Futility of minimum wages according to Marx

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
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A while ago I was reading a slow tedious text by Marx. I didn’t read all of it, since I found it so bland and watered-down.
If I am correct, Marx basically says that if you increase people’s wages, the people whom they work for will increase the price of the product as-well. This, in my interpretation, makes minimum wage futile, because the more you increase the wage, the more the capitalist boss of the business will increase his prices of his product, so that the value of money goes down.

Despite this, Canada does have a minimum wage system.

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Yes, that’s natural… and it’s not a evil capitalist conspiracy, it’s just the natural result of having to convert currency to reflect cost. It’s always been that way, and is so even in communist societies, the ones with more of a head on their shoulder just get very inventive on where they are going to hide decline.

For example, the cost of producing a vehicle in the soviet union was intentionally unbalanced with the competing needs for the materials in terms of aquisition and distribution. In all honesty, it doesn’t take a skilled workforce to produce a vehicle, but it costs alot to set up a system capable of producing the precision parts able to withstand wear for vehicles, and this has to be taken over thousands of miles. Vehicles ended up as a luxury item for the higher classes in the Soviet System. If you demanded a higher wage for the workers across the board in the Soviet Union, those parts are going to cost the same effectively in terms of aquisition and transportation, and refining workforce wise at every level. If it was a closed system- all the elements and every element of the process taken from within the soviet world in terms of self-sustainability, then the cost in actuality WOULDN’T CHANGE. However, given the nature of international trade, with competing money systems that anwsers to local market needs… a immediate valuation of one currency over another comes into a inbalance the second change occurs. If every element of every economy, part or parcel, remained the same then- foreign currencies would merely note to devalue the soviet currency to the previous levels… and instead of that rubble saying 10 on it, it would say 100, 1000,10,000, etc, but would have the same buying power as before.

As economics are always changing- the availibility of food stuff, materials, opening, decaying, and closing of factories, aging workforce, less experienced younger workers… stuff is going to be constantly off balance.

The worst thing for a minimum wage is innovation… something dramatic like Iphones overtaking Laptops in terms of consumption out of the blue. Not to say the minimum wage for select categories of workers couldn’t improve, or approave even across the board if the economy was free enough to react… but that the value of the minium wage in and of itself would remain largely unpredictible for the long term, if it can go up, it can go down.

It’s cute to give minimum wages in some areas, absolutely neceassry in the short term in others. It’s true, it’s a deeply flawed system, but in a city- where it’s concrete to concrete for miles, a sudden market turn can leave hundreds of thousands underemployed to unemployed- and within months millions. No, it does nothing to actually assure people remain employed, if anything, if speeds up people being fired. But what lurches slower than the minumum wage’s adjustment is landlord’s willingness to face the facts that their parcels are worth less. People invest heavily in them in good times, hoping to stay solvent in bad times, or when they are old and con’t work anymore. A considerable amount of the UK’s finances are paid from the Queen’s land holdings, renting houses out to people- it’s a major prop to their system, we’re barely in the embronic stage here in the West in doing the equivelent… in America with leasing out residential neighborhoods to former military bases.

A minimum wage reflects the bare minumum in reference to employment statistics that a city’s overall buying power is capable of. This is important when a depot in the midwest is deciding to send corn to LA, or a sock warehouse in Edmonton to send it’s good to Quebec.

It also mokes it harder for workers to FIND EMPLOYMENT, even if they are willing to work for a lower than legal wage. In my case, I need a van, and am willing to work for a stright up trade for a month or two for one, or at a reduced rate for one- and they run super cheap, 1000 to 2000 dollars. I’m effectively below the IRS’ radar, but the IRS won’t allow wage to be paid at less, as that discourages the final percentile yeild they will get from a region or class in the short term, and the IRS can only think in the short term.

In the short term, it’s brutal to workers if everytime the economy dipped, they got their waged garnished. People today would lose the buying power to by dinner everytime Obama gets a clever idea and stands up on TV… not just in America, but the world over. I hate starving. I’ve done it, it sucks. But it’s also a important predicitive tool for our Deopt system, which Canada to a high degree has adopted as well. Remember, we’re not adjusted to operate within a Japanese Shogo Shosa system where everything produced is bought up by a few supercorporations then resold within Japan or the world over. Most of our stuff is either tailored made for direct consumption oversees, or made for a warehouse distribution. This gives us advantages over some fluxuations in the market, but not all.

