Minimum wage -- an education in how not to debate

Richard, what is to stop slavery/serfdom without government? I think we need a better picture of how your privatized system would work and maintain these ethics you speak so highly of before we can debate whether regulating contracts (and to that extent, regulation, and to that extent, government) is unethical.

 

First, I have to admit that I didn't take the time to read all the posts, my apologies. After one page, I felt that the same arguments were repeated over and over again.

My first impression of this thread is that it is strongly americanized. That is in no way a reproach but I doubt we'd have the same poll result or comments if most members came from another country. It's very interesting, in more way than one.

As for the arguments, they're heavily focused on a simple demand versus offer type of scheme, which, I believe, clouds important aspects of the issue at hand here. Basic capitalism theory dictates that the government creates a distortion in the market which leads to the offer being superior to the demand (I'm sure we can all imagine a beautiful graph where the curves cross somewhere below the minimum wage, oh no!). From my point of view, such a microeconomic approach to the subject is a purely theoretical as it ignores important considerations like the reason why the minimum wage actually exists and the inefficiency of capitalism to truly redistribute wealth.

I dare hope that it's clear to everyone that the only purpose of the minimum wage is to act as a barrier to revolution. It wasn’t established for the good of humanity or because the employers suddenly felt “generous”. We have no reason to believe that it is different nowadays. Without a minimum wage, you end up with institutionalized slavery and/or abuses which can only lead to a profound questionning of the system in place (aka, revolution). With time, we tend to forget history lessons and take everything for granted (I might be hinting at neoliberalism a bit here...).

In our system, the salaries aren't based on the actual productivity of the worker but rather a complex work of offer versus demand. As most of you must have heard, 4% welfare is considered full employment in capitalism. In other words, for the system to work, there is a need to keep a pool of the population unemployed to have a pressure to lower the salaries. There is no reason to believe that eliminating the minimum wage would simply eliminate unemployment.

Hinting that the market does a wonderful job at determining salaries makes me cringe. We mention productivity while it really isn’t like that that it works. Another thing that is implied by this is that the employee and employer negotiate the contract of work as equals. For some reasons, I’m sceptical... I don’t think we can really talk of free choices when someone has to decide between starving to death or eating baloney all week long. Minimum wages (and plenty of other regulations meant to offer some rights to the employees) are only meant to make up for the intrinsic unfairness of capitalism (only the minimum necessary to keep a social peace).

As much as I could go on and on about this (I didn't even start my second point about redistribution of wealth), I feel that I’m getting further and further away from the subject so I’ll just add one thing. I’d like to finish with a more humane approach. We, as a society, have to decide what quality of life we want to offer ourselves, especially the minimum levels. Do we want to keep people in extreme poverties or build together a brighter future for everyone? Let's not forget the clear correlation between poverty and violence.

PS: It’s fairly late so it's normal if half of what I say makes no sense.

 

Pretty much this. It is absolutely impossible to reach a situation with zero violence inherent. No matter how hard you try you won't reach a situation where nobody is violent. Following this logic your aim should be to reach the path of least violence which amounts to moderate government with some restrictions, even if tehy are enforced with a threat of violence. For a start, in a purely capitalist situation where the government makes laws that are optional, the first thing you get is people coming and taking all your shit. It becomes a situation where you have to impose violence on others - often in a much more real and immediate sense - in order to keep what is yours. In addition there is no equal application of force. You might find a guard chasing down and shooting black people just for the heck of it because they have a gun and nobody can tell them not to. In a way, especially with today's advaned weapons systems, you are almost forcing an outright war on people, which is not ethical at all. You might as well launch a nuke at every major city in the world to get it all done with and save the effort of letting people kill themselves on their own. It's important to remember that people are inherently greedy little bastards and will do just about anything for a little money

 

I'd like to mention a few things when it comes to health care.

1- Americans pay A LOT more per person than what people from other countries do. It is roughly 7 grands per year per capita compared to 4 grands per year capita in Canada. Also, let's point out that not everyone has an insurance in USA. In other words, it's actually more than 7 grands per person for the ones with an insurance as the ratio used factor in the whole population of the country.

2- USA ranks 37th in the world for the quality of their health care, behind countries like Canada, Greece (!), Columbia (!!) and Australia. Actually, Cuba gets a score of 0.834 while USA gets a 0.838. I suggest you to read the methodology used by the WHO : http://www.who.int/healthinfo/paper30.pdf. I don't think a simple anecdote can stand up to an international research with a scientific methology used which, no, doesn't stick to "socialist metrics" but also the factual results of the treatments. If you aren't convinced by this paper, I suggest you to look at the life expectancy and infant mortality of countries worldwide. In both cases, USA ranks very low for a developed country. I'm sure we can find plenty of other statistics pointing out the inefficiency of health care in USA.

3- Conclusion: USA has a system that is, at best, subpar worldwide (for such a developed country) while paying almost twice as much per capita for it.

 

1- The high price and poor results are the direct results of the free market aspects of healthcare in USA though...

2- Life expectancy and infant mortality are signs of the quality of the healthcare received. It's more than just having your name put on a list. I'd actually be overjoyed to find a single variable where a country with a free market with healthcare scores higher than average. All I can think of is the treatment of cancers in USA, but the only reason is that these treatments are very beneficial ($$) for doctors.

