The Seattle, Washington-based Freedom Socialist Party thinks the federal government should mandate a $20 per hour minimum wage.
This is a group that, earlier this year, also strongly supported the Seattle/Tacoma airport’s wage increase to $15, as well as the city of Seattle’s efforts to do the same.
And they are completely on board with the efforts to raise the minimum wage in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Fransisco, and the state of California itself.
In fact, the group just published an editorial on why the minimum wage should be even higher than what’s being proposed in these various places:
The relief offered by these measures is sorely needed. But for many Californians, the proposed increases won’t be nearly enough… (they are) still pathetically inadequate.
So, you’d expect that when looking to hire folks to help spread the socialist gospel they’d lead by example, right? Wrong.
Take a look at the job listing they recently posted on Craigslist, taking careful note of the highlighted wage they’re offering:
You read that right. They want to pay $13 an hour for a web content manager! Notice also that this is only a part-time job. As both Magazine and All American Blogger point out, this falls well below the average pay for this type of position.
In effect, the socialists are saying “Come work for us and help design marketing material dedicated to mandating a living wage in the name of worker’s rights. Help us get out the ‘Do as we say but not as we do’ message that is so important to us.”
This example perfectly demonstrates the argument against raising the minimum wage or having any sort of wage floor at all: an employment contract between two parties which is freely agreed upon is beneficial to both. Government insistence on a higher amount restrains economic freedom and harms the marketplace.
Nonetheless, the rejoinder from this is that if there were no capitalism at all, we’d miraculously have this wonderful utopia with no economic constraints at all.
Everyone would just want to work for the joy of serving the “community” (in reality, the state) and there’d be no need for disparate wages. So get back to scrubbing the toilets, comrade. Or are you no longer content to work in this worker’s paradise?
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