Minimum Wage

[Marvin]

But, the wonderful thing about the western world is we have a thriving middle class. The best we can hope for is to find ways to increase the middle class without trying to eliminate the lower classes, because eliminating them by wealth redistribution would just turn the middle class into the lower class, and make the already overbearing class problems worse.

Turning the middle class into the lower class is good if there's a net improvement in the quality of life for most people. There are quite a few countries in which being middle class is a lot worse than just being lower class in the US.

 

[JU 199]

But, the wonderful thing about the western world is we have a thriving middle class.

The middle class has been fraying in the west for a decade or so. Especially since 2008.

 

[PeteyCoffee]

I hope they don't increase the minimum wage very much because currently in the United States many retarded, elderly, and disabled people get jobs and participate in society but with a high minimum wage it will no longer be economically feasible to employ them.

You don't hire a person who costs you more than they can bring in. For nonessential jobs (the type they tend to have), margins are already tight.

 

[AP 297]

I am going to actually disagree on this.

One of the biggest problems in the world right now is that there has been consistent rounds of over production and consistent force to lower wages. Lowered wages reduces consumption, and is creating the scenario that we have now. Over the last 30 years we have had boom and bust cycles that have occurred every 8 years. I would not be surprised if we have another that happens next year.

This is basically caused by something known as a Savings glut. Lowered wages and a wage system that is creating a "race to the bottom" for wages is creating a constant system of forcing countries to take on debt to support social services to compensate for the low wages(savings) that companies are able to achieve.

You cannot have supply without demand. Low wages destroys demand. We have over produced and under compensated for it.

 

[GS 281]

Get rid of the minimum wage. Let the poor really feel a squeeze. Its about time we seen a REALLY pissed off populace. Enough pussyfooting around. Government and business has been doing just enough to hold off revolution for decades. Our problems are too layered, compounded and complex. Sometimes there needs to be a crisis, revolution and breakdown of the system before it can be redesigned in a way that conforms to the environment at large once more.

 

[AP 297]

Get rid of the minimum wage. Let the poor really feel a squeeze. Its about time we seen a REALLY pissed off populace. Enough pussyfooting around government and business has been doing just enough to hold off revolution for decades. Our problems are too layered, compounded and complex. Sometimes there needs to be a crisis, revolution and breakdown of the system before it can be redesigned in a way that conforms to the environment at large once more.

Ya, I am really going to disagree with this. Revolutions are really overrated. Better a slow methodical approach rather than a catastrophe.

Another problem with revolutions and unrest is that you wind up with booming black markets and suddenly no one can find toilet paper. I am not kidding on the last one. Toilet paper becomes scarce when countries start falling apart. Look at Venezuela -

http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/05/17/bathroom-blues-venezuelas-toilet-paper-crisis/
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/05/16/venezuela-toilet-paper-chavez/2165405/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...tages-claim-lives-as-oil-price-collapses.html
http://www.theatlantic.com/business...t-paper-shortage-dont-laugh-seriously/275940/

 

[PeteyCoffee]

@The Lizard Queen is right; the problem of lowly workers becoming unable to provide enough value to justify their employment is temporary; the market will readjust itself.

However, periods of great market readjustment or inflation (recessions) tend to be uncertain, tumultuous times. Everyone hurts, except the wealthiest people, who tend to come out of it even wealthier - having bought smaller companies which could not adjust fast enough, having bought stock when other people were selling, having hired desperate people for cheap, etc.

The wealthiest profit massively, of course, but the alternative is even worse. If no one buys that failing company, it ceases operating and everyone involved loses their job. If no one buys that stock for cheap, the price plummets to near zero and those who need out get pennies. If no one hires those desperate workers, they are out of work for the duration of the recession. In other words, if no one would or could profit off of bad times, the result would be a total economic collapse. Still, their necessary involvement has the consequence of an increasing wealth gap.

