I need help defending Libertarianism!!!!

When I was a young man, my grandparents seemed so “well off”. They had nice stuff. A nice house that was paid for, nice cars to drive around and they just had the life. I remember when I was a teenager having a tremendous amount of anxiety about how I was ever going to amount to anything. In the late seventies the economy was down, I couldn’t find a job, I was really down on myself and life just seemed so unfair.

Even when I started working steadily in construction, it seemed I never had enough money to make ends meet. I rented a house along with roommates and barely got by. By the time I’d reached 23, I’d gotten married and we bought a house.

My grandparents came to visit one evening and I learned something that evening. I don’t know why I’d never considered it before. But, as my grandparents walked into my home that night they were astounded. They went on and on about the wonderful house and all the nice things my wife and I had.

Then they began reminiscing about their early years together. They told stories about scrimping and saving to purchase just a single piece of furniture. How when the finally got a refrigerator to replace the “ice box”. How nice carpet really is and you should appreciate it and learn to take care of it properly because some people aren’t so fortunate.

My grandparents went a lot of years without much of anything, except hard work and determination. I never even considered. After they left that night I thought about how my early life was so much easier than theirs. I thought about how they must have looked on in silence while I bitched and complained about my unfair circumstance and thought to themselves “what a little whiny baby kid”.

You know, freedom doesn’t guarantee anything. It gives me the opportunity to make my life whatever I choose it to be. I could choose to live by the rule, say a 40 hour work week, but whose rule is that? Who’s to say 40 hours is a “fair” amount of work? I know a lot of people that work way more than 40. I could choose to believe in the minimum wage and believe I’ll be working for that wage forever, but I won’t, not if I try.

I know I’ve offered no solution to your question. The point is, there is no solution. Liberty and freedom, in and of itself, will not make anyone a comfortable living. But I guarantee you this, the lack of freedom and liberty will make all of us poor.

And welcome to the path to true liberty for everyone.

In the scenario you proposed, the problem solves itself simply. When there are no employees to fill those positions paying wages which are inadequate to live on the employers will need to raise the wage to attract employees. Who'd want to stay in a job that didn't pay the bills? How could that employer attract employees?

You're also thinking in terms of today, where the leech that is government siphons off more than 60, perhaps even 70% of the productive efforts of all of us. Even if wages stayed the same, try to imagine 60% more of what you earn staying where it belongs; in your pocket.

Government is force, and it's time we stopped using force on each other as a way to deal with each other, don't you think?

Sounds cold but, I did it and went to college fulltime. I own my own successful company now and I live fairly comfortably. Had to sacrifice though.

This is a societal problem...People, companys & corporations have learned to exploit the job or profit by working or producing less for the same or more money...Teachers teach a smaller class than in the past ..companys produce less efficiently than in the past & people are in a comfort zone that makes for less productive work force...Everything is out-sourced, which is a sure loss of controlling costs......Government waste is rampent..You cannot control costs when you look to someone else for the effort....
Many a recent corporation I am familiar with tried to be number 1 in a specific field, in exchange for their past diversifications.. GM went from producing a product to just being a sales outlet..Dana got rid of producing products, to selling complete assemblys....They all want the big stuff. but it is the little details that is cost controlable..Costs which are passed on to the consummer who can or cannot afford items that are in or out of cost control.....ALAS, no one is producing for the minimum wage person..As you all know "today" there is no such thing as waste , ONLY STIMULOUS....GET us back to sound money principles..ANYONE can create a job, but does the job produce a profit & have value or are you only adding to the overhead ?
you-no

The devaluation of currency is at the heart of this problem. Government spends money to 'help the poor'. It doesn't have enough money to help the poor AND pay for an expensive military empire, so it prints more money.

The printing of new money steals value from the money in circulation. This is an indirect form of taxation that disproportionately effects the poor. They don't have investment accounts or off shore tax havens.

At the same time, the Fed controls interest rates to keep unemployment high. Every time unemployment goes down, the Fed raises rates to suppress hiring. The Fed and their lackeys in congress define 'full employment' as 4% unemployment. How does zero = 4%?

If we had real full employment, there would be a natural upward pressure on wages. Power would shift between those who own capital and those who labor. Wages would rise.

The minimum wage and the actions of the Fed are a war on the poor and the middle class that keeps power and money in the hands of those with power and money.

This is the reason globalist corporations today have no desire to see a real free market. If we had real money, ended our empire, and stopped manipulating our economic growth, the government wouldn't need to print fiat currency, and all boats would rise.

Suspending for a moment that the cost to "solving" that problem through government is authoritarianism...History demonstrates that there is no other way...

This fact if true only demonstrates the failings of minimum wage. If we had no minimum wage then there would be more employment. This question is not about no one starving in society or even the average or total of "happiness" and "prosperity" in America.

