Change of mind on minimum wage

[Nickman]

The following video is a quick interview with Ted Cruz. Although I am not a fan, this helped me realize something. Especially from the comments section. My YouTube name is Nickoliatan. See my comments there as well.

Raising the minimum wage to $10 an hour won't change anything. The economy will adjust to make $10 unlivable. The correct way, IMO, would be to deregulate the economy and allow social pressure, supply, and demand to determine the wage of workers. Minimum wage was put in place in 1938, and only for specific minority groups. Prior to this, wages grew with the market. Once a regulation was placed on the economy, wages became stagnant and rose only slightly with more regulation. If we get rid of economic regulation, no person will work for low wages for a job that is difficult, when the public demands higher wages. The corporations will have to meet the demand by supplying higher wages, or otherwise lose productivity and thus, revenue.

In North Dakota, wages are high. Why? Because the demand for workers to work hard, tough jobs. These companies couldn't get workers to move to ND and endure long hours, and in difficult conditions, unless they pay well.

If we let the economy move freely, society will be enough regulation, on its own, to make corporations pay descent wages.

I want to hear from Darius and Winepusher here, but also anyone and everyone. I would like to hear from some of my good friends such as Danmark, Goat, and DI. Everyone's input will be valued.

To debate: minimum wage only. Not other regulations, such as environmental. I would like to debate those as well but in their own thread.

[Youtube][/YouTube]

[Nickman]

No, wages increase with the market. They just don't decrease with the market. The thing that keeps minimum wage jobs at the minimum is the fact that unions have established a wage class system. When the minimum wage goes up so do the union wages. This is especially true of government unions. With them wages and benefits go up regardless of the minimum wage and market conditions. There is no cost restraint on government wages, and benefits to those who are not working, especially in the out years, ie. retirement benefits. Promising compensation in the out years is what changed Detroit from a car manufacturing town to a care manufacturing town. Then it finally collapsed.

And why do we need unions? Because wage don't go up without further legislation. That is the problem, not the solution. It always take legislation to overcome legislation.

The problem with government is that it can just borrow the money or "tax the rich", which means anyone with a nongovernment job. In the case of the feds, they can just raise the debt limit. The upward pressures of the artificial class structure, the debt load and the taxes sucks all of the air out of the room, leaving the working poor to work two jobs to keep from suffocating. That is what keeps many jobs at minimum wage, while creating inflationary pressures at the same time. The only thing keeping us out of the stagflation of the Carter era is "quantitative easing" and the repeated redefining of the economic indicators. Those of course are illusionary solutions and will eventually collapse also.

What keeps jobs at minimum wage is minimum wage legislation. That is a fact. Wages would increase if we took away minimum wage. It would raise to match the supply and demand. Since companies can pay minimum wage, they have no incentive to raise it. They get more work done by paying less per employee, and keep the profit. All minimum wage does is create alot of low paying, unlivable jobs. The whole argument about it creates more jobs is that it creates jobs that cannot support their employees financially. Walmart has a fund every year to supply their employees with goods, because they don't make enough. Legislating a higher wage will only cause companies to charge more for merchandize, and down size their workforce. Both of which will be bad for the economy. If you give people higher wages yet mark up price and lay people off, there will be no gain. Prices will rise and that higher minimum wage will mean nothing.

[WinePusher]

Nickman, I'm glad to see you've changed your view on this. It shows that your open to the facts and evidence. Now remember, my proposal would be to completely eliminate the minimum wage because it is a governmental price control, and anybody who has studied basic microeconomics would realize that price controls only lead to inefficient markets which result in surpluses and shortages. And this is precisely what the minimum wage does, it causes the labor market to behave inefficiently and skews the price of labor (wages) which of course leads to involuntary unemployment among low skilled workers.