Theoretically, if a group of people became powerful enough, they could use government influence to repeatedly manufacture inflation (using money printing, government spending, economic mandates, etc.), let the economy recover, then do the exact same thing again. They become wealthier, as they become more powerful. Eventually, they own everyone.

 

[The Giver]

Turning the middle class into the lower class is good if there's a net improvement in the quality of life for most people. There are quite a few countries in which being middle class is a lot worse than just being lower class in the US.

Regardless of whether the empirical claim that it would be possible to cause a net increase in well being by lower the average standard of the middle class and raising that of the lower class, I'm just not sure I'm comfortable with this kind of utilitarian reasoning.

Consider the following scenario. A small subsection of the population is compelled (economically, politically, w/e) to do shoulder the vast majority of negative utility... a statistically small slave class, say. However, the negative utility of this slave class is outweighed by the positive utility conferred on the rest of the population, which constitutes the vast majority. Furthermore, let's say -- hypothetically -- that this set up leads to a net increase in quality of life over spreading out the negative utility across a wider section of the population. Is the slave caste system therefore morally correct, or good?

I'd hesitate to say it would be. In fact, I'd say it was radically immoral. But, you can't justify that conclusion with utilitarian reasoning alone. You'd need reference to something else... say basic human rights that hold regardless of any net increase/decrease in quality of life. Now, I guess I want to say that something like a minimum wage is likely such a right. Respect for the worth of labor should not, on my view, ever be allowed to fall below a certain value. If you put in a hard days work, I believe you have a right to some minimum amount of compensation for that labor. What an appropriate value might be, I won't speculate about, but it seems to me this right holds independent of maximizing overall quality of life.

Of course, overall quality of life should be a very important concern nevertheless. I just don't want to say that it is the ultimate principle on which to judge policy

 

[Marvin]

Regardless of whether the empirical claim that it would be possible to cause a net increase in well being by lower the average standard of the middle class and raising that of the lower class, I'm just not sure I'm comfortable with this kind of utilitarian reasoning.

Consider the following scenario. A small subsection of the population is compelled (economically, politically, w/e) to do shoulder the vast majority of negative utility... a statistically small slave class, say. However, the negative utility of this slave class is outweighed by the positive utility conferred on the rest of the population, which constitutes the vast majority. Furthermore, let's say -- hypothetically -- that this set up leads to a net increase in quality of life over spreading out the negative utility across a wider section of the population. Is the slave caste system therefore morally correct, or good?

I'd hesitate to say it would be. In fact, I'd say it was radically immoral. But, you can't justify that conclusion with utilitarian reasoning alone. You'd need reference to something else... say basic human rights that hold regardless of any net increase/decrease in quality of life. Now, I guess I want to say that something like a minimum wage is likely such a right. Respect for the worth of labor should not, on my view, ever be allowed to fall below a certain value. If you put in a hard days work, I believe you have a right to some minimum amount of compensation for that labor. What an appropriate value might be, I won't speculate about, but it seems to me this right holds independent of maximizing overall quality of life.

Of course, overall quality of life should be a very important concern nevertheless. I just don't want to say that it is the ultimate principle on which to judge policy

The argument I was addressing seemed to say that using wealth distribution to eliminate the lower classes would just serve to turn the middle class into the new lower class. I don't think that's important because "lower class" and "middle class" are just relative terms without an important meaning of their own. If the existing middle class becomes the new lower class simply because there isn't someone below them, that doesn't really mean anything to me.

 

[The Giver]

The argument I was addressing seemed to say that using wealth distribution to eliminate the lower classes would just serve to turn the middle class into the new lower class. I don't think that's important because "lower class" and "middle class" are just relative terms without an important meaning of their own. If the existing middle class becomes the new lower class simply because there isn't someone below them, that doesn't really mean anything to me.

Ah, my mistake. In that case I pretty much agree with you. The labels really aren't what is important

 

[PeteyCoffee]

Get rid of the minimum wage. Let the poor really feel a squeeze. Its about time we seen a REALLY pissed off populace. Enough pussyfooting around. Government and business has been doing just enough to hold off revolution for decades. Our problems are too layered, compounded and complex. Sometimes there needs to be a crisis, revolution and breakdown of the system before it can be redesigned in a way that conforms to the environment at large once more.

