Minimum Wage

[PigmerikanMao]

Can anyone think of some possible cons to minimum wage from a marxist perspective?

[BIG BROTHER]

minimun wage isn't what a workers is entitled acording to the labor theory of value.

[Zurdito]

it's too low.

[wallflower]

No, I can't think of any "cons" to the concept of a minimum wage, except the aforementioned complaints that it's too low. But, were I to get a little snarky, I might argue - just for the fun of it - that its current implementation is disingenuous, and - might I add - kept obscenely low for that very reason.

[mykittyhasaboner]

it's too low.right, minimum wage should be how much you need to "survive"; not the least amount of money the evil business can stand to give you for your labor.

[KurtFF8]

Here's a good con:

If a minimum wage is high enough, then the workers will be come complacent and not fight to change the system of wages and the overall economic system. If minimum wage persists, so does the wage system and so does exploitation. Only with a higher minimum wage (and other Welfare Programs), the working-class is in a sense "bought off" by the ruling class.

[Everyday Anarchy]

Minimum wage is a paradox for the bourgeois.
Obviously, the less they pay their workers, the more profit they make! However, the poor don't spend much money on the bourgeois' useless shit. Therefore, the bourgeois must set a minimum amount to ensure that workers are healthy (therefore, can work) and have just enough to waste it on their products.

Employee discounts go right along with this all. By doing this, the wages the bourgeois just had to give up to the worker end up going right back to them.



Minimum wage, in short term, is a necessary compromise. But we have to be sure that we don't lose track of the ultimate goal. We don't want a higher wage, we want to end the wage system. However, until we can end it... we all have to eat.

[bgirlskttlez]

because minimum wage is so low, workers are forced to work an obscene amount of hours in order to survive. instead of focusing on education or family, the majority of time is focused on working in order to support the family or education.

[Comrade Rage]

Can anyone think of some possible cons to minimum wage from a marxist perspective?Stalin said in 'Anarchism vs. Communisn':

Minimum wage is both good and bad. While it's good that it benefits the workers, it's bad because it simultaneously reinforces the wage system.

[The last part is verbatim]

[nvm]

my comrade in the IMT wrote a great fucking artile about minimum wage
i was trying to find it and link it here from our site www.marxist.ca (http://www.marxist.ca)
but i can't find it.
Basicaly he argues that minimum wage should be a part of our transtional demands as marxists because we obviously want to fight for the betterment of the working conditions but it sould be only a transitinal demands that will be a part of something bigger in the future with the marxist lead:D
It also says that it won't bring inflation because it will only make the profits smaller (the profits of the bourgeoisie) and those bourgeois who will try to benefit from this augmentation of the minimum wage and increase their prices , they will be outcompeted by another capitalist.
In the end he said that if capitalism cannot ensure a livable minimum wage(such as 10$/hour in Canada) then we have to find another system that ensures a livable wage for everyone! (with a bit of sarcasm:P)
anways its a pity that i cant find it.

[Marsella]

In the end he said that if capitalism cannot ensure a livable minimum wage(such as 10$/hour in Canada) then we have to find another system that ensures a livable wage for everyone! (with a bit of sarcasm:P)

Well I don't see why it cannot.

They have had the minimum wage in Australia for over a hundred years.

A system which cannot even allow workers to feed themselves in intrinsically broken.

But I would be interested in the article.

[Red Rebel]

If minimum wage is higher than the market equilibrium then unemployment will increase.

[equack]

If minimum wage is higher than the market equilibrium then unemployment will increase.

Doesn't that assume wages are based on MRP or Marginal Revenue Product? Since many capitalists argue against minimum wage by stating that if the demand curve for labour constitutes the MRP and the supply of labour is just workers like us, then that triangle formed by the minimum wage line and the equilibrium point will all be unemployment.

