[PEN-L:30361] RE: Re: raising min wage

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

Title: RE: [PEN-L:30345] Re: raising min wage

Social disorder may encourage the rise of a socialist movement and/or a welfare state what Lisa calls "concessions"), but it also may involve fascist-type movements, not just among those in corporate or state power, but among the "masses." In the late 1920s and early 1930s in Germany, for example, the Nazis gained support not only among the business-types willing to finance the movement, but among "lumpen" elements (the jobless poor), the white-collar middle class, and (after they lost their jobs) some of the blue-collar workers who had backed the Social Democrats or the Communists. Similarly, Mussolini's fascism involved a flaking off of some of the working-class movement.

(Of course, class is only one dimension.)

------------------------
Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lisa Stolarski [mailto:lisa.stolarski@xxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2002 10:37 AM
> To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [PEN-L:30345] Re: raising min wage
>
>
>
> How about this.  Marx is right about many things and this is
> one of them: as
> the rich get richer and fewer in number and the poor get poorer and
> constitute almost everybody, what you have is a recipe for
> extreme social
> unrest.  Moral and humanitarian arguments aside, this situation is
> expensive--to spend millions on security and beating people
> up every time
> the World Bank meets?!? And this waste is expressed in
> countless other ways
> as well. Polarization of the classes necessarily moves the
> state and now the
> stateless rogue capitalists toward fascism, this is the only
> way to put down
> such civil unrest without concessions.  We even see this
> trend emerging in
> the US. Keysne did not invent the welfare state simply
> because he was a nice
> guy, the social safety net was an insurance policy for
> capitalism that it
> would not push the world to the brink of class war.
> Structural adjustments
> such as raising inflation without raising the wage are a
> breach of that
> insurance policy.  Capitalism is racing a Farari on a short
> pier these days
> and State Farm has closed it's offices. See you all in the river.
>
> Lisa S.
>
> "Fascism should rightly be called corporatism, as it is a
> merger of state
> and corporate power."
>                          - Benito Mussolini
>
>
> on 09/18/2002 12:37 PM, Forstater, Mathew at
> forstaterm@xxxxxxxx wrote:
>
> > I'm trying to collect a list of arguments for raising the
> minimum wage,
> > especially those that apply in 'developing' nation
> contexts.  Fairness,
> > equity, social justice arguments and/or efficiency/economic/macro
> > arguments are all fine.  Do people know of any good articles, books,
> > websites that catalogue these arguments?  Also, I'd be
> interested in any
> > newer or less well known arguments people may have. (send on or off
> > list--I'll collect the ones I get off list and submit them
> at the end).
> > Also I'd be interested in counter-arguments to the usual arguments
> > against raising minimum wages. Thanks, Mat
> >
>