"Income Inequality"...

Here's an alternative theory by way of elimination:

California Legalizes the Sale of Food Made At Home, Creates Over A Thousand Jobs.

Maybe what's weakening the middle class is burdensome bureaucracy; from the above example alone we can see that when bureaucratic barriers to success are removed, success arises. (If you'll pardon the pun.)

I'm asking what, in your opinion, has weakened and continues to weaken the middle class. You point to the concentration of wealth. I'm asking you to make the logical connection between the latter as the cause and the former as the effect. Don't treat it as a given, because it isn't one. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that you should treat the latter itself as an effect and see if you can determine the cause of that effect.

I wonder who was behind making it agains the law to sell home maded foods in the first place.

Legislators, presumably.

If what you're leading to is the argument that government interferance caused the wealth gap, then I'm not going to argue against that. Do I need to remind you who it is that has the government firmly in their hip pocket?

I'm thinking lobbyists.

In my opinion, you're right on the money with lobbyists, although the culpability is equally shared by a government so corrupted that lobbyists are able to exert the influence they do. Not to mention where many, if not most, of those lobbyists come from in the first place, which is the government itself.

Anyway, this is interesting and I'll come back to it after a bit. I have a two-part review/comparison to write up before I call the day's work done. 2,000 words, nothing huge, should be back by nine or so.

Yeah, but who do you think is paying the lobbyists?

Asimov also supported this notion. And in one of his F&SF essays wrote that the full employment society was the wrong goal--we should be working toward the full unemployment society. Chardman

I support his full unemployment goal and wish to subscribe to his newletter! BTW I shall call it "funemployment".
And I'm totally onboard with Mr. Fuller believing it should not take work to justify my existance. If anything work is cramping my style!

Amazing. Apart from Castle's posts, this thread consists exclusively of {/thread}-posts.

Nobody has said people with different skill-sets should receive the same income, and neither have I, nor do I believe that. But just for fun, can you come up with an ethical (! -- not economic, not pragmatic) argument to say that people with different skillsets should receive different incomes?

The old country doctors were paid with chickens, and potatoes, and pies.

That's what I was saying in the other thread. Communism hinges on the belief that income inequality is a bad thing. That's why Obama keeps bringing is up to scare us all into leftist ideology.

Please, demonstrate why "the rich get richer, the poor get poorer", is a good thing.

Walk me through it.

With your dizzying intellect, it should be a snap.

Shouldn't have backed NAFTA. You don't give away middle class jobs if you care about income inequality.

If I could have voted in '92, I would have gone Perot.
He was a fucking prophet when it came to NAFTA.

For anyone interested in the actual history of ideas, let me just point out again that while you can oppose restrictions on income inequality as well as Communism, none of the ideas ascribed to Communism in these two posts actually apply to it.

Even though it was mostly predicated on hatred of the brown man.

NAFTA, or Perot's hatred of it?

That assumes that this is actually happening. So what if the rich get richer? I think Castle has nailed down why the poor are in the situation they are in, it's government that has done this.

Society has. From fire to robots, we've been on a direction to constantly consuming and existing more efficiently as a species (not the same as using resources more efficiently I might add).

...and I'm done taking you seriously.

I don't think the ethical foundation for a price floor has been given, namely as there isn't one really. Sure, there are a raft of ethical reasons for helping those lower on the rungs of the social ladder, but a minimum wage is a very cack-handed and unfair way of achieving it.

Firstly it concertinas lower-level jobs into a single stratum - scrubbing the toilets is not on a par with data entry, for example, although both frequently involve dealing with shit...

Secondly, it breaks the supply/demand/skill balance to find an accurate value for that work, so inflating the value of some work and either inflating surrounding jobs or reducing their relative value.

And thirdly, most importantly, where you have freedom of movement between nations it creates an artificial barrier to youth employment. Why risk X on an untrained youth when you can risk X on someone with experience from abroad? Or, realistically, X+bit more, but if the cost is a bit more for significantly better odds, you take it. That builds up endemic youth unemployment (as we're seeing) which will eventually convert itself into a massive skills shortage in the future, a shortage unlikely to be filled by natives, causing further issues with how you pay to support a nation with native unemployment in the 40% region. That is catalyst for disaster.

Rather see a UBI, that way you can bin the minimum wage, employment can find it's market value and youth can start off on low wages and build experience in order to improve their career, all the while no one is being forced to the gutter on economic grounds.

Don't really give a fuck.

Another bit on this is the old social contract. Now I used to loathe the phrase, but I've grown to realise it's not the concept or the phrase itself, but that many of those who waft it about in righteous umbrage are pretty hot on the rights bit - especially when it's gimme, gimme, gimme - but are dead set against the responsibility aspects.

Do those who are nett beneficiaries of the state, especially those not in employment but capable, have any responsibility? Even if it's just helping a neighbour out, brushing the leaves away?

Those of who help fund the state keep getting told there are strings attached to all the tangible benefits we get from having a state and society, what about those who are supported by the state? Do they not have any strings attached to that? More, given they're benefiting more and have more free time.

@ecky:

I don't necessarily favor a minimum wage as the only approach. But at the moment, that's a step that is politically feasible. And as long as we don't raise it above a certain point (probably no more than .6 or.7 of median) it will help without counter balancing harm.

Did they pay their way through college and medical school with chickens, potatoes and pies? That would be cool! I bet in Cuba they do.

There's no ethical argument for minimizing exploitation?

"income inequality is too great" is not the same claim as "there should be no income inequality at all"

That said, if you want an ethical grounding (this is not necessarily my view, nor necessarily one i oppose - but it is one i recognize as a reasonable thesis) there's this:

Governments are instituted among men in large part to redress grievances among parties in dispute, including but not limited to the protection of natural rights. These range from contract disputes, to disputes between states, to divorce law - you name it. implicit in the role of being the arbiter in these disputes is that the government's role is to ensure, inasmuch as is possible, a fair and just outcome (at least in theory).

Therefore, if it can be demonstrated that an employer is paying an unjustly low wage to the employees thereby unfairly enriching themselves at the expense of exploiting another man's labor - it can be concluded that the government has a role in redressing that injustice.