I suggest what I'm about to say is an absolute: if a revolution is more violent than the system it overthrows, the revolutionary system will be more violent (repressive) than the overthrown system.

For this reason, I prefer the republic over the old ways. The crises a bloating republican government will inevitably create or exacerbate on an almost yearly basis nonetheless rarely devolve into violence. Compare this to a noble system - crises occur far less often, but they usually end violently.

Then again, perhaps a government resistant to unrest isn't all it's cracked up to be... I think the traditional Chinese Bureaucracy was extremely resistant to unrest. Except once every couple hundred of years, there was a civil war. Of the 10 deadliest wars in history, 5 were Chinese Civil Wars. I hope this republic does not build pressure similarly. I hope the American Civil War was an unusual incident.

 

[GS 281]

I suggest what I'm about to say is an absolute: if a revolution is more violent than the system it overthrows, the revolutionary system will be more violent (repressive) than the overthrown system.

Could you explain what this is grounded in?

 

[PeteyCoffee]

Could you explain what this is grounded in?

It makes sense to me. An individual who used violence, at great personal risk, in order to help initiate a cause will use the same level of violence to further initiate or maintain the cause after the revolution, especially considering the personal risk is now gone.

It's unlikely that a person is going to change in a fundamental way over the course of a revolution, to be willing to risk one's life in order to violently initiate an agenda, and then suddenly not. Much less thousands of people involved in the revolution all changing fundamentally at the same time.

I cannot think of an example where a violent revolution produced a less violent successor state. Even in the USA, almost immediately after the revolution the American government started arresting journalists. This happened, and I consider the American Revolutionary War about the least violent a major war could possibly be. Many of the battles were pitched, as in both sides met and laid out the rules ahead of time as if it were softball match. In fact, not one of the 56 signers of the Proclamation of Independence died as a result of the war. Only one of the 56 signers had a son who died in the war.

Of course, the US situation improved fairly quickly as revolutionaries lost elections or retired.

 

[GS 281]

So, nothing? Well it doesn't make any logical sense to me so I think I am going to move on from this discussion.

 

[AnOminous]

I cannot think of an example where a violent revolution produced a less violent successor state. Even in the USA, almost immediately after the revolution the American government started arresting journalists. This happened, and I consider the American Revolutionary War about the least violent a major war could possibly be.

Arresting journalists for various things has been endemic pretty much since the U.S. has existed, despite the fact that among the things this nation is known for, taking free speech protections more seriously than virtually every nation on the planet is one of its best features.

I'll note that the election after the Federalists went on their seditionist purge punished them savagely at the polls and put Thomas Jefferson in the White House.

Journalists who were arrested during this period were not only not silenced by doing this, they generally grew even more vehement, firing broadsides from behind bars and after being released. That strategy massively backfired.

 

[Flowers For Sonichu]

Minimum wages should be adjusted in accordance to housing prices. I could rent a 3 bedroom house back in Michigan for ~$800 which is what I used to pay for a room windowless room that even @FramerGirl420 couldn't stand in when I lived in Brooklyn. Corporations these days don't fucking understand basic economics in that if you pay your workers more, they spend more money and boost the economy so increases in revenue will offset the cost of labor. Meanwhile, it's shown that "trickle down economics" that put massive wealth in the hands of few people fails to benefit industries that don't build yachts.

Henry Ford paid his workers twice as much as other factories were paying because they would be able to afford the cars that they make and it paid off handsomely for him. When the automotive jobs went to other countries and the factories shut down, people weren't able to afford to buy a new car and they took shitty paying jobs compared to the union wages they had. Because they had less money, they were no longer able to afford a new car or looked towards cheaper foreign models such as Toyota and Honda. Meanwhile, the foreign car workers making a shit wage can't afford the cars they make and the end result is the Big 3 automakers went to shit.

