The minimum wage

[Ludwig von Marx]

Hey, I do a lot of surfing between many different politically aligned websites, revleft and mises.org being two of them. I was wondering what the socialist response to this article about the minimum wage would be. Thanks for any responses.
[mises.org/story/3618]
You're gonna have to copy and paste the link in between the brackets since I'm new :ninja:

[Havet]

Hey, I do a lot of surfing between many different politically aligned websites, revleft and mises.org being two of them. I was wondering what the socialist response to this article about the minimum wage would be. Thanks for any responses.
[mises.org/story/3618]
You're gonna have to copy and paste the link in between the brackets since I'm new :ninja:

My response would be to get rid of the state and the capitalists, achieve equality of opportunity, and then we'd see the following:

- In more individualist communities there would likely not be any wage impositions
-In more collectivized communities there would be some wage restrictions (minimum wage, working hours, etc) but they wouldnt be imposed outside the community like the state currently does.

I think wage barriers in current countries won't really accomplish anything besides reducing competition between capitalists (increased barrier to entry) and concentrate the power to fewer capitalists and the state.

Of course, there's the workers, who desperately need more money under this system to survive, but I would prefer them getting higher wages through counter-economics than state benefits which might end up doing more harm than good.

[Kamerat]

mises.org/story/3618 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/mises.org/story/3618)
There you go.

My response to the article about minimum wage would be that wages are no good, regardless if the state set a minimum wage, or if workers can set their value on their own labour as they like (which will not happen by the way, its the bourgiose who own the means of production and can thus decied what the value of the workers labour is worth).

@hayenmill: He asked for a sosialist response to article about the minimum wage. Not a pro-hierarchical capitalist response.

[Havet]

mises.org/story/3618 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/mises.org/story/3618)
There you go.

My response to the article about minimum wage would be that wages are no good, no matter if the state set a minimum wage or if workers can set their value on their own labour as they like (which will not happen by the way, its the bourgiose who own the means of production and can thus decied what the value of the workers labour is worth).

@hayenmill: He asked for a sosialist response to article about the minimum wage. Not a pro-hierarchical capitalist response.

I don't see how my free market anti-capitalist response was pro-hierarchical and capitalist. Would you care to elaborate?

[New Tet]

Properly speaking, every wage is a minimum wage.

[Kamerat]

Me neither just read who posted and assumed some "anarcho"-cappie bs.

[revolution inaction]

Hey, I do a lot of surfing between many different politically aligned websites, revleft and mises.org being two of them. I was wondering what the socialist response to this article about the minimum wage would be. Thanks for any responses.

Well since i am a communist my view is rather different from the view that is being argued against. I seek a classless moneyless society where there are no wages.
Of cause in the mean time higher wages are good for workers, but i think this is best achieved by workers becoming sufficiently organised that no employer can get away with really low wages.
If there is a minimum wage then i have no objection to that but i think this is some thing done to make the government look good rather than to protect workers. As the article correctly notes the proposed minimum is too low for some one to really live on, and as it does not mention there will always be people sufficiently desperate to accept less then the minimum, so really it is just cosmetic.



It is supposed that employers withhold as much as they can of what the workers have produced — that the so-called "wages fund" is not fully disbursed as wages

i've never heard the phrase "the wages fund" used in this way before, but i think it is obvious that the workers are paid less than the value that they produce, else where do the profits come from? If you take the amount initially paid by the capitalist, including the price of raw materials, mecieance and workers wages, and compare it to the amount that there product is sold for then you see that the second amount is bigger than the first, so something must have happened to produce value. And the only thing common to every case of production is that there are/is worker/s, so the workers add the value.


The answer, of course, is that the minimum wage theory does not square with experience. The reason is that work, as such, is not something scarce and useful to human beings. Sheer effort is not one of the things men will buy in the market place.
The goods and services produced by workmen are the things valued, regardless of how much or how little labor went into their creation. If a horse can pull ten times as many cabbages to market as a man can, who in his right mind would hire a man instead of a horse for that job?

If you can find a house that can make its way to market by its self the feel free, same goes if you can find a mecien than needs no one to operate it. but in reality a worker is always needed, to guide the house, to operate the meceian, to program the robot, theres no way around it every bit of value created depends on workers.



