Sorry Politicians, Jobs Can't Be Stolen [AND THERE'S NO 'MINIMUM WAGE']

Pittsburgh Tribune ^ | Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2016, 2:51 p.m. | Donald J. Boudreaux

[expat_panama]

Tyranny's misleading phrases

In an 1822 tract titled “Tyranny Unmasked,” Virginian John Taylor (1753-1824) observed that “Tyranny is wonderfully ingenious in the art of inventing specious phrases to spread over its nefarious designs.” Indeed. Here are two especially misleading phrases that today's opponents of free markets regularly use to mask the ugly reality of their policies.

• “Minimum wage.” By legislating... ...the real minimum wage is $0 — the amount earned by workers who, because of the minimum wage, can't find jobs.

• “Elect me and I'll stop foreigners from stealing our jobs.” This boast — issued by politicians from across the political spectrum — is especially devious. The reason is plain: Because no worker owns a job, jobs can't be stolen.

If you disbelieve me, ask yourself if Amazon owns the right to have you spend in 2017 at least the same amount of money shopping at that website as you spent there in 2016...

...Jobs arise from contracts for services. Each worker agrees to give his or her time and effort to an employer in return for pay. Neither the worker nor the employer owns any right to the indefinite continuation of the arrangement.

The bottom line is that, unless you believe that merchants have rights to your and other consumers' incomes, you do not really believe that workers have rights to jobs. It follows that jobs cannot be stolen.

[expat_panama]

Somehow I can't get around the fact that the belief of state control over where I buy and whom I hire --is Marxism.

[cba123]

Sure they can, and have been in the millions.

Both parties have supported this.

Fortunately we have a new president elect, who will finally, once again support American jobs.

[Vendome]

If you disbelieve me, ask yourself if Amazon owns the right to have you spend in 2017 at least the same amount of money shopping at that website as you spent there in 2016.

Oh but, the givernment can mandate I spend money on a product I don’t want.

Irony....

[cdcdawg]

The word “stolen” is a pretty obvious straw man. No, the jobs aren’t owned, so they are not “stolen” in a criminal sense. Powerful incentives have been created by government to send those jobs overseas. This has been done on purpose by the same people who have opened the borders. Those people have internalized the savings from cheap labor, and externalized the mammoth coats. Maybe he could focus on those issues a bit for his next column.

[TheNext]

Fallacy: Each worker agrees to give his effort ...

Workers are coerced into accepting trash money in exchange for honest real labor.

Free trade is not free and is not trade.

[Sirius Lee]

...Jobs arise from contracts for services. Each worker agrees to give his or her time and effort to an employer in return for pay. Neither the worker nor the employer owns any right to the indefinite continuation of the arrangement.

Except for health insurance companies. We are all have an involuntary arrangement to labor on behalf of insurance companies. (Well, except for congresscritters and muzz slimes)

[central_va]

It is totally unreasonable to expect totally unfettered economic freedom across global borders. Actually the Constitution provides(codifies) for tariffs and duties on commerce between the USA and the rest of the world.

There is free and unfettered commerce between the states as regulated by the feds. All 50 states have to follow the same federal commerce regulations.

There is NOTHING in the Constitution providing for economic freedom across international borders, the opposite is true.

[odawg]

“Because no worker owns a job, jobs can’t be stolen.”

Really?

Can a job be lost? Yes. Can a job be taken? Yes.

Can someone jerk the rug out from under a fellow employee and get his job? Yes.

Can a job be stolen? Yes.

He is one of these idiots that seeks to define any concept into oblivion and thinks he is brilliant.

[Soul of the South]

“There is free and unfettered commerce between the states as regulated by the feds. All 50 states have to follow the same federal commerce regulations. “

For years California has gotten away with regulating products imported into the state from other states. California has more stringent vehicle pollution control requirements a new automobile brought into the state from Michigan must meet. California has strict requirements on the chemicals used in products and requires labeling on products not required by the federal government.

