So what are the current arguments for/against raising the minimum wage in burgerland...

If you work in a job where wages are sufficiently low that raising the minimum wage that much, the odds are that Mexiblubbers are a bigger downward pressure on your earnings than the minimum wage. Who cares what the minimum wage is when you can pay Paco 1.50 an hour?

What you want are strong labor unions in different sectors, as opposed to a national minimum wage, like in Nordic countries. It is a start, at least.

Do you mean pay a mexican immigrant below minimum wage? If that were the case then it's certainly not a negative against raising the min since it would have no net effect.

Let's just raise the wages to exactly what is produced for jobs that that can be determined. So let's say I am a chef. I make a meal worth $20. That should be my wage.

Impossible, the capitalist needs surplus value which is partly why you work, and there are taxes in one way or the other.

This is not a proposal that'll fly under capitalism

Yes.

In theory, you incur some amount of risk in hiring illegal immigrants, because you might have to pay fines and so on, they might get deported so that worker training is a sunk cost, etc., and they may or may not be better workers than natives. So it can still be cheaper to hire natives depending on how high the minimum wage is.

Absolutely stupid. Unless of course you paid for the ingredients, place of business, utilities, etc.

I'm not talking about a circumstantial application, but in general. Let's apply it and observe the results. I don't care who it is utilized under.
Let's say I am employed in a company. The meals I prepare cost exactly what I earn. So everything will look like a plateau, forever. Apply this and provide empirical evidence in support.

Then I think you're better off arguing against wages as a concept. Try to explain expropriation of labor in simple terms, like someone who makes burgers makes a lot more burgers on their shift than they could buy with the money they're paid for that shift.

What if the workers are the real job creators?

Then you're self-employed.

So then the concept is based entirely on postulation and not on actual application of the theories.

What about the oversaturation of the job market since many people have to work multiple jobs at minimum wage and under higher wage would work only one?

Also, I don't really live in an area anywhere close to the mexican border so I'm less familiar with what happens under those circumstances but I don't believe their involvement in the national economy can be generalized to all industries. Mostly concentrated to 2 or 3

I don't think I'm going to introduce the concept of abolition of wages as a concept at a local politics debate

They're all around the US, dude. Anyway, they're concentrated in low-paying industries, and we're in a thread about the minimum wage.

if the cost of living goes up such that you now have to work 2 minimum wage jobs, it was all for nothing, no?

Anyway, I think in the US, the main issues for improving the working class well-being in the short-term are:

1. Getting the healthcare cost problem under control
2. Getting the housing cost issue under control
3. Getting the college cost issue under control
4. The Mexican immigration problem

I have no idea how to do 1., but 2. can be addressed with getting rid of land use rules (California is extremely degenerate here), 3. can be done by forcing colleges to cut administrative budgets and budgets for grievance studies, and 4. can be done with tighter labor laws.

To be clear: I don't expect a revolution to happen in the near future, and I think it's likely that it won't succeed until sufficient tech infrastructure exists to support large-scale automation of most labor, so I don't see much value in trying to create the USSA - it will just reproduce state capitalism like every other ML revolution.

Thanks, actually a helpful answer. One thing I'm still stuck on is

Since I was arguing that people who work 2 jobs now to make ends meet would afterwards work just 1 while you seem to imply that going to higher min wage means you'll work more jobs. I'm not sure how that follows?

In regards to point 1. how do you feel about the current statewide health initiative in your state?

Scratch that I misread. All studies I've seen have not shown linear increases in living standards as wage increases so the 2 → still 2 jobs does not follow. Generally what will happen is fewer jobs occupied by the same number of people because businesses will just cut the jobs they deem not worth hiring under min wage for, but many of those people will be cut to just 1 job instead of being cut to 0. Profit margins will be minimally affected so price increases on good will not be high enough to inflate cost of living to the degree you're hypothesizing.

I live in Massachusetts, so it's about as good as one is going to get in the US, but I have insurance through my job at the moment. Masshealth is basically Obamacare at the state level, I think. To be a little racist: We don't have a large number of ethnic minorities who are, on average, cost centers for the welfare state, and the economy is fairly good, and we have a big biotech/pharma industry, relatively low obesity for the US, etc. so it's affordable.

