General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPiecemeal socialism is a clumsy thing
I think the minimum wage should be $15/hr.
I also think there should be no minimum wage at all.
It depends on how big a picture we are talking about.
Similarly, I think that all businesses should provide health insurance, while believing even more strongly that no business should provide health insurance.
Again... are we talking about how to sew parts on the Frankenstein we've got, or talking about what a comprehensive system should look like?
All single-payer advocates want to relieve business of the burden of providing employee health coverage. Why should your health coverage be tied to employment? Unemployed people get sick too.
In the minimum wage instance, I think there should be a guaranteed minimum standard of living from the government. I think businesses should be allowed to run themselves pretty freely to maximize the power of capitalism to generate efficient profits to be taxed to pay for the government-provided basic health care and minimum standard of living.
Whatever wage someone can get in addition to their minimum standard of living is between employee and employer. Since nobody would have homlessness and starvation hanging over their head, worker bargaining power would be greater. But since the need for wages would be reduced it wouldn't bother me if desirable jobs got bid down to a low level in a marketplace where nobody starves either way.
The government ordering businesses to do government's job is a rather unwholesome form of socialism that does not provide sufficient services while being a hassle for business.
I favor STRONG government tax-and-welfare socialism combined with a relatively laissez-faire approach to business operations. The private sector has to produce enough wealth to pay the taxes needed to provide for the state-provided basic standard of living and that is what they are good at. So aside from safety and environment and human rights, let them do what seems best... as long as they pay their taxeswhich would be huge.
I think this is the best solution but, unfortunately, I don't think it can come to be through evolution... through incremental changes.
C'est la vie.
el_bryanto
(11,804 posts)But I suppose it might not be possible at all.
Bryant
cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)pro-capitalism tends to go hand-in-hand with weak government welfare
strong government welfare tends to go hand-in-hand with a very regulatory state and planned economy
One unoccupied corner is laissez-faire-but-high-tax socialism, which probably maximizes what business and government are best at, respectively. (Hence its intellectual, but impractical, appeal to me)
The other corner is hardest to imagine because who would want it?a government that provides no service to the people while being incredibly restrictive of business.
Gorp
(716 posts)I'm sorry, but that's true. My second job (1982) paid $7.00/hr ($14K/yr) and that was high by that year's standards, but it still wasn't enough. I can't believe the minimum wage is still under $8/hr. That's just fucked up on too many levels. Food, rent/mortgage, utilities, what's left? You can't even order a pizza after that.
But NOOOOOOOoooooo (best Belushi voice), we can't tax the rich a little more. They might have to dig into their Camen Islands accounts!
There really is a point where you've got too much money. It apparently hasn't occurred to the majority of the uber-rich, but that point does exist. If you can't spend it all in 10 years, even if you tried, that's too much. They just don't spend it. They don't create jobs. They don't stimulate the economy. They just hoard it like a cat lady with 500 felines in a one-bedroom apartment. The Koch brothers don't have the potential to comprehend real life. They've never lived in it. We do.
We do.