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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

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.
    - atemerev 11y ago
      This is why world population growth is dramatically slowing down (not exponential, not even linear — it is now sublinear, and expected to stop completely around 2050).
    - fche 11y ago
      "a labor market without basic income or some other kind of safety net is not a free market at all" No, you're just redefining "freedom". It does not mean "freedom from consequence from choices". It means "lack of compulsion to make particular choices".
  - eli_gottlieb 11y ago
    >Salaries for unskilled labor are driven down by lack of demand for unskilled labor, and nothing can be done about that. The workers can unionize and strike until their demands are met. Unless, of course, you have something forced, like Pinkertons to beat up striking workers.
- zo1 11y ago
  >"it affects the unskilled labor with near-limitless supply that you have mentioned." That "near-limitless" supply is the actual problem. Horrible as it may sound, but we're already talking about people and people's labour as a resource. Unless you allow the market to regulate the supply, you'll always have an imbalance. In fact, we make it worse by letting it get to this point. If we were to let the market work on it's own now, with no government interference, people would probably be dying in droves from starvation (assuming charity doesn't help them along). Attempting to make everyone's life not miserable (with e.g. minimum wage laws) skews the market and allows individuals to have (or have more) children than they would if they were living in a tough market. If occurring naturally, this sort of effect would be very subtle and not be a cause for misery. But, since we've already propped up a large population that would not have occurred ordinarily, we're stuck in a situation where outcomes are unthinkable. I'd even argue that it's a self-reinforcing cycle at this point. The over-abundant supply pushes the wages down, making the situation even worse were it not for welfare/minimum-wage hikes. I think as a society, we have a moral obligation to wean this tap off, minimizing the harmful effects as the market adjusts while at the same time removing the perverse incentives that caused us to get to this point in the first place.
  - Kliment 11y ago
    This seems wrongheaded in the face of overwhelming evidence that fertility rates are strongly negatively correlated with income and quality of life.
makomk 11y ago
The trouble with supply and demand is that people can't exactly stop eating for a few months if they can't find work that pays as much as they'd like, so as long as there are more people who need jobs to eat than there are jobs it can't do much to stop the downward pressure on wages - which in turn means that it's in business owners' interests to make sure this is true. (Why do you think there's really so much pressure to cut welfare in countries like the US?) If anything, decreasing prices could increase supply as people are forced to work multiple jobs in order to afford food and shelter.
- atemerev 11y ago
  You think that high minimum wage will somehow magically create more jobs? Could you please explain this entertaining possibility?
  - makomk 11y ago
    No, where do you get that idea from?
karmacondon 11y ago
Why do you think minimum wage laws exist? It's because at one point in our nation's history, businesses implicitly colluded to set wages low. They have more power in wage negotiations than workers do, because there are generally people who can afford to do unskilled labor for very small amounts. Businesses got greedy and took that too far, offering people wages far beyond a minimum standard of living. So in response, the people voted to set a minimum that would prevent corporations from being outright exploitative. The same thing could happen today. Google engineers will always be paid a lot of money, but the average McDonalds workers could see their income fall way below the national average cost of living. Whether the minimum should be $5/$10/$15 is up for debate, but without businesses would have an unfair amount of bargaining power.
- pgtruesdell 11y ago
  Collusion to suppress wages is already illegal. All you're saying is that you don't have any faith in the government to prevent collusion. Which is a whole separate issue.
  - Retra 11y ago
    You can revoke laws. In fact, this whole discussion is basically about revoking minimum wage laws. How useless of an argument would it be to say "paying less than minimum wage is already illegal, so we can revoke the anti-collusion laws?"
  - wavefunction 11y ago
    Or maybe the poster doesn't have any faith in businesses to do the decent thing by their workers. Which is a whole separate issue.
  - zanny 11y ago
    The other problem is that today we have labor gluts, particularly of the unskilled variety. Automation reduces the need for workers, those workers become economic outcasts with no influence to have their needs satisfied by capitalism, and the ownership class does not create demand for more unskilled labor - they want founders and professionals who can grow their wealth, that is what they demand. If you drop the minimum wage you do not need collusion to see real wages for jobs drop insanely low, ironically because those who can live off other income will work them when there is no other easy way to earn additional income - IE, those with wealth will work for less because their life does not depend on that income providing their base needs, which already are in many places more than what the minimum wage offers already (ie, living wage).
EliRivers 11y ago
I downvoted for passive-aggressive bullshit and I don't care who knows it.
gozur88 11y ago
>I don't know, they don't teach this stuff anymore in high school / colleges, or what? Sadly, they really don't. Every few generations we have a fling with collectivism and then think "Oh, so that's why we didn't do this."
unprepare 11y ago
>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. Did you somehow miss the massive wage fixing lawsuit google just recently lost? Your hypothetical wouldn't happen because google has deals with its competitors to artificially deflate wages. I think you mightve picked the absolute worst example to defend your point