Some things that have, with verying degrees of success, worked equal, better, or in conjunction with Min. Wage: micro currencies, such as Food Stamps in America. When structured with the emerging depo system in America, with considerable efforts and foresight via the department of agriculture, it can assure a population won’t starve, but it’s only as useful as the forsight of the Department of Agriculture, Department of Labor, Department of Interior, and super conglamorates supermarkets (which evolved not through capitalism, but through old fashion eisenhower era fascism) to ensure the cost of food remains stable. Effective management helps tremendously, but also rearrangement of market fluxuations. Alot of socialist governments just try to suppress or hide the effects, it’s deeply unwise as they remain in either case, acknowledging them and juggling with as much triage and forsight as possible is wiser.

Another factor that has worked is police repression and encouraging emigration to other parts of the country, or even internationally, of the population of Unwilling Idlers. Obama has taken both approaches, Food Stamps and repressions. His indifference kills with a alarming speed amongst the homeless population, and in response, cities finding less and less revenues are available, are squeezing other sources, throwing out elements no longer benificial. However, his political machine requires larger cities with more population dependent upon him. This forces a housing crunch as much as a sudden availability of unwilling landlords willing to go for much less, if even less- usually more.

The end result is the overstretched urban morass we’ve since achieved. More and more homeless, more and more dependent, with less and less to go around- unless you agree to the rationing system, and move into government administered hellholes, while looking for the ever elusive minimum wage job.

One of the worst things that can heppen for workers on the whole is getting rid of the min. wage suddenly. Yes, highering would skyrocket, but the ability of the average worker to juggle the diverse, toss away jobs from living so damn far away from the work, coupled with the anti-vagrant laws that will prevent most from finding the multistack work, will cause more misery. Most people wouldn’t be able to maintain a vehicle for under thousand in total pay a month- you’ll have a struggle feeding yourself in a backalley without access to a kitchen.

However, a society that DOESN’t HAVE A MINUMUM WAGE TO START WITH, they do quite good. There isn’t any readjustment, as that is already the system. Hong Kong is a historic example, the average wage in Hong Kong is higher than anywhere else in China.

This is opposed to Cuba, where everything is controlled, they don’t make as much as the Chinese in that city do. Same was shown for Wheeling, West Virgina, and Pittsburg, Pennslyvania. They are two cities, very close together, cultural ties historically… one was capitalistic, the other followed a form of socialism known as Slavery. One’s steel industry expanded rapidly- the capitalist with no minimum wage, while the stagnant fix wage slave workers city didn’t do very well in comparision. Made some fine cigars and wagon wheels (much like Cuba) but was lagging far behind in terms of development, despite being favorable and competitively placed.

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I think one of the bigger problems in Marxism is that they directly equate all profit into exploitation, oppression, abuse, etc.
Profit is about one person holding resources, but if they use those resources for good, then it’s not bad.
Also, profit is necessary for someone to invest time into it.
Not always, but to a certain degree, everyone needs profit.
There is a difference also between a hateful Marxist and a non-hateful Marxist.

Thanks anyways for your reply.
I don’t have allot to say about it, as it seems what you typed out is basically neutral data, instead of a “should-thing”.

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I think one of the bigger problems with Marxism is people expressing strong opinions on it when by their own confession they haven’t even bothered to read it before coming to such opinions.

But hey, that’s just me, feel free to carry on misconstruing philosophers you haven’t read…

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That only applies in a monopoly. In a competitive market, competitors still have to compete.

The futility of a minimum wage comes in terms of opposition to savings which yields long term inflation. The bottom of society doesn’t have to be as frugal, but instead can splurge. In turn, the next layer up in society splurges more in order to be socially competitive. This reverberates up and up to every level of society until everyone’s splurging, and less people are saving. Therefore, demand expands, and prices increase while investment goes down and supply contracts.

If anything, Marx would be confused by this because he blamed capitalism with having a problem with overproduction over the supply of inventories.

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This is what he was getting at, yes. It was his point that minimum wage is no permenant fix in a capitalist system.

However, if you consider the periodic increases in minimum wage, this acts as a market force - not one that originates from the market, but one that effects the market. Minimum wage increases are not a one-off. They essentially put periodic pressure on those with economic power by nibbling at their toes. Prices will be increased by capitalists, causing inflation, but not straight away and not without reluctance to devalue the currency and risk increasing prices too quickly compared to their competitors. This gives those on or near minimum wage temporary periods of relief from even less acceptable levels of relative poverty than they would otherwise have to endure.

