Want to easily kick some progressive ass, in a debate? Debate them on the minimum wage!

[ClayTrainor]

I think the minimum wage argument is an effective one to debate with progressives and liberals, especially when there are observers witnessing the debate. It's an extremely easy topic to back them into a corner on, once you grasp the basic logic of it.

All you need to do is just give them a practical example, and ask them to explain the effects. For example...

If a business makes $50 profit / hour, and the minimum wage is $10, they can effectively afford to hire 5 employees. If the minimum wage gets raised to $11, how many people can the business afford to hire?

So far, every progressive i've presented this argument to responds in 1 of 2 ways.

1. They get angry, and go into attack mode. (I assume from cognitive dissonance)

2. They try to end the debate with something like "we'll have to agree to disagree", and often post a link to some academic literature that supposedly debunks my argument and supports theirs.

I've never once had them actually address the problem, because the answer is so obvious, and it directly challenges the very core beliefs of a progressive. It's very easy for any casual observer to tell who is making a realistic argument and who is not.

Anyways, lately i've really enjoyed bringing up this topic around progressives. It's very easy to smash them on it, and expose them as emotionally charged economic illitarates.

Anyone else find the minimum wage to be an effective topic to debate progressives on?

 

[MRoCkEd]

I actually debated my professor and classmates on minimum wage the other day. The prof. said history disproved my theory, Haha. Others seemed to admit it causes unemployment, but insisted it still made people better off overall.

 

[I Don't Vote]

I would say, why are the politicians so cheap? Why not make minimum wage $20/hr?

 

[roho76]

If a business makes $50 profit / hour, and the minimum wage is $10, they can effectively afford to hire 5 employees. If the minimum wage gets raised to $11, how many people can the business afford to hire?

Six. Because the evil rich owner is hoarding all the money and needs to pay his fair share. Next. Fucking amateurs.

 

[low preference guy]

I actually debated my professor and classmates on minimum wage the other day. The prof. said history disproved my theory, Haha. Others seemed to admit it causes unemployment, but insisted it still made people better off overall.

Did you say "do you disagree that it makes it illegal to hire a person whose productivity is less than the minimum wage"? I wonder how he would answer that.

 

[MRoCkEd]

I asked if it was moral to tell a person who wants to work under minimum wage that he may not.

 

[pcosmar]

I asked if it was moral to tell a person who wants to work under minimum wage that he may not.

Heck, I've been making that offer to potential employers.
still no job.

 

[pcosmar]

I would say, why are the politicians so cheap? Why not make minimum wage $20/hr?

The politicians are not the business owners and employers. It is none of their business.

 

[I Don't Vote]

the politicians are not the business owners and employers. It is none of their business.

huh?

 

[ClayTrainor]

The politicians are not the business owners and employers. It is none of their business.

A good way to demonstrate this to the progressives may be to show them the site fiverr.com and ask them if the government should step in and force the website to become tenner.com. Haven't tried this one yet, but I look forward to seeing how they respond.

 

[ItsTime]

Easy, they can hire a total of 17 because they received a $187/hr bailout from the government and now make $61/hr profit.

 

[low preference guy]

I asked if it was moral to tell a person who wants to work under minimum wage that he may not.

Do you not tell us their answer because it was too ridiculous?

 

[I Don't Vote]

Walter Williams made a great point in QUITE a few of his articles that the majority of the people that receive minimum wage are teenagers and minorities with little to no skills. Teenagers would benefit because most of them don't need to earn a "living wage". They might just want some pocket change and they gain job experience even though they are working low wage jobs. People with little to no skills at least have a chance to enter the labor market and gain experience to demand higher wages in the future and maybe even have a chance to work their way up. Minimum wage laws destroy those opportunities however little we may view these jobs.

My first job paid $7/hr. If current minimum wage laws in my state existed 10 years ago, I might have never gotten hired.

 

[MN Patriot]

Anyways, lately i've really enjoyed bringing up this topic around progressives. It's very easy to smash them on it, and expose them as emotionally charged economic illiterates.

Great description of leftists. I've just about worn out "envious, spiteful malcontents". Gonna start using "emotionally charged economic illiterates" for a while now.

 

[Teaser Rate]

Actually, an educated supporter of the minimum wage will point out that the demand curve for low-skilled labor is very inelastic and placing a floor on it won’t significantly raise the unemployment rate.

If you have trouble arguing that point, which you will if you don’t have the empirical work to refute it, then the argument becomes one about equity vs liberty in which both sides agree that they have different core values.

Of course, debating the minimum wage with its supporters is usually like shooting fish in a barrel because most of them are economically illiterate on the subject, but that isn't really saying anything about the policy itself; after all I could make the same observation about most supporters of the gold standard.

 

[outspoken]

You can't have a rational debate with a progressive because the basis of their argument at it's core is all emotion based. Their still in denial that government cannot save us from ourselves.

 

[ClayTrainor]

Actually, an educated supporter of the minimum wage will point out that the demand curve for low-skilled labor is very inelastic and placing a floor on it won’t significantly raise the unemployment rate.

If you have trouble arguing that point, which you will if you don’t have the empirical work to refute it, then the argument becomes one about equity vs liberty in which both sides agree that they have different core values.

I haven't encountered this yet, probably because i've just been debating average joe progressives, not academic ones.

However, I don't think it's hard to effectively respond to that without empirical data.

I would challenge the very notion that they are putting a "floor" on wages, and assert that this "floor" is actually a hurdle for the unemployed.

I would then ask this "educated supporter" to answer the question in my example or show me how the example is flawed, rather than let him go off on this tangent.

Of course, debating the minimum wage with its supporters is usually like shooting fish in a barrel because most of them are economically illiterate on the subject, but that isn't really saying anything about the policy itself; after all I could make the same observation about most supporters of the gold standard.

Fair point.

 

[low preference guy]

Of course, debating the minimum wage with its supporters is usually like shooting fish in a barrel because most of them are economically illiterate on the subject, but that isn't really saying anything about the policy itself; after all I could make the same observation about most supporters of the gold standard.

Haha. So according to you Ron Paul and Mises are economic illiterates and if you talk to them you waste your time? LOL. Thanks for destroying your own credibility.

 

[Golding]

I'm surprised if no one countered by using a hypothetical where minimum wage doesn't exist, and (in their minds) workers are inadequately paid. I find it unlikely that you'll find many people who are willing to label themselves as "liberal" or "progressive" that will listen to the business' perspective of an argument. To them, it's the business' fault for wanting to make a profit over wanting to hire people (rather than have them not be mutually exclusive), and it's capitalism's fault for somehow fostering that atmosphere... though a government's enforcement of minimum wage is not a capitalistic reality. Such details are lost on some people.

On many issues nowadays, I've noticed the angry response and/or "agree to disagree", along with the occasional "I'm not qualified enough to know the answer, and neither are you". The latter frequently amusing me whenever discussing economics or scientific studies. I think that those heavily loyal to the Democrat party, these days, are finding themselves with little left to defend themselves. They've established themselves as anti-Bush for over a decade now, and currently have to justify many of the same policies they used to rage against. They know how familiar their own current counterarguments sound - they used to hear it from the other side not too long ago.

 

[ClayTrainor]

Haha. So according to you Ron Paul and Mises are economic illiterates and if you talk with them you waste your time? LOL. Thanks for destroying your own credibility.

I interpreted him as saying that most supporters of a particular political or economic policy aren't really economically literate. I dont see how what he said was an attack on mises or Ron Paul?