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i've thought for a long time that a universal minimum wage a good idea because it would erase the incentives that underpin the present arrangement (subcontractors located in places with lowest wages, usually most repressive conditions in terms of organizing etc have a competitive advantage assuming technology as neutral...the buyer of course has no responsibility for anything, mere pursues enlightened self-interest in that grand selfblinding american way)---and it would make distance/transport a different kind of problem than it now is...so what i think would result is a fragmentation of the present arrangement---which would create "redundant" production systems because it would make production/distribution more regionally oriented. so i think a universal minimum wage would be a good thing for job creation. i would imagine that the state can and should play an active role in making sure that this is the outcome too.
but of course this would be greeted as some Communist initiative by the right....but the curious thing is that a re-regionalizing of capitalist production would bring the beast closer to the People, which you'd think a main conservative concern/issue. so i would think conservatives--libertarian types in particular---might be persuaded to support the end if not the means.
but nothing would get anywhere so long as this "obama is a left extremist" nonsense persists. this is about shutting down dialogue. it's funny that it so often comes accompanied by accusations that the rejection of this absurd claim that obama is a leftist is a shutting down of dialogue. go figure.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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