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April 12, 2019, 06:45:22 AM

I believe minimum wage is morally wrong because it makes it illegal for you to sell your labor for under a certain price.

Likely you misspoke, here.  Morally wrong and illegal are two different things.


Likely you misread Lambie... Minimum wages makes ilegal to work being paid less than that... and it is morally wrong to impose such limitation because it ends up in more unemployment and bars from working (and being paid *anything*) people that do not produce/deserve more than that. I do agree... with some reserves though.

I doubt that I misread or misunderstood Lambie...

Minimum wage brings an attempt at a balancing of interests, and sometimes those interests are not very well balanced, but whether something is immoral or illegal tend to be different questions, and sometimes might overlap.. but they are a bit different categories of consideration.
You seem to be misreading or misunderstanding quite a number of post. I've seen you do it with my own posts, with jbreher's posts and now with Lambie's post (even after your display of illiteracy was pointed out to you by bitserve). Perhaps spend more time reading and less time writing?

I don't see the connection to the minimum wage, which is a function of productivity and income?

Historically, there was a connection between productivity and income, but it largely disappeared in the last 45 years or so.
These are the facts:
Productivity change 1973-2017: 77%
Hourly pay during the same period: 12.4%
https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/

I don't care what causes this, but it can't be sustainable.
As far as the productivity gap goes. Workers are more productive because of the tools the business owners acquire for their use. As such, the numbers are inaccurate for any worker that does not buy their own tools to use in the business.

This does not explain why in 1950-1973 period two graphs coincided.
A simpler explanation would be that after 1973 economy get "financialized" and a larger slice of production gains (in %) went into the pocket of financiers, CEOs, etc.
Perhaps it is a natural law, but then 1789 is a natural law as well. Do we want a repeat? I hope, not.
Pauperizing workers cannot end in anything even remotely good down the pike.
Can it last another 50 years?
Maybe, but i hope to be out of the workforce, politics, etc one way or another well before that.