[Traditio]

Originally Posted by bybee

If wages do not allow a worker to maintain minimum standards to sustain life we will shortly have no workers left alive!
I think the contentious area is how much above minimum standards ought wages to be set?
The workers at the most basic level need to be protected.
Yet, jobs are often forfeit when minimum wages plus benefits rise to a prohibitive level for small businesses.

The minimum standard shouldn't be the sustaining of life. The minimum standard should be the sustaining of dignity and decency.

[Traditio]

Originally Posted by Nick M

As opposed to your arbitrary redistribution of wealth? You hypocrite. Stop trying to steal other peoples money.

The real thieves are employers and the rich:

"The rich usually imagine that, if they do not physically rob the poor, they are committing no sin. But the sin of the rich consists in not sharing their wealth with the poor. In fact, the rich person who keeps all his wealth for himself is committing a form of robbery. The reason is that in truth all wealth comes from God, and so belongs to everyone equally. The proof of this is all around us. Look at the succulent fruits which the trees and bushes produce. Look at the fertile soil which yields each year such an abundant harvest. Look at the sweet grapes on the vines, which give us wine to drink. The rich may claim that they own many fields in which fruit and grain grow; but it is God who causes seeds to sprout and mature. The duty of the rich is to share the harvest of their fields with all who work in them and with all in need." (St. John Chrysostom).

[some other dude]

Originally Posted by Traditio

Samstarrett: I have a very simple moral question for you. Do you think that human lives (our very well being) should be determined by the arbitrary laws of supply and demand? Is human life itself just another commodity?

If you answer "yes," then you should very seriously be concerned about the state of your immortal soul. You might just be going to Hell.

I say that human life is not a commodity. He is not merely a means to an end. The human person is an end-in-himself.

So if I hire Trad, I own his life?

[TomO]

Originally Posted by Traditio

The real thieves are employers and the rich:

"The rich usually imagine that, if they do not physically rob the poor, they are committing no sin. But the sin of the rich consists in not sharing their wealth with the poor. In fact, the rich person who keeps all his wealth for himself is committing a form of robbery. The reason is that in truth all wealth comes from God, and so belongs to everyone equally. The proof of this is all around us. Look at the succulent fruits which the trees and bushes produce. Look at the fertile soil which yields each year such an abundant harvest. Look at the sweet grapes on the vines, which give us wine to drink. The rich may claim that they own many fields in which fruit and grain grow; but it is God who causes seeds to sprout and mature. The duty of the rich is to share the harvest of their fields with all who work in them and with all in need." (St. John Chrysostom).

ITT All wealth is given by GOD equally....HE just has a minor distribution problem.

[some other dude]

Originally Posted by Traditio

The minimum standard shouldn't be the sustaining of life. The minimum standard should be the sustaining of dignity and decency.

You want to see dignity and decency? Check out Chinese immigrants without a penny to their names working sixteen hour days to survive.


You want to see the opposite? Check out the inner cities where people have been told they're entitled to a minimum wage by self serving politicians.

[frostmanj]

Originally Posted by Traditio

Samstarrett: I have a very simple moral question for you. Do you think that human lives (our very well being) should be determined by the arbitrary laws of supply and demand? Is human life itself just another commodity?

If you answer "yes," then you should very seriously be concerned about the state of your immortal soul. You might just be going to Hell.

I say that human life is not a commodity. He is not merely a means to an end. The human person is an end-in-himself.

I smell a straw man here. Should human lives be determined by supply and demand? Of course not. But, that's not the subject here. Human labor is.

You demean a person when you tell him that he can't fend for himself and therefore has to have government provide for him. In this case forcing a private business to pay a wage that is dispropotionate to the value of the labor.

As to power between a employer and employee, you make the assumption that the labor pool is not mobile and can not move to better opportunities. If a person's labor is truly of more value than what an employer is offering, he will move to a better paying opportunity. If the employee does not have the skills to demand better, then he needs some opportunity to enter the job market.

I have a master's in management. Let me give you a very simplified example:

Let's assume I run a burger joint with a wage cap of $8 per hour to be profitable. If I have to choose between hiring one skilled employee at $7.25 per hour who can produce 20 burgers per hour versus two unskilled employees at $4 dollars per hour who can produce 15 burgers per hour each, I would naturally choose the two employees and make the extra 10 burgers per hour.

If you put a minimum wage on me, I am forced to hire one worker and not work to my business's maximum output (hurts my profitability). That single employee will need to be someone with experience for me to be profitable. I will have to raise the unit cost of my burgers to maintain profitability. (I still have to pay for my building, buns, burgers, condiments, etc.) I can't risk a new worker.

The end effect is one less worker hired. Two entry level workers still looking for a job. A $2.75 per hour less in the economy. And more expensive burgers.

[Buzzword]

Originally Posted by bybee

If wages do not allow a worker to maintain minimum standards to sustain life we will shortly have no workers left alive!
I think the contentious area is how much above minimum standards ought wages to be set?
The workers at the most basic level need to be protected.
Yet, jobs are often forfeit when minimum wages plus benefits rise to a prohibitive level for small businesses.

This is where the rubber meets the road for me on this issue.

