Bleeding Edge

Is the minimum wage in America today too minimum for people to be able to live on?

This question ravages the brain cells of some of the brightest minds in America and methinks that we ought to solve it soonest by looking at the negative externalities the inequity of labor compensation creates for all of us, when the overburdened social services have to pick up the cost of sustaining the workers at the bottom of the pyramid.

So why should the taxpayers of our country, many of whom are struggling economically as a result of the pandemic, be subsidizing the starvation wages being paid at some of the largest and most profitable corporations in America?

Maybe it’s time that we shift our attention and we end the taxpayer-funded subsidization for the uber-wealthy corporations of this country.

And I am saying this because after a serious syllogism — I’ve arrived at the conclusion that the working people of America deserve to be paid a living wage of at least $15 an hour. Everywhere and always. Period.

That is not only the dictare of a moral economy but it is also the dictum of a moral society.

Moral Economy is an Economic Model for our future that reduces inequality within our economic systems because each product or service’s price is tied directly to the cost of that product or service — which is reflected as either the hard costs of creation and maintenance of the product, or in the total budget for providing the ongoing service.

While this does not totally eliminate the effect of intermediation on the cost (and therefore price) of something — it does address each touch point of markup at the outset, adjusting for it and including it as a line item in the total cost of the market offer.

We think about these things because late stage capitalism faces headwinds from systemically endemic issues that are not going away without serious adjustments…

From the often invisible yet the ravaging effects of negative externalities, to the inequity inherent in limited investment opportunities for everyday people, to the US tax structure that makes it more expensive to be poor than rich, it is clear that the capitalist model as it has stood for the last century has many fissures that show themselves at scale.

The current global economic system operates within a traditional model of supply & demand based economics.

It is well understood that within this model the price of a market offer is determined by supply and demand.

Rising disgruntlement amidst the working classes is one historically repeated and often feared result of economic inequality, and the band aids for staving it off are losing their adhesion.

These issues make it clear that cost based economic models create access for the masses and have a place in future capitalist economies that could be based on a far more moral relative scale of returns for all within society…

Yours,

Dr Churchill

PS:

Food for thought…