Would killing the minimum wage help?

[MoonShadow]

http://www.acton.org/pub/commentary/2011/07/06/minimum-wage-law-backfires-american-samoa

I should qualify my previous statements that I don't think that the minimum wage law would affect many people.  It's still true, but aparently it would affect an entire protectorage state.

[lemonginger]

Oh yea, even if this wasn't all true, it's still immoral to prevent adults from interacting however they want, be it gay sex or low wage work.

This is only true if there is true consent -- ie; a relative equality of power on both sides of the table. This is not the case currently at labor vs capital owner negotiations.

Again,

http://c4ss.org/content/4163

(and that is a market anarchist site BTW)

[JoelKatz]

This is only true if there is true consent -- ie; a relative equality of power on both sides of the table. This is not the case currently at labor vs capital owner negotiations.

A relative equality of power is not required for there to be true consent. True consent simply requires each side to understand the deal sufficiently to genuinely believe that they are better off taking the deal than rejecting it.

[lemonginger]

A relative equality of power is not required for there to be true consent. True consent simply requires each side to understand the deal sufficiently to genuinely believe that they are better off taking the deal than rejecting it.

But surely you wouldn't argue that someone handing over their wallet in exchange for not being shot was consensual, even if the person really truly preferred being a little poorer to being dead. So presumably your opinion would be that they did not have the third option, which is to say "no, i'd rather not give you my money /or/ be shot" and walk away.

However, since we cannot walk away from the table of "making a living" completely -- (those born landless are forced to sell our labor to the owning class to literally survive) there must be mechanisms for making that relationship as equal as possible.

[MtRev]

Normally I would agree with you lemonginger, but it's one thing to have an option of getting paid the min. wage then to actually had been paid. There people who "could" be working for less then the min, but instead they are now sitting at home still looking for a job. If not here in the states, employers would offer less to other countries.

I came from a very poor family who immigrated here in the states legally, working for less then min wage. I'm no where close to being rich.
Both of my parents were making more money off the books for less then min wage then to had kept sitting at home looking for a job that was never going to pay them at least the min.

I'm not an economist and never really had any interest in the economy until these recent years, but I'm starting to feel killing the minimum wage would help the economy a great deal. It may bring back a lot of the jobs back to the states and maybe even pay more then what they are offering offshore (no more import shipping cost).  

[myrkul]

I'm not an economist and never really had any interest in the economy until these recent years, but I'm starting to feel killing the minimum wage would help the economy a great deal. It may bring back a lot of the jobs back to the states and maybe even pay more then what they are offering offshore (no more import shipping cost). 

Exactly.

[JoelKatz]

But surely you wouldn't argue that someone handing over their wallet in exchange for not being shot was consensual, even if the person really truly preferred being a little poorer to being dead. So presumably your opinion would be that they did not have the third option, which is to say "no, i'd rather not give you my money /or/ be shot" and walk away.

No, I wouldn't say that was consensual. But I didn't think we were talking about cases where one of the "negotiators" uses or threatens force against the other.

However, since we cannot walk away from the table of "making a living" completely -- (those born landless are forced to sell our labor to the owning class to literally survive) there must be mechanisms for making that relationship as equal as possible.

You are equating the use or threat of force, which is illegitimate, with not getting the benefits if you opt out of a deal, which is legitimate. It will always be the case that if you opt out of a mutually beneficial deal, you will lose the benefits that deal would have given you.

[NghtRppr]

This is only true if there is true consent -- ie; a relative equality of power on both sides of the table. This is not the case currently at labor vs capital owner negotiations.

The only thing that matters is a lack of threat of violence. That's true consent.

[Babylon]

This is only true if there is true consent -- ie; a relative equality of power on both sides of the table. This is not the case currently at labor vs capital owner negotiations.

The only thing that matters is a lack of threat of violence. That's true consent.

Don't take this deal and starve is definitely a threat of violence.

[myrkul]

This is only true if there is true consent -- ie; a relative equality of power on both sides of the table. This is not the case currently at labor vs capital owner negotiations.

The only thing that matters is a lack of threat of violence. That's true consent.

