Episode 35. A Political Argument
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Show Notes
This one went straight off topic. It started out as a rant but quickly became a debate about things as far ranging as the minimum wage, personal responsibility, and what Scott calls a culture of entitlement.
Minimum Wage
- Scott’s position was that raising the minimum wage when people currently aren’t doing their job wasn’t going to solve anything.
- Mike’s position was that the role of a minimum wage isn’t to support people who don’t need it; it’s to ensure that those who do need it (because they need to support themselves, and potentially a child, and potentially they need to do so in an area with a high cost of living) aren’t left out.
- Mike acknowledged that small businesses do find it hard to pay workers above a certain threshold, but to him that’s about there being a lack of infrastructure and a lack of help for smaller businesses who are just getting started, while larger corporations benefit insanely from economies of scale, yet tend to pay disproportionately fewer taxes.
- Kevin agrees that the minimum wage should be raised.
Mike’s Liberal Mindset
- Scott wanted to “challenge Mike on his liberal mindset.”
- Mike acknowledged he is totally a bleeding heart liberal.
- Mike doesn’t think all corporations are by definition evil, but the problem is that, currently, society is such that they’re allowed to be evil.
- Scott thinks we have an entitlement culture, based on his experiences with service industries. Mike’s response was, sure, plenty of people are terrible at their jobs… but that happens at all levels of society, and it is not an argument against dealing with the insane amounts of wealth inequality in North America.
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I generally agree with Scott. I’m the opposite of Mike, I’m against enforced minimum wage (but not against efficient ways of raising wages). I believe in the principles of anarchism, which is simply a consequence of the consistent application of the libertarian non aggression principle, so that sort of automatically pits me against nearly anything Mike has suggested i.e. “tax those at the top” as if taking money off of those at the top and giving it to the ‘bottom’ improves society.
The money will eventually be ‘re’-redistributed and the rich will be rich and the poor will be poor; but the living conditions of the poor improve as a result of those at the top wanting to profit, who profit by producing goods and services that the ‘poor’ want.
Mike used the favourite socialist example of Scandinavian countries. Much of the good in those countries are a result of free market policies, not socialism, so Mike is actually arguing against himself. When you look at a country like Sweden for example, what you have to keep in mind is that its socialist policies were introduced on top of a free market foundation, in other words, on a bedrock of wealth; Sweden’s growth in GDP was one of the fastest in the world between 1870-1950 under a relatively free economy. It wasn’t socialist policies that caused Sweden’s success. They came after.
Nordic nations have lower taxes in important areas, such as corporate taxes which are lower than the USA’s. So they have more freedoms and free trade in important areas. Far from a socialist paradise. These countries rank high in ease of doing business in terms of regulation and bureaucracy. So once again, not a socialist model.
Also look at the frequency of wars that Switzerland and Sweden participated in. Extremely low. Far less military expenditure. Switzerland is one of the most free market countries in the world when all factors are combined. It’s only behind Hong Kong, Singapore and New Zealand: http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking
So if they’re socialist, why do they rank so high in economic freedom?
Over 40% of their GDP is debt, and they’re running on the momentum of their past economic success when the economy was more free.
wow – great insights and comments Tim – thanks for your input