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Comment by taeric | Hacker News Reader

You aren't telling the homeless person that they are legally forbidden from working in cheap labor. You are telling businesses that they are not solvent if they rely on ultra cheap labor.

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Perhaps minimum wage proponents need to frame it like that to justify it, but in reality, it goes both ways. You ARE legally forbidding a homeless person from working at a price of their choosing, just as much as you are forbidding a business from purchasing labor below a certain price.

This line of thinking leads to allowing people to sell themselves into slavery. Do we need to solve homelessness? Absolutely. We do not do this by propping up businesses and properties that rely on below livable wages.

I can buy some level of slippery slope at play here. But, by and large, this frames it in a way that allows sub-livable wages.

So, you can think my "side" is framing this in a way to justify it. This does little more than convince me your "side" is just trying to justify keeping ill earned wealth.

> This line of thinking leads to allowing people to sell themselves into slavery.

I think there is a fundamental difference between selling labor and selling legal rights. You might say that someone so financially desperate has de-facto given some rights to their employer, but coercion is always illegal (whether or not this kind of person is likely to seek legal help is another story).

> So, you can think my "side" is framing this in a way to justify it. This does little more than convince me your "side" is just trying to justify keeping ill earned wealth.

Sounds like you dislike exploitative businesses more than you care about the homeless. That isn't necessarily right or wrong, but I think it explains your inclination on the issue.

    I think there is a fundamental difference between
    selling labor and selling legal rights. You might
    say that someone so financially desperate has de-facto
    given some rights to their employer, but coercion is 
    always illegal (whether or not this kind of person is
    likely to seek legal help is another story).

I question that difference. Selling labor is merely selling the legal rights to the product of your labor. Building a dependence into the system by allowing below living wages is something I just don't see ending well.

I'm not convinced I'm correct on this. But at face value, I don't see how it works.

    Sounds like you dislike exploitative businesses more than
    you care about the homeless. That isn't necessarily right
    or wrong, but I think it explains your inclination on the
    issue.

I view them as distinct things. And while I certainly encourage ways to get homeless people feeling productive, I don't think getting them below living wage jobs is doing them a favor. Reliable shelter where they are able to get food and necessities while possibly building skills is something I'm incredibly for. And I hate the NIMBY syndrome that is pervading a lot of the city.

Unfortunately, I don't think there is an easy answer. :(

What's wrong with allowing people to sell themselves into what you call slavery?

Assuming it's a bad decision (makes their lives worse off), the problem is that they make a bad decision. In that case, it might make sense to create a regulation that forbids people making bad decisions.

If it's a good decision, there's no point forbidding it.

Good for who though? If you're the employer then people selling themselves to you for below living wage (slavery) is absolutely fantastic, if you're the person selling yourself then it's not so great! It's a matter of perspective.

No, you're telling the customers that their food is subsidized by ultra cheap labor. Of course, higher prices will decrease the number of goods sold, which the free marketers regard as a deadly sin. Rather, when costs are fully internalized, the free market works better! Externalizing costs onto labor by perpetuating a below-living wage is a market distortion held up by government! They should hate it!

And to the free marketers who point out that companies could voluntarily pay a living wage, you're not wrong! But it exposes the fault in the free market religion. The market, on a whole, will gladly enslave and abuse a small minority for the benefit of the majority.

If nobody is allowed to offer him work below a particular rate and nobody is willing to pay him at or above that rate, then he's effectively forbidden from working.

Or, if no company is willing to pay a living wage to accomplish a task, does it need to be done?

Perhaps not, or more likely it doesn't need to be done in the jurisdiction of the forced minimum.

For fully localized jobs that cannot move (ex: waiter) that means they probably won't exist at all and the business will close down.

Or will the prices just increase to account for the higher wage? Isn't that easier?

Companies will pay at most the value that a worker creates. It makes no sense to pay minimum wage, if the worker creates less value than that.

And what is the value created by labor? Let's split the discussion into service jobs and non-service jobs, as we all know most of these minimum wage positions are service jobs. So, what is the value of one hour of service labor? Whatever someone will pay for it. Which is set by a market of service providers all decreasing their prices to the lowest they can tolerate. Because if you can undercut a competitor, the free market says you will win the business. Which, for the people who make minimum wage, is how little a wage they will accept. Ok, what sets the floor for what people will tolerate to be paid? When looking at the minimum wage sector of the population, what is their bargaining power? What is the bargaining power of the employers? Is it a free market? What other options do the workers have? Is it a voluntary transaction if the alternative is starvation and homelessness?

both?

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