[berniedurfee]

I don’t have a reasonable answer. Though I think some element of universal compassion would be nice to embed in our economy.

Though, I don’t imagine that can ever be governed into place, given that socialism and communism ultimately end in totalitarianism.

It’ll likely take many generations and many revolutions, but I do hope someday we figure out how to stop excusing our selfishness and naturally give until everyone else has what they need.

We could create utopia today if we could successfully fight the urges of our monkey brains.

But in the near-term, I think the best we can do is survive and chip away at the notion that just because we can take more, we don’t have to.

[surement]

The notion that capitalists aren't compassionate is pure propaganda. People like capitalism because it's the best economic system in terms of results [0] [1] [2] [3]. It may increase the variance in wealth but it also raises the median and that's what actually matters.

[0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/child-mortality-gdp-per-c... [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/change-energy-gdp-per-cap... [2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-per-capita-caloric-... [3] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy?tab=chart...

[berniedurfee]

I agree that all people show compassion at some level regardless of the economic system in which they participate.

But I believe that compassion is not inherent in capitalism and people’s individual compassion is often in conflict with the goals of the system.

[surement]

Economic decisions should be viewed in terms of the incentives they create and not their stated intentions. Any economic system is one of rationing resources and this involves making tradeoffs. The apparent intent of one approach for doing this over another doesn't necessarily correlate with its results. E.g. "minimum wage" laws intending to protect workers from exploitation actually create unemployment instead (which is a zero wage, and that's less than the "minimum" wage). The "solution" is presented as being about low wages vs. high wages, so it sounds good and compassionate. But the reality is that it's about low wages vs. zero wages, and low is better than zero.

There's a film by the late economist Walter Williams called Good Intentions that is all about that kind of stuff.

[berniedurfee]

Does an increase in minimum wage cause a reduction in employment?

I personally see minimum wage as a default choice for employers if it’s enough to staff their business.

[surement]

does raising the price of oranges mean you sell less of them? of course it does

employment is a two way agreement, why does the government need to set a price floor for labor? anyone who doesn't want to work for $4/h can just decide not to, but the law makes it illegal for anyone who would rather do that than be unemployed. Wages generally correlate with experience and these laws are robbing teenagers and young adults of valuable experience years.

[berniedurfee]

Raising the price of anything doesn’t mean you’ll sell fewer of them. In fact, that’s kind of the problem.

There’s a margin between the price you can sell a product for and the price you decide to sell a product for.

The same applies to wages. There’s a wage that you can offer and still have a healthy business, then there’s the wage you do offer because someone is willing to take the job.

Maximizing pricing and minimizing wages based on the limits you can get away with is the problem. Human decency should be a factor in setting prices and wages, not just strictly market economics and opportunity.

Insulin is too expensive and minimum wage is less than what’s needed to live reasonably well.

Those who control prices and wages can and should fix those problems. The government shouldn’t even have to intervene.

They do, but my point is, as a species, we should do better to improve conditions for others when we have the opportunity.