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1. Perhaps. Difficult to know the extent exactly. My guess would be yes, given theory, but we'd need a natural experiment to find that out. 2. This particular

1. Perhaps. Difficult to know the extent exactly. My guess would be yes, given theory, but we'd need a natural experiment to find that out. 2. This particular thing isn't really an argument against minimum wage, although I personally am not automatically in support of it for other reasons. I can see an argument that it creates poverty by making unskilled workers unable to compete with lower skilled labor overseas for manufacturing jobs. Effectively it's a ban on their ability to work (if their value add is less than the minimum wage) and make a living and can possibly go some way towards explaining the black youth unemployment rate. This robs them of their ability to get a foothold in their economy from which they can stabilize and level up. Why would a manufacturer keep their operations in the US if they have to pay minimum wage? Of course they're going to be inclined to move overseas where it's cheaper, especially if it's a low margin business. It's also rather intrusive and authoritarian, if two people want to get together and exchange one hour of X for $Y then I don't see that as any of your business, but this is more a point of personal values and it's more productive to focus on the utilitarian part of the argument.

dmitriid 5y ago
> This robs them of their ability to get a foothold in their economy from which they can stabilize and level up. You're kidding, right? You're sayig that minimum wage robs people of ability to get a foothold in the economy? Please enlighten me how "getting a foothold" works for people that have to work several jobs just to barely keep afloat? > It's also rather intrusive and authoritarian, if two people want to get together and exchange one hour of X for $Y then I don't see that as any of your business What about if a bunch of people come together and agree this is a good thing? Oh, wait, that's called a government, and laws, and common human decency. > this is more a point of personal values and it's more productive to focus on the utilitarian part of the argument. Indeed. Because your personal argument basically devolves into: if you want to keep slaves or indentured servants, who am I to keep you from doing that?
- fighterpilot 5y ago
  > You're sayig that minimum wage robs people of ability to get a foothold in the economy? Please enlighten me how "getting a foothold" works for people that have to work several jobs just to barely keep afloat? I explained why already. (1) If their value to an employer is less than the miminum wage, then that's going to contribute to unemployment, because an employer would now rather pursue automation or some other solution, or simply go out of business. That's what happens when you fix prices. This robs those people of the ability to get that first job that they can leverage for better opportunities later, and pushes people to drug dealing (which pays worse than minimum wage most of the time) and so on. It is terrible for social mobility and keeps people stuck at the absolute bottom. (2) Domestic unskilled labor is now uncompetitive with foreign unskilled labor. The government has effectively banned domestic unskilled labor from working those particular jobs which means manufacturing moves overseas and benefits foreign unskilled labor instead. This devastates communities that used to function on the back of manufacturing. > What about if a bunch of people come together and agree this is a good thing? Democratic != not authoritarian. Internment of Japanese was done by democratically elected representatives, and it was authoritarian. > keep slaves or indentured servants You can frame it like that, and I can point to communities that have been devastated and people that are chronically unemployed because of these kind of supposedly well-intentioned laws that fix prices. Who has the real moral high ground?
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    1. If a business cannot pay its employees a living wage, it literally doesn't matter if you decide that "an employee's value is less than the wage". 2. If a business cannot pay a living wage, and has to cease existing or has to automate, let it cease to exist or automate. 3. "Cannot compete with third-world countries that offer shit wages and shit standards of living, and are ruthlessly exploited" really isn't an argument you want to present when advocating against minimum wage. 4. Price fixing !== setting minimum wage to a level that lets people, you know, live.
    - fighterpilot 5y ago
      > (2) (3) This is fairly ruthless towards the victims of this ideology - those that live in the communities left literally destroyed after manufacturers pulled out and those trapped in chronic unemployment. You can use emotive and loaded terms all you want (slavery, indentured servitude, exploitation), but the real-world negative human consequences and rather racist outcomes of these ideals are on full display for everyone to see.

dmitriid 5y ago

> This robs them of their ability to get a foothold in their economy from which they can stabilize and level up. You're kidding, right? You're sayig that minimum wage robs people of ability to get a foothold in the economy? Please enlighten me how "getting a foothold" works for people that have to work several jobs just to barely keep afloat? > It's also rather intrusive and authoritarian, if two people want to get together and exchange one hour of X for $Y then I don't see that as any of your business What about if a bunch of people come together and agree this is a good thing? Oh, wait, that's called a government, and laws, and common human decency. > this is more a point of personal values and it's more productive to focus on the utilitarian part of the argument. Indeed. Because your personal argument basically devolves into: if you want to keep slaves or indentured servants, who am I to keep you from doing that?

fighterpilot 5y ago
> You're sayig that minimum wage robs people of ability to get a foothold in the economy? Please enlighten me how "getting a foothold" works for people that have to work several jobs just to barely keep afloat? I explained why already. (1) If their value to an employer is less than the miminum wage, then that's going to contribute to unemployment, because an employer would now rather pursue automation or some other solution, or simply go out of business. That's what happens when you fix prices. This robs those people of the ability to get that first job that they can leverage for better opportunities later, and pushes people to drug dealing (which pays worse than minimum wage most of the time) and so on. It is terrible for social mobility and keeps people stuck at the absolute bottom. (2) Domestic unskilled labor is now uncompetitive with foreign unskilled labor. The government has effectively banned domestic unskilled labor from working those particular jobs which means manufacturing moves overseas and benefits foreign unskilled labor instead. This devastates communities that used to function on the back of manufacturing. > What about if a bunch of people come together and agree this is a good thing? Democratic != not authoritarian. Internment of Japanese was done by democratically elected representatives, and it was authoritarian. > keep slaves or indentured servants You can frame it like that, and I can point to communities that have been devastated and people that are chronically unemployed because of these kind of supposedly well-intentioned laws that fix prices. Who has the real moral high ground?
- dmitriid 5y ago
  1. If a business cannot pay its employees a living wage, it literally doesn't matter if you decide that "an employee's value is less than the wage". 2. If a business cannot pay a living wage, and has to cease existing or has to automate, let it cease to exist or automate. 3. "Cannot compete with third-world countries that offer shit wages and shit standards of living, and are ruthlessly exploited" really isn't an argument you want to present when advocating against minimum wage. 4. Price fixing !== setting minimum wage to a level that lets people, you know, live.
  - fighterpilot 5y ago
    > (2) (3) This is fairly ruthless towards the victims of this ideology - those that live in the communities left literally destroyed after manufacturers pulled out and those trapped in chronic unemployment. You can use emotive and loaded terms all you want (slavery, indentured servitude, exploitation), but the real-world negative human consequences and rather racist outcomes of these ideals are on full display for everyone to see.