It should be $0.00. Why? Because that's the real minimum wage.
When you cannot get a job because you don't have enough skills to be paid the minimum wage, you make $0.00.
The minimum wage does not lift people out of poverty.
If it did, the government would just tell other countries to raise their minimum wage, instead of sending them foreign aid.
If it did, why not make the minimum wage $100 an hour, or even $1,000, or even a $1,000,000 an hour and make everyone millionaires?
Obviously, lifting people out of poverty doesn't work that way.
Wealth is not increased by raising the minimum wage.
The minimum wage is actually a cost.
The cost of the minimum wage is unemployment.
The cost of the minimum wage is a barrier to those trying to gain job skills.
The cost of the minimum wage is higher prices for goods and services, as the expense of the minimum wage is passed down to the customers.
And, in a country where student debt has surpassed credit card debt to the tune of over 1 trillion dollars, pushing young people into destructive educational debt, instead of paid apprenticeships, is wrong.
This insanity must stop.
It's time to put an end to the giant debt requirement to gain real world skills.
It's time to free the market.
Always remember to question and refine your beliefs based on reason, evidence, and principles.
Cheers, to the spread of liberty and peace,
~The Pholosopher
Philosophy is my core. Reason is my foundation. Phở is my sustenance.
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Hello @thepholosopher
I just came across this post today but I thought I would revisit the topic in light of the experience we are going through in Canada right now. Here is my post.
I respect your opinions. Libertarianism is a destination but it isn't the journey. While we are making that journey, people need to use the tools to better themselves along the way. I would rather the government make a rule saying that people need to make enough money to feed, clothe and house themselves (if they are working full time) instead of funding food banks or welfare programs.
This is bullshit. To legitimate a free market you have to ensure that even the weakest and poorest get a chance to thrive. With forcing human beings into a highly efficient treadmill and killing everyone who doesn't have the capabilities to live up to the "expectations" of the system, you disqualify the system in general.
Not a counter argument to what I said. What exactly did I write that was bullshit?
Allowing people to keep the wealth and property they acquired through voluntary means instead of forcing them to give some of it to others, IS ensuring that everyone gets a chance to thrive.
You're not describing an anarchist society; you're describing a statist one. In a statist society, those with political power and their minions force other human beings to give up x amount of their property and earnings. If they don't pay they can be taken away to prison and can be killed for resisting. In an anarchist society, the ethical norm is to have voluntary interactions, and to be free to choose who you associate with and work for/with.
I didn't propose a completely anarchistic society, did I?
Actually I think governments can do a lot of good things (and yes, they do a lot of not so good things).
A hyper efficient and totally frictionless market, as your kind believes in, generates, especially now that a lot of labor becomes obsolete (due to automation and computers), some problems.
A lot of jobs in such a society won't pay enough for the workers to (literally) survive. In your totally libertarian society, those people would starve until enough of them died to bring the market back to a stable equilibrium. I'm sorry, but in my opinion, this is just wrong.
Hope you don't mind me chiming in...
Having no minimum wage does not lower the pay of all the wage earners in general. Sure, it might if you were making artificially high wages propped up by regulation. Eliminating the minimum wage would allow for new job creation at lower rates that wouldn't have been possible before. These lower wages wouldn't be intended to be lived on. It'd just be a temporary rate to build up experience.
Perhaps a store owner would like to have a door greeter, but they don't think it's cost effective at a hypothetical minimum wage of $10/hr. However, they would be willing to pay $6/hr for someone with no experience. This job would never be created with the minimum wage. But without it, someone with no skills or experience could voluntarily work for that pay. It'd definitely be better than no job at all.
Why do you think it's so hard to pull yourself out of homelessness? When you're in that state, many businesses may not want to take the risk to hire you. You may have to prove you're reliable and a good worker before you can make a higher wage. You would be more likely to be able to do this without a minimum wage.
It wouldn't be likely that people would be working for near $0/hr. The business and the worker agree on a wage voluntarily. There is no coercion. And with no minimum wage, there would be more job opportunities, which means you have more of a choice to ignore the lower paying positions and look for higher paying ones. And again, this doesn't mean that if you currently work at fast food at $11/hr that you'll be dropped down to $2/hr just because there is no longer a limitation. They pay you for what value your job creates, and competition in the market promotes a tendency for wages to rise (depending on the supply and demand for that type of job of course).
The law of demand explains how the minimum wage affects the unemployment rate. All other things equal, when you raise the price of something (i.e. cost of labor), less of it will be purchased.
I took you saying "freemarket" to mean anarchist society, my mistake.
I agree with you, government can use the money it steals to do good. However, that doesn't legitimize the theft.
That's a baseless claim. What is the reasoning and evidence?
Again, what exactly did I write that was bullshit?
Actually (in my opinion) it does, if your social contract (vulgo your constitution) governs it that way. (Yes, I know, I know… you never signed that constitution and you have been born into a system you don't accept, which is like being born into slavery. I know these arguments, and I wish there was a possibility to give people the possibility to opt out of the state. I just don't see a possibility for this, because living on a states territory still generates costs for you being there. If you know a solution to this, I'd be happy to hear it.)
