TANSTAAFL
if a $7.25 minimum wage is good, then wouldn't a $725 minimum wage be even better
I'm arguing that honest work has some minimum level of value to a just society, not that everyone should be rich. In a just society one ought not pretend that the forces of a free market, and its competitive efficiencies, are so fine-tuned that no play remains with which to ensure that all productive, full-time workers earn enough to support themselves in a basic existence. Anyone who has dealt with a mid to large-sized company, whether as a customer or an employee, knows that there are all sorts of wasteful inefficiencies throughout such businesses. And if their payments for SSI, Medicaid/Medicare, and Unemployment Insurance--not to mention their corporate taxes--were taken off of their backs, then the minimum wage would be even less onerous. But, ultimately, I believe that a just society owes its law-abiding, productive citizens that much--especially in light of the fact that they now pay citizens not to work--which I oppose. What you subsidize, you get more of.
Zerubbabel
Disingenuous. You did respond to every post and you are quirte interested in defending your own position. There's nothing wrong with that. It makes you human and not the unbiased objective thinker you pretend to be. Welcome to the world of ideological bias
I wrote that disclaimer, not because I was planning on remaining silent and just watching, but because the first thread I started a while back I felt obliged to answer every reply, even when it wasn't necessarily addressed to me: Like, welcome to my thread, I'll be your host this afternoon. I didn't want to put that same pressure on myself.
And yes, I have been defending my position, when a thoughtful, respectful inquiry or criticism was made. But I definitely haven't responded to all posts. And I wasn't trying to pretend to be unbiased either--if by that you mean disinterested in the truth of my assertion. Yet I do think that it is objectively true.
DarylLloydDavis: I'm arguing that honest work has some minimum level of value to a just society, not that everyone should be rich.
I'm arguing that honest work has some minimum level of value to a just society, not that everyone should be rich.
bollocks. Minimum is like God. Either you define it or just get out of the thread and lose the argument instantly.
(english is not my native language, sorry for grammar.)
the very LAST thing to go should be the friggin' minimum wage
This is a change of subject - we weren't discussing the priority of eliminating this versus that public policy. If that's the discussion, then we can close with what is obviously the single most important policy issue of the day: End the central banking criminal fraud system, legalize competing monies, end legal tender laws and any other laws that protect a nationalized monopoly on the production of money. No other policy issue comes close in importance to this one.
As for the supposed non-importance of MW ("very last thing to go"), I disagree. Even conservative economists will say this from time to time... "well, yeah, MW is a bad idea but it's not a pressing issue." But if you've traveled to other parts of the world where there is no minimum wage or the minimum wage is extremely low and look at how the internal economy works (i.e. forget "foreign exploitation" of "criminally low wages"), you will see that the abundance of inexpensive labor buttresses a strong and thriving middle class. A good example is India where there is a thriving industry of servants, housekeepers, nannies, tutors and so on. These household industries account for a major portion of the economic activity there. The problem is that these industries are inherently difficult to tax. And that's one of the functions which the MW performs, eliminating a significant chunk of economic activity which would escape taxation, thus forcing people to choose between idleness or working for a big-box corporate firm where regular deduction of taxes at the source (paystub) is rigidly enforced. The corporate pay department can be thought of as the front-line operational arm of the IRS.
Clayton -
Clayton
This is a change of subject - we weren't discussing the priority of eliminating this versus that public policy.
My intention was to broaden your perspective on the issue, not to change the subject. The underlying point was that one's priorities are a reflection of one's values; and that a blanket insistence that all state interventions must end immediately does not reflect a realistic, or a refined set of priorities, or morality.
legalize competing monies, end legal tender laws and any other laws that protect a nationalized monopoly on the production of money. No other policy issue comes close in importance to this one.
How does one then maintain a fluid exchange of goods and services, without a uniform currency--since using silver and gold, or bartering, would slow things way down; and using homemade money would destroy any objective measure of its value?
A good example is India where there is a thriving industry of servants, housekeepers, nannies, tutors and so on. These household industries account for a major portion of the economic activity there.
