Dominoes - Pay a little more

[SpontaneousOrder]

And what do all those people earning £2.50/hr do when this isn't enough to cover the cost of rent and food? I suppose if they work 16 hours a day it'd be OK so there's no problem!

How does a 40 hour week @£2.50 compare to a week's dole money?

The real question is, though, if you (assuming that you like the idea of minimum wage) think it's morally virtuous to make sure that those in need have some kind of minimum standard of living, then why aren't you willing to fund it yourself?

When you have to force others like myself who don't consent - because you don't want to give up as much as would be required if you were to do it all yourself - then your standard of virtue looks a little hollow.

I completely think that there is always a time & place for charity, but charity by definition is voluntary.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

How does a 40 hour week @£2.50 compare to a week's dole money?

The real question is, though, if you (assuming that you like the idea of minimum wage) think it's morally virtuous to make sure that those in need have some kind of minimum standard of living, then why aren't you willing to fund it yourself?

When you have to force others like myself who don't consent - because you don't want to give up as much as would be required if you were to do it all yourself - then your standard of virtue looks a little hollow.

I completely think that there is always a time & place for charity, but charity by definition is voluntary.

You keep leaping about between your political idealogy (free markets and charity) and the practical (where can I get a gardener for £2.50 an hour or less).

No mainstream party at present proposes the abolition of all social security provision and its replacement by charity, so the argument is a little hollow in itself as we live in a Western democracy that has some degree of consensus on that. As a purely theoretical point it's well made, but it's hardly relevant to Britain in the 21st Century.

Similarly, the point about it not being a free market is true but doesn't add much value - and we all know "free" markets in the sense of unfettered Capitalism pretty soon become distorted by anti-competitive practises.

The plain truth is, if that geezer from Dominos wants more workers, he could try putting up the wages a bit - I don't have access to their books, but they aren't exactly struggling......

[d000hg]

How does a 40 hour week @£2.50 compare to a week's dole money?

What has that got to do with anything? Housing benefit is the big deal not JSA.

The real question is, though, if you (assuming that you like the idea of minimum wage) think it's morally virtuous to make sure that those in need have some kind of minimum standard of living, then why aren't you willing to fund it yourself?

When you have to force others like myself who don't consent - because you don't want to give up as much as would be required if you were to do it all yourself - then your standard of virtue looks a little hollow.

I completely think that there is always a time & place for charity, but charity by definition is voluntary.

I think the point is the government reckon it's better they should step in to stop people being uncaring swine who would happily let others starve, i.e. Mr Scrooge "are there no prisons?" We've done that already in our history and apparently it's more civilised to force you to support education and healthcare for everyone regardless if you want to. Countries where poverty is used as an incentive to take any work lead to sweatshops and so on, because those people choose to work in those conditions rather than starve.

If you think government shouldn't interfere to that extent, you'll have to emigrate because no mainstream parties in the UK agree with you (even BNP/UKIP).

[Old Greg]

How does a 40 hour week @£2.50 compare to a week's dole money?

The real question is, though, if you (assuming that you like the idea of minimum wage) think it's morally virtuous to make sure that those in need have some kind of minimum standard of living, then why aren't you willing to fund it yourself?

When you have to force others like myself who don't consent - because you don't want to give up as much as would be required if you were to do it all yourself - then your standard of virtue looks a little hollow.

I completely think that there is always a time & place for charity, but charity by definition is voluntary.

Shall we fund the UK's nuclear deterrent by charity as well? I don't agree with it and the money is taken without my consent. But that's democracy for you. On balance, it's not too bad.

But by all means move to Somalia if you prefer.

[Mich the Tester]

How does a 40 hour week @£2.50 compare to a week's dole money?

The real question is, though, if you (assuming that you like the idea of minimum wage) think it's morally virtuous to make sure that those in need have some kind of minimum standard of living, then why aren't you willing to fund it yourself?

When you have to force others like myself who don't consent - because you don't want to give up as much as would be required if you were to do it all yourself - then your standard of virtue looks a little hollow.

I completely think that there is always a time & place for charity, but charity by definition is voluntary.

You're proggy. You're rumbled.

[Mich the Tester]

What has that got to do with anything? Housing benefit is the big deal not JSA.

I think the point is the government reckon it's better they should step in to stop people being uncaring swine who would happily let others starve, i.e. Mr Scrooge "are there no prisons?" We've done that already in our history and apparently it's more civilised to force you to support education and healthcare for everyone regardless if you want to. Countries where poverty is used as an incentive to take any work lead to sweatshops and so on, because those people choose to work in those conditions rather than starve.

If you think government shouldn't interfere to that extent, you'll have to emigrate because no mainstream parties in the UK agree with you (even BNP/UKIP).

Shall we fund the UK's nuclear deterrent by charity as well? I don't agree with it and the money is taken without my consent. But that's democracy for you. On balance, it's not too bad.

But by all means move to Somalia if you prefer.

You must spread reputation etc. Old Greg, doogie

[SpontaneousOrder]

You keep leaping about between your political idealogy (free markets and charity) and the practical (where can I get a gardener for £2.50 an hour or less).

It's tough, because all I'm actually concerned about is principle - that is (in this case), that enforcing a minimum wage is heinously immoral because it requires the mob to initiate violent force against a peaceful minority in order to force them to comply. Most people who have some decency & moral conviction hidden inside them need some gentle teasing into finding it, hence needing (maybe) to include some practical benefits in order to make the leap appear less daunting. So you're entirely correct in spotting that the two have little to do with one another.