Moreover, the minimum wage is essentially a law which makes it illegal for people to work at certain wages and this is morally obscene. For all you know, a person may desperately want a job just to be able to gain on the job the experience as on the job experience is generally required for higher level occupations. The person may be willing to work for a wage that is substantially below subsistence because he believes that the skills and experience he will gain from the job are more valuable and will allow him to get a better job in the near future. The minimum wage would prohibit this type of situation from ever legally occurring.

Btw, here are two black economists (whom I consider to be far more competent and distinguished than Richard Wolff) giving their opinions on the minimum wage:

[Youtube][/YouTube]

[bluethread]

Also, minimum wage, regulations and taxation create an artificial barrier to entry into the marketplace, which dooms the working poor to low wage jobs and government assistance. Oh, also the underground economy. Capitalism will always find a way.

[Goat]

So the suggestion is to cut tax breaks for the rich and remove the minimum wage in an attempt to manage the disparity. I would like to see this economic model put into perspective with experiments! It'd be great to see this in action, though I dunno if it'll happen in the current government administration.

It would not go over too well, that's for sure. Corporations should pay the same percentage of taxes as everyone else, especially since they bask in personhood. They want personhood so they can spend money on politics, and consumers need them to be persons to be able to sue them. If corporations are not considered persons, we couldn't sue them. So if they share that same person hood, they need to pay full taxes. Minimum wage ensures that they can grow and grow while paying the same wages to the people who actually made them grow.

No, the rich don't like paying any taxes what so ever. Did you know, according to forbes magazine, the top 1300 or so billionaires net worth went from 1 trillion to over 6 trillion in years time?


Did you know that last year, the bonuses that Wall Street gave to itself was 26 billion dollars, which is more money than the total amount of money minimum wage workers made in the entire year combined?

[Nickman]

So the suggestion is to cut tax breaks for the rich and remove the minimum wage in an attempt to manage the disparity. I would like to see this economic model put into perspective with experiments! It'd be great to see this in action, though I dunno if it'll happen in the current government administration.

It would not go over too well, that's for sure. Corporations should pay the same percentage of taxes as everyone else, especially since they bask in personhood. They want personhood so they can spend money on politics, and consumers need them to be persons to be able to sue them. If corporations are not considered persons, we couldn't sue them. So if they share that same person hood, they need to pay full taxes. Minimum wage ensures that they can grow and grow while paying the same wages to the people who actually made them grow.

No, the rich don't like paying any taxes what so ever. Did you know, according to forbes magazine, the top 1300 or so billionaires net worth went from 1 trillion to over 6 trillion in years time?

All the while minimum wage is in effect. Plus corporations are given special rights. If we remove these, they have to fend for themselves. Currently, they get more handouts than those who live off of government aide, i.e. food stamps.

Did you know that last year, the bonuses that Wall Street gave to itself was 26 billion dollars, which is more money than the total amount of money minimum wage workers made in the entire year combined?

This is because they are allowed special legislative privilege. The amount of subsidies they receive is ridiculous.

Wall Street Subsidies

The first-ever analysis of the taxpayer-subsidy to the Wall Street mega-banks finds that this subsidy is $83 billion this year. This amount is only $2 billion less than this year’s sequester cuts are estimated to be.

That $83 billion subsidy this year is, according to Bloomberg’s, also approximately the amount of profits that those banks are “earning� this year.

This is all due to regulation. Once we understand that regulation can be used for bad, then we will realize why regulation needs to be done away with in our economy.

[Goat]

So the suggestion is to cut tax breaks for the rich and remove the minimum wage in an attempt to manage the disparity. I would like to see this economic model put into perspective with experiments! It'd be great to see this in action, though I dunno if it'll happen in the current government administration.

It would not go over too well, that's for sure. Corporations should pay the same percentage of taxes as everyone else, especially since they bask in personhood. They want personhood so they can spend money on politics, and consumers need them to be persons to be able to sue them. If corporations are not considered persons, we couldn't sue them. So if they share that same person hood, they need to pay full taxes. Minimum wage ensures that they can grow and grow while paying the same wages to the people who actually made them grow.

