New Interest to Increase the Federal Minimum Wage

With all the recent talk about Democrats wanting to increase the minimum wage, I'm getting an uptick in search hits for the pros and cons of a minimum wage. I wrote that paper for a class in college more than two years ago, right around the time I began to take anarchism seriously. As a result of those factors, my conclusion, while still fundamentally correct, lacks that umph of my more recent writing, unencumbered by the desire to present a radical idea within a conservative setting and have it accepted enough for reasonable discussion.

As I wrote then:

...empirical studies may appear to lend weight to the claim that these laws don't cause unemployment, but they aren't comprehensive enough to fully gauge the extent of the negative economic effects of such mandates. It cannot be escaped that the government causes unnecessary economic negative side effects by outlawing wages below a certain level. More importantly, it also cannot be escaped that the actions of government interference in a business's hiring practices is fundamentally at odds with the things that make the United States such a unique and important place to live: our individual liberties. These laws act as an initiation of force against an entity that has not caused harm and does not deserve the punishment. Jobs are taken and left voluntarily and it is the responsibility of the participants in that agreement to decide if the terms meet their needs.

I fail to see why every job must compensate the employee such that the employee's financial needs can be met. It seems like a mandate with little to anchor it in reality. It is easy to give in to the emotional arguments proposing any variation on the minimum wage, but if we are to value sustained economic progress and freedom, I think the minimum wage should be avoided and abolished.

For those coming late to the destruction derby, here's a quick re-cap.

San Francsico Chronicle: "Other issues where Bush and Democrats could find common ground: raising the minimum wage..."

The Sunday Times: "[Democrats] will use their power to push through a rise in the minimum wage, from its current level of $5.15 (£2.70) per hour, set in 1997, to $7.25. My guess is that the president will not uncap his veto pen to kill a move so popular that several states have already raised the minimum wage."

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: "[Nancy Pelosi] said she plans to use the first 100 hours of floor debate to push through the key elements of the Democrats' election-year agenda, most of which have some Republican support. The agenda includes measures to raise the minimum wage to $7.25 and hour from $5.15..."

BusinessWeek: "The day after the election debacle, President Bush said he thinks he can find common ground with Democrats on raising the minimum wage. But the President wants to couple any wage hike with a series of tax incentives aimed at small businesses...[s]ince the President won't want the first disagreement of 2007 to be a veto of a minimum wage increase, he'll probably swallow his pride and go along."

The Whitehouse's public comments have not so far suggested otherwise.

November 10th:

Q: You talk about common ground that could be reached. Could you just go over the top issues? Is minimum wage on the top of the list?

[...]

MR. SNOW: Well, the President has talked about education and energy. The issue of minimum wage makes sense if you've got some way to make sure that it does not injure small businesses, which are the primary engine of economic growth in the United States. And the President had that position before the election, and he maintains the position now.

November 8th:

Q: Mr. President, I'd like to ask you, Nancy Pelosi has been quite clear about her agenda for the first 100 hours. She mentions things like raising minimum wage, cutting interest rates on student loans, broadening stem cell research, and rolling back tax cuts. Which of those can you support, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: I knew you'd probably try to get me to start negotiating with myself. I haven't even visited with Congresswoman Pelosi yet. She's coming to the Oval Office later this week; I'm going to sit down and talk with her. I believe on a lot of issues we can find common ground. And there's a significant difference between common ground and abandoning principle. She's not going to abandon her principles and I'm not going to abandon mine. But I do believe we have an opportunity to find some common ground to move forward on.

In that very same interview you quoted, one of these three characters asked me about minimum wage. I said, there's an area where I believe we can make some -- find common ground. And as we do, I'll be, of course, making sure that our small businesses are -- there's compensation for the small businesses in the bill.

And, just for historical comparison, August 17th:

Q: And just lastly, I assume they'll be talking about some of the legislation on the Hill. Does the President support an increase in the minimum wage?

MR. SNOW: The formulation we have used is he supports an increase in the minimum wage that won't come at the expense of jobs.

Clearly, Bush is not opposed to the minimum wage in principle.

I am and my opposition does not rely on whether some impossible to calculate figure of "net employment" goes up or down after a government imposes a limit on how much an employer can pay an employee. My opposition to a law against you paying me less than %x.xx is rooted in the clear notion that no third party has any rightful say in how any person's labor is compensated by the person they've peacefully picked as their employer. Paying a stranger in bananas for clearing brush; exchanging 40 hours of envelope-stuffing for 800 miles of shuttling around town in my car; a paycheck of $250 a month to a single parent for showing up at the office three times a week to replenish coffee supplies...if the individuals involved in these transactions scanned their options and decided upon them without violence (or the threat of it) compelling their choices, then so be it. Some people may think one party is getting a better deal than another and that evaluation is indeed each individual's to make.

But your unique values and the weight with which you rank them are not necessarily shared by others. Only someone in a state of catatonic apathy - someone who has made the choice to make no more choices - has a value scale that doesn't change. For the rest of us who want to live and thrive, we have to discriminate among millions of potentials each day. We may screw up in our calculations, we may be ignorant of additional options, and we may look back and rue our misplaced priorities and the specific context in which we lived...but that is living.

To intrude upon this most basic of human characteristics is to demonstrate a desire to not only force others to live lives they haven't chosen, but to try and think for them as well. At the root, advocates of a minimum wage (including those who want to increase and expand it) are people who seek to impose their value structure on others against their will and forcefully usurp independent thought. For who would call for a national (or statewide or citywide) wage floor without putting some teeth into the project? The whip is quite visible even if it has the peeling sticker of "Regulation" on it.

A real cruelty here is that properly speaking, you cannot simply force someone to think, to deliberate, to consider. Even though these laws stand, they never quite accomplish what their authors set out to do. While some certainly make it clear they want to quash the troublesome holdout and subsitute his or her mind with the collective thought of We The People, most sell the plan on its supposed benefits. When they don't materialize, what do they suggest be done? More of the same! You cannot satisfy those who want to dominate and control, particularly when they're blinded by the magnanimity they claim for themselves.

That's why I'm against every law imposing minimum wages. It is an instance of the much larger intellectual battle between individualism and collectivism. There is no "pro and con" about it. You are either for people making up their own minds and taking responsibility for their actions or are you are not. If you are, then minimum wage laws are an abomination. If you are not, then they are just another coercive political policy to herd society towards your goals.

Posted by Drizzten at November 13, 2006 02:25 AM