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Comment by yummyfajitas | Hacker News Reader

What I'm more interested in is why the most passionate defenders of the second amendment never seem interested in government power grabs like this.

Because many defenders of the second amendment aren't actually defenders of personal freedom, but are merely defenders of their cultural expressions (one of which is gun ownership).

See also the people who passionately defend the right of two consenting adults to do whatever they want in the privacy of their own bedroom, but then object if I want to pay someone $2 an hour to clean the bedroom. Or the people who defend the free speech of the New York Times Corp., but not the free speech of Citizens United, Inc.

Most people are merely supporting their tribe and don't actually buy into the principles they appeal to when making arguments.

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>See also the people who passionately defend the right of two consenting adults to do whatever they want in the privacy of their own bedroom, but then object if I want to pay someone $2 an hour to clean the bedroom

While I agree with your general point about tribalism, this particular example is pretty silly -- you have to pretend to take the idiom literally for it to make sense.

Why is the principle of allowing people to engage in private acts that harm no one else "silly"?

I realize that most liberals consider it an anathema, but that's the point. People appeal to the principle in spite of disagreeing with it in basically all cases except gay sex and abortion.

How is paying $2/hr for the cleaning of the room harming no one? It is more complicated than direct and immediate harm, but (if you subscribe to modern economic models) it does indeed result in economic harm.

There are jobs that are illegal because the highest price people are willing to pay for them is lower than the minimum wage. The potential buyers and sellers of those services would not be harmed if they were legal—they would benefit.

Who benefits when you establish a class of people working for $2/hr? Last I checked that's $4,000/year, which puts you solidly in poverty.

This argument isn't going to go anywhere novel. The point is that such policies help some impoverished people make more, but they make other impoverished people make less.

People currently making $0/hr?

This argument can easily be extended to people's actions in the bedroom when no money is being exchanged. They can lead to pregnancy, spread of STDs, violence... and yet, I imagine, almost everyone supporting the minimal wage would vehemently oppose regulation of sexual activities by, for example, only allowing married couples to engage in them.

Right? No one here thinks that we should limit single motherhood by banning extramarital sexual relationships? Or the spread of HIV through anti-sodomy laws?

EDIT: OK, maybe I didn't write that clearly but both low wages and sex can lead to negative externalities. Why one should be strictly regulated and the other protected from any regulation?

Wait, I thought the reference to "bedroom activities" was about homosexuality and/or general deviancy.

Because the attempts to regulate sex are not based on some desire to reduce pregnancy and the spread of STDs, but are rather religious control over private life dressed up in friendlier colors.

Nobody has ever seriously attempted legislating away sex.

>Why is the principle of allowing people to engage in private acts that harm no one else "silly"

Because paying below minimal wage for other people's work harms the whole of society, and first and foremost the very person that agrees to work for you because he needs the money.

If you weren't allowed to pay as little as you want, then he would have at least got minimum wage, an amount considered somewhat fair by our society.

(The case that you would only offer employment if you could pay less than that, so he gets zero is mostly BS. Even if that was the case, society is better of without employers like you, than having people barely making a living in the jobs you could offer).

That's the point of the principle that two consenting adults should be allowed to do whatever they want in their own bedroom: that others may not approve for whatever reason. You believe (perhaps completely validly) that if someone chooses to work for minimum wage they are hurting themselves and possibly "all of society". This is exactly the same argument made by people who don't want people having whatever sexual relations they want in their own bedroom. You will point out that they are wrong and your points are right -- but that's the whole point! If we say "some things are not safe for two consenting adults to do in their own bedroom", then how is your opinion on what's safe any better than theirs? In both circumstances you are interfering with someone's private choices arguing that you are "saving" them from their own ignorance or circumstances. You differ only in the subset of allowable activities -- and thus dont really support the principle of the stance, but instead happen to be ok with a different set of controls. We don't allow people to do whatever they want in their bedroom because its safe, we do so because it is none of our business and we theoretically don't want a society where we need to go ask everyone's permission before doing things with your partner, regardless of what those things may be.

I'm not necessarily arguing for this (extreme) position, but I agree that it is disingenuous to argue that you stand for people's rights to do whatever they want in their bedroom, followed by listing things they can't do because you believe they hurt society. You can certainly have that position, and it is a valid position, but it is a different position.

>That's the point of the principle that two consenting adults should be allowed to do whatever they want in their own bedroom: that others may not approve for whatever reason. You believe (perhaps completely validly) that if someone chooses to work for minimum wage they are hurting themselves and possibly "all of society". This is exactly the same argument made by people who don't want people having whatever sexual relations they want in their own bedroom. You will point out that they are wrong and your points are right -- but that's the whole point!

No. The whole point is what is right and what is wrong.

Not if what is right is _consistent_ in situations that is not exactly the same.

The only same thing in those two situations presented is that there are "two adults" present.

In the case of accepting "minimum wage" the one agreeing is not even "consenting" in the same sense.

He is just doing something that he is _forced_ to do by hunger and lack of jobs.

Even if one "needs to have sex", it's not at all the same kind of "need" as needing to eat and feed/shelter your family.

The first is an option and a choice. The other is a necessity, and a leverage you can use of people to let them do degrading things.

From prostituting themselves to selling their kids.

Because paying below minimal wage for other people's work harms the whole of society, and first and foremost the very person that agrees to work for you because he needs the money.

If he were harmed, why would he choose to accept my offer?

Lets consider a different regulation - ugly people can't have sex. This is because sex with an ugly person harms the whole of society, and first and foremost the very person that agrees to ugly sex because he/she can't get anyone better.