No, the rich don't like paying any taxes what so ever. Did you know, according to forbes magazine, the top 1300 or so billionaires net worth went from 1 trillion to over 6 trillion in years time?

All the while minimum wage is in effect. Plus corporations are given special rights. If we remove these, they have to fend for themselves. Currently, they get more handouts than those who live off of government aide, i.e. food stamps.

Did you know that last year, the bonuses that Wall Street gave to itself was 26 billion dollars, which is more money than the total amount of money minimum wage workers made in the entire year combined?

This is because they are allowed special legislative privilege. The amount of subsidies they receive is ridiculous.

Wall Street Subsidies

The first-ever analysis of the taxpayer-subsidy to the Wall Street mega-banks finds that this subsidy is $83 billion this year. This amount is only $2 billion less than this year’s sequester cuts are estimated to be.

That $83 billion subsidy this year is, according to Bloomberg’s, also approximately the amount of profits that those banks are “earning� this year.

This is all due to regulation. Once we understand that regulation can be used for bad, then we will realize why regulation needs to be done away with in our economy.

Regulation, and subsidies are an entirely different subject than the minimum wage.

[Nickman]

So the suggestion is to cut tax breaks for the rich and remove the minimum wage in an attempt to manage the disparity. I would like to see this economic model put into perspective with experiments! It'd be great to see this in action, though I dunno if it'll happen in the current government administration.

It would not go over too well, that's for sure. Corporations should pay the same percentage of taxes as everyone else, especially since they bask in personhood. They want personhood so they can spend money on politics, and consumers need them to be persons to be able to sue them. If corporations are not considered persons, we couldn't sue them. So if they share that same person hood, they need to pay full taxes. Minimum wage ensures that they can grow and grow while paying the same wages to the people who actually made them grow.

No, the rich don't like paying any taxes what so ever. Did you know, according to forbes magazine, the top 1300 or so billionaires net worth went from 1 trillion to over 6 trillion in years time?

All the while minimum wage is in effect. Plus corporations are given special rights. If we remove these, they have to fend for themselves. Currently, they get more handouts than those who live off of government aide, i.e. food stamps.

Did you know that last year, the bonuses that Wall Street gave to itself was 26 billion dollars, which is more money than the total amount of money minimum wage workers made in the entire year combined?

This is because they are allowed special legislative privilege. The amount of subsidies they receive is ridiculous.

Wall Street Subsidies

The first-ever analysis of the taxpayer-subsidy to the Wall Street mega-banks finds that this subsidy is $83 billion this year. This amount is only $2 billion less than this year’s sequester cuts are estimated to be.

That $83 billion subsidy this year is, according to Bloomberg’s, also approximately the amount of profits that those banks are “earning� this year.

This is all due to regulation. Once we understand that regulation can be used for bad, then we will realize why regulation needs to be done away with in our economy.

Regulation, and subsidies are an entirely different subject than the minimum wage.

Subsidies are regulations.

[Furrowed Brow]

Minimum wage creates a lock on wage and promotion. Many Americans enter a minimum wage job because they don't have skills to apply for higher paying jobs. This locks them into a nonnegotiable wage until legislation says otherwise.

Yes folk do get locked into low wage jobs. I was in that position myself for about 5 years so I know how that feels. I was not minimum wage but certainly it was barely a living wage. The point you make applies to being in unskilled low paid work. Everyone knows what these jobs are and if a minimum wage is attached to the job that is not going to lock people into that low paid work any tighter than they already are.

If they want higher wages, the company can easily replace that individual to maintain paying that same wage.

That is the mechanism of an open market whether there is a minimum wage or not.

If we get rid of minimum wage completely, wages will raise with the economy. If a corporation does not raise wage with the economy, people will seek jobs that do. It is simple supply and demand.

