4 ms·
Yes, it's much better to prevent any employment opportunity for that person. Situation A: I can choose between no employment (bad), and exploitative employment
by greggyb 9y ago
Yes, it's much better to prevent any employment opportunity for that person.
Situation A: I can choose between no employment (bad), and exploitative employment (slightly less bad).
Situation B: With the benevolent intention of a minimum wage legislated into existence, I can "choose" no employment (same bad as before).
You don't make someone worse off by increasing the number of options.
You don't make people better off by arguing for the goodness of an intention.
Measure results of your policies. Keep in mind foundational economic principles. Do good.
Ninja edit for pedants: adding additional options to a baseline set of options. "Live peacefully -> (join my army | die)" is a greater number of choices, but I don't have the option of sticking with "live peacefully". I hope this helps clarify my sentence above.
- clavalle 9y agoThis all assumes that time is worthless. The actual equation is [80 hours usable time] vs. [40 hours useable time + some small amount of money]. If I can use that 40 hours to find a better job or train for the future, I would be better off.
- greggyb 9y agoI didn't say that the person should take the exploitative job. The term you're looking for is opportunity cost. And yes, the opportunity cost of A is !B. Similarly the opportunity cost for B is !A. We could come up with all sorts of stuff that happens in the time that would otherwise be devoted to the exploitative job, but that wouldn't clarify the point being made here. We are in adversarial agreement.
- clavalle 9y agoExploitative employment can be defined as one being paid much less than one's time is worth. So the 'slightly less bad' assessment of the exploitative employment is incorrect because having all of the time at full value is better than selling some for lesser value.
- greggyb 9y agoYou do realize that you're adding a third scenario? You are saying that I can choose (no employment | exploitative employment | non-exploitative employment), whereas my post you originally responded to had (no employment | exploitative employment). I agree with you. Expanding the set of choices is a good thing.
- RivieraKid 9y agoEven assuming that working a low-paying job is worse than not working at all, it doesn't mean that low-paying jobs should be illegal. Adding more options doesn't generally make things worse. Maybe for some people having a low-paying job is better than not having a job at all.
- gbacon 9y agoIs this the only place in town that needs rocks toted?
- brador 9y agoHigher minimum wage means the robotics revolution happens faster.
- manicdee 9y agoAs an employer seeking to exploit the working poor in order to improve profits and justify my seven digit salary, I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]