However, Marxism uses the Labour Theory of Value which states that value is based on number of labour hours put into a commodity. Thus, wages and the minimum wage that goes along that kind of moves out of the picture. Instead of a wage, we would really recieve our labour product or equivelant labour product as Marx states that exchange values are interchangable and it would be no different for your labour product I'm assuming.

[RHIZOMES]

Here's a good con:

If a minimum wage is high enough, then the workers will be come complacent and not fight to change the system of wages and the overall economic system. If minimum wage persists, so does the wage system and so does exploitation. Only with a higher minimum wage (and other Welfare Programs), the working-class is in a sense "bought off" by the ruling class.

Uh... fucking over the working class is not something we should encourage in the vague hopes of the workers achieving class consciousness. That should come on it's own.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Uh... fucking over the working class is not something we should encourage in the vague hopes of the workers achieving class consciousness. That should come on it's own.

I'm not sure Kurt was attacking minimum wage per se; he brought up a very real concern.

Minimum wage has, historically, helped the lower tiers of the working class. The unemployment argument thrown around has no empirical support, and indeed many economists are breaking into heterodox philosophies due to the dominating philosophy of neo-liberalism.

Waltman further examined the affects of raising minimum wage and found something contradictory in terms of small business growth: “…there seems to be no discernible correlation between minimum wage increases and a rise in business failures, either in the year the increase occurred or in the following year. If anything, the evidence leans the other way”

[RHIZOMES]

I'm not sure Kurt was attacking minimum wage per se; he brought up a very real concern.

Minimum wage has, historically, helped the lower tiers of the working class. The unemployment argument thrown around has no empirical support, and indeed many economists are breaking into heterodox philosophies due to the dominating philosophy of neo-liberalism.

Waltman further examined the affects of raising minimum wage and found something contradictory in terms of small business growth: “…there seems to be no discernible correlation between minimum wage increases and a rise in business failures, either in the year the increase occurred or in the following year. If anything, the evidence leans the other way”

That's not what I was addressing. Kurt said if the minimum wage is higher, it'll be bad since the workers will become complacent, while if it's lower, the workers will suddenly be pissed off enough to start a revolution. I think capitalism by it's very nature fucks over the working class in one way or another eventually, it's stupid to encourage fucking them over any more than they already are just in the vague hopes a communist revolution will take place.

[Bilan]

Stalin said in 'Anarchism vs. Communisn':

Minimum wage is both good and bad. While it's good that it benefits the workers, it's bad because it simultaneously reinforces the wage system.

[The last part is verbatim]

The minimum wage is not good for the workers because it reinforces the wage system: there's no two ways about the issue. The fact that it stops the ruling class from being able to have super low wages means squat, because the fact that the minimum wage is obscenely low.
It's not uncommon you hear people who've changed from minimum wage to the dole and who are doing better on the latter.

[KC]

Here's a good con:

If a minimum wage is high enough, then the workers will be come complacent and not fight to change the system of wages and the overall economic system. If minimum wage persists, so does the wage system and so does exploitation. Only with a higher minimum wage (and other Welfare Programs), the working-class is in a sense "bought off" by the ruling class.

Workers aren't simply "bought off" by such victories; they are more experienced, more able to see the power that they have in capitalist society and therefore are more politically aware, leading to higher consciousness.

However, there are times when capitalists use pay raises to effectively "buy off"workers; a good example of this would be that during unionization attempts by Capital Returns workers here, pay raises were offered as a means of countering the consciousness required for a union to be organized. Unfortunately (and along with other underhanded tactics used by Capital Returns) it worked.

(I have no idea why my shit is all italicized; I can't turn it off).

[RNK]

What minimum wage has done in the west is pressure corporations to out-source as many jobs as possible in the quest for maximizing profit. Many a corporation has realized it can save a bundle by firing its workers that they pay $6/hr, and hiring twice as many workers in Thailand for $1 a day.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Why, then, are there no minimum demands to "punish" companies that outsource (in the business world, it usually comes in the form of "transfer pricing" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfer_pricing))? Then, of course, what about "reverse outsourcing" that has occurred recently?