3- You're using anecdotes to try to counter the actual results of researches factoring in everyone. Why not talk about people dying because they simply don't have any health care? It certainly is saddening that some people die while waiting for their care, but the overall results with a socialist healthcare is more beneficial to the majority. Are you saying that some lives are worth more than others so we should prioritize those even if the overall result is worse?

I found this example very interesting as it made me think of Kant. He's a philosopher that advocated that we must ALWAYS do the "correct" thing. In his system, there is no grey zone.

At some point in his life, he was put in a hypothetical situation: he's hiding jews in his basement and the nazis knock at his door asking if he's hiding someone. Obviously, he knows that telling the truth would lead to the death of those people, but Kant still tells his friend that he would say the truth to the nazis.

Sometimes, trying to be more pure than diamond leads to situations where the the result is worse than the bad we wanted to extinguish.

 

Cannot be serious?

This is the problem with debating anything to a certain extent like this, you get so far off topic because it demands core concepts also be debated. Then you have issues with language and political/moral stances, and then to finally break the straw you get into the definitions of these words themselves. What you consider to be bad is going to be different and conflicting, thus you are not on the same playing field when it comes to debates the spiral out like this. Now you may say "bad is bad, good stuff is good, lets leave it like that". Impossible, when I say minimum wage should exist, thus short terms ailments are avoided as compared to the abolishing of minimum wage and it's long term predicted outcomes (lets say are good), then you get into the real issue, and arguments are the only thing that can come of it because as I said before, the definitions of the terms are in conflict, thus debating=fail.

What I wish debates were more centered around was the idea of a precise distinguished question. Not these endless "Who did 9/11" topics you see on some forums.

 

My apologies for participating in the derailment of the thread.

It is extremely difficult to have a debate about the necessity (or not) of a minimum wage without debating core capitalism concepts like the offer and the demand. Not quite sure how this got into a debate about the necessity (or not) of the state and health care though.

The quote of me that you picked there, TheKills, isn't as cloudy as it might seem taken by itself. It was a direct reply to a metaphor used by Sythe so I hope that people understand the meaning behind it. I got to admit that bringing up Kant was out of order and completely unrelated to the subject.

Back to minimum wage:
Do humans deserve a minimum quality of life or we have to let "free" markets decide that for us? Basically, do we want to surrender all social decisions to markets? Do salaries represent the value of the work?

 

The argument you are making is that the situation is either this or that, black or white if you will. That there are no shades of grey in society and every problem isn't a complex network of interlinking consequences. Unless you have some sort of insight that the rest of us don't, this world isn't a perfect place where every decision is as simple and correct and incorrect.

The Kant hypothetical presented earlier is a good example, if you decide to expose the Jews then you are spared. If you didn't and the Nazis found out, and they generally did, you and the Jews both are executed. If you expose the Jews though those Jews were promised a long stay and more likely than not death in a concentration camp. Either way there is a complex set of circumstances that go beyond just a simple correct or incorrect answer.

Now go to the situation you presented in an earlier post about a person with no money sitting on a waiting list until they die. What is worse sitting on a waiting list and waiting to die because you have no money? or having no chance of even getting on a list because you have no money for healthcare? Even if you have the money to get healthcare there are still waiting lists for major surgeries. There isn't just a heart for every person that needs a heart transplant out there, and then you still have to go through the bureaucratic red tape of the health care companies. At least there is a slim chance when you are on that list compared to the no chance of having no healthcare because of lack of money. If you have no money you don't even get into the system to be recognized by surgeons or doctors and the governmental and privatized options of subsidizing the costs of healthcare in a private healthcare system is poor at it's best points.

 

No apologies needed, you caused a sort of refresh to it with that new question =]

I'll try and be simple and talk in relative terms. Do we all deserve minimum quality of life is a very broad thing, but I think anyone sane and not classified as fascistic in today's world would simply answer, yes we all do deserve a minimum quality of life as "moral and decent living folk". Not going to say anything more without falling off the topic again.

I'll assume when you say "we" you mean people in the "civilized" developed nations. Surrendering all social decisions is something we must do whether we like it or not, to go against it, would be living on borrowed time. The law of supply and demand is quite firm, and will always rear its head. The only difference is, is if you want to live isolated from other nations(nearly impossible today with the hunger humanity has now), or simply accept the globalized economy present today.

The only reason minimum wage is existent is because developed nations fight tirelessly (and leave a HUGE trail of blood and suffering) to preserve our "minimum livelihood" at the expense of countless others in developing nations. The only reason it's being debated on forums more often now, is because developed nations (their population) is realizing it's now losing it's hold on the maintenance of something like minimum wage because the world is reacting back at the countless loss that is attributed to things like minimum wage. And quite frankly, minimum wage isn't as feasable nor as profitable to the people who would benefit more from it, as it was let's say decades ago.

To not stray more off topic than I have(again), i'll answer the final question. No our salaries do no represent the value of the work we do. Some cases, the value is overemphasized, and we get paid more than we are due. In most cases (from a global outlook), people get paid far less than they are due. And this dis-balance and it's consequences, are rearing their ugly head, which leads people like us to start talking about the issue. Now the the problem of realization, is that it comes too late for most, so we'll see how it plays out. But if you are interested at a realistic core issue that is to blame for this, as well as countless other issues around the world, you need not look further than the recent 7 billion population count we have. Again nearly derailing the topic, apologies.