No mainstream party at present proposes the abolition of all social security provision and its replacement by charity, so the argument is a little hollow in itself as we live in a Western democracy that has some degree of consensus on that. As a purely theoretical point it's well made, but it's hardly relevant to Britain in the 21st Century.

I think that it's most relevant precisely for the reason which you think that it's not relevant. We (as a collective ) have gone so far down the collectivist rabbit hole that for 99% of people it's completely impossible to discern truth from ideology, hence the almost ubiquitous belief in positive 'human rights' (such as a right to a minimum wage) as opposed to the true (negative) human rights, which are all derivatives of 1 single right - that men must be free from the coercion of other men. The former are self-contradictory because every positive right involves the violation of some other right (and presumably for the word 'right' to have any meaning it must be apply universally and consistently?), while negative rights don't have that problem.
So you're right again, single reforms taken in isolation make little sense in terms of results, but that doesn't mean that the principle isn't true.
I'd identify myself as an AnarchoCapitalist, or more typically a 'voluntarist' which makes it easier to speak to people with skewed ideas about what anarchy is, but I tend not to bother mentioning that because it provokes a predictable response from most people, who typically have never given the topic more than 10 minutes thought.
Economics, on the other hand, is fairly straight forward for anyone who cares to study the basics and it can be proven, objectively, that almost every single government policy to help the poor, or the economy, etc has the opposite effect. When people accept that politicians don't have their best interests at heart (or at least when they do that they're not aware enough to understand that they can't possibly outperform a free market in action) in certain regards then they will begin to see the flaws/evil in pretty much every government policy.
So yeah, you're right insofar as changing one thing might not help much on it's own is concerned. But the response to a floater in the toilet shouldn't be to piss in the sink so it matches - it should be to flush the toilet.
With a clean toilet bowl the OP's post would be moot, because there would no longer be any reason not to have completely open borders.
I suspect that we're mainly in disagreement (in a very general context - possibly ignoring the whole anarchy thing) because I've not been clear with regards to the scope of the context within which my original comments were made (for reasons i've just mentioned)... BUT

Similarly, the point about it not being a free market is true but doesn't add much value - and we all know "free" markets in the sense of unfettered Capitalism pretty soon become distorted by anti-competitive practises.

I don't agree with this at all. We've never had a truly free market (at least apart from perhaps a couple of very short episodes which were cut short by civil war in Spain, for example) and as such we've never had a population of people who embraced and understood the principles of, and the responsibilities involved in living in a free society. "unfettered" capitalism means no forced regulation, which creates a barrier to entry for smaller potential competitors. No compulsion for the populace to participate in a state controlled financial system, where fiat currency can be created or destroyed at a whim - again offering a barrier to entry for smaller competitors who cannot afford the risk of investing in an artificially manipulated market. Those are only two, but two things almost always overlooked when talking about a supposedly 'free' market.

In a truly free society it would be incredibly unlikely for anything other than a natural monopoly to emerge. And should such a natural monopoly choose to lower quality/increase prices/behave unethically then an opportunity would emerge for a potential competitor. The market is overwhelmingly more cooperative than it is competitive, even now, and it's only violence/fraud and the mob's acceptance of it as 'a necessary evil' which has any power to stop Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' (not that he was a real free-market guy ) from seeing that scarce resources with alternative uses are allocated as efficiently as possible according to the subjective needs and wants of the billions of participants in the market.


This probably all sounds a bit off topic given the context of the OP's original post. But the issue I have is that we all spend so much time debating/arguing over ridiculous, childish problems of our own creation which are inevitable because they are the result of people's unwillingness to accept reality, and the consequently doomed policies based on ignorance and an almost religious disregard for reason in favour of faith. tulip policies built on a foundation of tulip policies, built on fairytales.

[Mich the Tester]

Bla...
This probably all sounds a bit too long to bother with

ftfy

[SpontaneousOrder]

What has that got to do with anything? Housing benefit is the big deal not JSA.

I think the point is the government reckon it's better they should step in to stop people being uncaring swine who would happily let others starve, i.e. Mr Scrooge "are there no prisons?" We've done that already in our history and apparently it's more civilised to force you to support education and healthcare for everyone regardless if you want to.

You've completely dodged the question there. The question is that if you (presumably a majority) feel that it's a moral obligation, then why do you feel the need to use violent force to make others participate? If it's a moral obligation shouldn't you be giving up an extra 10 percent of your income rather than stealing it from people who think that you're wrong? Do you not think that doing so undermines your apparent virtue?

Countries where poverty is used as an incentive to take any work lead to sweatshops and so on, because those people choose to work in those conditions rather than starve.

Those 'sweatshops' are essential to the wellbeing of the people in those developing countries. Buying products manufactured in sweatshops is a good thing. Only factories that are making a profit will attract capital investment. That capital investment leads to better machinery, training, etc which increases productivity which ultimately leads to more jobs (so less people scavenging rubbish dumps) and increased wages. It happened in this country, and if we can get over ourselves and let these guys get on with it, it'll happen there too should their governments let it. Africa is one of the (maybe the?) richest continents in terms of natural resources, yet this natural wealth is not exploited because, as well as instability, the stigma attached to sweatshops. There are people dying decades earlier than need be because westerners naively judge sweatshops as being a bad thing.

[xoggoth]

Totally agree. Modern lefties who support immigration have a funny idea of socialism. Surely they should believe that, as a country becomes wealthier, that wealth should be shared with the working man in the form of decent wages and conditions, not that he should be undercut so bosses can boost their profits.