I can't quote any evidences right now, but from my understanding it's market logic. If you have a system where more work power exists than needed, the price of this power will fall.
Anyway, using the term 'bullshit' came more out of emotions, insofar I apologize for using this instead of something like: "I think you're wrong."
Your first sentence & whole comment is bullshit.
(empty)
If you have wage control, how is the market truly "free?" Labor is a commodity; it is bought and sold. If applied correctly, your argument makes trade tariffs and price controls (i.e. minimum prices for gas or a pack of cigarettes) legitimate. You can't have socialism and a free market. Sorry.
At no point did I say that I wanted a completely free and ungoverned market.
...then you don't want a "free market."
LOL "End taxation, free the market" only the rich say that. Lets get back into reality, top leading nations in this world have high taxes, the taxation gives wealth and services to everyone. The top leading rich nations that tax, have people flocking to their countries from poor nations that don't tax.
Here's some advice.... If your working minimum wage don't spend above your means. Save, learn new skills to get a new job, learn programming its free to learn and you don't have to go to school for it. I was on minimum wage for 6 years and i got through it by working, learning new skills, and the taxation didn't hold me down. If you have debt from school, "get back to reality" school doesn't guarantee you a job when your done, and taxation has nothing to do with it.
How does taxation give wealth and services to everyone? If that were true, then there would be zero homeless people in any geographical area that gets taxed. Seattle, WA is an example of a geographical area that gets taxed yet has one of the highest homeless populations in Washington state.
"How does taxation give wealth and services to everyone? If that were true, then there would be zero homeless people in any geographical area that gets taxed."
That's a False Dilemma fallacy. There are plenty of points where taxes are used to help people but the problems are too large, or where taxes are simply used ineffectively. It does not prove that taxes can't be used to improve society, and in fact in general societies with higher taxation do tend to have fewer social problems.
Nothing like Anarchyball memes to illustrate the absurdity of minimum wage arguments!
Absolutely 0 and I even felt that way when I was earning minimum wage because of some derelicts I worked with that didn't deserve minimum but where guaranteed it and they knew it.
Agreed... Aside from being impossible to ethically enforce, minimum wage excludes some people from working. It hurts those that need the money the most.
haha! What are you talking about? Taxation is government taking money from people and threatening them with deadly force to do so. How does that have anything to do with "fending for oneself?"
The government is $20 trillion in debt. It spends its monies on blowing up people 3,000 miles away.
I don't think you're looking at the right causation of societal poverties.
Deadly force... Lol. You mean sternly worded letters and eventually wage garnishment. They do not give the death penalty for tax evasion.
What are you talking about? You clearly don't know what happens when you don't pay in the U.S. Wage garnishment is possible, but unpaid back taxes can lead to deadly force if resisting to pay them. The government comes to collect property with liens. Resist those agents who have guns, and you die.
Your argument boils down to the fact that too many people are afraid to resist. Mass compliance does not mean the government doesn't use deadly force. Also, being placed into prison for life is a death sentence - the government is getting to choose where someone dies.
See the following for the fuller discourse:
If by "resists" you mean initiate force then yes, you might. Everyone has a right to defend themselves, and if you initiate violence they are defending themselves. That is still not a death penalty for tax evasion, that's self-defense on their part.
I agree, and this post is a big fail.
A much fairer way of taxation (which is a need of any nation) would be all income obtained through a blockchain and taxed at source, then visibly distributed to the relevant departments that in turn would be required to show where the taxed funds were being spent and why.
How is an organization forcing people within a geographical area to give up some of their wealth (taxation) a "need"?
So please explain to me how in this wonderful world with zero taxation would the public road networks be maintained and how exactly would you fund the Fire services, Ambulances, Public education, Military, Police, Who would pay for the Embassy's and the staff that work there. There are many thousands more need that we have as a group of people...
Yes we can do without many of the current "needs" we have but that doesn't mean all the need go away. Stop and think for a moment what exactly would happen if every person on the planet were to simply stop paying Tax... Things would go on for a while, but within days - weeks Schools would close, Hospitals in many countries would close, the water and electricity supply in many countries would be drastically restricted as they are partially funded by the Government.
I'm not saying the system is right, I'm simply saying the system needs updating but that system will have to include some form of "Taxation/Funding" for the greater social needs... or do we really live in a world where the needs/wants of the few outway the needs of the many?
Everything that the government does can be purchased voluntarily. Humans have incentives to pay for it.
If you want one solution to remove systemic violence, see:
https://volcomic.liberty.me/from-tyranny-to-liberty-a-practical-solution/
https://volcomic.liberty.me/the-not-for-profit-government-model-concurrent-policies-in-reshaping-america-for-liberty/
Enjoy your minimum wage.
Did you flag someone because you didn't like their article?