I2: Abolish the minimum wage

Despite being well paid for their labor, computer programmers compete with minimum-wage workers. So too does anyone who creates a machine that automates or partially automates a task requiring low-skill labor. For example, tractors and combines destroyed what would now otherwise be millions of low-paying, back-breaking jobs on farms, and self-checkout and online retail eliminate low-skill cashier jobs at stores.

Opponents of the minimum wage say that the minimum wage makes low-skill workers artificially expensive, thereby decreasing the number of low-skill jobs. The other way to say this is that the minimum wage makes automation artificially cheap, thereby encouraging businesses to invest in machinery to do our drudgery.

None of the four debaters in the recent Intelligence Squared debate “Abolish the Minimum Wage” addressed this relationship between wage rates and technological innovation. Instead, both sides argued the usual points we’ve all heard elsewhere. According to the for side, the minimum wage distorts markets by increasing prices and destroying jobs. According to the against side, the evidence doesn’t support the for side’s theory of markets, and morally we would be wrong to allow millions of impoverished people to sink further into poverty.

Even ignoring the technological consequences, I agree with the moral argument and believe it’s wrong to allow markets carte blanch to determine people’s material worth. However, many people believe free markets increase prosperity for everyone—eventually—and to such people the moral argument is on their side—i.e., it’s wrong to hinder markets. Economics being the modern world’s religion, neither side can disprove the other, and this stalemate makes the technological argument stronger. Absent winning arguments on either side, let’s at least invent cool new stuff.

Unsubstantiated political opinions

My would-be votes concerning a few ideas for constitutional amendments mentioned in this article in the latest New Yorker:

no	Term limits on members of Congress
no	Limit federal spending and taxes
no	Allow three-fifths of the states to overrule any federal legislation
yes	Repeal the 17th Amendment
no	Half the Justices on the Supreme Court be selected by the current method of Presidential appointment and the other half by a vote of the fifty state governors
no	Allow Congress, by a two-thirds vote of both houses, to override Supreme Court decisions
no	Eliminate federal income tax
yes	Prohibit the imposition of unfunded mandates on the states
no	Allow half of the states, provided they represent half of the national population, to rescind any federal law.
no	Freedom of speech and press includes any contribution to political campaigns or to candidates for public office
no	Right to education
no	Repeal the 2nd Amendment
yes	Allow legislators to regulate campaign contributions and expenditures

Presidential Election 2012

In fifteen days We the People of the United States will vote to elect our National Hood Ornament for the next four years. Today's blog post constitutes, I hope, my only direct political commentary about that upcoming election.

I don't care who you vote for. I don't care whether you vote based on an informed decision or an uninformed decision. But I would like to convince you to vote for the candidate whom you would most like to see win, regardless of whether that candidate hails from one of the two major political parties or else is a third-party candidate who has no chance of winning.

The core of my argument is that you have no good reason not to vote for a third-party candidate, should you feel inclined to do so. Don't be afraid of throwing your vote away. By voting for either Mr. Romney or President Obama, you're also throwing your vote away, so you may as well vote for the candidate you think best represents you.

As to why you'll be throwing your vote away regardless of whom you vote for, that's revealed by a moment's consideration: your vote will not be a tie-breaking vote. You won't tip a majority of the country's electoral college one way or the other. You won't be as Kevin Costner was in the movie Swing Vote. Your vote won't matter, at least not in the sense that voting for one candidate is worthwhile and voting for another candidate is a waste. These are probabilistic facts made certain if you reside in a non-swing state, as most Just Enough Craig readers do.

So vote for whom you like. And keep in mind that though We the People don't choose which two political parties sit atop the ballot and receive ample free coverage in the news, we do influence which issues the two major parties talk about and which they ignore and do nothing about. Despite all the bitter disagreement between the Republicans and the Democrats, those parties agree more than they disagree, and every vote that is thrown away on a third party gives more incentive to both the Republicans and Democrats to do something about those ignored issues in order to capture a third party's votes.

It's an election of percentage points. Don't be a captive constituent.