Publius

Now what we have here is what I like to refer to as another non-issue folks. The debate over minimum wage is just another diversion tactic by the establishment (and by establishment I really mean politicians) to keep from being forced to face up to the real issues. This has been for the most part a great debate so far and I have seen many of the same arguments used for both sides of the minimum wage issue, but this isn’t the “real” issue now is it? The real issue is that many people in this country (every country actually) do not make enough income to make ends meet. Solving this problem is much more complex then simply raising the minimum wage ( or lowering/raising taxes, or any of the other one line schemes that are through at us). In our capitalist society the market decides the price of labor and products, large corporations operate for the singular purpose of increasing profits (no matter whatever else they pretend to be doing) and any one line fixes by politicians inevitably end up doing more harm then good.

So what’s the solution? When confronted with a similar situation in France Thomas Jefferson writes to James Madison in Oct. 28, 1785, “I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable. But the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind.” (Sorry no link, had to pull that one straight from the book I’m afraid, “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, ed. Merrill D. Petterson, Penguin Books, 1975) After which Jefferson goes on to explain a complex graduated taxation plan to Madison that would exempt the poor from further/all taxes and lay heavy taxation on the most wealthy so as to redistribute some of the wealth more equally.

So what are we doing wrong then? Exempting large corporations for taxation allowing their profit margins to increase exponentially while screwing both the local city and state governments, not to mention the laborers who are now forced to work less and carry more of the burden; decreasing taxation on the rich ( not the “liberal” definition of rich being those over 100,000 which, lets be realistic, is actually middle class in most urban areas of the country, so lets increase it 500,000 or more just for the sake of argument); and convincing poor in American that it can all be easily solved through one lined schemes.

So does increasing minimum wage help the problem? No, it only works to exacerbate it, giving false hope to the poor masses, destroying small businesses and empowering large businesses to put more pressure on the government for tax relief. What about leaving it where it is? Just works to maintain the status quo solving nothing. So why are we even discussing this issue? Because politician like Kerry see it as a means to garner support among the poor working class and Bush sees it as yet another liberal attack on republican ideals of small government and non-governmental interference in commerce. Like I said in the beginning, another non-issue.

ARTelevision

There has never been a time or a place where wealth was not unequally divided. There are some aspects of human nature that are persistent. The reason it is a political issue is because of the ongoing tension between the anarchic ego and social control. Progress toward equitable distributions of power and wealth is only a small part of what we are about as a species.

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cthulu23

I like some of what you said, Publius, but I'm still not sure what you mean by it. Yes, the minimum wage is not the crux of the economic disparity question, but it is a barometer of how our society feels about it's least privileged, hardly a "non-issue."

Art,
As you suggest, economic struggle between the haves and have-nots is an unmistakable facet of history. I would say that we are currently in a cultural swing towards the concentration of wealth. This has enormous consequences for the global population.