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> Some businesses cannot be profitable and therefore will not exist at certain minimum wages, though. It's also worth noting that some businesses probably can'

> Some businesses cannot be profitable and therefore will not exist at certain minimum wages, though. It's also worth noting that some businesses probably can't be profitable without chattel slavery, though it's hard to find examples since the practice has been illegal for so long. > The US minimum wage is a big part of why manufacturing jobs have moved out of the US, for instance. No. I'd say the bigger part of the reason was free trade agreements with countries with substantially lower wages, which encouraged job movement for little more than wage arbitrage reasons, minimum wage or no. The average income per capita in Bangladesh is apparently $600/year [1]. Americans would starve and die of exposure on those wages. [1] https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/bangladesh/annual-household-income-per-capita https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/bangladesh/annual-hous...

xyzzyz 7y ago
> Americans would starve and die of exposure on those wages. No, they wouldn’t. Americans survived on wages lower than that in the past. They would simply have to adjust their lifestyle to look more like the one of Bangladeshi —- unless you assume that Americans are somehow extremely inept compared to Bangladeshi.
- CharlesColeman 7y ago
  >> Americans would starve and die of exposure [in America] on [Bangladeshi] wages. > No, they wouldn’t.... [Americans] would simply have to adjust their lifestyle to look more like the one of Bangladeshi I appreciate your honesty, but listen to what you're saying. No one "simply" accepts massive regressions in living standards across large swaths of the economy, and that's exactly what you'd need for Bangladeshi wages to be livable in the US. That kind of thing leads to revolutions, and rightly so.
- asdff 7y ago
  Are you implying that the people currently starving and dieing of exposure living in bangladeshi-style slums right on the streets of San Fransisco is an acceptable outcome? We should be paying more people a wage that forces them to live like that? Or do we look at the growing inequality in this country and realize we can definitely afford to add a couple bucks to a poor guys hourly rate so he doesn't have to give 60% of his income to the parasite landlord every month.
  - atypicality 7y ago
    What do you have against landlords? Every situation has an economic element to it. It shouldn't be assumed that every person who is a boss, landlord or business owner is assumed to be some sort of crook for having money. Maybe the landlord is upside down on his property and takes a loss every month. You just don't know.
- macintux 7y ago
  You can’t be serious. The only way to survive on $600/year is to live somewhere that’s a viable income. There’s nowhere in the US where you can do that, unless you count unofficial homeless encampments, and I’d wager anyone living there who only brought in $600/year in government benefits and other sources would quickly die.
darawk 7y ago
> It's also worth noting that some businesses probably can't be profitable without chattel slavery, though it's hard to find examples since the practice has been illegal for so long. The difference between slavery and wages is that one of them is enforced by violence. The other is an offer, that may be taken or left. That difference is supremely important, and makes those things completely incomparable. > No. I'd say the bigger part of the reason was free trade agreements with countries with substantially lower wages, which encouraged job movement for little more than wage arbitrage reasons, minimum wage or no. The average income per capita in Bangladesh is apparently $600/year [1]. Americans would starve and die of exposure on those wages. I mean, I think we're saying the same thing. Those free trade agreements are what enabled the labor to be off-shored, because the labor is cheaper. I don't think we disagree here. > The average income per capita in Bangladesh is apparently $600/year [1]. Americans would starve and die of exposure on those wages. No they wouldn't. Nobody takes a job at a wage that causes them to starve and die of exposure. Therefore such jobs do not exist. You take a job so as to avoid starving and dying of exposure. If you are going to starve and die anyway, you might as well not be working.
- CharlesColeman 7y ago
  > The difference between slavery and wages is that one of them is enforced by violence. The other is an offer, that may be taken or left. That difference is supremely important, and makes those things completely incomparable. Sorry, they're not "completely incomparable." You just selectively pulled out some context for slavery to make that claim, but left the wage-work situation in an idealized context-free zone. The context for wage-work can be starvation or death by exposure, if the offer isn't taken. The fact that there's some side that can be reckoned to have made some nominal choice is not sufficient to legitimize it, just as similar choice is not sufficient to legitimize someone voluntarily selling themselves into chattel slavery. Also, contracts and property rights are enforced by violence, and I highly doubt you think they're illegitimate, so being "enforced by violence" doesn't seem to be that significant of a differentiator here. If we're supposed to wring our hands about the poor businesses that are unprofitable due to the minimum wage, I see no reason why we should not do so over ones that are unprofitable for other reasons, like slavery, child-labor restrictions, and worker safety laws. > I mean, I think we're saying the same thing. Those free trade agreements are what enabled the labor to be off-shored, because the labor is cheaper. I don't think we disagree here. No we're not. Minimum wage laws are minimally relevant to offshoring because the wages in countries were the work moved are simply unlivable in the US. > No they wouldn't. Nobody takes a job at a wage that causes them to starve and die of exposure. Therefore such jobs do not exist. You take a job so as to avoid starving and dying of exposure. If you are going to starve and die anyway, you might as well not be working. Exactly. There's no way Americans could compete for jobs on price with Bangladeshis. So in a free trade regime, jobs are going to move to Bangladesh regardless of any American minimum wage laws. By itself, free trade is necessary and sufficient for extensive offshoring of American jobs.

xyzzyz 7y ago

> Americans would starve and die of exposure on those wages. No, they wouldn’t. Americans survived on wages lower than that in the past. They would simply have to adjust their lifestyle to look more like the one of Bangladeshi —- unless you assume that Americans are somehow extremely inept compared to Bangladeshi.

