The thing is, Americans take freedom of speech and the press very seriously. Or, at least, we should.

There's a vital reason they're enshrined in the very first Amendment. Right behind freedom of religion. These principles are much more serious than libel and slander. We should be extremely wary of anything that threatens them.

The really sad thing is that corporations donating money for political ads is considered protected free speech. Just more proof of who owns 'our' government.

I'm not claiming that libel/slander are good things. Or even that they aren't serious. Just that this sets the precedent that anyone without the 'proper' credentials can now be suppressed. Say, anyone who questions the official 9/11 story, or criticizes the reasons for going back into Iraq, or points out skeletons in a politician's closet...the potential for abuse here is pretty much limitless.

I'm not going to do your research for you <G>, and I'm not sure I believe a minimum wage is "worthless."

It's a really long topic for discussion. But the basic overview (AIUI) runs along these lines:

A worker's own self-interest keeps the boss from royally fucking him. If he isn't satisfied with how much he's getting paid, he's free to get another job. If no one else is willing to work at that rate, then the boss has to make a better offer.

The idea behind strikes and unions is very closely tied into this. If you have useless dangerous jobs that you could train a chimp to do, and feel like it would be worth $1 an hour to have a human do it instead, that worker really does not have any bargaining power. If all your valuable skilled workers go on strike to get him some safety equipment, it's a lot more likely to happen.

With no minimum wage, if you have three cushy jobs that are worth $3 an hour to your business, you could hire some unskilled teenagers to do them at that rate. They get cushy jobs and start gaining experience in the work force (which is a really important thing to keep in mind). With minimum wage, you have to hire one person to do all 3 jobs, which makes them a lot less cushy and destroys two jobs.

That "gaining experience in the work force" is a really important factor to consider. In a lot of ways, we're still in the middle of the worst economic disaster since the Depression. We have a lot of kids in their mid-20s who are living at home and have never had a job. The entry-level ones they should have worked in high school are filled with people in their mid-30s or 40s who are desperately trying to support families. This kind of long-term unemployment is disastrous for many aspects of their lives. If they could get some job, any job, for $2 an hour...I suspect most would turn their nose up at the chance. But I'm sure some would jump at it.

In my mind, that's kind of where the argument loses at least a little steam. With no minimum wage, the bosses could fire the middle-age people and easily replace them with eager younglings for, say, 1/3 the price. But, if they're willing to do the work for less, shouldn't that option be available to them? I mean, this seems like basic "supply/demand" and "right to make your own decisions about how you spend your time" to me.

In a lot of ways, that ties in with the idea that illegals "steal" American jobs because they work for so little, undercutting minimum wage. There may be some truth to this. I don't really know what (if anything) it says about the minimum wage discussion. OTOH, I've worked for a few people who strongly preferred hiring illegals. Not because they're cheaper (we got paid the same) but because they work so much harder.

Personally, I think minimum wage is, at best, a band-aid on a much bigger problem. We get focused on questions like it and ignore the more fundamental questions. (Whatever they may be).

I know this isn't the answer you're looking for. But hopefully it's a little more useful than Arlet's.

That last part is really the misconception that underlies one of the core truths of our culture. The idea that those things should be locked up and dribbled out in exchange for work.

If that changes, so will pretty much everything else about our reality. Personally, I think this would be a really Good Thing.

Historically speaking, abundance-style cultures like smbell is talking about are much happier all around. They're still human, so of course those problems are still present. But they're much less prevalent. Because their people are so much happier the ones in scarcity-driven cultures like ours.

How many "primitive" cultures have we run across who voluntarily embraced our way of life?

Redistribution is just another word for theft.

Imagine a society in which there aren't any "poor", because everyone has free and open access to the resources that matter (food, most importantly). There'd probably still be the rich, because of the originally mentioned tendency of some to accumulate junk they don't need, but, really, who cares?

I think the industrial revolution is really just the tip of this sort of iceberg. _Cradle to Cradle_ has a very interesting perspective on it.

Personally, I think your "solution" is pretty much exactly the wrong direction. Until we get to the GP's "Sci-Fi Paradise", central planning and collectivism are inevitably doomed. I'd like to see basic life-style guarantees (not income. But, say, food, clothing, and shelter) for everyone, but I don't know whether that's actually a realistic expectation. Or even a worthwhile goal. If there's an unlimited food supply, we have to start talking about population control, which turns into a very ugly conversation very quickly.

I just don't believe that government should be involved in charity. I guess it would be all right if contributions were completely voluntary, but then we could have a private non-profit organization (or, even better, organizations) handle it all instead.

You might find Daniel Quinn extremely worthwhile reading. He has a very interesting explanation for why we're so good at screwing things up.

That explanation might be totally wrong, but it makes a lot of sense to me. Going from your post, I think _My Ishmael_ would be the best place to start. Assuming my recommendation is enough to convince you to find a copy and give it a shot, of course.

Crap. How could I have left out this part?

All hail Discordia!

Now I'm really feeling like a scratched record.

I suspect you'd benefit from reading Daniel Quinn. He's done a lot of thinking along these lines, and he's at least optimistic about the possibilities.

He may also be completely full of it. I still haven't decided. But his perspective is interesting.

As I wrote to Cragen: population follows food supply.

It's a basic, fundamental natural law. Pretty much the entire foundation of "the problem" is that humans believe we're somehow immune to it.

It's a really ugly thing to have to contemplate.

We see people starving. We have extra food. So we share it with them, because we care. Their population grows in response. Now they have more starving people. And, hey, this year we produced more spare food to share.

This has been going on for around 10,000 years now. It's one of the core concepts of our culture. Almost like water to a fish.

I don't have a clue what could be humanely done about it. But it isn't going to get solved if no one even realizes it.

Assuming my explanation holds water. I could be totally out in left field.