The latter is impossible to answer since "low wage" is relative, much like if everyone had millions of $ for every $ they owned, the currency would simply devalue.
That said, in a nation full of skilled, competent workers, the nation would be more productive overall (more "fruits" to go around), and more competitive abroad - so it's not a zero-sum game in that sense.
> waitresses, warehouse workers
I couldn't care less if waitressing disappeared, I prefer self-serve places; what value is lost?
If no-one wanted to be paid low wages to work in warehouses, either a) warehouse worker wages would go up, or b) an alternative solution would be found, or c) the business is no longer viable and collapses.
> can be blackmailed into doing the bad jobs
and even the people with good jobs probably wouldn't work if they weren't paid. In that sense are they blackmailed too?
> If nobody could be forced to take shitty jobs, how would most of the current industries exist?
By paying more for those jobs, or replacing them. Alternatively, by those industries not existing.
Do you think most industry cannot exist but for the subsidy of paying low wage
Can you give me an example of a healthy industry were the most critical workers are low paid?
This is what we should push for, not artificially and undeservedly reward those jobs more and thus trap ever more people into them.
My grandmother was illiterate. That condemned her to a hard life of struggle and hard work. But she stayed on my father's ass to study. My father stayed on my ass and I am staying on my children's. The lesson was so strong, three generations are benefiting.
For this reason I'm also convinced that every single kid should have access to the same high quality education, independently from how much their family pushes them to it.
I'm also convinced that people should have the chance to get back on studies at a later point in life, because it's a delusion to think that every kid will understand the need for education in their teenage years.
I have to stay on their ass and push them to study. I am motivated to do that because I know how crappy low-level jobs are (I had one). Otherwise my default would be to let them do whatever they want. I love them!
A society which removes the motivation for its members to better themselves is a failed society.
And I don't know a better way to teach most people that fire is dangerous than a controlled burn...
Obviously not. This society relies entirely on the fact that a good portion of the population can be blackmailed into doing the bad jobs, while the other small portion enjoys the fruits.
If nobody could be forced to take shitty jobs, how would most of the current industries exist?