Had liberals (or north-american libertarians) been able to win the battle for words, we would be discussing "making it illegal for low skill workers to get jobs", not "minimum wage".
So what is being outlawed by minimum wage are "jobs" that cannot feed people, which, I am sure you will agree, are simply not worth existing.
And in fact I think popularity of libertarianism is half of the cause why minimum wage is still being discussed, because people and businesses who actually know economic stuff support minimum wage, as they understand that flow of money in economic systems starts from the demand. The other half of the cause are possibly some rich people, who are a different type of political actor than businesses.
I certainly don't agree with that sentiment. There are a lot of people that are working that don't need to support themselves. Between teenagers, college students (who may only need to pay for books, etc), mentally/physically impaired (that are supported by the state but work because it's good to be productive)... there's a place in society for jobs that pay below what you're saying.
Let's ignore, for the moment, the big issue here, which is that by far, these jobs are not held only by people who you describe (college students and impaired).
I don't think creating an artificial job that cannot actually feed you can make anybody feel better of themselves. In any case, it shouldn't be called "a job", which was my point.
In particular, I think college students should study and not be distracted by having side jobs, and disabled people should either enjoy their pension (assuming they live in a civilized country that has that) or have a regular job (in fact, labor laws in my country prescribe positive discrimination for disabled people, even though it is probably economically inefficient).
I do care for those people, but I subscribe to a different cultural model. To provide job training so that economy could function should be responsibility of the employer, or the government, and it should be considered a full time job. Regardless whether the "foot in the door" job is supposed to be a job training or not, then I think the employer is perfectly capable of paying minimum wage for people doing it.
Though possibly that could be fixed with proper regulation.
I disagree, I think it's a wrong path, because it devalues really deep expertise. It seems to me that people do not want to be experts anymore, precisely for this reason. Dabbling in many different things is seen as a path to success. But I think this culture is missing out on something.
By the way, good social security or basic income can be seen as insurance to switch jobs without too much risk, too.
Factually the overwhelming majority of low wage work is done by people who do in fact need to support themselves and their families.
Even so it's entirely possible for special exemptions to be made for kids and the other cases are hardly worth mentioning.
Now you're beginning to sound like the generation that talks about paying for college with their summer job, which has rapidly become close to impossible over the last few decades. Sure, if you have scholarships and such.
Standard in-state sticker price is now $20,000/year; which would require 69 weeks of work at 40 hours per week before you even account for taxes.
The first result Google turns up suggests:
In 2015-16, average published tuition and fee prices for in-state students at public four-year institutions range from $4,890 in Wyoming and $6,350 in Montana to $14,990 in Vermont and $15,160 in New Hampshire.
http://trends.collegeboard.org/college-pricing/figures-table...
Not in the least. In fact, the wife and I are still paying off the $90,000 in loans she racked up during college, 20 years ago. However, a part time job a few days a week, to pay for things the loans didn't, was beneficial. Going out with friends, a few amenities, etc.
As was debated in prior threads, minimum wages are nonsensical from an economic (and welfare) standpoint. Negative income taxes or living wages make a lot more economic sense.
> I'd hardly call those "libertarian" societies.
I didn't claim that society has to be libertarian to not have minimum wage.
> If you have mobility of labor through your own free will, you are not a slave.
It's a different definition of the word "slave", and perhaps more precise, that you are using here. Technical word for what I mean, is, I believe, "precariat". It's not the same as slavery but there is often an overlap. And historically it's not obvious that one or the other is definitively worse condition.
For example, Czechoslovakia was communist. People were not free, yet they were economically quite well off. Today, people are politically free, but economically, some (although a small minority) are worse off. Because of that, I don't think it's obviously "disgracefully offensive" to compare the two situations. It's certainly not offensive to the poor people who make the comparison themselves.
> As was debated in prior threads, minimum wages are nonsensical from an economic (and welfare) standpoint.
It is only nonsensical if you subscribe to theories of "rational" decision-making, which do not hold for humans in practice. See for instance the ultimatum game, and how people respond to it.
Oh, dear lord, you have just fallen into a stereotype of a person that thinks they understand economics, but actually doesn't. So, we'll just leave it here. Not all economics assumes 100% rational decision making from an overall perspective, you make those assumptions so you can make a model to test. A basic game theory table can tell you that much; even with the simple example of the prisoner's dilemma.
You can make a "rational" decision without it being rational to an outside observer. For instance in the prisoner's dilemma it's in both people's interest to not cooperate, but since not all factors are known the "rational" decision is less apparent and both will betray one another. The field of economics, that generally is on the side of free trade (even from people like Krugman), is a much deeper field than the shallow picture you just painted. I basically already had your politics/understanding of economics picked from your previous post, but now I have a pretty clear picture.
Actually it is, because most economists agree that you can raise the minimum wage and have -some- positive outcome. It depends on market elasticity. But, sure you can believe whatever you want. There's a reason why you can raise a minimum wage by $1 with some positive effects (you could still have negative effects,) and not $100 because it would have massive negative effects. It all depends on market elasticity, it's curve.
The argument above was basically, 'modern economics isn't a real because it assumes rational actors!,' which is absolute nonsense.
I live in Norway where many of the same conditions pertain. I suspect that one reason for there not being a minimum wage here is that unemployment is low, which means that you have to pay a reasonable amount in order to get someone to work for you.
The conspiracist in me likes to think that corporations there push for minimum wage as one of many ways of stripping unions of power, and to argue that they're not necessary
Singapore is the exception. Economically it's business friendly to an almost absurd degree (which approximates liberatarianism). Consequently income inequality there is ridiculous even compared to America.
Perhaps we could cut to the chase and you could tell me what am I supposed to learn from the experience? If it is the fact that the international competition causes wage race to the bottom, then I am already aware of that.
And that's exactly the reason why minimum wage should be a law. Here's food for thought, too: How does Germany does it? Despite having high wages for decades, compared to the rest of the world, even in manufacturing, and recently adopting minimum wage, most Germans are employed, and there are many German companies out there. That I would like to have explained by someone with business experience.
Germany uses the weaker Eurozone countries to artificially deflate the cost of purchasing their exports. If the Euro was only based on the strength of the German economy their exports would be a lot more expensive. Whether or not this would reduce sales significantly or not is debatable but chances are it definitely wouldn't help.
At some point, the minimum wage will price unskilled labor completely out of the market. Companies now have 5 years to start automating these positions.
The Internet made this possible. So many people love using adblock and sharing files for free.. and the same tactics are being used to outsource labor... and now government intervention is a good thing.
If that were the case all MBA's and all Economists would be the wealthiest people in the world. That this is not the case should make everyone reflect a bit.
I take most everything I read from economists as total and utter bullshit. Including what they have to say in favor of high min wage. As a group their performance sucks. All they are good for is writing books nobody wants to read.