Re: Paul Krugman holds forth on the future of publishing

Sorry, Jon, stipulating that someone have an alternative form of income won't allow you to 
pay them less than minimum wage here in the State of Washington.  State labor law makes 
no provision for taking other employment into account from the standpoint of paying 
minimum wage.  You can't hire a hamburger joint employee for less than minimum wage 
to work for your landscaping company as a second job because they already have one job.

I think the problem is that you used the term 'fair wage' when you meant 'efficient wage.'  
Like 'deserve,' 'fair' is a social justice concept, not an economic concept.  If I understand 
you correctly, you're arguing for strict free-market economics, where most would say 
that, as in mechanical engineering, fairness and social justice don't enter into the 
equation.

--- In [email protected], Jon Jermey <jonjermey@...> wrote:
>
> This is why I stipulated that the person should have an 
> alternate form of income. That income could be from 
> government welfare, flipping hamburgers, or whatever. In the 
> real world, nobody _has_ to write to make a living. There 
> are always other income-producing things they could be 
> doing. If they choose to write, that's great. If not, that's 
> great too. But there's no reason why I should subsidise 
> people who choose to write when they could be doing 
> something else, any more than I should subsidise people who 
> choose to play video games.
> 
> I have no problem at all with people getting paid what 
> others are willing to pay them. But it irritates the heck 
> out of me when 'creative' people claim special exemption 
> from the laws of economics that apply to everyone else, and 
> particularly when legislators back them up.
> 
> Jon.
> 
> John Landahl wrote:
> > I'd have to disagree with you on this, Jon.  I'd argue that a 'fair wage' cannot, by 
definition, 
> > be below the minimum wage.  After all, minimum wage laws (which, interestingly, 
> > apparently originated in Australia and New Zealand) were enacted because any lower 
wage 
> > is agreed to be unfair to workers.  Here in the U.S. at present, federal minimum wage 
is 
> > $5.85 an hour, but in my state of Washington it's $8.07.  Paying your hypothetical 
novel 
> > writer less would actually be illegal under Washington state law.
>




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