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.
  - atemerev 11y ago
    This is why world population growth is dramatically slowing down (not exponential, not even linear — it is now sublinear, and expected to stop completely around 2050).
  - fche 11y ago
    "a labor market without basic income or some other kind of safety net is not a free market at all" No, you're just redefining "freedom". It does not mean "freedom from consequence from choices". It means "lack of compulsion to make particular choices".
- eli_gottlieb 11y ago
  >Salaries for unskilled labor are driven down by lack of demand for unskilled labor, and nothing can be done about that. The workers can unionize and strike until their demands are met. Unless, of course, you have something forced, like Pinkertons to beat up striking workers.
zo1 11y ago
>"it affects the unskilled labor with near-limitless supply that you have mentioned." That "near-limitless" supply is the actual problem. Horrible as it may sound, but we're already talking about people and people's labour as a resource. Unless you allow the market to regulate the supply, you'll always have an imbalance. In fact, we make it worse by letting it get to this point. If we were to let the market work on it's own now, with no government interference, people would probably be dying in droves from starvation (assuming charity doesn't help them along). Attempting to make everyone's life not miserable (with e.g. minimum wage laws) skews the market and allows individuals to have (or have more) children than they would if they were living in a tough market. If occurring naturally, this sort of effect would be very subtle and not be a cause for misery. But, since we've already propped up a large population that would not have occurred ordinarily, we're stuck in a situation where outcomes are unthinkable. I'd even argue that it's a self-reinforcing cycle at this point. The over-abundant supply pushes the wages down, making the situation even worse were it not for welfare/minimum-wage hikes. I think as a society, we have a moral obligation to wean this tap off, minimizing the harmful effects as the market adjusts while at the same time removing the perverse incentives that caused us to get to this point in the first place.
- Kliment 11y ago
  This seems wrongheaded in the face of overwhelming evidence that fertility rates are strongly negatively correlated with income and quality of life.

makomk 11y ago

The trouble with supply and demand is that people can't exactly stop eating for a few months if they can't find work that pays as much as they'd like, so as long as there are more people who need jobs to eat than there are jobs it can't do much to stop the downward pressure on wages - which in turn means that it's in business owners' interests to make sure this is true. (Why do you think there's really so much pressure to cut welfare in countries like the US?) If anything, decreasing prices could increase supply as people are forced to work multiple jobs in order to afford food and shelter.

atemerev 11y ago
You think that high minimum wage will somehow magically create more jobs? Could you please explain this entertaining possibility?
- makomk 11y ago
  No, where do you get that idea from?

karmacondon 11y ago

Why do you think minimum wage laws exist? It's because at one point in our nation's history, businesses implicitly colluded to set wages low. They have more power in wage negotiations than workers do, because there are generally people who can afford to do unskilled labor for very small amounts. Businesses got greedy and took that too far, offering people wages far beyond a minimum standard of living. So in response, the people voted to set a minimum that would prevent corporations from being outright exploitative. The same thing could happen today. Google engineers will always be paid a lot of money, but the average McDonalds workers could see their income fall way below the national average cost of living. Whether the minimum should be $5/$10/$15 is up for debate, but without businesses would have an unfair amount of bargaining power.

pgtruesdell 11y ago
Collusion to suppress wages is already illegal. All you're saying is that you don't have any faith in the government to prevent collusion. Which is a whole separate issue.
- Retra 11y ago
  You can revoke laws. In fact, this whole discussion is basically about revoking minimum wage laws. How useless of an argument would it be to say "paying less than minimum wage is already illegal, so we can revoke the anti-collusion laws?"
- wavefunction 11y ago
  Or maybe the poster doesn't have any faith in businesses to do the decent thing by their workers. Which is a whole separate issue.
- zanny 11y ago
  The other problem is that today we have labor gluts, particularly of the unskilled variety. Automation reduces the need for workers, those workers become economic outcasts with no influence to have their needs satisfied by capitalism, and the ownership class does not create demand for more unskilled labor - they want founders and professionals who can grow their wealth, that is what they demand. If you drop the minimum wage you do not need collusion to see real wages for jobs drop insanely low, ironically because those who can live off other income will work them when there is no other easy way to earn additional income - IE, those with wealth will work for less because their life does not depend on that income providing their base needs, which already are in many places more than what the minimum wage offers already (ie, living wage).

EliRivers 11y ago

I downvoted for passive-aggressive bullshit and I don't care who knows it.

gozur88 11y ago

>I don't know, they don't teach this stuff anymore in high school / colleges, or what? Sadly, they really don't. Every few generations we have a fling with collectivism and then think "Oh, so that's why we didn't do this."

unprepare 11y ago

>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. Did you somehow miss the massive wage fixing lawsuit google just recently lost? Your hypothetical wouldn't happen because google has deals with its competitors to artificially deflate wages. I think you mightve picked the absolute worst example to defend your point