I think you’re overestimating the amount of “splurging” that minimum wage can afford the “bottom of society”. (What are you trying to say by using terms like these?)

You have to remember that the lowest wage that workers will accept reflects a minimum standard of living that these people are prepared to accept. The fact that the number given to this lowest acceptable wage is increased to “minimum wage” is cancelled out over time - once price increases by capitalists inevitably come to balance with minimum wage. At this point, the fact that the lowest acceptable wage is called “minimum wage” is just a token gesture - everything has reset, despite the different number on your wage slip. The amount of extra consumption that goes on between the increase in minimum wage and the equilibrium subsequently reached due to price increases is the important part, though it is not that much more than a ripple in the ocean.

I do like your point about social competition though. Can you explain how consumption at the expense of saving increases long term inflation?

This isn’t true. Only profit under Capitalism is seen as having inevitably resulted in exploitation, oppression, abuse, etc.

Profit as we know it loses this property once ownership of the means of production is redefined. We currently operate under a certain method of distribution of wealth towards those with capital - hence the name Capitalism. Yet what we have ended up with is a system that squanders its potential as well as posing a moral question concerning the existence of such poverty despite the existence of such abundance.

It’s not always a problem that profit ends up in the hands of some rather than others. The problem is that profit is still allowed to end up in the hands of those who do not use it in such a way that everyone would benefit more (including themselves). It’s the current version of distribution of wealth that is the problem, not profit in itself (though I am sure there are some Marxists who misconstrue this to be the case).

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The modern retail, credit, service economy that employs teenagers while in school and expects them to use that experience to build a resume proves what I’m saying about splurging. On top of that, even technological advancements are incredibly cheap, and people splurge on them en masse whether we’re talking about computers, cell phones, televisions, cars, or appliances. Fast food and party novelties are incredibly cheap as well.

The only people who I can imagine that struggle over minimum wage are: one, the dysfunctional who didn’t apply themselves educationally and couldn’t acquire advanced skills, and two, social rejects who despite educational application are denied access from networking into the workforce.

Again, you’re ignoring what I said about a competitive market place. Workers are not entirely price takers. Furthermore, the minimal living standard that workers are willing to accept depends on social competition. The less that workers compete among themselves socially, the less they’ll be willing to pay for living standards. That is rent depends on how much people are literally interested to become the physical center of attention.

Well basically, it’s demand-pull inflation. When the money supply increases due to people increasing their marginal propensity to consume in order to network into the workforce, demand shifts right and prices go up.

Furthermore, the money supply available for long term investment goes down, so supply shifts left and prices go up.

It can even get so bad that people get in a vicious cycle of panicking and the marginal propensity to consume increases ever higher as people forget how to slow down and think. Heck, thinkers can be despised for making things difficult, and they fall out of the workforce altogether from being socially alienated (by, as even Marx would claim, commodity fetishism).

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Am i mistaken or are you basically saying anyone who works for minimum wage must be a dysfunctional reject?

For people who actually live off minimum wage the living standard they are “willing to accept” is not about social competition at all. The standards they struggle to meet are set for them by those further up the economic ladder. People on most minimum wages cannot afford to compete socially, there isnt much “splurging” going on at that point. A worker earning minimum wage is likely to be struggling to meet a standard of living that is REQUIRED of her if she is to perform well at her job. After all, she will need a place to rest and prepare herself located in the vicinity of the workplace. She will need to be clean, clothed, and otherwise presentable. She will need a phone, insurance and probably some access to a computer. She will need some reliable source of transport to and from her job. She will need food, recreation, and all the other things people NEED in order to maintain the lifestyle they must maintain if they are to work full time. None of those things are free, and in fact, they all perpetually become more and more expensive with time. So mostly, the minimum wage worker just competes with inflation. Calling it social competition makes it sound like a function of vanity rather than necessity.

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The expectation of teenagers to build a resumé while still in school says more about the financially tight situation of many parents and the intolerance of lack of economic growth than “splurging”. If there were less competition from the economically powerful to reduce employee wages in order to spend more on business growth and to socially compete with their associates and acquaintances, the less economically powerful would be more comfortably off and their children would not be required to work while still at school.

