Raghu writes: "This is a most interesting claim. I'll look at your link and respond on this in more detail, but even granting that this historically may have been the case, do you really think that someone like Paul Krugman today would advocate for an increased minimum wage with the intended goal of reducing employment? This is far more ludicrous than the claim that employers want to keep unemployment high which at least can be justified in terms of economic interests."
Let me preface this by reminding you that the legal definition of "intent" includes both (1) desire that the result will occur, and (2) knowing to a substantial certainty that a result will occur. Does Paul Krugman desire that people be unemployed? Of course not. But does Paul Krugman know to a substantial certainty that people will be unemployed as a result of the law - absolutely and he thinks that result is preferable than not having a minimum wage (otherwise he would oppose a minimum wage). At the end of the day, the ONLY real explanation for a minimum wage law is a moral judgment that it is better to be unemployed than accept a wage that is below the chosen wage, which judgment is necessarily rooted in some notion of intrinsic human dignity that is violated by a low wage. Such a result is entirely consistent with a Marxist/progressive view of human freedom, that work should ideally be chosen as opposed to a necessity, that we need to goof off more. If an unskilled worker appeared in Paul Krugman's office and offered to clean his office for $2/hour, Krugman would undoubtedly tell the worker that was a terrible idea - the worker should instead apply for unemployment benefits, because no person is only worth $2/hr. Of course if the worker was an intern who offered to work for free, Krugman's attitude might be different. There is an interesting ongoing discussion at Bryan Caplan's blog concerning how do you argue against the minimum wage to people who are predisposed to "feeling" arguments. http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/01/make_the_feelin.html. Hard to do. David Shemano
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