Yes it is supply and demand, and the times wages goes up is when there is higher demand and lower supply. And when the market is not in that shape the folk at the bottom find their wages in real terms goes down....This has been the reality of the labour market now and it has been on a downward decline since the 1970s for the reasons I gave. The point here is that for a percentage of this section of society there is a massive human cost to a level that is not socially or morally acceptable...or at least it ought not to be acceptable.

That is the thing that drives me nuts about the free maker arguments, they just ignore that human cost...or try to say it would not happen under a free market...when clearly it would, or they try to say it would not be so bad under a free market when clearly it could be. Free means free and that means the market is free to go up, stagnate or ..... go down. The idea the free market mechanism, mitigate the worst tendencies of the market or work to prevent one section of society falling into complete degradation is predicated on the idea that markets somehow serve every individuals best interest or preserve a minimal best interest below which no one falls, is just false. Free markets are Darwinian. A section of society can starve to death and the free market would not notice, as clearly there must have been an over supply of labour. Everyone except maybe a philosophical anarchist recognise that horrific truth of capitalism and free markets. That is why most of us accept some degree of regulation and intervention and welfare is needed. The question is then how much regulation?

The de-regulation argument ignores that last point and the stress and the suffering that goes with it. The wage price mechanism of the open market will find its own level wherever that is and that might just be Dickensian levels of poverty.

If corporations are forced to pay higher wages via legislation, companies will lay employees off to maintain their current profit margins.

As Wolff points out the literature and studies show that in the main the over all result nets outs.

Some people will rejoice, while many will lose their job.

Okay that is just ignoring the point that the results tend to net out.

This will also decrease productivity because their are less workers to manufacture products and thus hinder our supply and demand economy.

If you mean our labour costs are greater than some other cheaper country...yes that is true, and we have to take a look at different ways of offsetting that. but we are never going to compete with Indonesia or China on labour costs and maintain our standard of living.

What is the reasoning behind a minimum wage?

Wolff gave the reasoning behind the minimum wage.

It is used to make corporations wealthier, while paying those who make them wealthy a very small amount of their profits.

Corporations will play any set of circumstances to their advantage. Clearly it pays corporations to lobby to keep the minimum wage suppressed. Which seems to be what goes on in the U.S more than elsewhere.

Originally it wasn't back in 1938, but today corporations have found a way to make it suit them and keep wages lower than they would be if the economy was free of regulation.

Well we could get rid of the minimum wage or we could raise it to a level that does not "suite them". But yes I accept the point that corporations have co-opted the political process and are a force that keeps the minimum wage low, or at least this is particularly true of the U.S, whilst not so true of Australia. BUT even if we allow there is a downward pressure on the minimum wage the markets are still free to the point they could provide higher wages and make the present level of the minimum wage obsolete but they do not do that for a whole bunch of reason not to do with regulation.

The reality is that if there is no regulation there will be some bunch of employers willing and determined to exploit vulnerable workers and pay them a wage that anyone who was not in that vulnerable position would never accept. And these people will be locked into these slave wages.

The minimum wage allows this. It is legislated as such. The person at the bottom of the picture should be saying, deregulate minimum wage.

And in the real world that don't happen. I have worked with people on minimal wage and still know people on the minimum and I have yet to hear one ask for the minimum to be removed. The reality is that the labour pool is large and there is over supply and it is going to be that way for decades. In the UK we have large ongoing immigration and transient workers coming in from Eastern Europe, India, Pakistan. If there was not a minimum wage there is still a supply of workers who would do the work for less.

If the market was unregulated employers will pay wages lower than present minimums.....unless labour supply is low and demand high. But then under those circumstances we would not be debating a minimum wage.

Minimum wage has nothing to do with health and safety standards. Those regulations should remain.

Glad to hear you are not a complete philosophical anarchist. But yes this is different regulation to minimum wage, however these things raise labour cost of which minimum wage is just one factor. And the logic of your point still applies. Stuff like health and safety and sick pay would improve under a free market...no? Using the same logic this means that these regulations are holding back a much better set of terms and conditions and safety standards the market will find on its own. If for one moment you doubt that...as I suggest you should....then why does that logic work for minimum wage?