[Alberta's Child]

I’m not sure what you mean by “state control over where I buy and whom I hire.” What exactly does this mean in the context of the article you posted here?

[Rockingham]

Jobs can indeed be stolen, and it is usually as a result of government policy in some way. For example, when China depreciates their currency value against the dollar and protects their internal market -- with US government acquiescence no less -- they make Chinese exports to the US cheaper and gain market share at the expense of US businesses and workers. When Obama and environmentalists shut down a petroleum pipeline that is under construction, surely it can be said with accuracy and justice that the jobs of the construction workers on the project have been taken from them. And when US immigration law is flouted with federal government complicity, the resulting flood of cheap labor from illegals does indeed take jobs from US workers.

The alternative view in the article assumes that but for foolish and illegitimate US domestic laws, we would live in a world of frictionless free markets in which citizenship, nationality, nation states, cultures, race, language, and faith do not matter and goods and services and people would move about freely and efficiently. Of course, although cash is said by economists to be fungible, people are not. America's national cohesion and the interests of the country and its people matter and are not just fit but are essential considerations for public policy.

For direct political appeals to the American public, the most potent way to raise such issues is to talk of jobs and national greatness and avoid stating considerations of American national interest in ways that can be derided as based on race. Indeed, polling shows that most Black Americans get the point that immigrants from Latin America and other parts of the world now have many jobs that they used to fill.

Thus Trump's call for jobs, his visit to inner city Detroit, and sympathetic remarks about conditions in the inner cities made small but politically significant inroads with Black voters. Indeed, slams of Trump as racist for his comments about illegal immigrant Mexican rapists probably raised his net standing with Blacks, while Trump's general call to make America great again also resonated with many patriotic Black Americans.

Call me a nationalist, but I see policies aimed at bettering America and its citizens as essential to our prosperity and even to our survival as a free society. Indeed, I put America first, even at the expense of mere economic efficiency.

[expat_panama]

Jobs can indeed be stolen...   ...I put America first, even at the expense of mere economic efficiency.

This is the idea that when I create a job by hiring someone, that other people say "you didn't build that" and it was never my job but rather it's now an "American" job.  Same when I create a purchase by deciding to buy something and the gov't decides it's their purchase and they get to say what, where, and how expensive my purchases should be.

If those guys aren't Marxists then they'll sure do fine until a real Marxist comes along...

[I want the USA back]

The government has no right to set a minimum or maximum hourly pay rate. (not “minimum wage”).

[CodeToad]

Minimum wage isn’t what must be paid, it is a restriction on allowing any job worth less than minimum wage from being performed.

[Robert DeLong]

Along comes the government and investigates you for your hiring practices and finds you guilty of not hiring enough diversity. So they then mandate that you hire more minorities, and since you have been found guilty of discriminatory practices you will be required to place these minorities into management positions. Thus the person you had slated to move into management now has that position stolen from him.

You seem to exhibit a pattern of buying into fake leftists arguments consistently. Why is that?

[expat_panama]

Your post linked to my #12 reply to Rockingham’s #11 post. The first part of your comment seemed to agree w/ me that gov’t controlled markets are bad, and then in the second part you kind of said I was wrong anyway. That’s probably not how you wanted your comment written.

[Robert DeLong]

Or perhaps it was the way you wrote yours.

[Rockingham]

So, if one is not globalist and libertarian, then one must be a Marxist? Yet we live in a world defined by nation states and the common interests and loyalties of their citizens. In a self-governing country, politics must ultimately be grounded in those considerations.

[expat_panama]

...a restriction on allowing any job worth less than minimum wage from being performed...

Exactly, that min. wage laws don't require raising anyone's wages, they only make it illegal to hire anyone whose labor's not worth as much.   Some how I get the impression that you and I are the only two people in the world (or else where for that matter) who understand this.

[CodeToad]

Love to take credit, but Rush Limbaugh stated many times a long time ago that minimum wage isn’t what a company must pay you, it is ALL they have to pay you. He went on to explain that minimum wage is a jobs killer since anything worth less is not allowed to be performed.