originally posted in:Secular Sevens
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All the talk of raising minimum wage has got me thinking. While, personally, I don't believe that fast food workers should be making $15/hr, I do believe that working full time at minimum wage job should at least put a roof over your head, clothes on your back, and food on your table. The minimum wage should be increasing at the same rate as the cost of living.
The US federal minimum wage is $7.25/hr, which was last adjusted in 2009 - nearly 5 years ago.
People working minimum wage jobs [i]need[/i] those cost of living adjustments.
Letting the free market determine what something is worth is a basic principle of capitalism, yes? If the free market decides that someone flipping burgers is worth $3/hr, that person is screwed. The unfortunate part of this situation is that $3/hr is better than $0/hr, even if $3 wont buy you shit, so people will take those jobs.
Capitalism is inherently emotionless. At what point does one put aside their capitalistic intentions and exhibit compassion in taking care of their workers?
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Also, capitalism isn't inherently emotionless, but being competitive, it rewards people who are. High functioning sociopaths are generally much more likely to succeed in a capitalist state than anyone else, which leads to further exploitation and the basic self interest business model you see in large corporations these days. Why do corporations exploit people? Because the people in charge aren't mentally capable of caring about another other individuals. This generally applies to all money systems, however. Note how the communists and socialists still had money systems and a small group that exploited that. That always comes down to human power structure tendencies. Alpha, or adopted alpha personalities, are just not capable of empathy and always seek power. The only situations in our species, or similar species, in which this doesn't happen is when the dominant alpha personalities are completely removed, and the only people who can then take up leadership are (usually female) empathetic and intelligent individuals that lead to more pro-individual social structures.