That is a valid reason, but is based on supply and demand. Our desire to get more tech savy has created more technological advancements, which created more jobs in the technology field. So although jobs decreased in some areas, the demand for more technology created more jobs in that field. It balanced out. Jobs closed in one field and opened in the other.

Newer technological based industries do not employ so many people as a ratio of their turnover as older industries. This is a well established fact. Look at how many people Google or Apple or Intel actually employ to turnover compared to older industries like car building and ship building. So no old jobs closing down does not mean another job opens up elsewhere to replace it. That is the problem of the Western world.

Why would you ever think that. If all regulation is removed there will be a rush to the bottom not a climb to the top. You will not work for $5 dollars an hour, we’ll get some ships and bring over tens of thousands of Bangladesh, Nepalese, Indonesians and Philippines workers who will. What is to stop us? They will be prepared to live 5 or 6 to a room with one shower and $5 dollars an hour is a fortune to them.

Seriously? In our highly regulated immigration policies, this would never happen.

So that is an argument for regulation then?

What is really going on here is that the West is going through a phase of restructuring to low wage economies with higher levels of unemployment. This is partly due to changing technologies and partly due to globalisation. Deregulation is just going to speed up the process.

Changing technologies creates jobs.

The logic of the old luddite argument is correct. Technology improves productivity and that means less workers are needed. This is not just logically true, it is a fact borne out by how many people tech companies actually employ and how many major industries have been able to reduce their work forces due to the introduction of new technologies e.g. robotic car manufacturing, driverless trains etc. What creates jobs to balance out the losses due to increase productivity is economic growth gained through the improved productivity. But when there is no growth or not enough growth to compensate then technology creates unemployment.

Deregulation would allow the market to fluctuate on its own, wages and all.

Yes. Agreed. And the results can and do have a huge human cost. The point is that either regulation can mitigate against that or it cannot. You appear to accept some level of regulation, but not for minimum wage, and then you talk about regulation causing stagnation...if that is true then the regulation you do accept also causes stagnation.

Regulation creates a stagnant market as we are seeing today and the reason why we are revisiting the minimum wage debate.

But you are ignoring the fact that the minimum wage levels set in the U.S have been stagnant. You don't put them up on a regular basis. And the reason as far as I can tell is that you have a lot of corporate money lobbying against any raising of a minimum wage.

I don't think you have given anything like an account of for why a minimum wage mechanism causes stagnation. I think you are completely underplaying the four reasons I gave as to why wages have stagnated since the 70s, and are severely overplaying the role of regulation which has little to nothing to do with the economic forces that have held back wages; other than to say they are indicative of a mature economy with higher standards of living and labour costs than India, China, Indonesia etc. It is the pressure of cheaper labour costs abroad along with an increase in the labour pool, plus the introduction of technologies that has created stagnant wages, and it is this stagnation that has meant a near static minimum wage. I suggest you are misdiagnosing the problem, not paying enough attention to the real problems, and consequently you are mistaking a symptom for a cause.

[Furrowed Brow]

Moreover, the minimum wage is essentially a law which makes it illegal for people to work at certain wages and this is morally obscene. For all you know, a person may desperately want a job just to be able to gain on the job the experience as on the job experience is generally required for higher level occupations. The person may be willing to work for a wage that is substantially below subsistence because he believes that the skills and experience he will gain from the job are more valuable and will allow him to get a better job in the near future. The minimum wage would prohibit this type of situation from ever legally occurring.

