Minimum wages laws/was Re: [extropy-chat] Jack's right, he's not ready for reality

[Technotranscendence]

On Sunday, November 20, 2005 8:53 PM Olga Bourlin fauxever at sprynet.com
wrote:
>> Would you please do me the favor of explaining
>> to me how restricting two parties from certain
>> exchanges is related to coercing another to do
>> labor?
>
> 1) I was being facetious (somewhat);
> 2) In an ideal society where just about everyone is
> ethical, and kindhearted and fair - I would go as far
> as entertaining that such an exchange could
> take place; but

This is almost like saying, "People aren't ready to make choices.  I
know better than them.  They should accept my dictates on these issues."
:)  It's also like saying, "In an ideal society where just about
everyone is ethical, and kindhearted and fair - I would go as far as
entertaining that freedom of speech could take place, but..." OR "In an
ideal society where just about everyone is ethical, and kindhearted and
fair - I would go as far as entertaining that freedom to choose romantic
partners could take place, but..."  OR "In an ideal society where just
about everyone is ethical, and kindhearted and fair - I would go as far
as entertaining that freedom to choose a career could take place,
but..."

In truth, people become more ethical, kindhearted, and fair when they
are free to make choices.  When you force them to do things, they never
have a chance to become better.

Also, in a free society, people who are unethical, mean, and unfair
will, in general, do worse.  Why?  Well, as employees, their employees
won't like them because they'll chase away customers and investors.  As
employees, people, in general, don't want to work where they feel
they're being treated unethically, cruelly, or unfairly.

Now, granted, there are other incentives operating.  For instance, an
employer might not fire the unethical, mean, unfair employee because she
or he has a better skill set or because she or he accepts a lower wage.
However, other things being equal, these are bad qualities and not
marketable ones.  The same applies to employees.  An employee might
accept worse working conditions because the pay is higher or there's on
the job training and other benefits.  But all other things being equal,
without these added benefits people will leave bad firms for better
ones.  (And this is actually what we see all across the globe.)

> 3) When in history has this ever taken place?

Almost everywhere where government has not interfered with the process.
Hong Kong was a great example of this in action.  No minimum wage law to
speak of, yet no poor to speak of and workers generally expected wage
increases as their experience and skill set improved.  (The tradition
was that workers would actually peruse the want ads during lunch.  If
they found something better, they asked for raise or left.)  If you were
right, then we should have expected Hong Kong to be an economic basket
case.  Instead, it was so successful that Britain and the US feared
economic competition from it.  Why is that?

Regards,

Dan
http://uweb1.superlink.net/~neptune/