> Date: Sat, 12 Oct 1996 11:05:27 -0500 > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Doug Henwood) > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: will the bosses pay $10? > I don't know if the end of racism would mean the end of capitalism; I'm > eager to hear arguments on both sides of that issue. I do know that the $10 > minimum wage - assuming it weren't hyperinflated away - would a stake in > the dear system's heart. It's irresponsible to advocate something without > some awareness of its likely consequences. Or do you prefer to tell the > masses one thing and the party inner circle another? > > Doug Well, Doug, now that you mention it, I'm against telling the masses anything. With their mistakes in their spontaneous self-activity being infinitely more fruitful than our clever plans, they've already got a leg up on us. ;) Seriously, though, if I could be convinced that, as a matter of scientific fact, raising the minimum wage to $10 would definitely make "the system" collapse, then I would have to agree with you. But I could never be convinced of such a thing, because I regard such a statement to be fundamentally unknowable and unprovable. First, because "the system" is an abstraction whose boundaries are fuzzy and whose real manifestation is always evolving, and second, because the future is fundamentally unpredictable. Those profiting from the current arrangements are poor judges of what they can adapt to, partly because they have a tremendous incentive to lie. The doctors' boycott against the introduction of government health insurance in Sasketchuan provides one of many examples. I certainly agree that it would be a major change, with many unforseen consequences. Fast food restaurants might disappear, for example. Other products and services might disappear. But anytime you purchased anything produced where the minimum was in effect, you'd know that everyone who had a hand in producing it got paid a living wage. ----- Robert Naiman 1821 W. Cullerton Chicago Il 60608-2716 (h) 312-421-1776 Urban Planning and Policy (M/C 348) 1007 W. Harrison Room 1180 Chicago, Il 60607-7137 (o) 312-996-2126 (voice mail) [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://icarus.uic.edu/~rnaima1/
