Response on Minimum Wage

I wanted to post my comment on a well written piece by Professor Polyamory, A Living Wage: A moral issue.  The post is a plea to put people first and raise the minimum wage.  I wanted to address the problem of minimum wage as a solution that I hear the media comment on so often, but they never seem to offer any alternatives.  Here is my comment:

I have to agree with the conservatives and libertarians when they denounce minimum wage hikes because they are “artificial”.  However, I have never heard the reason why sufficiently articulated in mainstream media.  Mostly they just use reduction to absurdity arguments about paying extremely high minimum wages, and then leave it at that without contributing an alternative plan.  I personally believe that they do not suggest an alternative because they are die-hard capitalists.

I view capitalism as theft of worker’s products and profits.  As an alternative I suggest equally dividing wages, ownership, and management rights among all employees.  Some companies are already on this track via co-ops, or pay difference caps where the highest salary cannot be more than a specified percent of the lowest salary.  This increases the minimum salary a company pays without enforcing an amount that does not take the company’s revenue or profits into account.  This is important because if every company paid all of its employees the same (within just that company), then there would still be pay differences from one company to another because of the number of employees being paid and the amount the company budgeted for pay.  If a high minimum wage was enforced it does not take into account that some companies would not be as able to pay that amount as others.  Since it does not take into account any company’s finances it is an artificial number and could be damaging to a business.

Of course with how low the minimum wage is now it really has no chance of negatively affecting a company. Either way, I completely agree that through whatever means available we need to take care of each other.

Also, grouping fascism with communism as outcomes to avoid seems harsh.  I know in common U.S. political speech communist is a slur, but its theories are meant to help the working class.  Whereas fascism is a controlling dictatorship that puts the nation first and uses force to suppress dissent.

I love the Professor’s work, especially his sex-positive essays, and highly recommend following his blog.  Please feel free to share your thoughts on minimum wage, social welfare or other topics that this makes you think of.