a question for left-liberals

[NghtRppr]

You folks are big on sexual freedom, be it homosexuals, deviants or whatever. I hear the phrase "between two consenting adults" all the time. My question is, why do you people disable your logic circuits as soon as these two consenting adults leave the bedroom? If two consenting adults agree that one will work for the other for less than minimum wage, what business is it of yours? Why is it only sexual acts that get this special treatment?

I can already hear the word "exploitation" ringing in my ears but who are you to decide what counts as exploitation? If someone desperately wants to work for $3 an hour then obviously they prefer that situation over the alternative, doing nothing and getting nothing (or getting an equivalent $3 an hour welfare check). Why are you willing to override personal freedom when it comes to work but not sex? Someone please make sense of this for me because all I see is hypocrisy right now.

I'm an anarchist, voluntaryist, agorist, whatever term is fashionable these days. I think personal liberty should apply to all spheres of interaction, bedroom, workplace, front lawn, whatever. If you want to run around nude or work for next to nothing then I think you should be free to do so, even though I wouldn't do either of those things personally.

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[BCEmporium]

Wherever it goes for the economy there're no such thing as "two consenting adults" but a whole market to consider.
Minimum wage is a way to prevent unfair concurrence, that one can employ out of exploitation more people than other therefore hitting the market with lower prices which he's only able to present due to slavery.

Cool on theory, however "globalization" (the bad one) is showing us that such prevention must be extended beyond borders, as what we're seeing is that slavery didn't end, instead it increased but was moved "out of sight".
Obviously leading the resistance against such movement now is the one that is getting more profit out of slavery and bogus property such as "intellectual property", USA, aware that it alone is consuming more than 30% of the World's resources (current estimation) and if others' leave to be "3rd World" then "the World" isn't enough anymore.

BTW, the "social paycheck" is a way to prevent the "likes of you" to exploit people, not a measure I quite say I like, I would prefer "the likes of you" to not exist at all, but since you do, is the one that's possible.

Other than that, and taken your "slave-employee" is part of the market and the market NEEDS wealth distribution, by underpaying him you're hurting the market as he will not have money enough to consume.

[NghtRppr]

Wherever it goes for the economy there're no such thing as "two consenting adults" but a whole market to consider.

Why? Are we ants? Are we bees? I don't understand the mentality behind the belief that we should stomp all over the liberty of individuals for some collectivist notion of "society". A society is nothing more than the individuals that comprise it.

Minimum wage is a way to prevent unfair concurrence, that one can employ out of exploitation more people than other therefore hitting the market with lower prices which he's only able to present due to slavery.

Who are you to decide what is fair? Shouldn't it be up to each person to decide what they think is fair? Also, why are you talking about slavery? I'm talking about voluntary actions between two consenting adults. Are you against S&M? Chaining someone up and whipping them is closer to slavery than offering someone a job which they are free to accept or reject.

Other than that, and taken your "slave-employee" is part of the market and the market NEEDS wealth distribution, by underpaying him you're hurting the market as he will not have money enough to consume.

The money saved on paying an employee probably isn't going to be used to light cigars. It's going to be spent on other things which provide just as much market stimulation as overpaying for labor, even more so since inefficiency hurts the market, which is what you're advocating.

[BCEmporium]

You're not talking about "free will", you're talking about take advantage to your behalf of some one who's in a bad situation.
Does it takes to say more?

There're other sort of agreements I would be OK with, for an instance that you're starting an enterprise and will underpay for a while due to initial investment but will make it up later on, but allow one to underpay somebody JUST because he happens to be so greedy that want the whole share to his own, is to condone with an abhorrent lack of character.

The money saved on paying an employee probably isn't going to be used to light cigars. It's going to be spent on other things which provide just as much market stimulation as overpaying for labor, even more so since inefficiency hurts the market, which is what you're advocating.

So you believe somehow "you will spend it more wisely" than your labor, taken you're doing nothing but spending for your own?!
Ever heard of reciprocity? Doesn't mean nothing to you? Is your "anarchism" just "anarchy" to you, for others is nothing but your "fascism towards them"?

