Devyani Khobragade & the stupidity in minimum wage law

The Devyani Khobragade story according american authorities is about upholding the law. I say the law that requires people pay minimum wage is not just dumb, but downright immoral too.


No seller should have a right by law to force a buyer to pay a price that has been set. Meaning sellers have a right to set a price, and buyers in turn have a right to pay or not to, or even pay less if the seller is willing to settle for less. The rights by law must be limited only to the right to sell or buy. Rights mustn't extend beyond to a diktat that determines what prices are set or paid. The act of commerce must take the shape of a voluntary exchange arrived at by the buyer and the seller, where the former accepts what's being sold, and the latter the price being paid.

Minimum wage is a law that tramples on individual rights because it forces people to pay what they may not want to. Though this law pretends to be protecting the rights of workers, what it actually does is put people out of work. Statist-socialists are quick to point to exploitation of workers via sweatshop wages as a reason why a minimum wage law needs to be in place. Truth is, the sweatshop scene is actually a result of the actions of statist-socialist regulations. Regulations are why businesses can't or find it difficult to open, which in turn is why more people can't get jobs, which again in turn is why people are ready to work for a sweatshop pittance. You see, for the sweatshop worker its a choice between a pittance-wage or no wage at all. Pray why is 'no wage at all' the other choice? Simple, the statist-socialist regulators ensure their cronies set up unchallenged monopoly firms that get away with paying their workers pittances, and for the ones who can't get in, its no job, no wages.

Its free markets and competition that can raise wages, not wage laws. Free markets that attract greater levels of investment ensure greater demand for worker services. That pushes worker service prices up. Regulations on the other hand kill investments, leaving a country/place with no jobs and monopoly firms, a perfect recipe for sprouting of sweatshops. In regulated markets people are ready to work for even a square meal. The liberty-hating statist-socialist's answer to such misery is a stupid legislation that does nothing but up the misery.

Wage laws may on the surface seem to help domestic workers, but the risk they run is huge. If legislations up service providers' wages, they turn susceptible to buyers of such services going elsewhere to get those very services at a cheaper rate. Buyers in their quest to lower costs may switch to machines, or even do the work themselves, or reduce the quantum of service they take, and so on.

So iIts time we kicked the minimum wage law out, and of course drop the charges against Devyani.

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