Only rich folk can afford to live below subsistence. Poor folk starve and stop washing. So your use of the word "obscene" is inappropriate and disconnected from reality. The point is to move people away from those kinds of economics traps and stop that kind of exploitation of a worker in a vulnerable position. And sorry what the heck is an employer doing offering below subsistence wages...they should be in prison. Seriously I can't believe you just wrote that last paragraph......prison. [Edit: okay I walked away and calmed down now, a punitive fine will suffice. But honestly you don't think an employer ready to pay below subsistence wages is not disgusting and anti social and exploiting the situation and deserving of sanction. ] Yes I know the White House has interns, but I'm thinking of folk at the other end of the scale. But even in the case of interns poorer folk without saving or family support are locked out of those kinds of careers because they want to eat and wash. And yes I guess someone will now post they were an intern from a poor family and gave up everything but wouldn't it have been better if you got paid at least a decent minimum wage, and maybe did not have to put economic pressure on your own family.

Btw, here are two black economists (whom I consider to be far more competent and distinguished than Richard Wolff) giving their opinions on the minimum wage:

[Youtube][/YouTube]

The conversation between Williams and Sowell raises four basic points:

• 1/ employers would will not hire young inexperienced people at the same rate as a experienced adult worker
  2/ the young person may be paid low but they gain experience and this is of value
  3/ double digit unemployment rates for black teenagers happened when attempts were made to raise the minimum wage
  4/ it is not just minimum wage laws it is labour laws to keep kids safe (@6:35)
  5/ reality is not optional

Point 1 and 2: there are indeed inexperienced workers and experienced workers, but we have to ask why is an employer paying an experienced worker anything like close to a minimum wage? Then we can also ask what are employers doing keeping experienced workers in jobs a young kid could do?

That said, there is a social need young folk be kept employed, trained and economically active; so yes, young folk are a special case. This is recognised by countries that set two minimums, with a lower minimum for younger workers. However, deregulation is not going to offset underlying economic trends. In a depressed market cheaper young labour is more expendable. As high youth unemployment trends tend to prove. To me this all seems an argument for more regulation and intervention with government work projects, training schemes, national service even, to fix the problem left by market mechanisms.

The conversation gets into the question of racism and how black workers have been and are still discriminated against. They bemoan it is because regulation no longer allows discriminatory wage rates that black unemployment has gone up for the reason black workers can no longer offer themselves for a much lower wage rate. Whilst we cannot deny the unemployment rates the argument or even to hint that it would just be better if black were paid less is not going to fly. You can’t combat discrimination by allowing discrimination. Pining for cheaper black labour rates is not an argument for less regulation.

[By the way I think this is then evidence to support the point I put to you in a different thread regarding the graph you provided to explain the wage mechanism I felt ignored discrimination, and to correct with my own graph in which x does not always equal zero.]

They make the point that child safety laws have reached a counterproductive level when kids can’t even work in an office. I'm not familiar with the child labour laws in the U.S. We get the same kinds of complaints in the UK from our right wing press. The phrase “elf n’ safety gone mad� is now common. I have a lawyer friend who specializes in industrial cases who in response quips “ah so you want less health and less safety�. But I the point here is that child labour laws employ to black and white and Williams and Sowell are bemoaning black unemployment. So this is another two tier argument. Before it was two wage rates, if the labour laws are constructed to give black youth more chance of a job then they get to handle the acid and breath in the industrial fumes in ways their white counterparts are not.

The last point about facing reality they do not develop as the clip comes to an end. But we can all agree we can’t dodge reality.

In summary: what the heck are these two fellas thinking? Really two labour rates. Ppleez. That is a formula for discrimination. You know that..right? Not sure why you out these up as a counter to the points Wolff made which you are welcome to address.

[Nickman]

Thanks for the reply FB. I may snip some things for brevity, when there is no real disagreement. Not the meat and gatos though.

Yes folk do get locked into low wage jobs. I was in that position myself for about 5 years so I know how that feels. I was not minimum wage but certainly it was barely a living wage. The point you make applies to being in unskilled low paid work. Everyone knows what these jobs are and if a minimum wage is attached to the job that is not going to lock people into that low paid work any tighter than they already are.

