Any company with such a lousy business model that it requires paying less than a livable wage, or expects the government to subsidize its workers, should be taken apart and allow room for more responsible and efficient businesses to replace it. Worshiping such companies as “job creators” and vilifying their employees for not making proper life choices, or being born the wrong color, is a sure sign of a corrupted government, which also should be replaced.
If left to their own devices, both capitalism and socialism will become short-sighted predators that devour their own markets. However, capitalists enjoy the option of being able to withdraw from any social contract and utilize compound interest to wait out labor, which only has the option of appealing to the higher authority of government for its defense or violent revolt.
One way of leveling the playing field would be to eliminate Treasury debt that serves as the basis of that interest. It is not a funding source for government spending as is assumed and mostly only serves as welfare for banks and the wealthy. Another would be to make any influence of government illegal for corporations, since simply being incorporated is a contract with the people’s government requiring placing the best interest of society foremost in exchange for reduced personal and shareholder liability.
A much more effective method of setting wage minimums would be for the government to become the employer of last resort that pays a livable wage and provides benefits necessary to allow dignity to all workers. If such employment was available at the choice of workers it would set the floor for private sector employers while also providing them with a stable of workers with their social and job skills intact across business cycles.
This would require a general rethinking of the role of taxes and government spending more in alignment with reality than the “pay-for” mentality now applied to both. The primary function of taxes has always been to drive acceptance of the currency the government denominates its taxes in and can create at will to provision itself. It effectively creates a condition of unemployment in the economy until the tax burden can be satisfied which serves to draw resources and labor into the economy structured around the government’s currency.
The government then “must” spend in excess of what it collects to allow for storing value in commerce and retiring private debt as well as funding population and economic growth. Given that one cannot collect what doesn’t yet exist, taxes (and borrowing) can never serve to “fund” spending. Its target for that spending should always be full employment as its responsibility to the people. If there is unemployment the government is taxing too much, or not spending enough. If there is excessive inflation the opposite is true.
A federally funded job guarantee would also provide the automatic stabilizer needed countercyclical to the business cycle and would preserve supply chains much better than simply giving people money when they are rejected by the private sector employers. Any function that provides a benefit to society could be considered a job and be compensated for, including retraining those who are displaced by technology. This pegs the economy to the hour of work/labor which is anti-inflationary while also assuring communities of available labor to enhance quality of life.
