My goodness, could anything have been worse for the $10 minimum wage cause than an op-ed by Cheri DiNovo where she exposes a fundamental misuderstanding of free markets. I mean a grade 6 student could figure this one out.
She is responding to Andrew Coyne's column on the inequality of minimum wage and use this unwieldy club to make her point.
...Raising wages always costs money to business. That is why slavery was supported. The argument was that ending slavery would bankrupt America. There is no question that ending slavery cost more to some. But the issue of paying people enough to live on is about ethics, not just economics.
The point that Coyne made was that in free markets the buyer and seller have the freedom to negotiate a price that is acceptable to both of them. Under the slavery the seller had no freedom and was forced, by the backing of the state, to accept an injust situation. In short it does not disprove Coyne's point, it proves it, we have injustice when one side is forced to do something against their will.