The question asks why the minimum wage policy does not meet its goal. The reason is that the minimum wage is inflationary at best, creates unemployment, and actually suppresses wages by setting an artificial wage standard.

If employers where free to adjust wages to the market, then more people could enter the work force and actually we may find that lower wages (than today’s minimum wages) are rare, temporary, or better tailored to the nature of the job.

I will try to keep it short
50 yrs ago a single earner in a household supported a family with 40 hours of work every week. Since then we have had the technological revolution. Any one who has watched "how its made" or other like programming has seen that what used to take many man-hours to complete is done by machine. Anybody ever see the new farm equipment? A lot more productive then 50 yrs ago. Very cost effective. In the late '60s I believe Life did an article on what were Americans going to do with all there free time in the future? In the sixties it seemed we would pay attention to the government and protest in our free time. This was not acceptable to the NWO. Freedom does not work for them
As you all know with our relationship with money that we live in an illusionary world. I watch as Americans look to the government asking for JOBS. We do not need jobs we need liberty. Theoretically we should have 50% unemployment now. It is an illusion.
The reason 80 hrs of work is needed to support a family now is to pay for the tremendous increase in government since the sixties. Income tax runs as a cancer thru the blood of society Compounding purchase to purchase. We pay farmers not to grow to stabilize prices and people are hungry. They are destroying homes in Calif when we have homeless.
It is not supposed to be like this.
We are living in a Kakistocracy. Our problem is our bloated, corrupt, greedy, politicians in DC that make you pay for their extravagance. And our out of control MIC trying to rule the world.
Where are all the Trekies. Roddenberry had the correct vision of the future. Our technology will save us or enslave us.
It's our choice ..... if we are willing to fight.

"state-wide average cost of rental"

Why should a minimum wage employee be factoring affordability of housing based on the AVERAGE cost to rent in the state? Obviously, at this stage in one's career (I am assuming people are basing their scenario on an individual capable enough to move up, get raises, etc., even if that is done slowly) they should be aiming to live as cheaply as possible within a basic comfort zone. That implies the lower 25th percentile as opposed to the average.

Also, are averages not skewed heavily by the $8,000 - $15,000 per month penthouses?

I want a 25th percentile based on range, not an average. Gotta get the stats right first.

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My liberty-minded home base of thought:

www.ponderthis.net

Or get another job.
Or move to another State, perhaps one which doesn't tax you so steeply, where you can afford food AND rent.
Average should not be construed as minimum.

Plus, the Fed creates high living costs through inflation. Getting rid of these two factors won't eliminate the challenge of living off of low wages, but it certainly will make things easier, not harder. What if every single person living with two bedrooms or more were free to sublet? They are not, in many places. Housing prices would fall dramatically. What if credit were not controlled by a single, all-powerful source? Just imagine how many low cost solutions would be available for "big" problems, such as health care, transportation and energy.

It should be the responsibility of every libertarian to become educated in suppressed technology and boost it. In that manner, we can break the backs of the controllers, who keep us is a continuous state of desperation.

A lot of the answers below me are true. The elephant in the room is that you might need to work 60 hours a week or move.

no minimum wage, no taxes/trust funds.

1. With sound money, the price of rent would stay stable over time--i.e., money wouldn't lose value.

2. With no minimum wage, there would actually be more employment, and the equilibrium point between wages and employment would be achieved.

3. By not participating in Social Security, Medicade, or having to pay Federal Income Tax, the person would have more money to spend on things like rent.

Of course, these are the easy solutions, and thousands, if not millions of parasite jobs would be lost if they were ever implemented, so don't count on sanity to prevail anytime soon.

Are for those just starting out in the work force..or those who work a menial part time job on the side..teenagers who live at home..retired folk who like to get out of the house, etc.. - if someone is past living at home and still earning minimum wage (which I would like to see abolished by the way - the market should set the minimum wage - not the gov), they need to analyze what they are doing wrong, and look at educating themselves, gaining a skill, or moving to a locale that pays high for manual labor (fishing, oilfields, etc..)

If they are too lazy to better themselves and unwilling to move - they can go even cheaper than Mike suggests and move into one of those illegal alien houses with 20 people :)

“Let a man never stir on his road a step without his weapons of war; for unsure is the knowing when need shall arise of a spear on the way without.” - Odin

Well there's a reason living costs are out of control- inflation aside, there is rent control, zoning laws, property tax, and all other sorts of nonsense that artificially raise the cost of living. The government's proposed solution to this problem of living costs that THEY created is minimum wage- but that only ends up unemploying people instead of raising everyone's wages....so then the call comes to raise the minimum wage even further and then continues the job destruction or employers looking towards illegal immigrants to work for them. And the problems go on and on everytime they interfere in the economy.