In many cases, these teenagers are acquiring work experience in order to help out their parents with their tight finantial situation. Sure, they might also get a bit of pocket money to spend on the thousands of nice things that are out there to buy, but it’s not entirely the consumer’s fault for the ridiculous availability of consumables and adverts at every turn trying to manipulate you into wanting them all. Any social competition here is only catalysed by the imperative to perpetually increase GDP regardless of the importance of the produce. Any culture of “splurging” is only because of Capitalism reaching a certain maturity where everything necessary to maintain life has LONG become a flick of the wrist.

But this aside, much of the slurging you see is from people who either have access to someone else’s riches, or they are on welfare: people who end up with more disposable income than those on minimum wage. If you were more acquainted with people actually on minimum wage, you would know that they do NOT have the disposable income to spend on splurging to the extent to which you imply.

I guess I am the latter? I do get slightly more than minimum wage, but still cannot afford a normal life - and certainly not any “splurging”. And yet I am able to socialise just fine? (As long as it doesn’t cost anything.) It should be clear that I am more than capable intellectually, yet the fact that I’m on the internet right now rather than with offline friends perhaps suggests that my desire to socialise in a non “dysfunctional” way is not up to the standard that would gift me with a better wage rate than the legal minimum.

Working where I do, I happen to come across plenty of people who do not earn very much. None of them are stupid, not all of them are young. Often they are female and (sometimes well educated) immigrants. Socially they are all very well adjusted and capable too. Knowing this, I’m inclined to think your knowledge of those who work for minimum wage is lacking. Your emphasis on social competition is MUCH more of a middle and upper class issue.

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If that is indeed a misconception about Marxism, it’s a common one. I don’t know much about Marxism, could you either explain or link to an explanation of the Marxist ideas on how exploitation relates to profits? I think that would be more helpful than the above post. I don’t know about Dan~, but I’d like to fix my own misconceptions, I imagine he’d like to fix his, so help us out.

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I’m saying anyone who works for minimum wage is labeled as a dysfunctional reject.

Functionality and rejection are subjective, so a person can’t actually “be” a dysfunctional reject.

The problem is modern education isn’t customized by learning style, and it’s skills-oriented rather than values-oriented. Therefore, many students become disillusioned by why they should apply themselves, and even (advanced) graduates won’t necessarily be able to network into the workforce.

I just gave examples of splurging and explained how people compete.

People also haven’t always had phones, insurance, or computers, nor has transportation always been incredibly distant. What’s vain is how specialization, division, and professionalization of labor have compartmentalized so much of our lives. Modern supply chains do not focus on sustainability or social responsibility. Instead, they focus on pragmatically marginalizing the efficiency of each individual task.

The problem is social liberalism has discounted the value of living harmonious, organic, holistic cultures. Instead, it wants people to have the “freedom” to splurge in postmodernist consumerism to rejuvenate their performance. Even Marx acknowledged how commodity fetishism leads to social alienation.

The problem with Marx is he wants to fix this through the relations of production, not consumption. He doesn’t understand how people are free willing agents who need to psychologically identify with what they’re doing.

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I don’t buy this. A lot of the kids who work in retail come from established households in the first place. You need to be familiar with bourgeois culture in order to be effective at customer service. They’re often women and minorities as well because they’re exotic and make the company appear politically correct.

Working class kids don’t even have something to work for. They look at advertisements and get frustrated by materialism, unable to identify with what’s being sold. You see this especially among white males who have their heritage deconstructed and don’t know how to get along in a feminist, multiculturalist world.

I don’t buy this. Growing up, I came from a vocational neighborhood where lots of the kids went to BOCES or community colleges just to get a practical certification. These are kids who constantly lived on a day to day basis in socializing with their friends and were constantly jockeying for social status.

You sound like you fell out of society because you didn’t embrace the competition I’m talking about, and now you’re stuck because you didn’t splurge. Heck, a lot of the kids I grew up with have extensive credit card debt, but they’re networked into the workforce, so they’re content with it.

Again, boosting the minimum wage would increase the money supply and shift demand to the right. Therefore, prices would increase. To contain prices and standard of living, social policy needs to be adjusted, not economic policy.

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What the hell are you talking about?

More contextual than subjective.

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I like the way you say this haha.

It’s not actually necessarily true that “you need to be familiar with bourgeois culture in order to be effective at customer service”. Consider the market in your area: if you shove a load of bourgeois customer service reps into a retail outlet in a neighbourhood that is decidedly un-bourgeois, you alienate your customer base and sacrifice ease of communication for the sake of formal politeness that isn’t actually always appropriate. You may not have thought it, but a degree of vulgarity and rudeness can actually facilitate dealings with customers of a similar upbringing. And I speak from experience here.