[NghtRppr]

You're not talking about "free will", you're talking about take advantage to your behalf of some one who's in a bad situation.

How is a voluntary exchange ever taking advantage of someone?

If I offer to trade my X for your Y and you agree to the trade then two things must be true:

1. I value your Y more than my X.
2. You value my X more than your Y.

If we weren't each getting something we find more valuable out of the deal then why would we both agree to the trade? We wouldn't. Every voluntary trade results in both parties being better off than they were before. All voluntary trades are beneficial to both parties, be it with labor or goods.

[BCEmporium]

If a job doesn't worth nothing, than it's needless.

[NghtRppr]

If a job doesn't worth nothing, than it's needless.

Some jobs are worth more than nothing but less than minimum wage. These jobs can't exist under current laws. Yet, it seems you would rather pay people to sit at home rather than pay them to do something useful and perhaps actually learn a skill that might eventually be worth more than minimum wage. That would be fine if you were paying people with your own money but you're not. You're forcing other people to pay for these do-nothings through taxation.

[ffe]

You're ignoring the fact that society pays to support underpaid people, to police the streets if nothing else. Society benefits if people have a living wage even though the "free" market value of his labor is less than a living wage. We have three choices:

1. Allow very low wages and don't support anyone -> we end up living in a brutish world.
2. Allow very low wages and support low income people through subsidies.
3. Pass laws that raise wages.

I don't want to live in 1.
We actually live between 2 and 3.

[Garrett Burgwardt]

You're ignoring the fact that society pays to support underpaid people, to police the streets if nothing else. Society benefits if people have a living wage even though the "free" market value of his labor is less than a living wage. We have three choices:

1. Allow very low wages and don't support anyone -> we end up living in a brutish world.
2. Allow very low wages and support low income people through subsidies.
3. Pass laws that raise wages.

I don't want to live in 1.
We actually live between 2 and 3.

The Hobbesian idea of man's life being "Nasty, brutish and short" without government is demonstrably false. Medieval Iceland, The American Old West, and Somalia are all good examples of how it doesn't happen.

And if their labor is less than a living wage, they better learn to do some other labor shouldn't they?

[NghtRppr]

You're ignoring the fact that society pays to support underpaid people, to police the streets if nothing else. Society benefits if people have a living wage even though the "free" market value of his labor is less than a living wage. We have three choices:

1. Allow very low wages and don't support anyone -> we end up living in a brutish world.
2. Allow very low wages and support low income people through subsidies.
3. Pass laws that raise wages.

I don't want to live in 1.
We actually live between 2 and 3.

Well, (2) is immoral if done by force against other people's will and (3) doesn't exist. If your labor is worth $3 an hour but employers are forced to pay you $4 an hour then they would be losing money. Rather than hire you at a loss they would do better to not hire you at all, which is what actually happens. By setting a minimum wage you are making sure that jobs worth less than that don't exist. If (3) actually existed then we should set the minimum wage to $100 an hour and we'd all be rich. The reality is that (3) doesn't raise any wages at all but rather makes sure that certain jobs don't exist. Instead of "minimum wage laws" they should really be called "forced unemployment laws" but nobody would vote for that.

[Alex Beckenham]

The reality is that (3) doesn't raise any wages at all but rather makes sure that certain jobs don't exist. Instead of "minimum wage laws" they should really be called "forced unemployment laws" but nobody would vote for that.

Applaud.

I'm reminded of so called 'slumlords' - landlords that pile 27 students into 1 small house, for $100 / week rent per student... If this is really so 'unfair', then why are the students there voluntarily paying it?

[NghtRppr]

I'm reminded of so called 'slumlords' - landlords that pile 27 students into 1 small house, for $100 / week rent per student... If this is really so 'unfair', then why are the students there voluntarily paying it?

