The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages

Re:The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages by ethanbond on Monday December 06, 2021 @10:26AM (#29460855)

Have you considered that people are more productive when they are working together? This higher productivity is what allows for rent to be high (the land is more productive), but that does not necessarily imply that the increased productivity should go into the hands of people who merely hold land and are not themselves producing anything on it.

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Re:The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages by adventured on Monday December 06, 2021 @10:58AM (#29461299)

It also does not imply the owners of that land - that had to take a risk in allocating their funds to acquire it - do not deserve to benefit from it (given they also very likely pay taxes on that ownership, which is true in the vast majority of the US; and property taxes are a very important government funding source in the US).

"Producing something on it" is a wholly subjective standard. I can just as well proclaim the opposite, that not producing anything on it is the standard that should determine ownership.

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Re:The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages by ethanbond on Monday December 06, 2021 @01:08PM (#29463387)

Thought experiment: What if that owner hadn’t acquired that land?

Turns out… it’s still right there!

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Re:The Effects of Major Retailers Raising Their Minimum Wages by gruez on Monday December 06, 2021 @01:26PM (#29463595)

> It also does not imply the owners of that land - that had to take a risk in allocating their funds to acquire it - do not deserve to benefit from it (given they also very likely pay taxes on that ownership, which is true in the vast majority of the US; and property taxes are a very important government funding source in the US).

the georgist's view is that the landowner does little to contribute to the area being nice/successful, but reap all the benefits.

> Take now... some hard-headed business man, who has no theories, but knows how to make money. Say to him: "Here is a little village; in ten years it will be a great city—in ten years the railroad will have taken the place of the stage coach, the electric light of the candle; it will abound with all the machinery and improvements that so enormously multiply the effective power of labor. Will in ten years, interest be any higher?" He will tell you, "No!" "Will the wages of the common labor be any higher...?" He will tell you, "No the wages of common labor will not be any higher..." "What, then, will be higher?" "Rent, the value of land. Go, get yourself a piece of ground, and hold possession."

> [...] without doing one stroke of work, without adding one iota of wealth to the community, in ten years you will be rich! In the new city you may have a luxurious mansion, but among its public buildings will be an almshouse.

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