Of course a society without welfare would be worse for everyone: That's why we have welfare.
Indeed and one the worse things would be the condition of the working poor. Worse than would be acceptable to the consumers and society on which the businesses depend. Worse than is permissible by laws implemented to eradicate such conditions in the first place. So if the food and retail businesses which employ most MW earners wanted to continue employing, they'd have to start paying toward costs previously covered by welfare. Which of course some couldn't.
But would that society be better off if the minimum-wage employers were eliminated? The former lower paid employees would now be jobless, requiring even more support, and absent a safety net I can't possibly imagine how that could be considered a decent and prosperous society. The argument that it would is based on the notion that all minimum wage employees could be hired at higher level, yet still generate sufficient profit for their employers to stay in business. Sure, some might make it: those who are actually valuable employees, but are for whatever reason not in a position to bargain for better pay, but the ones whose contribution is less than their living costs would now be unemployed.
Whatever argument you're on about isn't one I've made and nothing to do with the comments to which you've appended yours.
Besides, there are plenty of other businesses that would not be viable if welfare were eliminated. For example, businesses who cater to poor people. Cutting costs would mean that the poor would have to tighten their belts even more, which would hurt these businesses and the magrinal ones would become unviable. So if your argument is that minimum wage employers can't operate in such an economy, therefore we should force them to pay a special tax, why shouldn't non-minimum wage companies (like Costco) that would suffer under the same conditions be likewise taxed? Burdening only the minimun-wage employees based on that hypothetical is completely arbitrary.
Had that been my argument, I'd say because their employees require less welfare.
Obviously. But it wasn't my argument. Why not address what I actually said?
Alright, either you or I is missing the point here, so let's step back and I'll summarize the entire argument so far as I've understood it. You can then show me where you think I am misrepresenting you or if I missed some crucial point.
You (not you personally, but also Togo and Underseer and whoever else brought up the same points)
: Minimum-wage employers are corporate moochers, because they are subsidized by welfare.
Me: They are not subsidized by welfare, because the welfare goes to the employee and not the employer.
You: The welfare goes to the employer, because if it weren't for welfare the employees would not be able to sustain themselves and the employer would have to raise wages.
Me: If you imagine a world where there was no welfare, but otherwise all regulations were the same, employers would not have to raise wages because the employees would be more desperate and would accept lower wages. Enough employees would survive by other means (charity, family, working more, compromising quality of living, and sacrificing their health or futures).
You: The hypothetical assumes a world that would not be a decent and prosperous society, so the fact that minimum wage employers could operate there shows that such businesses don't have viable business models in decent societies.
Me: There are also non-minimum wage employers who would be able to prosper in such a society. Basically anyone who caters cheap goods to the poor would get more business if there were more poverty, regardless of what they pay their employees. For example, Costco. Therefore the fact that a company can operate in a non-decent society doesn't tell us anything about how viable their business model is in a decent society.
So the way I see it, I've countered all your arguments so far, and if you climb that ladder of reasoning up back to the original claim, you'd have to conclude that welfare sn't a subsidy and minimum wage employers aren't "moochers".
How the society meets the shortfall is irrelevant to the question.
It
is the question
Maybe they tax the rich. Maybe they tax the poor. Maybe the let the poor die in the gutter. It's the same as considering how society deals with costs of natural disasters: let's say there is a flood, and somebody has to fix the damage. Does that mean that companies who sell supplies to to flood-impacted areas should be forced to do it at a loss, or not at all? Would that be an effective solution for disaster relief? I think not.
..whereas this isn't.
Then you failed to understand the analogy, because the analogy is
precisely about how society might pay for shared costs such as supporting those who can't fully or even partially support themselves.
It's barely tangential to the issue of supporting those who can't support themselves, never mind
"precisely". The issue of those who can't support themselves is itself tangential to the problem, ie production of too little value to support people - however capable - in decent conditions.
The living costs of people (everyone, not just those who can't support themselves) are a cost that the society has to cover somehow. And so is covering costs from acts of nature. Some people can maybe cover their own costs after a disaster, just like some people can cover their own living costs by their own income from employment or investments or whatever. But who do you think should be responsible for disaster relief for people who
can't get by on their own? Say, a person who needs supplies from Home Depot to fix his house after a storm, or a person who needs gasoline for a generator after hurricane took out the power lines. Do you think that Home Depot or Texaco should be forced to sell those guys supplies at a discount or not at all? Is it Home Depot's problem if people didn't have insurance, or buitl their houses next to flooding rivers or wherever?
If you think not, then I don't se what basis you have for forcing analogous costs to be paid by minimum-wage employers, who have nothing to do with the fact that some people's labor is not worth their living costs.