You forget that I don't measure the success of a society by its ability to marginally attenuate the country's scarce resources among an ever-expanding population. I want the MW to serve as a check upon the kind of rampant overpopulation and resource destruction that one finds in India.
The problem is that these industries are inherently difficult to tax. And that's one of the functions which the MW performs, eliminating a significant chunk of economic activity which would escape taxation
I'm proposing a system that has no income tax, personal or corporate. For me, the MW has nothing to do with tax revenues.
What imbues this value into goods? Do say. What law of nature that has existed before man and will exist long after dictates that "yes, an hour of work by such and such people is objectively worth $10 at the exchange rate of 2012."
Wheylous
What imbues this value into goods?
We do, Wheylous. I already told you that ALL values are subjective. You value something this much; I will exchange it for that much, because I don't value it as much as you do. There is no objective value for anything. But that doesn't mean that a just society doesn't place a value on anything. It recognizes, for instance, that life has value, even though we don't come with price tags attached. And a just society ought to set a minimum value for honest work as well, irrespective of whether some people don't value it at all.
No taxes required eh? So there will be no fund from which to pay those who would police this system?
Anyway I have to laugh at someone that considers themself above moral reproach when they condemn adults who would consent to capitalists acts of agreeing employment at below some arbitrary rate with prison or death.
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
How exactly do "we"/"society" place a value on something?
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
a blanket insistence that all state interventions must end immediately
Neither do I. If we ended the government overnight by pushing a Big Red Button (h/t Rothbard), it would certainly be a colossal human tragedy - busted water mains, downed power lines, roving gangs, etc. etc.
But this is not indicative of human nature, this is indicative of the state of atrophy of the market for production of goods and services which the State has monopolized. The answer is simple: liberalization. We did it with parcel delivery and it could be done with many other industries. In fact, there is no industry that could not benefit from liberalization, including security, banking and arbitration, the Holy Trinity of State monopolies.
Liberalization permits private industry to be reinvigorated in the production of the previously monopolized goods and services without creating a human tragedy. The State monopolist will try to cling to life and will continually increase its burden on the taxpayer while delivering less and less services, as the USPS has done. But this matters less and less as consumers are simply able to choose to patronize the private producers instead of the old government monopolist.
The problem of taxation is indeed a social problem. People believe they need to be taxed/enslaved. This emotional attachment to the old system of servitude to a master called "the government" will take time to be discredited and to change people's minds... but it's not impossible. The end of chattel slavery also involved upsetting changes to popular opinions and mores but, in the end, the moral side of the argument won out. This trend will continue into the future despite the setbacks of the last century or so, thanks to the so-called "Progressives."
nirgrahamUK
Amendment X – No law enacted by electoral initiative or otherwise shall establish a debt, project or fiscal program where the financing thereof would obligate future citizens to the financial commitments of current voters. Appropriations shall be drawn from revenues collected within one year of their appropriation through floating debt and the collection of these fees and revenues only:
Usage fees levied upon persons whose activities degrade or monopolize public property;
Usage fees levied upon persons enjoying exclusive use of land, in proportion to its acreage and the volume, mass and scarcity of natural resources therein;
Usage fees levied upon foreign governments for involvement of United States military personnel, equipment or weaponry in operations outside the territory of the United States, at the request of said governments, which would otherwise be the responsibility of any sovereign nation to itself;
Misusage fees levied upon persons whose activities, whether intentional or negligent, damage public property;
Misusage fees levied upon persons whose activities damage the private property of another person, or impede its exclusive use by barring lawful access to it, or operation of it; physically altering it or its value; or otherwise converting or making improbable its peaceable, lawful, exclusive enjoyment; thereby necessitating the intervention of law enforcement or courts of law;
Misusage fees levied upon persons who assume unnecessary risks or file frivolous complaints that require emergency public services or courts of law;
Sales of forfeited, seized property;
Sales of goods processed or manufactured by state-confined workers; or revenues from the contracting-out of their services;
Sales of government property to allies of the United States, upon a two-thirds majority vote among the Governors and a unanimous vote between the President and the Cabinet—or the Defense Cabinet, in the case of military property;
Duties, imposts and excises;
Safety-inspection and handling charges;
Any fiscal-program income deduction annually re-authorized by electoral initiative.