I really have no idea what the fuck to do about the US health care issue. There are a number of problems. First, like with any form of welfare in America, ethnic minorities, especially illegal immigrants, can be expected to use government services at a high rate, which will cost a lot of money and piss off the voting population. Then there is the fucking abortion shit, where a good portion of the electorate will not support any state-run health care program if it has abortion funding and the like. Then there is the AMA cartel, who ensures that doctors earn way more than they need to by restricting the supply of labor available (it works, who would have thought…) Then there is the issue of pharma testing, where the USG basically guarantees profit for pharma companies, who then proceed to abuse their patents by, for instance, changing their compound to an isomer and patenting it for another 10 years.

I actually think doing away with patents and having an Apollo program for drugs along with a State-run healthcare service could be a good idea, combined with abolition of patents, but I doubt it will ever happen without worldwide initiative due to no one wanting to be the first mover. There are certainly a lot of drugs that might not be profitable, but still important (see: antibiotics)

To me, the big issue is that healthcare, housing, and education costs are going up very rapidly, even while costs for stuff like food are decreasing.

I forgot to add that it would be good to have taxes on fattening drinks like sodas and a fat tax like Japan. Mike Bloomberg was right on this one. Just think of how much more money has to be spent on health care because of all the fat people.

Massachusetts is still >80% white, so that might be what you mean when you're talking about "racism".

It's 75% non-hispanic white, though the Democratic party is trying their hardest to bring us more Mexicans. What I mean is that on average blacks and hispanics are cost centers for welfare, but most other immigrant groups are not (because of selective immigration, it works). Like, do you see anyone complaining about Dr. Chang or Rajesh the software engineer from India? Not really (aside from H1B abuse with Indian firms), because they pay into the system more than they take out. States can't print their own money, so you do have to care about the budget to some extent.

t. someone who hasn't been to a fucking farm on the west coast

Hispanics are money makers for capitalists. That's literally the only reason that the dems "care" about them.

At what cost? If the purpose of immigration is to establish a mutualistic relationship between both nations, then both nations must benefit from the relationship for the definition to hold true. In what way is the displacement of American labour (being undercut by foreign labourers) beneficial to the citizenry of the nation and in what way is the brain drain of the best and brightest (that could potentially alleviate, or even reverse, the ruin that caused the need to emigrate from the nation in the first place) minds beneficial to the citizenry of the secondary nations?

Oh sorry your reference to California made me think you lived there. I know there is a large single payer campaign being run there atm

Did you even read the post? You can earn a farm-owner a lot of money, earn terrible wages, and still use public services.

Human capital allocation. For example, if Ali from Iran has the ability to make significant scientific advancements, his abilities can be put to better use in a country with actually-existing scientific institutions, as opposed to getting executed for blasphemous facebook postings (I'm probably exaggerating a bit about Iran here, but you get the idea).

Doctors are an obvious example. The AMA is a cartel that restricts the supply of labor available so that doctors earn their 300k salaries, which greatly increases everyone's healthcare costs. If we could bring in qualified doctors from other countries, we could get healthcare costs down, but many doctors would not be happy about it.

On the other hand, the problem with third-world immigration is the reverse - it locally improves the welfare of the migrants while draining the welfare state, causing a racist backlash and instability (see Europe's neo-Hijra). To give an example: Mexican immigration benefitted the migrants, but now we have an orange retard for a President who is gutting the NIH and actively trying to burn as much coal as he can to please West Virginian coal miners.

I think that preserving scientific institutions in Western/Asian countries is important if we are to achieve automated Communism at some point in the future, so decisions should be made with this in mind - due to the lack of actually-existing similar institutions in the global South.

Then it is not a mutualist relationship. It is beneficial to the individual, but not the nation he just emigrated from.
The point I am getting at is to realize why the nation was in such ruin to begin with (to necessitate migration) and why you'd take away valuable outliers?
Of course, there is always competition that the citizenry will vote to disallow, much like other protectionist policies. It is logical if you're the citizenry, until it bites your wallet.
Not mutualist. I don't think the point is racist if you have just outlined the cause/origin of the rejection. It is not based on some superstition or illogical belief if third-world migrants, on average, consume from the welfare state's teat at high rates. It would be illogical, and racist, if they had no purpose.
Which are no longer associated with Mexico. And even if they were to come over and allocate funds, going back to Mexico would just highlight the "revolving door" that is trying to be avoided.

Hi Mr.Capitalist, tell me why the based entrepreneur is the owner of the workers labor?

I'm surprised no one has brought up a universal medication program similar to New Zealand. That would lower drug costs quite drastically.

Then make it illegal to raise prices after a minimum wage hike, or better yet make it a law that companies can't make over % profit. A pill costs 5 cents to make? Can't charge more than 10 cents for it.