Quote:
Originally Posted by The Batlord
I've never understood how libertarians could think that abolishing minimum wage and allowing market competition to bring back American manufacturing would be a good idea. People in countries that have "our" outsourced jobs make next to nothing. To be competitive we would have to make comparable wages. So we'd be going back to the industrial revolution basically.
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The argument is that getting rid of the minimum wage reduces unemployment, and although there is some truth to this, it does not make a substantial difference from what I have read. Of course many of these countries without a MW are premier welfare states like Denmark, but even mean lean Asian countries like Hong Kong (China) were eventually forced to bring in a minimum wage.
It's a very popular idea amongst business circles, because reducing the amount of pay to workers, means a company can cut its overhead and pay out more stock or dividents to your shareholders, or have more money to reinvest.
It's a very unpopular idea amongst labour workers, because it is effectively a slave wage if you can barely survive on it, making you more dependent upon your employer, which means they can push you harder and longer in hopes you will get that raise or promotion to get out of the doll drums. This is why I against abolishing the minimum wage. I think its shifts the power relations too much in the favour of the employer.
Anyhow, for me personally, libertarianism is similar to Marxism, in that they are both pedaling utopian bull$hit, they just have completely different views on how to get there.