Sure it does. The minimum wage creates a minimum working skill level. It places the lowest paid workers into a class, that is tough to get past. Many of the skills actually learned at the lowest level, are very important and preferred in higher jobs. Skills such as customer service, supply chain management, and other logistics skills are desirable at higher levels. The problem is that these type of jobs are locked in a minimum wage. Even though these skills should be paid more. Currently, legislation is the only thing that will raise these wages, because they are regulated already.

That is the mechanism of an open market whether there is a minimum wage or not.

I disagree. When there is an open market, workers can go to other companies who pay more. When minimum wage is in place, they can't. Why? Because the next company pays exactly the same. There is no competition on this level. If a company keeps losing employees to other companies, what will they do? Oh yeah, raise the wage to meet their competitor.

Yes it is supply and demand, and the times wages goes up is when there is higher demand and lower supply. And when the market is not in that shape the folk at the bottom find their wages in real terms goes down....This has been the reality of the labour market now and it has been on a downward decline since the 1970s for the reasons I gave. The point here is that for a percentage of this section of society there is a massive human cost to a level that is not socially or morally acceptable...or at least it ought not to be acceptable.

I understand that higher demand means more wages, but if employees are locked into a legislated minimum wage, this does not help the economy, it only makes companies more wealthy. The money is going to the top, and trickles down in the amount of pennies. Minimum wage tells workers and corporations how much can be paid to a specific skill level. It does not allow for lower skill levels to become more valuable. If you are a carpenter and have a set wage, yet the economy demands more in the carpentry industry, those workers will still get minimum wage even though they are worth more.

That is the thing that drives me nuts about the free maker arguments, they just ignore that human cost...or try to say it would not happen under a free market...when clearly it would, or they try to say it would not be so bad under a free market when clearly it could be. Free means free and that means the market is free to go up, stagnate or ..... go down.

It does mean that the market can go up, stagnate, or go down. That is how it works. The other problem with minimum wage is that corporations will still be required to pay the same wage to employees even if the market goes down. That sounds good on the surface, but is bad for our economy. These companies will be regulated to pay $10 an hour when the skill level is only worth $2. This causes layoffs to pay the higher wage. If we let the free market flow as it should, then $2 would be equal to $10. If companies in a low market have to pay $10 an hour, when the supply and demand say $2, these individuals are now considered rich. The minimum wage has then caused a huge problem. People are then working for more than they are worth in their respective fields.

If you are in a carpentry field and the demand for carpentry is low, you can't expect higher wages. You should only expect the value of your work at the time, regardless if you are the best carpenter on the planet. Regardless of how many hours of experience you have.

The idea the free market mechanism, mitigate the worst tendencies of the market or work to prevent one section of society falling into complete degradation is predicated on the idea that markets somehow serve every individuals best interest or preserve a minimal best interest below which no one falls, is just false. Free markets are Darwinian. A section of society can starve to death and the free market would not notice, as clearly there must have been an over supply of labour. Everyone except maybe a philosophical anarchist recognise that horrific truth of capitalism and free markets. That is why most of us accept some degree of regulation and intervention and welfare is needed. The question is then how much regulation?

Well, Darwinian concepts work don't they? Except in a free market, everyone has a chance. In our current market, a person has to get a degree, spend tons of money for that degree, and then enter the workforce. My commander is 24, and just because he went to college more than I did. I am 12 years older than him. My boss is 20 years older than him. We both have 32 years more experience than he does. Yet he makes 2 time more than me, and 1.5 times more than my boss. Why is he paid more, just because he has a degree? Why does he always ask me questions that he should already know the answer to in his position? It is because our economy is based on inflated ideas. I am getting a mandated wage in my job, even though I know more about the job than my commander.

As Wolff points out the literature and studies show that in the main the over all result nets outs.

I broke down your Wolff literature in post 10.



Snip to here. Will answer later