CharlesColeman 7y ago
>> Americans would starve and die of exposure [in America] on [Bangladeshi] wages. > No, they wouldn’t.... [Americans] would simply have to adjust their lifestyle to look more like the one of Bangladeshi I appreciate your honesty, but listen to what you're saying. No one "simply" accepts massive regressions in living standards across large swaths of the economy, and that's exactly what you'd need for Bangladeshi wages to be livable in the US. That kind of thing leads to revolutions, and rightly so.
asdff 7y ago
Are you implying that the people currently starving and dieing of exposure living in bangladeshi-style slums right on the streets of San Fransisco is an acceptable outcome? We should be paying more people a wage that forces them to live like that? Or do we look at the growing inequality in this country and realize we can definitely afford to add a couple bucks to a poor guys hourly rate so he doesn't have to give 60% of his income to the parasite landlord every month.
- atypicality 7y ago
  What do you have against landlords? Every situation has an economic element to it. It shouldn't be assumed that every person who is a boss, landlord or business owner is assumed to be some sort of crook for having money. Maybe the landlord is upside down on his property and takes a loss every month. You just don't know.
macintux 7y ago
You can’t be serious. The only way to survive on $600/year is to live somewhere that’s a viable income. There’s nowhere in the US where you can do that, unless you count unofficial homeless encampments, and I’d wager anyone living there who only brought in $600/year in government benefits and other sources would quickly die.

darawk 7y ago

> It's also worth noting that some businesses probably can't be profitable without chattel slavery, though it's hard to find examples since the practice has been illegal for so long. The difference between slavery and wages is that one of them is enforced by violence. The other is an offer, that may be taken or left. That difference is supremely important, and makes those things completely incomparable. > No. I'd say the bigger part of the reason was free trade agreements with countries with substantially lower wages, which encouraged job movement for little more than wage arbitrage reasons, minimum wage or no. The average income per capita in Bangladesh is apparently $600/year [1]. Americans would starve and die of exposure on those wages. I mean, I think we're saying the same thing. Those free trade agreements are what enabled the labor to be off-shored, because the labor is cheaper. I don't think we disagree here. > The average income per capita in Bangladesh is apparently $600/year [1]. Americans would starve and die of exposure on those wages. No they wouldn't. Nobody takes a job at a wage that causes them to starve and die of exposure. Therefore such jobs do not exist. You take a job so as to avoid starving and dying of exposure. If you are going to starve and die anyway, you might as well not be working.

CharlesColeman 7y ago
> The difference between slavery and wages is that one of them is enforced by violence. The other is an offer, that may be taken or left. That difference is supremely important, and makes those things completely incomparable. Sorry, they're not "completely incomparable." You just selectively pulled out some context for slavery to make that claim, but left the wage-work situation in an idealized context-free zone. The context for wage-work can be starvation or death by exposure, if the offer isn't taken. The fact that there's some side that can be reckoned to have made some nominal choice is not sufficient to legitimize it, just as similar choice is not sufficient to legitimize someone voluntarily selling themselves into chattel slavery. Also, contracts and property rights are enforced by violence, and I highly doubt you think they're illegitimate, so being "enforced by violence" doesn't seem to be that significant of a differentiator here. If we're supposed to wring our hands about the poor businesses that are unprofitable due to the minimum wage, I see no reason why we should not do so over ones that are unprofitable for other reasons, like slavery, child-labor restrictions, and worker safety laws. > I mean, I think we're saying the same thing. Those free trade agreements are what enabled the labor to be off-shored, because the labor is cheaper. I don't think we disagree here. No we're not. Minimum wage laws are minimally relevant to offshoring because the wages in countries were the work moved are simply unlivable in the US. > No they wouldn't. Nobody takes a job at a wage that causes them to starve and die of exposure. Therefore such jobs do not exist. You take a job so as to avoid starving and dying of exposure. If you are going to starve and die anyway, you might as well not be working. Exactly. There's no way Americans could compete for jobs on price with Bangladeshis. So in a free trade regime, jobs are going to move to Bangladesh regardless of any American minimum wage laws. By itself, free trade is necessary and sufficient for extensive offshoring of American jobs.