Who owns the jobs that are created by a business and its owner? Is it the worker or the business? If it is the business, then essentially you are saying that the owner of that business has NO RIGHT to negotiate what he is willing to pay to have a certain job performed.
If you think the worker owns the job, you just may be a socialist/commie. They own their own labor, but not the capital spent or the infrastructure built to create the means for doing the job.
We do agree on one thing, many of the same people who advocate the minimum wage are the same people who make it necessary by continuing to import low skilled or third world labor from other countries via legal and illegal immigration, thereby depressing the market for wages.
I am a free-marketeer and business friendly. However, some businesses and their owners tick me off to no end. The other day, I saw an ad for a Sales Manager position posted. It REQUIRED a MBA. It’s pay? $15.74 an hour. The owner of that business will then whine about how they cannot find qualified workers and ask for more immigration to “fill the gap”.
No. I am not saying he can not negotiate. BUT, he can not negotiate lower than a livable point for the worker. If that freedom in a business is inviolate or something, then there is nothing wrong with Mexicans crossing the borders and working for $5 per hour. BUT, as a society, we know that is not good for us as a whole. Similarly, it is not good for employers to pay so little that their workers are on food stamps, getting housing subsidies, medical subsidies, and/or just not working at all and sponging off the rest of us. The thing about a minimum wage is, that it levels the playing field responsible employers and the low-ball boys who could care less about the damage they do.