But if the horse is hired, should the cabbage-mover then be required to pay ten men to sit by and watch the operation? That would be a logical development, according to the minimum wage theory that human labor is the only thing of value to society.


what the fuck?
the rest is nonsensical too, i cant really be bothered with it.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

If a minimum wage is set high enough to have any effect, that effect must be a closing of the market to those persons least capable of earning a living. For the minimum wage denies such persons the right to offer their services for what they are worth. The law says in effect, "If you are not worth the legal minimum wage, you are not worth anything."This can be addressed just as easily by introducing a shorter working day as it can by removing the minimum wage, but that wouldn't increase capitalist profit, so obviously libertarians aren't going to support that. The article is mostly nonsense...all it really manages to do is show the impossibility of reforming capitalism, which isn't something anyone on this site wants to do.


The one great blessing of the market economy is that it encourages every individual to develop his talents, however limited they might be.Lol, yeah, if you have the money to pay for an education.


And it assures each a full measure of value for the much or the little that he has to contribute to the satisfaction of human needs.Yeah, as long as they're able to produce a surplus for non-laboring property owners. Downturn in the market for labor? Oh well.


There are sound reasons why some men should earn more for their efforts than do others — why skilled labor should be worth more than unskilled — why the successful manager of a business should receive more than any of his employees. Human beings are not all alike, in either capacities or desires.So the reason that people who contribute insignificant amounts to societies wealth should receive the majority of that wealth while the people largely responsibly for it receive only a small fraction is because human beings are not all alike?


Prices and wages as determined in a free market, unrigged by political intervention, are the best means of insuring the production and equitable distribution of the goods and services all men seek.But he just said that capitalism was inequitable and that this is a good thing because everyone is different...


Those who have most clearly proved their productive capacity are rewarded accordingly through the voluntary acts of their fellow men in the market place.Rewarded accordingly? If by that he means receiving a fraction of what they have produced for their employer, then sure.

[Conquer or Die]

A couple of things:

1. I support a tripling of the minimum wage across the national board in America that increases exactly with inflation. I would exempt small, local production businesses, any mutualist business, and any information business. Essentially anything that is fair trade, locally operated with a tiny (family) workforce would be exempt from the minimum wage law.

2. The economy would likely respond with decreased spending power and increased unemployment; however, this would fully incentivize collective labor and local arrangements. Moreover, a majority of the minimum wage jobs are in the service sector which hinges on American buying power which is still the top in the world. This would effectively and slowly shift the American economy from a purchase economy to a productive national economy thereby eliminating much economic imperialism from Imperialist America.

3. If the minimum wage is raised then so too is the promotional wage. The capitalist needs to incentivize in order to maintain an efficient order. Since worker operated business and tiny business are out of the question for the American capitalist he is faced with naturally decreased wages on his part. Thusly the capitalist is forced out of significant buying power while the majority of America benefits especially by re-orientating the flow of capital through America's actual material production either in small capitalist or worker owned form.

Although mostly unrelated I would call this economic policy the LANEP: Lenin's American New Economic Policy.

[deLarge]

I would think that a maximum wage would be more effective under a capitalist system;

You can only make X times the median wage of those you employ

or something like that

[turquino]

Don’t believe the neoclassical economists who say an increase in the minimum wage causes unemployment, or the keynesians’ alleged wage-price spiral. A general rise in wages lowers the capitalists’ rate of profit and deprives them of part of their income. The result is a flow of capital from industries that produced goods/services consumed exclusively by the bourgeoisie to industries that produce goods primarily consumed by the working class. That’s the real reason why they are so bitterly opposed to raising wages, not because of some phony altruism for the plight of the unemployed. Realistically there’s little empirical evidence for unemployment rising with minimum wages.

[Conquer or Die]

Don’t believe the neoclassical economists who say an increase in the minimum wage causes unemployment, or the keynesians’ alleged wage-price spiral. A general rise in wages lowers the capitalists’ rate of profit and deprives them of part of their income. The result is a flow of capital from industries that produced goods/services consumed exclusively by the bourgeoisie to industries that produce goods primarily consumed by the working class. That’s the real reason why they are so bitterly opposed to raising wages, not because of some phony altruism for the plight of the unemployed. Realistically there’s little empirical evidence for unemployment rising with minimum wages.