I am familiar with bourgeois culture, I grew up in it. I’ve subsequently grown into lower class culture for much of my professional life - and whilst I will never be fluent, interractions are rarely deep enough to expose my infiltration. Yet I still lack the advantages of my colleagues who are born and bred into this culture. They are usually minorities because so are the customers, and they are often bilingual, which is a skill that is practically becoming a necessity for customer service. I imagine they are mostly women due to the flexibility and temporary nature of such jobs, and perhaps even residual sexism and gender role issues still prevalent even in liberal cultures, resulting in the preference of career oriented candidates for higher paying roles as opposed to family oriented types. Political correctness has nothing to do with low paying jobs - it doesn’t need to be. That’s only something for discriminatory environments like in higher paid roles.

In the working class, males tend to dominate skilled practical professions as I think you’ve noted. These people are earning far more than minimum wage. This is why “working class” really should not necessarily be confused with those on minimum wage. The working class can often splurge, being able to afford commodity fetishism, huge credit card payments and debts. Those who are on minimum wage and not dependent on anyone else for money cannot. Trust me.

I’m still not sure whether this is just my pride talking, but my interpretation is that I am unstimulated and uninspired by most of what society has to offer. As a result I have not “embraced the competition you’re talking about”, and I have never had a desire to splurge right from when I was a young child. Things that interest me are intellectual, and unbound by the traditional channels that are designed to benefit the average to the slightly gifted. I’m sure this sounds arrogant, and this explanation mostly meets confusion about why I wasn’t so clever as to use the system to my advantage. But it’s honest and these people really don’t understand how I work.

“I don’t buy” the economic theory they teach you in school. The order and simplicity of it all is appealing, but it just doesn’t seem to actually work in practice.

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This seems as appropriate a place as any to post this:

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On it’s own, that graph doesn’t really say that much.
It’s only a %change graph.

What are you trying to point out by posting it?

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I don’t think you understand customer service very well then.

The working class is filled with a variety of particularly minded people. The key to customer service is letting the customer reveal one’s mindset first so you can appeal to it without pissing it off, but working class people aren’t capable of doing this. They’re stuck in their own particular mindsets.

The value of being bourgeois is you’re openminded to variety.

I agree. That describes you accurately.

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The top bar is interesting as well because it shows how menial drudgery jobs have been boosted that require little to no education at all.

Those who stick in menial drudgery jobs build a track record in them, so they achieve success compared to “overachievers”.

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Well, over 6 years of experience in at least 6 widely differing environments beg to differ.

Of course experience doesn’t necessarily equate to understanding, but in my case it does. I’m not going to disagree too much with your point about the particular mindedness of the working class, but you assume a wide variety of customers. If the customer base of a particular shop is a highly limited cultural sample, let’s say there are many similar shops all over the country so nobody needs to travel far, and shop location itself doesn’t attract a wide variety of people, then the shop would benefit from particular minded customer service.

You’re right if you’re assuming a shop that attracts people from miles around, and especially so if it’s situated in a cultural melting pot, but I did say my example was specific to a neighbourhood that is decidedly un-bourgeois.

I’m loving that bar chart, SIATD v2. People who apply themselves to a medium to medium-high level of academic education are becoming penalised in terms of income - exactly how I see the education system today. It’s a stupid idea to try and force too many people into academia at the expense of other types of education. You will end up with too many people who’re qualified in what they do averagely, and not in what they do very well. The supply of these academically educated people goes too high, and demand doesn’t match it. And even if it did, most of them would only be of average standard and without the kind of mastery that breeds innovation. “Soldiering” also acts to bring down even the talented to a lower level of effort and achievement.

For many people, leaving academia at a young age means you can specialise in a particular trade and get practical experience instead of wasting your time getting undesirable qualifications for what you’re not very good at. No wonder the “no high school” people are benefiting.

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I’m not talking about culture. I’m talking about psychology. Even in a homogeneous community, you still have a variety of people looking for products to do little nuances in different styles. Take a shoe store. Even if you sell a particular type of shoe for a particular activity, that shoe type still has many brands and models that customize for different techniques.

Working class people are fixated in their own nuance and style. Someone who’s bourgeois grasps the variety of nuances and styles.