Do you think that people would be safe in 300 years or will only about 20 people have all the money...
This is happening anyway, and it has nothing to do with the minimum wage. If anything, the minimum wage
exacerbates this problem, by forcing people into Welfare programs which deliberately penalize them for attempting to save or invest money.
If this is the problem you're attempting to solve, you would be better served by promoting a more steeply progressive income tax and reinstating and increasing the inheritance tax. It's dismantling those taxes-- and creating artificial entry barriers into most industries-- that allows more wealth to be concentrated into fewer hands each year.
... because remember when someone gets to a high power he doesnt have to pay alot of money and some people DONT have a choice to work for that low pay becuase they need food.
You think that people with a lot of money get to control the price of labor. They really don't, anymore than you control the price of milk by deciding whether or not to buy it.
Remember, labor is a service; it's a marketable product, like any other. Now, instead of labor, imagine we were discussing some other commodity-- let's stick with milk. In order to protect the people who produce milk, and the people who make their living by selling milk to other people, the government passes a law that says that milk must cost at least five dollars per gallon.
This means that people who buy a lot of milk might have to start buying less milk, because they cannot afford as much. Some people who normally buy milk might not be able to buy milk at all. This costs the milk-producers money and makes the market for milk smaller; some producers may even have to go out of business.
This policy isn't good for either the people who buy milk, or the people who produce milk. The only difference between milk and labor is, the people who make their living selling milk
understand this.
Now, there are ways for the government to improve the labor market. They can help to create new labor customers-- new jobs-- and they can help labor producers get the training necessary to produce more valuable labor. They can subsidize either labor customers for buying labor, or they can subsidize labor producers who sell their labor at lower prices. They can offer services that make it easier and less expensive to produce labor, by reducing the living expenses of the people who do so.
All of these policies are good for people who work for a living, and good for people who pay them to. And here, the difference between milk and labor is, the government actually does this for the people who produce milk.
DeeJayH said:
and why is it so important for their genes to remain in the pool? why won't these hardships strengthen the kids so they become better members of society and dont make the same mistakes their parents made?
To answer your first question, because they aren't simply going to lay down and die quietly. Hungry people only suffer in silence when
everyone is hungry; otherwise, they fight for their survival and do everything in their power to take what they need.
This is pretty good for the gene pool, and I actually believe that human society needs to go through this process every once in a while. However, it's
terrible for society, both culturally and productively, and the main purpose of government is to prevent it from happening.
As for why these hardships don't "strengthen" the kids, you're not looking at something simple like muscular development. Hardship strengthens character
only when there are positive role models demonstrating "strong" behavior-- and then being rewarded for it.
Unfortunately, our society is not constructed in such a way that it often rewards positive behavior-- at least, not on a basis short-term enough for it to benefit people unless they already have an extensive safety net.
1069 said:
Isn't there any forum rule against promoting eugenics?
Absolutely not. There are rules against racism and hate speech, which might be extended to include any pro-active campaign to directly eliminate "undesirables", but there's no rule of any kind that prohibits suggesting that we simply allow people to kill each other and starve to death on their own.
Hell, if we did that, it'd be impossible to discuss the war in Iraq without banning everyone.
Not to mention, what you're discussing is closer to Social Darwinism than eugenics... as far as I am aware, I am the only active proponent of eugenics on the forum.