Well, especially in the case of who actually works for the minimum wage - the service sector - there is a very limited chance of most of this leisure capital disappearing even in a small part.

I do think unemployment would rise temporarily, and there would be significant market instability.

I haven't really thought about maximum wage laws.

[Judicator]

This can be addressed just as easily by introducing a shorter working day as it can by removing the minimum wage, but that wouldn't increase capitalist profit, so obviously libertarians aren't going to support that. The article is mostly nonsense...all it really manages to do is show the impossibility of reforming capitalism, which isn't something anyone on this site wants to do.


If you force a shorter workday this just denies people the ability to work as much as they want. Driving up wages or restricting quantity produce the same kind of problems - in both cases firms won't hire some amount of labor that they otherwise would have.



So the reason that people who contribute insignificant amounts to societies wealth should receive the majority of that wealth while the people largely responsibly for it receive only a small fraction is because human beings are not all alike?


Why would profit maximizing firms (owned by shareholders) pay their managers so much if the managers in fact contribute so little to the corporation's productivity (and thus its wealth)?

[leninwasarightwingnutcase]

Driving up wages or restricting quantity produce the same kind of problems - in both cases firms won't hire some amount of labor that they otherwise would have.Bollocks. Driving up wages increases aggregate demand, creating markets for firms and encouraging them to hire more labour. Your simplistic micro doesnt cut it arround here.


Why would profit maximizing firms (owned by shareholders) pay their managers so much if the managers in fact contribute so little to the corporation's productivity (and thus its wealth)?Because the job of a manager is to get workers to contribute as much as possible in exchange for as little as possible. So they do a lot to increase profit, but generally by increasing the exploitation of others.

[Havet]

Bollocks. Driving up wages increases aggregate demand, creating markets for firms and encouraging them to hire more labour. Your simplistic micro doesnt cut it arround here.


I'm actually quite concerned of minimum wages. If you increase the barrier to entry to hiring someone (becoming more expensive), then eventually you are going to scare capitalists wishing to invest in the now-minimum-wage-rise country to someplace else. iF they don't invest, that means less jobs and more unemployment. It inevitably leads to unemployment. The law has good intentions (raising workers income) but i'm afraid it might lead to more workers not getting any income at all!

[eyedrop]

I'm actually quite concerned of minimum wages. If you increase the barrier to entry to hiring someone (becoming more expensive), then eventually you are going to scare capitalists wishing to invest in the now-minimum-wage-rise country to someplace else. iF they don't invest, that means less jobs and more unemployment. It inevitably leads to unemployment. The law has good intentions (raising workers income) but i'm afraid it might lead to more workers not getting any income at all! Well yeah, that's exactly why we need to take all their capital and transfer it to other political vessels which decides where to invest.

[Havet]

Well yeah, that's exactly why we need to take all their capital and transfer it to other political vessels which decides where to invest.

Then I'd propose getting rid of the state and the capitalists first and implementing community minimum wage systems second rather than proposing to reform the system now with minimum wage laws which will hurt workers even more.

[revolution inaction]

Then I'd propose getting rid of the state and the capitalists first and implementing community minimum wage systems second rather than proposing to reform the system now with minimum wage laws which will hurt workers even more.

if theres still wages after the revolution then some thing has gone horrible wrong.

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

If you force a shorter workday this just denies people the ability to work as much as they want.

What person would want to work longer for less? If some worker wants to have their pay cut in half and work twice as long, I'm sure we can make an exception.


Driving up wages or restricting quantity produce the same kind of problems - in both cases firms won't hire some amount of labor that they otherwise would have.I'm more concerned with ensuring that everyone has a job than maximizing profits. Whoever said that reforming capitalism was perfect, anyway?


Why would profit maximizing firms (owned by shareholders) pay their managers so much if the managers in fact contribute so little to the corporation's productivity (and thus its wealth)?It would seem obvious that I was referring to the shareholders/owners.

[Robert]

Before you click on this link, take a guess at what percentage of U.S. workers earn the minimum wage.

http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2008.htm