If ugly people weren't allowed to have sex, they would at least exercise/clean up/etc to the point of non-ugliness, a level of attractiveness considered somewhat fair by our society.

(The case that some people won't become more attractive, so he/she gets no sex is mostly BS. Even if that was the case, society is better off without ugly sexual partners.)

If he were harmed, why would he choose to accept my offer?

The concept that you are describing is "rationality". If you do some light reading, you will find that reasonable people disagree that any human possesses or can possess it, especially in the case of economics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounded_rationality

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_choice_theory#Criticis...

If you intend for this to be an argument favoring the regulation of employment, note that it also applies to regulating sexual activities (humans are notoriously irrational about sex).

The concept of "rationality" applies to all reasoning that a human does. It is not constrained to one specific activity or another (sexual or employment or regulation).

Wikipedia>>>The "rationality" described by rational choice theory is different from the colloquial and most philosophical use of the word. For most people, "rationality" means "sane," "in a thoughtful clear-headed manner," or knowing and doing what's healthy in the long term. Rational choice theory uses a specific and narrower definition of "rationality" simply to mean that an individual acts as if balancing costs against benefits to arrive at action that maximizes personal advantage.

>If he were harmed, why would he choose to accept my offer?

Because he has to eat and you give him no other option (except not eating, which is not an option).

You have this concept that he could "shop around", but poor people cannot shop around. For one, those that would work for that kind of money don't have much bargaining power. They get what they can get. And if employers were allowed to pay them below minimum wage, they will do so. All of them (and even if some do not, their vacancies will be filled quickly exactly because of that).

So, either we correct the power imbalance (a man hungry and desperate for work and food and a guy offering work and willing to pay as little as he can) and settle a minimum amount to be paid, or we let those that have the luxury of offering work step on those having the necessity of getting a job to feed themselves.

>Even if that was the case, society is better off without ugly sexual partners.

Yes, and society if better of without poor people. Let's exterminate them. I see where you're coming from. I hope at some point you loose your job and security blanket and are forced to work minimum wage. Maybe throw in some medical bills too. If anything, it will give some perspective.

And if employers were allowed to pay them below minimum wage, they will do so.

This is silliness. Most employers pay well over minimum wage. If they did not do this, no employees would be willing to work for them. This is true in the US as well as in many countries where the minimum wage is so low as to be irrelevant.

Yes, and society if better of without poor people. Let's exterminate them. I see where you're coming from.

Huh? I just applied the exact same reasoning as you to a different field. But I guess it's easier to appeal to godwin than to actually use logic and reason.

>Huh? I just applied the exact same reasoning as you to a different field. But I guess it's easier to appeal to godwin than to actually use logic and reason.

You call "applying the same logic to a _different field_" ...logical?

As if eradicating el-cheapo employers is the same as getting rid of "ugly people"?

That's "logic and reason" to you? For one, the first is merely putting an end to a business practice, whereas the second amounts to racism and/or murder.

Different fields call for different thinking to be applied.

And what you call "logic" are merely "arguments". Only mathematic and predicate logic (both of which are well defined) can be applied the exact same way to different inputs, not mere arguments in a discussion. We might call them "logic" too, casually, but it's not at all the same.

Conversational "logic" is not "one size fits all". For example, what makes sense for pests (they destroy my flowers thus they must be exterminated so my garden is kept nice) doesn't make much sense for pets (even if they destroy the garden just the same).

>This is silliness. Most employers pay well over minimum wage. If they did not do this, no employees would be willing to work for them. This is true in the US as well as in many countries where the minimum wage is so low as to be irrelevant.

In the countries where "it's so low as to be irrelevant" you answered your own question as for why the pay more than minimum wage: because it's bloody irrelevant, so they don't care paying a little above it.

In places where minimum wage is _not_ irrelevant, OTOH, they do care, and they would pay well below it, if they could afford it.

That can be prevented in two ways: if there is a minimum wage law, or if there are enough jobs.

But I'm not talking about either situation -- I'm talking about when employers CAN get away with giving any kind of wage, because of lack of jobs or because some people have some specific issue and nobody would hire them (e.g ex convict).

Notice also how what you say invalidates your own argument. You try to present it as a non issue:

"Most employers pay well over minimum wage. If they did not do this, no employees would be willing to work for them. This is true in the US as well as in many countries where the minimum wage is so low as to be irrelevant"

whereas the whole thread started because you very well _do_ consider it an issue -- and want employers to be able to do so, without minimum wage law regulating against it.

The situation is clear: employers that CAN take advantage of below minimum wage (in the situations that I described) often do.

Are you better off by typing on a computer made by people that made less than minimum wage?

No, I'm not. I'm against cheap labour in general. And I always prefer places that pay their employees well, even if I have to pay some more.

Because that's not what they mean by "the privacy of your own bedroom". That usage very specifically invokes sexual freedom, and not privacy in general. If you want a more general discussion you should make that clear, and not try to play off of the particular words used in a more specific case.

I think that (or I wonder whether) you've touched upon the difference between personal vs. public freedoms, the latter of which we impose many regulations upon. Many people would object to a sub-minimum-wage job offer, but would be fine to pay friends/family/neighbors (including children) such amounts for odd jobs. Or I might slander someone I don't like within a small group of friends, and nobody would object to that; but the New York Times, which is sold for public consumption, is prohibited from publishing libel or slander.

Maybe because the first case is a personal sexual affair, whereas the second is taking advantage of your position as someone with money that can offer employment to have impoverished people in need of a job working for a pittance.

I'd dispute your point, but there's no way this argument will be appropriate for Hacker News.

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