Of course, this raises the interesting question: how can we know when things are out of balance? I propose that it's possible to look at history and examine the conditions present when times were at their relative best. One thing that I note about these times is that income gaps are usually pretty low, and education is more prevalent relative to the standard of the time in question.
How we define income gaps is the rub here, because there will always be the super achievers.
Does an out of balance gap describe how much the very richest ones earn or the number of high earners there are?
Brooks: An employer wants a business to succeed or he won't have a job, but it's not because he feel indebted to the owner.
It's not like helping a starving child, that type of charity gives you nothing material in return.
The employer gives compensation for the labor he himself can't provide and the employee gives labor for the compensation he doesn't have. It's a break even. They don't even have to care about each other
ashurbanipal: Yes, that is an apt description of how things are. But I do not say this is how things should be.
Then which way should the courtesy flow? Should the employer give the worker more than he deserves to make the employer's life better or should the worker take less from the employer to make the employer's life better?
Unless compensation is determined by a natural formula, one of them will be getting more, and the other less, than what they deserve.
Brooks: When they stop tolerating it they will move on to a job more commensurate with their perception of their worth. That's the idea of minimum wage - your first unskilled job.
ashurbanipal: If that's possible for them to do. One problem these days is that it's often not possible.
But when the government forces the business owner to pay a worker based on what he needs rather than what he deserves, then every business owner has to do it for every worker. Including those who don't have the need.
The high school kid doing 40 hours per week at Panera in the Summer does not have that need for a livable wage.
Well, this certainly seems like a potent argument at first. But consider that it's possible to make it no matter how low wages go. I guarantee I could run a highly profitable business if the law allowed me to commandeer workers that I didn't have to pay. I could run a profitable business if I only had to pay 10 cents an hour. And so on. But if my business models depend on that, then the moment minimum wage is raised by some increment, my business will fail.
Your business model would never be workable in the first place because such a low wage would attract NO workers at all. But if by "commandeer" you mean slavery, that's equally as unrealistic.
I like our theoretical discussion because it's so clean, but in a case like this we have to bring the real world into it a little bit.
That said, I agree with you to some extent. Raising the minimum wage causes fractures in the overall economy (and it may be easy to see why by thinking about the example I gave above). I don't want to put mom and pop out of business, though at the same time, I also want it to be the case that someone who is reasonably capable and who wants a job can get one commensurate with their skills.
Getting a
job commensurate with their skills is out of the hands of society. People may have chosen their profession poorly and there's nothing that can be done about that.
Getting a wage that's commensurate with their skills is what we all want, but for those at the unskilled rank of society, that wage must be what it deserves.
Another thing, a lot of what you are saying is based on helping the workers because the economy is bad (which is why they can't find more gainful employment).
But the economy is equally as bad for these businesses. Why would they be getting less consideration. You seemed to have set up a system in which we ask business owners to sacrifice when they are the most vulnerable.
I met a guy the other day working as a cashier at the local White Castle that has a Master's degree from the University of Ohio in psychology. He'd been in that position two years, and looks, when he has time, for something in his field. He wasn't lazy or inarticulate; he had a very professional demeanor and appearance. This was just the only job he could find. And that's a narrative that is all too common these days. It's not just those individuals who suffer, we all suffer, because we're not utilizing the full collective force of our population.
I feel bad for him and I'm sorry it has to be that way, but what is White Castle's responsibility in that?
What if someone applied for a job, who has fewer personal expenses, and is willing to do the same job for less money?
Does White Castle owe so much to this underemployed man that it should cost them money?
