Re: RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE TO $120 AN HOUR!!

From: Bill Bonde ( ``I could have nailed the St. Helena goat's pelt to the deck'' ) (stderr2_at_backpacker.com)
Date: 06/13/04 

Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2004 19:34:07 -0700

Albert wrote:
>
> On Sat, 12 Jun 2004 12:36:01 -0700
> "Bill Bonde ( ``I could have nailed the St. Helena goat's pelt to the
> deck'' )" <stderr2@backpacker.com> wrote:
>
> > Albert wrote:
> <snip>
> > > I am saying that some way must be found to make a man's wages
> > > correspond to his productivity and treating him as a co-producer
> > > rather than a commodity.
> > >
> > Capitalism uses the market to set wages, by definition your value in
> > the market.
>
> By one definition, yes. But in practice, no. At least not without the
> ground-leveling power of collective bargaining.
>
Exactly how is giving the workers a monopoly going to accomplish the
setting of wages at anything other than inflated rates?

> > <snip>
> > > > Of course. I'm showing your ideas up pretty easily here.
> > >
> > > LOL. It would be easier for you if you had a clue what my ideas
> > > are.
> > >
> > They are of the lines: "RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE TO $120 AN HOUR!!"
>
> How did you arrive at that preposterous conclusion?
>
The subject line. BTW, I noticed that you just cut out the actual
content of my post:

>
> Yes. That much is evident from Amazon. Have you read the book? If so
> then you can point out "how it applies to minimum wage or to
> the known inequities in distribution of production under capitalism."
>
The author has people in various developing nations investigating all
sorts of different interesting things like the values of the ad hoc
housing the people live in, the percentages of legal ownership in the
country, legal employment, etc. It turns out that it is getting worse,
that regulations in many countries make it difficult or impossible to
really own your land and home. This makes you a squatter and you can't
sell to just anyone, having to 'sell' using an ad hoc extra-legal system
that works OK with friends but not with people in general. This lowers
the amount you can get for your investment and takes you out of the
wider economy. This also means you can't get loans to buy another home
or start a business.

The next step is to look at how poor Americans are kept out of the
capitalist system in some of the same ways. By working extra-legally,
they can't use their income to get credit. By not owning their own
homes, they can't use them to get loans or show creditworthiness. 

-- 
"By the life of God, it doth even take my wits from me to think on it!
Here is such controversy between the sailors and the gentlemen, and such
stomaching between the gentlemen and sailors, that it doth even make me
mad to hear it. But, my masters, I must have it left. For I must have
the gentlemen to haul and draw with the mariner and the mariner with the
gentlemen. What! Let us show ourselves all to be of a company and let us
not give occasion to the enemy to rejoice at our decay and overthrow. I
would know him, that would refuse to set his hand to a rope, but I know
there is not any such here." -+Sir Frances Drake

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