Quinn Miczo – Contributing Writer

qam5022@psu.edu

I started the process of switching to Management Information Systems, a Business major, this semester, and part of the process is acquiring all of the introductory Business courses, which includes ECON 104: Intro to Macroeconomics. We recently had our first exam in the course, and on it, there was a question that was fundamentally flawed. In the words of my professor, Larry D. Neizmik, “It is a question that every Econ student must take,” according to the Econ chairperson, and for that reason I was not permitted access to the chart to help illustrate.

Now, what is the question? If the minimum wage were to increase by X amount, how much does unemployment rise? Then it provides a supply and demand chart to assist with the question. The problem? The supply line unintuitively represents people, with zero unemployment and zero dollars represented as the origin. This is fundamentally flawed and horribly unethical to present as a learning device, as this advocates for slavery as the solution to unemployment. It presents the idea that people are a product to be bought by companies, as refusal to pay employees leads to the highest profit.

If you present that information, then taking that to the logical extreme is saying that zero percent unemployment requires minimum wage to be zero dollars. But under our current economic system, that would be equated to slavery. It goes against the fundamental, intuitive concept that people are people; not products to be bought. The supply line represents a product that is offered. For this question to make logical sense, the supply line should represent a product that companies provide to consumers, which would be wages. Companies produce wages, not people.

This fundamentally flawed concept is insanely dangerous to present to the impressionable minds of students, students who, more likely than not, have minimal understanding of the topic and will just accept what they are taught as the truth. I did not expect to find propaganda on an exam in a mandatory class. Every person in my major, and presumably every other Business major is required to accept this ideal, lest they take a hit to their grade.

Slavery was abolished in the United States of America following the defeat of the traitorous Confederation. Do we really want the younger generations taught that slavery is an ideal through economics? A solution to a problem that is constantly discussed in the media? I sincerely doubt we would want such an abhorrent concept to be propagated throughout the younger generation, to future business men and women. We are being taught to be unethical.

There is a correct way to present this question on the supply and demand chart. The question is fixed if you present demand as the peoples’ demand for wages. The supply of jobs does not change in this scenario, as every company has a number of positions that it is required to fill in order to function as an employer. If it is not able to fill those positions, it is a failure of a company. It is not the responsibility of the consumer to take the fall for a failure of a company.

The argument that I was provided for why the question is correct is that if minimum wage increases, then companies will go out of business unless they want to reduce profits. That argument is inherently flawed though. Money is not the currency in this question, labor is. The function of a company to the employees is to produce jobs and wages paid for with labor. The worker is paying for the job and the wages. And if the minimum wage were to cause companies to go out of business, those companies clearly provide no service that is desirable enough to sustain business.

I have also heard it argued that increasing the minimum wage just increases contentment, to which I ask, how is that a bad thing? Would you rather us as the people be crushed with unending despair as our overlords hoard the wealth of nations? Three in five Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Sixty percent of the population doesn’t know if they will be able to make rent next month if they get too sick and need to miss work for a few days. And if so many people become content off of it, does that not disprove the core definition that economics is built on; the idea that wants are infinite?

Now, I should also mention the main alternative idea, one where taking it to that logical extreme could theoretically work… That would be changing the economic system we use. Theoretically, you could have a system with minimum wage being zero dollars without having slavery being implicit, though the necessary component that is currently missing is Universal Basic Income. The people remain the demand, but having a chart that has a spot representing zero wages makes more sense.

Universal Basic Income could allow all adults in the United States to afford a modest living, while still allowing people to work for a better living, but then it would just be a theoretical minimum; one that would likely only apply to charitable organizations, where people would be willing to work for the good of the people rather than for profit. Assuming UBI only affords everyone a modest living, most people will still have a desire to work, and to better themselves, since most people still have a suburban dream that is slowly being stripped away by corporate landlords who see houses as rental properties and investments, rather than as the homes they should be seen as.

As automation improves, the necessity for UBI will also increase, as all the jobs currently being filled by “entry level” workers will be automated away. Already you can see it happening in grocery stores; how many cashiers do you need for a self-checkout line? Just a couple standing at the exit for loss prevention. You can order food from kiosks, so there is not going to be a need for cashiers in fast food soon either. Machines are capable of fixing a perfect drink and sandwich every time… The robot apocalypse is not going to be Terminators killing everybody; it is going to be the rich leaving the poor to starve on the streets.

The problem with the implementation of such a system is that the oligarchs that control our economy will certainly whine and cry about Socialism using their money to speak louder than the 99 percent of people that make up the Middle and Lower Classes. Thus, while this ideal does exist, we would need some significant shifts in power, that the top one percent will not allow to pass. It would involve getting dark money out of our government; preventing the currently legal bribery, “lobbying,” and preventing rich foreign nationals from being able to influence our politicians. Only one of our political parties will support the removal of corrupting funds though, as is evidenced by the Senate’s filibuster on the DISCLOSE Act.

Any economic system that requires slavery to be a necessary component for zero percent unemployment is an economic system that fails to meet any ethical standard we as the human race should find allowable.