My father has owned and operated a computer sales/repair business since 1988, and in that time has become the sole provider of those services in my hometown, apart from Wal-mart.

For a variety of reasons, he has never employed more than three people at a time, and has always paid well above minimum wage.
(mainly because I would generally take care of most minimum-wage-employee tasks there without pay...under coercion as the son of the sole proprietor)

I think a middle ground for the minimum wage issue, between protecting employees against corporate abuse AND protecting small business from being bankrupted by government regulation, would be to create a graded minimum wage system based on the number of people a business employs.

More employees = higher wage floor.

[Traditio]

Originally Posted by frostmanj

I smell a straw man here. Should human lives be determined by supply and demand? Of course not. But, that's not the subject here. Human labor is.

It comes out to about the same. A man labors to get the things that he needs to live well.

You demean a person when you tell him that he can't fend for himself and therefore has to have government provide for him.

Welcome to civil society. Recommended reading: Politics, Republic, Leviathan, etc.

In this case forcing a private business to pay a wage that is dispropotionate to the value of the labor.

You can't separate the value of labor from the dignity of the employee. Human labor isn't just another commodity.

[some other dude]

Originally Posted by Traditio

You really should consider reading Onora O'Neill. There is a power disparity between employer and employee. This inhibits the ability of the employee to make free consent.

I've been chewing on this, wondering why it sounded so familiar and then it finally came to me.

Trad, you're making the same argument that radical feminists make regarding consensual sex vs rape. They argue that, because there's a power disparity (economic, physical, political) between men and women, women are inhibited from making free consent to the act of sex, and therefore all sex is rape.

[frostmanj]

Originally Posted by Traditio

You can't separate the value of labor from the dignity of the employee. Human labor isn't just another commodity.

How is legislated charity a builder of dignity? I would argue that the longer unemployment lines due to the artificially shrunken labor market due to minimum wages is in fact detrimental to dignity.

[Traditio]

Originally Posted by frostmanj

How is legislated charity a builder of dignity? I would argue that the longer unemployment lines due to the artificially shrunken labor market due to minimum wages is in fact detrimental to dignity.

It's not legislated charity. If you have an employee, then you have a direct and immediate duty to provide for the employee's welfare. If you're not up to it, then you have a duty not to hire an employee.

In any case, there are easy ways to keep unemployment low. Just hit business who don't hire lots of employees at high wages with very, very severe penalties. Wal Mart wants to implement lay offs because they don't want to pay higher wages? Tax them double! Triple! Quadruple! Take it all!

[Traditio]

Originally Posted by some other dude

I've been chewing on this, wondering why it sounded so familiar and then it finally came to me.

Trad, you're making the same argument that radical feminists make regarding consensual sex vs rape. They argue that, because there's a power disparity (economic, physical, political) between men and women, women are inhibited from making free consent to the act of sex, and therefore all sex is rape.

There's a massive difference between the man-woman sexual relationship and the employer-employee work relationship. I don't think that I need to go about explaining why this is so, since I think you already can see why they are different. But I'm certainly not above doing so if you think it necessary.

[Samstarrett]

Originally Posted by Traditio

Samstarrett: I have a very simple moral question for you. Do you think that human lives (our very well being) should be determined by the arbitrary laws of supply and demand? Is human life itself just another commodity?

That question is not simple at all, but I'll try to answer it. The trouble is that it is a moral question that does not address what an individual should or should not do, but rather how things should be. In an ideal world, of course, everyone's needs would be provided for and nobody would have to pay for anything and little white children and little black children would walk down the street hand in hand and politicians would all be honest blokes who could be trusted with absolute power and...

But we don't live in an ideal world. So, to answer your question, no, of course people's well-being "should" be universally provided for, at least for those who work or are, for a reason that is no fault of their own, unable to work. But the real question here is how this should be accomplished. You claim that the State should use force to guarantee that everyone is paid what you consider a decent wage. The problem arises when you realize that this takes people who would have had horrible jobs and leaves them with no job at all, which is even worse. Moreover, it violates the human right to liberty to tell me I may not work simply because you don't like the amount I'm going to be paid.

Instead, I think we should take seriously the Divine admonition to succor the poor, and do it out of our own resources, not those of others. Do you have the right to take what belongs to someone else if it's for a good cause? I don't think so. Does the State have that right? That's a little iffier, but I still think it should be avoided where possible, particularly where it interferes with the right of consenting adults to enter into voluntary, mutually beneficial economic relations.

[frostmanj]

Originally Posted by Traditio

In any case, there are easy ways to keep unemployment low. Just hit business who don't hire lots of employees at high wages with very, very severe penalties. Wal Mart wants to implement lay offs because they don't want to pay higher wages? Tax them double! Triple! Quadruple! Take it all!

Wow....I'm not even sure where to start on that...I am assuming (nay hoping) that you are being facetious.

Forcing a business to hire employees against all rules of profitability through penalties will have one guaranteed effect. The end of that business. Eventually you will have no businesses and we will be back to a barter economy. What is minimum wage then? One chicken per day?

[Samstarrett]

Originally Posted by frostmanj

Wow....I'm not even sure where to start on that...I am assuming (nay hoping) that you are being facetious.

Nope. He is serious. And he can vote! Vive Le Roi!