[reginaldjcooper]

Just what we need, some more Objectivism.

If the free market ensured that all people were given a wage that adequately reflected their value, the bottom 40% of earners would be getting more than 10% of the income.

Bill Gates paid 30 cents of every dollar in exchange for access to an educated and healthy workforce, use of the interstates for shipping, use of the police and military for protection, and use of a contract law system. Microsoft then abused its wealth to "embrace, extend, extinguish;" which is sort of a perfect illustration of how consolidating lots of money gives totally unbalanced market advantages to a few entities.

[marknutter]

> Bill Gates paid 30 cents of every dollar in exchange for access to an educated and healthy workforce, use of the interstates for shipping, use of the police and military for protection, and use of a contract law system.

You make it sound as though it's a willful transaction between two parties. Yes, taxes go to those things, but it's compulsory. If I don't like Microsoft I can choose not to buy their products. If I don't like the NSA or CIA torture tactics, I can't opt out of their services. BIG difference.

[reginaldjcooper]

Right? But the GP was asserting minimum wage is a willful transaction also. Actually if the laborers don't like their minimum wage, they cannot opt out of it either, they need to eat, pay for housing, and get medical insurance from somewhere.

It's absurd to me that someone would assert that Bill Gates is being dominated by paying taxes whereas these other people are somehow not being dominated by accepting a low wage in the same system.

Also Bill Gates has the resources to change citizenship if he thinks there's a better deal elsewhere. Many of these other people would not be financially able to move to another country and work there legally. So it's definitely more willful for him than for the minimum wage workforce.

[bmelton]

They can't opt out of minimum wage because there are laws, not because it's otherwise coerced.

There are compelling arguments in favor of abolishing the minimum wage, just as there are compelling arguments in favor of increasing it. Neither position is necessarily wrong, and each requires making trade-offs for the other, but either way, the imposition of a minimum wage is not voluntary to those upon which it is imposed.

[velis_vel]

> They can't opt out of minimum wage because there are laws, not because it's otherwise coerced.

You missed the point. Let's get rid of the minimum wage. Suppose Alex is looking for a job, but all the jobs they can find that will hire them pay less than what they think is fair. Does Alex have a choice? No; if they doesn't get a job they will starve and die.

[bmelton]

The point I made was that workers can't opt out of it because that would be illegal. There are, I'm certainly, many who are starving that would otherwise be thrilled to earn $4 an hour, but they can't. There are also a myriad of scenarios wherein paying someone less than the minimum wage doesn't mean that they starve and die. The minimum wage prevents those earners from finding a place in the market. Even further, there are a myriad of people who are thriving while currently sell their work for less than minimum wage, but they simply disguise the tasks as 'firm fixed bids' or 'flat rate bids' against a projected contract.

I acknowledge that there are bad actors in the system, namely Wal-Mart, who I'm guessing would be happy to pay workers as little as they possibly could, regardless of the burdens it imposed on them (I say because I believe their union-busting activities were unethical, not because I in any way despise their pay practices as they currently exist), but for the most part, a free exchange helps small business compete against bigger business.

In summation, hamstringing employers and employees is unnecessary. It's a shame, because in the tech community, we've already seen the value of a less-regulated workforce with things like oDesk and such. Companies who just need a Wordpress site are free to hire from oDesk, and will likely receive bids in the sub-$50 range which, in a more traditional arrangement, would violate labor laws. Similarly, we've seen it illustrated that those bottom-end producers aren't necessarily cannibalizing sales from up-market producers, as they're able to better distinguish themselves through marketability, experience and references. The artificial pay barrier we've imposed prevents many of the existing low-skill earners from getting experience and/or transitioning into higher-skill earners.

[velis_vel]

I think you and the GP (or whatever) are talking past each other. Their original point was that it's essentially impossible for a person to opt out of the labor market, because without money they can't buy food and will starve to death. This is true regardless of any kind of minimum wage laws.

[malandrew]

Completely agree. To be fair, every government of major superpower also pursues the same policies of "embrace, extend, extinguish;", including ours, the US Government.