Another example is price "gouging". After Hurricane Fran hit in '96 there was no power in Raleigh, NC and everyone suddenly needed ice. Some enterprising fellows filled up a couple of freezer trucks with ice and started selling it at something like $8 a bag. People were lining up to buy the ice, even to the point where the sellers were limiting the number of bags that could be purchased per person. Of course, people complained about the price but they still bought it. Eventually, someone called the police. The police showed up and arrested the men, taking them away in handcuffs for violating anti-price gouging laws. The most bizarre part is that the people in line, who were so willing to wait in a long line to pay four times the usual price for ice they desperately needed, clapped.

[kinghajj]

You folks are big on sexual freedom, be it homosexuals, deviants or whatever.

Firstly, "deviants?" That just means departure from the accepted norm, which is really rather arbitrary. What behaviors societies find acceptable and taboo are not often reasonable.

I hear the phrase "between two consenting adults" all the time. My question is, why do you people disable your logic circuits as soon as these two consenting adults leave the bedroom? If two consenting adults agree that one will work for the other for less than minimum wage, what business is it of yours? Why is it only sexual acts that get this special treatment?

The fundamental difference is that those who chose to become wage slaves do so only because of the asymmetrical allocation of power between them and their employers, an asymmetry which the state enforces. But what reason is there for this order? Why should so few be in control of so much? Because they "own" it? If the right of property is derived from the labour invested in it, then shouldn't labour be in control of capital? Instead, however, both the means and profits of production go into the hands of those who usually had no necessary input into the their production.

I can already hear the word "exploitation" ringing in my ears but who are you to decide what counts as exploitation? If someone desperately wants to work for $3 an hour then obviously they prefer that situation over the alternative, doing nothing and getting nothing (or getting an equivalent $3 an hour welfare check). Why are you willing to override personal freedom when it comes to work but not sex? Someone please make sense of this for me because all I see is hypocrisy right now.

"Freedom" to exploit and be exploited isn't freedom, it's tyranny. It's not a freedom because there is no real choice. If a slave were given the choice of slavemaster, he would still not be free.

I'm an anarchist, voluntaryist, agorist, whatever term is fashionable these days. I think personal liberty should apply to all spheres of interaction, bedroom, workplace, front lawn, whatever. If you want to run around nude or work for next to nothing then I think you should be free to do so, even though I wouldn't do either of those things personally.

Can't argue with you there

[goatpig]

The funny thing about leftist liberals is they can't wrap their mind around the fact that social liberties can't be achieved without economic liberty.

[左]

What's a left liberal? I thought a liberal was a rightist by definition.

[NghtRppr]

If the right of property is derived from the labour invested in it, then shouldn't labour be in control of capital?

The right of private property is derived from being the first possessor because everyone else is a latecomer with respect to them. If you ignore the prior-later distinction then how can we have private property at all? Imagine if the second possessor was said to have a better claim to the property then wouldn't the same argument apply to the third possessor and so on?

"Freedom" to exploit and be exploited isn't freedom, it's tyranny. It's not a freedom because there is no real choice.

The only way there is no "real" choice is if you are being threatened with violence. Otherwise, there is always a choice though you might not like it and wish to get everything for free. Do you think you don't have a real choice to buy a TV because the only way to get it is to pay money? Are you exploiting TV-sellers because you shop around for the lowest price instead of emptying your wallet to the first seller?

[kinghajj]

The right of private property is derived from being the first possessor because everyone else is a latecomer with respect to them. If you ignore the prior-later distinction then how can we have private property at all? Imagine if the second possessor was said to have a better claim to the property then wouldn't the same argument apply to the third possessor and so on?

There should be no possessors of property. Humans should just work all the capital for the sake of themselves and their communities. To me, it's obvious that a system based on mutual cooperation and support would be more stable than one which promotes selfishness, greed, and useless consumption. I'm also a materialist, so I view human society as just another system built atop previous lower ones (biology, chemistry, physics). Like previous systems, societies will fall into stable patterns, so long as the environment permits them to persist. Something like anarcho-syndicalism, -socialism, -communism, libertarian socialism, whatever you'd like to call it, seems like a more likely kind of social order to promote long-term stability and prosperity for society.

