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52 sats \ 14 replies \ @kepford OP 10 Dec \ parent \ on: Minimum Wage Laws Can't Repeal the Laws of Economics econ
The most obvious consequence to me is always the pricing out of less skilled / proven workers. The young primarily but also those that may have impairments. Once it was pointed out to me I couldn't un-see it. Bugged me ever since.
I was at a community meeting in my very small unincorporated town a while back and there were government people from the county there asking about problems businesses in the area deal with. The first one that was brought up was the minimum wage making it more difficult to hire. Second was the increasing regulations they operate under as small businesses without HR/Accounting departments. When your company is you and your employees these things can have a massive impact.
The one thing that rankles me about the minimum wage is the denial of people’s desires to work, when they can, but cannot clear the hurdle of marginal labor costs. They really do get left out of society that way and have no way of even getting on the ladder, let alone climbing it. However, unions love the minimum wage, it lets them campaign for much higher wages because of it.
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Amongst many other effects, minimum wages compress the wage scale: i.e. reduce the gap between entry-level and management wages. That reduces the incentive to perform well enough to earn a promotion.
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Funny enough this came up at this same meeting. Guy runs a small auto parts shop. He has long time employees and the rise in the min/wage impacts his whole staff. He has no managers. He has guys that have worked there for years and the state just arbitrarily increased the floor of entry level hires which impacts those with experience.
The whole discussion about minimum wage reminds me why none of this stuff should be up to any politician or group of voters. There's a much more democratic way... the free market. The most democratic system ever that democrats try to destroy day after day. And republicans claim to defend but also sabotage.
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An exceptional idea would be to have an amendment that is for “separation of economy and state”. That would include things like subsidies, minimum wages, price controls, government investments in industry (just look at the mess the “Green New Deal” has caused) and perhaps even social spending. These things all used to be handled efficiently at a local level on a voluntary basis.
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I think a lot could be accomplished by clarifying through legislation that Freedom of Association includes economic associations.
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I think that would work, too, however, with legislation they can always get a friendly court to rule against the law. Whereas an amendment would be unassailable. The problem with an amendment is getting it through the process, which is hard to foresee.
Freedom of association is one of the fundamental human rights that is a natural human right, like property rights. Theoretically, we don’t need a law to have that right, but the state being the state, they limit every right they can.
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The problem is that libertarians are the only people who value freedom of association.
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I guess that that is correct. The freedom of association has been ruled out of the American zeitgeist since 1964 and the Civil Rights Act.
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The amendment we really need would be something like "Voluntary acts between consenting adults shall not be infringed."
If I may interject in this merry miserly Libertarian circle jerk-
Minimum wage laws recognise the asymmetric power imbalance that often exists between workers and employers.
In addition to minimum wages do you also oppose unions and organised labour?
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Screwing with incentives is the worst outcome for any government interventions, like wages, banking and etc.
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