Aside from that, what you don't seem to understand is that even if the research that indicates that higher minimum wages cause a greater degree of unemployment in some contexts is sound, that would not invalidate my arguments that there are oligopsonistic conditions in labor markets that could cause the minimum wage to have no effect on employment whatsoever or to cause an increase in employment. The very nature of such deficiencies as monopsony power renders labor markets heterogenous in nature. However, there is no satisfactory explanation for increases in employment in correlation with increases in the minimum wage that can be derived from the textbook model of the labor market.
Again this shows that economic research is inherently flawed. Minimum wage was not the only variable that changed from before the study and after the study.
I’d never claim that there was no competition. I'm merely saying that monopsonistic and oligopsonistic conditions exist in labor markets in that firms are faced not by infinitely elastic labor supply curves but by upward sloping labor supply curves. If they were faced by infinite elasticity, then the entire workforce would quit when wages were reduced by a cent, which is clearly nonsensical. I certainly belief that market competition in the capitalist economy is far more restricted than it would be in the socialist economy due to factors of concentration, but that isn't pertinent to my point about monopsony power.
So unless the system is perfect, you won't accept it? Besides, capitalism gets better and better with more laborers, more companies, more globalization, and better transfer of information.
Then you'll agree that the rightists who usually attribute the economic success of the West to capitalism and free market principles are incorrect? Personally, it seems to me absurd to claim that capitalism "has never truly existed," given that that claim is necessarily dependent upon a "pure" conception of capitalism that doesn't exist outside of the economic spectrum of the textbook, and practical reality necessitates consideration of actual conditions and the applicability of appropriate labels to those actual conditions. And I'd say that an economy that involves the private ownership of the means of production, the usage of markets as the primary means of resource allocation, and the institution of wage labor is capitalist in nature.
We've been very close to capitalism before, and because we tried to be capitalistic we were successful. But now we've openly rebelled against socialism and instituted many programs that try to redistribute wealth, all the while increasing the real tax burden per person over the years. It's no wonder that we're not nearly as successful as we used to be. We don't have anything now that even resembles capitalism.
I do. But if you hadn’t posted the Murray Rothbard link, I wouldn’t have had to. :shrug:
Rothbard uses logic and deduction, your people use research that almost inherently flawed.
Actually, it serves its purpose, and the response you offer is desperately utopian and assumes perfect information and monitoring in the capitalist firm, conditions that do not exist outside of the textbook.
It is the essence of a successful business. You hire the best. If you don't then a competitor will. Frauds are eventually found out and are fired. But I guess if it doesn't happen immediately then you're not satisfied.
Beyond the stage of the new entries into the labor market simply being naturally overwhelmed is the stage of established firms engaging in unfair business practices such as underselling, which constitutes an exploitation of inequitable and unbalanced conditions of entry that any libertarian should oppose. For instance, this letter of John Stuart Mill makes the point well:
If you're not getting paid enough then the competition would want to undercut the other businesses and pay enough to attract you while still making a profit.
Even more than that, any consistent proponent of legitimately competitive market exchange should oppose the conditions of the capitalist economy. As noted by Vanek, "[t]he capitalist economy is not a true market economy because in western capitalism, as in Soviet state capitalism, there is a tendency towards monopoly. Economic democracy tends toward a competitive market." Since market socialism, for example, is characterized by small, worker-owned and managed enterprises and labor cooperatives, effective market competition can be coordinated while granting effective equality of opportunity to participants.
Monopolization is not inherently bad. Monopoly gotten to by good service and low prices is a great thing. Monopoly gotten to by government intervention is a bad thing. You have to make the distinction.
We can thus directly observe the profit motives of the financial and coordinator classes a whole causing them to resist the implementation of more productive organization schemes, since it would render them marginal or utterly useless, a reality well summarized by Herbert Gintis:
There is no other more productive organization scheme. None.
The fundamental conflict between profit and productivity maximization, and more broadly, between labor and capital, that is bound to exist and flourish in a capitalist economy is again revealed. David Schweickart has of course noted the uselessness of maintaining a financial class whose only purpose it is to hoard and lend capital, and he's also noted that "[f]or middle managers, the incentive to resist participatory schemes is even greater, because such changes often show many middle managers to be redundant. The resistance of middle management to participatory experiments, often bordering on sabotage, is well known and widely documented." We thus observe the lengths to which both powerful classes are willing to go in order to maintain their hegemony.
Hoard capital? You mean you actually believe that tripe? That's one of the easiest fallacies to debunk, but I guess that you already know that and don't because it doesn't meet your preconceived notions about the evil of the upper class.
Besides, the only reason we have a large finance based economy IS BECAUSE OF GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION! It de-emphasized production.