 

[AP 297]

Minimum wages should be adjusted in accordance to housing prices. I could rent a 3 bedroom house back in Michigan for ~$800 which is what I used to pay for a room windowless room that even @FramerGirl420 couldn't stand in when I lived in Brooklyn. Corporations these days don't fucking understand basic economics in that if you pay your workers more, they spend more money and boost the economy so increases in revenue will offset the cost of labor. Meanwhile, it's shown that "trickle down economics" that put massive wealth in the hands of few people fails to benefit industries that don't build yachts.

Henry Ford paid his workers twice as much as other factories were paying because they would be able to afford the cars that they make and it paid off handsomely for him. When the automotive jobs went to other countries and the factories shut down, people weren't able to afford to buy a new car and they took shitty paying jobs compared to the union wages they had. Because they had less money, they were no longer able to afford a new car or looked towards cheaper foreign models such as Toyota and Honda. Meanwhile, the foreign car workers making a shit wage can't afford the cars they make and the end result is the Big 3 automakers went to shit.

I would even argue a huge component of the Housing Crisis was we had builder constructing huge houses to sell for $300,000 when most workers could barely afford $150,000 houses. The companies used contractors who worked for under minimum wage and in doing so produced an over supply of housing while continuing to contribute to the squeezing down of wages. We had constructed enough housing to supply over 3 extra years of housing and none of this housing was anything that most people could afford. We had significant oversupply and severe underdemand. When it was revealed that most people could not afford to buy these houses, a huge economic collapse occurred.

While supply side economics have a place, I would argue after 4 decades of stagnant real wages and severe booms that have produced nothing of real value. Maybe it is time for some demand side economics. Maybe it is time for minimum wage hikes, and other policies to spur demand. Some believe that demand is infinite, but it really is not. Eventually you are limited in what you can afford.

 

[Dudeofteenage]

I will use gold as an example though. Gold is expensive because it is
rare. Rareness means that it takes a significant investment of time and resources to mine it, you can't just find it laying around on
every street corner. If you were able to create gold and give a huge lump of it to every single person in the country, gold would be worth
much less because it would no longer be rare.

Increasing the amount of paper money in the general population would have the same effect.

What you have here is not just an argument against increasing the minimum wage, but an argument against all economic growth. If those people on the minimum wage quit their minimum wage jobs and started thriving businesses, there'd be more money in the system, and exactly the same mechanism would kick in.

Ya, I am really going to disagree with this. Revolutions are really overrated. Better a slow methodical approach rather than a catastrophe.

I disagree, ironically, even though I am a fan of revolutions. But empowering the working class (eg through higher minimum wage) makes a revolution more likely, not less likely.

 

[AP 297]

I disagree, ironically, even though I am a fan of revolutions. But empowering the working class (eg through higher minimum wage) makes a revolution more likely, not less likely.

How does this happen? How does higher wages and people being able to afford things actually make revolutions more likely? If people are content, they have no reason to risk life and limb fighting the state military.

In the US we have had stagnant real wages since 1973. The Minimum wage has not kept up, and very few people have gotten wage increases. Technology advances have led to the only real increase in standard of living, and lately it has not been enough. Meanwhile we have had the fed pump 29 trillion dollars(16 trillion of it under reported) since 2008 into the investment sector and it has produced nothing. It has not even produced significant inflation.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/l-randall-wray/bernankes-obfuscation-con_b_1147291.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/traceyg...the-feds-16-trillion-bailouts-under-reported/

The reason is because wages are stagnant. We can joke about revolutions, but lets be honest here. No one is revolting in the US except in maybe wanting to elect Trump, Sanders, Carson or other non establishment candidates. Increased minimum wage does not make a near non event more likely. I humored one person by posting my reply about black markets and toilet paper to show how absurd wishing for a revolution is.

 

[Flowers For Sonichu]

The Iranian Revolution and the Korean Civil war are two examples of revolutions happening during a time of economic prosperity for both countries