Don't take this deal and starve is definitely a threat of violence.

No, it's not.

[JoelKatz]

Don't take this deal and starve is definitely a threat of violence.

Assuming the speaker will somehow induce you into starving, then yes. Or if the reason you would starve would is something out of the ordinary (for example, you landed on his island due to a plane crash), then yes. But if the result of your failure to take the deal would be your starving through no fault of the offeror and not through any emergency, then no.

Otherwise, people could never do anything and others would always be forced to provide for their every survival need. After all, not doing things for them would mean they starve and therefore be a threat of violence. If a person doesn't take any action to obtain food for themselves, if you don't give them free food, they will starve. If they have no place to live and won't do anything to get one, if you don't let them live with you, they will freeze. And so on.

Nature starves people who don't act to secure food, not the people who didn't feed them.

[Babylon]

Don't take this deal and starve is definitely a threat of violence.

Assuming the speaker will somehow induce you into starving, then yes. Or if the reason you would starve would is something out of the ordinary (for example, you landed on his island due to a plane crash), then yes. But if the result of your failure to take the deal would be your starving through no fault of the offeror and not through any emergency, then no.

Otherwise, people could never do anything and others would always be forced to provide for their every survival need. After all, not doing things for them would mean they starve and therefore be a threat of violence. If a person doesn't take any action to obtain food for themselves, if you don't give them free food, they will starve. If they have no place to live and won't do anything to get one, if you don't let them live with you, they will freeze. And so on.

Nature starves people who don't act to secure food, not the people who didn't feed them.

If the land is all owned by the ruling class then it is very similar to having landed on their island.

[myrkul]

If the land is all owned by the ruling class then it is very similar to having landed on their island.

Never ceases to amuse me how the property is theft crowd ignore the fact that they could always just... I don't know... buy the damn land.

[JoelKatz]

If the land is all owned by the ruling class then it is very similar to having landed on their island.

The crux of the island example is that it's a short-term emergency that deviates from the normal course of human life and that all you want is to survive and get out of the other person's zone of control. The same reasoning wouldn't apply if it was the situation worldwide and you had no place else to go.

I do agree in theory that a similar argument could be made in the situation where the entire accessible universe of property is owned by a group of people who make the cost of land so high that everyone becomes effectively a slave. However, our world has vast amounts of unimproved property that is available for nearly nothing. A friend of mine bought 200 acres in Australia just so he could say he had "a couple of hundred acres", it cost him less than a month's salary. Actually, now that I think about it, it might have been 2,000.

Nobody (but myrkul) wants to live on unimproved property in the middle of nowhere, of course. So we're not talking about a fair share of what nature provided everyone for free but an entitlement to the improvements provided by people. It seems like a much less convincing argument once you realize that.

[myrkul]

Nobody wants to live on unimproved property in the middle of nowhere, of course.

Speak for yourself, bub.

[JoelKatz]

Nobody wants to live on unimproved property in the middle of nowhere, of course.

Speak for yourself, bub.

I fixed it.

Of course, if you do want to do that, you can fairly easily do so.

[myrkul]

Nobody wants to live on unimproved property in the middle of nowhere, of course.

Speak for yourself, bub.

I fixed it.

Of course, if you do want to do that, you can fairly easily do so.

And then I'll be one of the 'Landed ruling class', right?

[JoelKatz]

And then I'll be one of the 'Landed ruling class', right?

Yes, which kind of shows the silliness of that argument as applied to the world we currently live in.

[lemonginger]

If the land is all owned by the ruling class then it is very similar to having landed on their island.

It is even better than that - the reason the ruling class IS the ruling class is because of their accumulation of capital and land. From feudalism to corporate capitalism, the rulers are those that can have wealth without work.

Never ceases to amuse me how the property is theft crowd ignore the fact that they could always just... I don't know... buy the damn land.

First off, you are ignoring the second part of Proudhon's statement which is that "Property is freedom".

Secondly, One is born into a poor family (through no fault of their own). They have no option to grow/gather food on unimproved land, because there is none left their only option is to sell their labor to those who own land (or other means of production). That is, they are wage slaves. There are many places in the world, where a semi-skilled laborer could work their whole lives and never be able to save enough capital to buy the means of production that they are using, or the land it sits on.

