labor market without basic income or some other kind of safety net is not a free market at all. Not everyone can learn everything, but even if that were possible, if everyone in the world knew e.g. how to code decently, coding would be a minimum-wage job too. There is just not enough demand for jobs to make everyone valuable, and automation is just making this more pronounced.

jackcosgrove 11y ago

The way to stop downward wage pressure is for people to control how many offspring they have. I hear a lot of utopian talk here about leisure economies and basic incomes, but how about some utopian talk about a world where no child is ever born into a family without a plan for that child's future?

marknutter 11y ago

Then why do only 4% or so[1] of workers in the US make the minimum wage? Wouldn't, by your logic, far more employers pay people at minimum wage if their only goal was to pay people the lowest amount legally possible? [1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/09/08/who-makes-minimum-wage/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/09/08/who-makes-mi...