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From: simard@loral.UUCP (Ray Simard)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Unemployment & the minimum wage
Message-ID: <430@loral.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 15-Aug-84 16:58:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: loral.430
Posted: Wed Aug 15 16:58:59 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 18-Aug-84 02:25:56 EDT
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Organization: Loral Instrumentation, San Diego, CA
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[]

>As we all know, about 8 
>million working people aren't.  My real point here was that there is
>no clamoring for elimination of the minimum wage from below; it comes
>from above, which says a lot about who is going to benefit from its
>elimination.

Oh boy, here comes the old "anything that benefits the rich hurts
the poor and vice versa" line.  Any proof?  If someone gets a job
at subminimum who otherwise would not work at all, is that person
not better off by the amount s/he actually is paid?

>There is not, for example, much support among blacks for
>elimination of the minimum wage.  I find this "it's for their own good"
>argument coming from people who have never shown any concern for anything
>other than their own profit margins pretty laughable.

What they are saying is that jobs will exist if they can be paid at
subminimum that would not exist otherwise.  And why the implication
that corporate management is unconcerned with anything but
their balance sheets?  What should they do; operate businesses as
social welfare agencies, and if there's a profit here and there,
well, that's nice too???  Seems too many folks get their business
education by watching "Dallas".

Subminimum jobs would serve one purpose: to allow persons chronically
unemployed to experience the shift from an orientation around
despair and hopelessness, to productive use of time and exposure
to the work environment.  Those who are alert can then move up
as their talent and experience grow.

>..."worst-case scenario" is a pretty good history lesson for those who forget
>what life was like back in the good old days before the big, bad unions and
>minimum wages came along.

Unions have made a valuable and necessary contribution to the well-being
of the worker.  By offsetting the imbalance of power that once was held
by the owners and managers of business and industry, the unions have
accomplished enormous improvements.  But the power balance can often
swing in unusual and destructive ways.  Union leaders have of late
fostered the image of worker and management as adversaries, breeding
animosity and contempt on both sides that in the end hurts both.
Ownership, management and labor together make a business run, and you
cannot improve the lot of one by hurting the others.  It is the prosperity
of the unit that creates the prosperity of the individual components.

>The advocates of abolishing the minimum wage have
>no answer to her argument, other than to say that it's OK for people to be
>starving if that's what the market produces.

If that's "what the market produces" then nothing in the world will
keep people from starving.  What the market produces is goods and services
that people are willing to pay for.  Labor is required to create those
goods and services.  The only way that anyone is ever employed is that
*first* a profit-making entity exists that is able to sell whatever
the worker produces.  This is not by design, nor is it an example
of heartless capitalism, it is as much a fact of life as gravity.
Therefore, given that through various means, workers can assert their
demand for a just part of the benefits of their employment, only
prosperous businesses can employ.  If you want the "market" to
keep people from starving, do it by advocating policies that promote
a vigorous marketplace.



-- 
[     I am not a stranger, but a friend you haven't met yet     ]

Ray Simard
Loral Instrumentation, San Diego
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