All fees shall reflect the actual duration and costs of use or misuse, so that collections in anticipation of use may necessitate reimbursement.
No law enacted by precinct electoral initiative shall institute or increase an appropriation from revenues derived in part or in full from another precinct, unless with a fifty-one percent consenting vote within the latter precinct, or unless authorized by this Constitution; nor withhold or disburse revenues lawfully collected for and due to a city, county or state government, or the federal government.
Anyway I have to laugh at someone that considers themself above moral reproach
Who said I consider myself above moral reproach? Don't answer that. I never said it. I think that no one is above moral reproach.
A)Tldr your whole list of permissible outrages.
B) you wrote
Don't stomp on my being moral, Clayton, just because we're all waiting for the big shoe to drop."
Regardless I hope you consider yourself hella-reproached.
Peace-out
I don't know how I missed this:
You impute such evil in the midst of such order and relative prosperity. In one sense it's good that you take nothing for granted; but, for goodness sakes, stop and smell the roses once in a while. What are the elite waiting for? Why the protracted chirade? Why not just stockpile what they need and collapse the system?
You don't get it. I cringe whenever I post a link to him but Molyneux explains it very well here:
The Elites aren't waiting for anything. The status quo is precisely what they want. The root problem is explained brilliantly here:
Etienne de la Boetie wrote about this centuries ago.
If we ended the government overnight by pushing a Big Red Button (h/t Rothbard), it would certainly be a colossal human tragedy - busted water mains, downed power lines, roving gangs, etc. etc
I'm glad to read that you're aware of the risks.
But this is not indicative of human nature, this is indicative of the state of atrophy of the market for production of goods and services which the State has monopolized
It is human nature. I read the link from your active thread--the story on aircraft carriers; and I noted that the author made this very point as well--that they're all the same: the Pentagon generals and the Chrysler CEO's. You can't escape it: Bad judgment, inefficiency and wastefulness are not exclusive to the public sector.
Mail delivery is a relatively-simple, harmless enterprise. Law enforcement and military defense are not. Is your ideal America one with nothing but private toll roads, by the way? Who pays to fix bridges? Must all public lands then be sold off, parceled out? No more national forests? I agree with liberalizing/privatizing whatever can be done more efficiently in the private sector--and that's most things--but there are functions of government best left out of the hands of private interests. I know, I know, the private interests are already controlling Congress. That's why I propose to be rid of it. My system would clarify things quite a bit. Direct democracy is a sort of "liberalization" of political power.
DarylLloydDavis:I'm glad to read that you're aware of the risks.
None of us, by the way, is really advocating "pushing the big red button". If you think we are, then you're attacking a strawman in place of our actual position.
DarylLloydDavis:It is human nature. I read the link from your active thread--the story on aircraft carriers; and I noted that the author made this very point as well--that they're all the same: the Pentagon generals and the Chrysler CEO's. You can't escape it: Bad judgment, inefficiency and wastefulness are not exclusive to the public sector.
There's a difference between simply making mistakes and committing aggression.
DarylLloydDavis:Is your ideal America one with nothing but private toll roads, by the way?
Nothing but private roads, yes. I don't think they'll all be toll roads.
By the way, I for one am not just concerned with "America" - I'm concerned with the whole world.
DarylLloydDavis:Who pays to fix bridges?
Who do you think? The people who own the bridges.
DarylLloydDavis:Must all public lands then be sold off, parceled out? No more national forests?
Sold off, parceled out, or left open to homesteading.
If there's no more nation, there's no more national forests.
DarylLloydDavis:I agree with liberalizing/privatizing whatever can be done more efficiently in the private sector--and that's most things--but there are functions of government best left out of the hands of private interests.
I'd like you to please enumerate these functions and explain why you think they're best left out of the hands of private interests.