Forum Post: What is the value of work? . . . Do you value a job that pays the current minimum wage?
Posted 12 years ago on Dec. 3, 2011, 8:48 p.m. EST by newearthorder
(295)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
To say to someone that has a low paying job:"Why don't you just get a better paying job or go to college, everyone should do that!" is a very flawed argument. It might help one person your talking to, but for most people, it will do nothing at all.
If I had a magic wand and could make everyone in this country have at least a graduate degree in anything they desire, would Wal Mart pay greeters $60,000 a year starting salary? Of course not, all of those busboy, shelf stockers, hamburger flipper jobs would still be right there paying the lowest wages they can get away with.
If Steve Forbes and some Tea Party candidates had their way they would scrap the minimum wage altogether saying it's bad for business, it's socialism, it's bad business regulation, or whatever.
I would advocate doubling the minimum wage and make work valuable again. And, no, I am not of the idea set who thinks more is better. Most manufacturing jobs, blue collar and such pay much more than $14.50 an hour. You don't want to raise it so much that it will give more manufacturers an incentive to move their businesses outside the country.
I think that within a year of it happening the economy would be in great shape. For the first 6 months there would be a little inflation, but not enough to hurt too much. Some smaller businesses might have to lay off an employee or two, that will happen. But, in the long run more people will have more money to buy things, and they will spend every penny of it.
It will be like giving half the country a raise. It will also reduce the amount of entitlement spending for programs for the poor, because they won't be so poor anymore. I would rather pay $3.00 for a $2.00 cheeseburger than pay taxes so people can sit at home. Revenues would also increase, it would help bolster social security.
Most people today would say they don't belong to a union, but they do. It's called the United States of America. Your local union representatives are your congresspersons and senators. Tell them you want to file a grievance that says the minimum wage just isn't cutting it anymore, $7.25 an hour is a dishonor to hard working Americans. We deserve a better world, take the first bold steps now.
Why should someone else be able to decide what the work I ask someone else to do is worth to me?
I would refer you to the Emancipation Proclamation. Without a minimum wage we are one step closer to slavery.
I'm assuming that you're relating the ownership of slaves in the pre-proclamation era to a free market system in which an employer may choose to offer a job at whatever rate he deems the work to be worth?
If the evil of slavery is that one man determines the actions another may or may not take, then the evil of the minimum wage is the same.
This is an interesting proposal that I think would function well alongside some economic ideas which may be more beneficial in the long run. Across the country you'll see communities small and large implementing forms of exchange which are alternatives to the currency model. Whatever the currency - acorns, shells, gold, paper, etc. - it can only be an arbitrarily established representation of value, and of exchange value rather than use value. One such alternative method which focus less on the exchange value of an item (and on the value of the participants in the exchange) and more on the actual usefulness of the item and the individual circumstances of the participants is time-trading, wherein people give an hour or so of their time and skills in exchange for an hour of another person's, with people being able to store of earned hours and offer services through a "time bank" of sorts. Someone might knit another person a sweater, and they would receive some hours of credit, which they might exchange for someone to come and repair their roof, and so and so forth. And then, of course, there's the age old barter method.
I think that getting these alternative methods a legitimate presence in either legislation (and thus implementation) throughout the country, or at least in the public dialogue, would help to begin our weaning off of the current paradigm.
In order to implement your proposal all that is required is that people stop accepting dollars from the Fed. There can be no exchange rate between those dollars and things of value (for instance, time) since those dollars do not represent value.
I'd value any job that pays money seeing as I don't have one myself at the moment.
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