Anarchy does not simply mean "absence of the State" (however you define it) but "without rulers" or "contrary to authority". This was true in the 18th Century and is especially true now as the post-structuralists and others have given us a far more sophisticated understanding of how discipline/authoritarianism have pervaded nearly every aspect of our existence.

I have already established the principle, namely, that the earth, in its natural uncultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, the common property of the human race; that in that state, every person would have been born to property; and that the system of landed property, by its inseparable connection with cultivation, and with what is called civilized life, has absorbed the property of all those whom it dispossessed, without providing, as ought to have been done, an indemnification for that loss.

The fault, however, is not in the present possessors. No complaint is tended, or ought to be alleged against them, unless they adopt the crime by opposing justice. The fault is in the system, and it has stolen perceptibly upon the world, aided afterwards by the agrarian law of the sword. But the fault can be made to reform itself by successive generations; and without diminishing or deranging the property of any of present possessors, the operation of the fund can yet commence, and in full activity, the first year of its establishment, or soon after, as I shall show.

(Thomas Paine, Agrarian Justice)

--

At the end of the day, what all these arguments boil down to is a disagreement about the "stickiness" of property rights. You advocate for a highly-sticky perpetual property system, I am arguing for the least sticky property system whereby use alone gives one property rates that quickly degrade to common ownership(or non-ownership if you prefer) when not being used.

--

To go back to the original assertion, there is plenty of opportunity for firms to pay under the minimum wage. Either through unpaid overtime, under the table cash payments, "uniform cleaning fees" and other such deductions, etc. Much of the agricultural labor in this country is done for near or less to minimum wage. Much of the small scale construction work as well.

In any case, cutting wages may make sense for an individual firm but in aggregate, it would just reduce aggregate demand for products, putting us back into the same situation as befoire.

http://www.infoshop.org/page/AnarchistFAQSectionC9

[NghtRppr]

It is even better than that - the reason the ruling class IS the ruling class is because of their accumulation of capital and land. From feudalism to corporate capitalism, the rulers are those that can have wealth without work.

Read this:

However, in resorting to this simile, one fails to realize the fundamental difference between aristocratic riches and “bourgeois” or capitalistic riches.

The wealth of an aristocrat is not a market phenomenon; it does not originate from supplying the consumers and cannot be withdrawn or even affected by any action on the part of the pub-lic. It stems from conquest or from largess on the part of a con-queror. It may come to an end through revocation on the part of the donor or through violent eviction on the part of another con-queror, or it may be dissipated by extravagance. The feudal lord does not serve consumers and is immune to the displeasure of the populace.
The entrepreneurs and capitalists owe their wealth to the people who patronize their businesses. They lose it inevitably as soon as other men supplant them in serving the consumers better or more cheaply.

It is not the task of this essay to describe the historical con-ditions which brought about the institutions of caste and status, of the subdivision of peoples into hereditary groups with differ-ent ranks, rights, claims, and legally sanctified privileges or dis-abilities. What alone is of importance for us is the fact that the preservation of these feudal institutions was incompatible with the system of capitalism. Their abolition and the establishment of the principle of equality under the law removed the barriers that prevented mankind from enjoying all those benefits which the system of private ownership of the means of production and private enterprise makes possible.

What makes a man more or less prosperous is not the evaluation of his contribution from any “absolute” principle of justice, but evaluation on the part of his fellowmen who exclu-sively apply the yardstick of their own personal wants, desires and ends. It is precisely this that the democratic system of the market means. The consumers are supreme—i.e., sovereign. They want to be satisfied.

Millions of people like to drink Pinkapinka, a beverage pre-pared by the world-embracing Pinkapinka Company. Millions like detective stories, mystery pictures, tabloid newspapers, bull fights, boxing, whiskey, cigarettes, chewing gum. Millions vote for governments eager to arm and to wage war. Thus, the en-trepreneurs who provide in the best and cheapest way all the things required for the satisfaction of these wants succeed in get-ting rich.

Investing in and running a business is just as much work as digging a ditch with a shovel.