Good morning.
- Libertarian Jason Kuznicki defends Wal-Mart at Postiive Liberty. The left-of-the-aisle assumption that an unskilled worker is being cheated unless they get a middle class level wage befuddles me at best.
- Fiction or Fact? Soma from Huxley’s Brave New World and the culture of our Medical community, how far apart are they. A discussion at First Things related to this (albeit not specifically Huxley) by Richard John Neuhaus.
more later.
The left-of-the-aisle assumption that an unskilled worker is being cheated unless they get a middle class level wage befuddles me at best.
You have all these bizarre notions about what people left of the aisle believe. I’d call them straw men, but you seem genuine. We on the left want unskilled-but-productive workers to make enough for shelter, food, and decent medical care. In other words, a “living wage.” Which is a phrase you might have heard from the left once or twice.
JA,
In today’s dollars how much is that? David Schraub of the Debate Link, if memory serves, at one point seemed to indicate he felt that the safety net for the unemployed needed to be in excess of (I think if I recall) 28k. At that level, presumably the “unskilled” laborer pay scale needs to be higher yet. How high do you think you can push the unemployed and unskilled labor rates when you can pay someone for the same less than $3 overseas for the same level of skill and probably more hours per week.
I don’t have the expertise to know how much a “living wage” should be. Presumably it varies based on location. In today’s dollars, the minimum wage was significantly higher than 10 years ago and, as I recall, the economy was pretty strong then.
Better still, we want something like the ’50s, where the unionization of workers led to a thriving middle class and one of the most robust civil societies in history. We may have to sacrifice some economic growth, but I think that’s outweighed by the benefits (as it was in the ’50s).
Disclaimer: this is not one of my areas of expertise or interest, and any number of material facts on which I base my analysis may be wrong. The above is based solely on conventional wisdom.
jpe,
I thought the large unionization movements occurred in the late 19th and early quarter of the 20th centuries.
Economic growth of the fifties I’d have guessed were mostly due to the massive US war economy shifting to peacetime and waking up and finding its strength.
And I’d cite the same disclaimer, being trained in Physics, working as a programmer, and reading way too much leads to no expertise in economic matters on my part either.