04-09-2010, 03:17 PM
I think what's funny about this whole argument is that Anna's original point that started all this, I think, was that baseball players are paid what owners will pay them and that's based on the economy and what fans will spend to support the product. Yet baseball is one of the best examples of the power of the worker, of the union, to have a say and control over wages. Players got paid shit until they unionized, there simply wasn't much motivation for the owners to pay. I mean today there is a minimum salary for god's sake in MLB, what do you think a minimum wage is??
The minimum wage in the US is not unlike what the players union provides in baseball, the belief is that the whole working class, as represented by representative government, can have some small say in minimum standards that the free market can not insure. I agree totally that you have to strike that balance fairly, that either side (owners and workers) can go too far. But the notion that we can just let the "owners" dictate wages on their own isn't an American concept, and neither is a fully free market. America has always been a wonderful blend of different economic and social concepts, people need to realize that it's not one way and one way only and it never has been.
The minimum wage in the US is not unlike what the players union provides in baseball, the belief is that the whole working class, as represented by representative government, can have some small say in minimum standards that the free market can not insure. I agree totally that you have to strike that balance fairly, that either side (owners and workers) can go too far. But the notion that we can just let the "owners" dictate wages on their own isn't an American concept, and neither is a fully free market. America has always been a wonderful blend of different economic and social concepts, people need to realize that it's not one way and one way only and it never has been.