Minimum Wage, Maximum Benefit

The struggle for increasing the minimum wage is about redistributing wealth. The rest is smoke and mirrors.

Why does corporate America preface the argument for increasing the minimum wage as an “assault on profits?” Fiscally speaking, raising the minimum wage is good government policy, if one views the role of governance as benefitting the most with costing the least.

So what’s the beef?

The ‘beef’ is that corporate America eschews good government policy. It’s not simply an argument lodged against “the other:” the combined bogeys of labor, socialism, and leftie hoards coming to steal your treasure. It’s an argument for scaling back beneficence in an effort to sustain power accruing to the rich. It’s an argument to counter the attempt to redistribute wealth, of sustaining as Robert Reich (1) gingerly explains, “the common good.”

The ‘common good’ pitted against corporate wealth-slash-power. Call a spade a spade. And America, the climate suffering globe is waiting for you to start governing. The collective “we“ is running out of time, albeit patience.

March 3

1- Reich, Robert, “The Common Good,” originally published February, 2018