JayJay said:
They are, in the sense that they buy something (scrap metal vs. labor) at a cost that is lower than the cost it took to create or maintain it originally (new car vs. person's living costs). Yes, you are right, the cost and possible losses of a totaled car are borne by someone else than the scrap yard who buys it for pittance, and that's exatly the point: living costs of a person are also borne by someone else, and it's not the responsibility of whoever happens to buy that person's labor., even if it is for a pittance. If the scrap yard in the analogy is not a "moocher" then neither is the minimum-wage employer.
Nah, what I meant was that depreciation in car value
DOESN'T have to be borne by someone else like human living costs do. It's just loss, "written off",
end of, and no one starves when it isn't compensated for. If we accept the equivalence you draw between the value of a new car and the cost of living, there is no depreciation and the scrapyard/employer gets the equivalent of a new car, then does something with it that only generates $100 revenue. That's nonsense in the case of a scrapyard, almost by definition, but not unlike what a below-cost employer does.
We're not talking about getting an equivalent of a new car. The analogy stated that the car is still scrap, but during its lifetime had not generated enough value to cover it's own manufacturing costs (say, due to an accident or a defect or poor maintenance by its owner... the exact reason doesn't matter). This is equivalent of a person who's labor isn't worth what it took to produce that labor
As for costs just being "written off", consider a person who's car
is his livelihood. A small time contractor, or even a wage worker who has to commute a long distance every day. His car gets totalled, and he sudenly doesn't have an income to bring food to the table. Your contention that it's "just a loss, written off, end of, and no one starves" don't really apply now do they? A cost is a cost. Trying to pretend that living costs are somehow different than other costs is special pleading, because all costs have to be paid somehow in the end. If you spend $100 more on a car, you have $100 less for food.
You still haven't said anything as to
why an employee who buys a person's labor below value should be forced to cover that person's living costs, but a scrap yard who buys a person's car below that car's manufacturing and maintenance costs doesn't have such special requirements.
Jayjay said:
Let's say I am able to pay 50% of my own upkeep. So basically what you're saying is that I should be forbidden to take a job that lets me contribute that 50% back to society? Is it really better to have those who can't pull their own weight not be allowed to pull even part of their weight? Where is the sense in that?
No, I'm saying we should incentivise investment away from businesses that only allow people to pay 50% of their upkeep.
It's the same thing: In absence of opportunities to contribute 50%, those people will now be able to pay 0% of their upkeep.
And consider a person who's labor is worth 110% of his living costs, but can't find an employer who would take less than 20% markup, thus leaving him with just 90% and needing 10% supplementary income. Should that employer be disincentivised as well? The total productivity for society would be positive if he was allowed to work, so is it really preferable to force this guy to be jobless?
The employers would not have to pay more. Only if they want the job done so that they can afford to pay more, in which case, the employees could negotiate a higher pay anyway. In real world of course the negotiating positon of the employees is often quite lopsided compared to employers, but that's a separate issue entirely.
If they don't pay someone to get the job done, they're not employers. Employers -people who
do pay to get job done- would, by your latest assertion, have to pay more.
That tautology doesn't negate my point in any way: nothing is forcing employers to continue to be employers if they were forced to pay a higher wage. Only those employers who would
already be willing to pay a higher wage would do so, and the real question is what factors are preventing the workers from negotiating that wage anyway.
As for the first point about covering living costs, that's entirely arbitrary and to some extent even harmful. Let's say you have a small town with a number of viable businesses. One day there is a flood, and the damages need to be paid for somehow. Which businesses should pay for it? The construction companies and carpenters who the town needs to employ to get stuff fixed? Or the coffee shops and restaurants who're brought to a brink of bakruptcy anyway? Or the supermarkets and home depot that now get more customers as people need to resupply and build up their houses? Or maybe, levy a tax to all the companies equally?
Is this a random question or is it supposed to be some kind of analogy?
It's a thought expriment on who should be responsible for paying for costs that aren't caused by anyone in particular. To make it more analogous to human living costs, let's say the town is not a stranger to floods and could have predicted one was going to happen again eventually.
How is it relevant? Production costs typically
aren't caused by anyone in particular. The cost of steel or flour or electricity or whatever is just a brute fact, not caused by anyone in particular. It's incurred by whoever needs the stuff unless it's subsidised. There might be good reasons for the subsidy, which might have nothing to do with some beneficiaries, but that doesn't make them any less a subsidised. The already marginal coffee shops and restaurants in your scenario are not in fact viable if the flood is expected. And if the flood is meant to be equivalent to human living costs, businesses which can't meet them require subsidy.
Living costs of a person aren't caused by anyone in particular either (except maybe that person himself, or his parents). They are just as much a brute fact.