The only way there is no "real" choice is if you are being threatened with violence. Otherwise, there is always a choice though you might not like it and wish to get everything for free. Do you think you don't have a real choice to buy a TV because the only way to get it is to pay money? Are you exploiting TV-sellers because you shop around for the lowest price instead of emptying your wallet to the first seller?

The difference with between the choices of labor and a television is that, under a Laissez-faire system, the null choice of labour leads to starvation and death, while the null choice of television leads simply to a lack of a television.

[caveden]

They lack economic knowledge, most frequently. Anyone that understands about price formation, offer and demand and so on will realize how awful minimum wage laws are. If you coercively set a minimum price for anything, that can only have 2 effects:

• It changes nothing practically, if the minimum price is below the actual lowest price asked by the cheaper provider of the thing in question (when talking about minimum wages, it's the labor)
• In case the minimum forced price is not that low, it will rule out those whose actual prices are below such minumum, as they will not be able to compete with those with a more demanded product/service. They will either have to provide their product/service hidden from the authorities (informality) or will be forbidden to provide such product/service at all (unemployment, in the case of minimum wage)

This is the same for anything, not only labor. If you force a minimum price for carrots, the producers of carrots whose quality doesn't reach such price won't be able to keep selling carrots on the white market. You'd have cheap carrot farmers going bankrupt or even a carrot black market appearing. Imagine, people selling carrots on silk road.

I think that realizing that was among my first steps to leave the "social-democrat" beliefs. It made me give a bit more credit to these "laissez-faire" folks and read what they wrote.

[memvola]

I'll try to be the devil's advocate here. Let's say there are no minimum wage laws. And the market is always pushing the prices lower. This will drive the wages of people with the least bargaining power to a limit between an unacceptable minimum and an amount determined at the moment when there are no unemployed unqualified people left. But market gets more efficient and things get cheaper, etc.

When there are minimum wage laws (assuming they are omnipresent and omnipotent), they bring lower limits to prices for existing products (besides the limit to what can be produced/served). You pay more for the same product and in return, the minimum wage earner can have a good standard of life. It's not automatic unemployment. But you have more unemployment, law enforcement overhead and inefficiency.

My view is, ideally, if you don't have bargaining power, get some, or stay poor. If there is a culture formed around this, you won't have unqualified people. Only, it doesn't work like that IRL. For starters, employers are also irrational people. There may be cultural and racial barriers of entry for any and all jobs. Consumers/clients are also very near-sighted. You will have periods of exploitation and poverty whenever false beliefs are spread among the population. That's why we have so many systems in place to make the society less responsive. You need a bottom-up cultural structure in place to be able to do without minimum-wage laws and such. Such wise societies might have lived in the past or might exist even now though.

[BCEmporium]

The lack of History knowledge is however more harmful. «Minimum wage» is just a low boundary of acceptation to ensure quality of life.
It's not the "holiness of social paychecks", as they've none and even cause an unwanted effect of having people believing money can fall from sky or they deserve money just to show their faces around.

The question is "what jobs would be suitable for such"? We would need quite a huge list of places that can be filled under minimum wage payment, because History tell us what we will get, as that line of though was the one working back up to XIX Century, less scrupulous businessman will simply use it to exploit anyone they can and use this exploited labor to lower also his high profitable labor in order to get a higher share of his enterprise production to his own... until people get enough of this exploiters and we get them dealt on Russia 1917's way; lined against a wall and shot in the head. I know... I know... some of your folks look so much egocentric that believe will "surpass this" by hiring more guards (some others may believe to be Clark Kent's family)... the question is, the guards are also in your payroll and what will you do? Overpay them? This is even worse than pay social checks as a "guard" does exactly nothing 99% of his time. But your life will be on their hands.

Blackmarket will exist regardless... it's in the duty of authorities to deal with it.

And bottom line: private business are NOT to be trusted. They are meant for create profit, not charity.

EDIT: And one more thing there's no economics without social, unless you intend to sell to outerspace...