Symbolic Politics is Morally Repugnant

Well said. Symbolic politics is indeed morally repugnant. But, so long as government action for a goal and desire for that goal are seen as one and the same, such symbolism will continue.

Want to show you care you care about something? Support a government intervention on that “something’s” behalf. It’s quick and painless and you can smile about what a wonderful person you are.

To bring the analogy closer to Wasow’s justification, you would want to recast it in something like the following terms.

1. The statue is instead called “The Plight of Children.”

(That’s because Wasow says that the MW policy demonstrates concern for all low-wage workers, not just the least productive low-wage workers.)

2. The erection of the statue elicits buy-in to the polity among all children.

(That’s because Wasow says the MW policy elicits buy-in from all low-wage workers. I assume by “buy-in” Wasow means that most low-wage workers – the ones who are not employed less – will have improved morale and productivity, participate more in political decisions, support the party that got them the wage increases, etc.)

3. There is a social safety net or charitable fund in place for the orphans that gives them a good deal of extra relief for any taxes they incur.

(In our society, such safety nets exist, and that seriously defrays some of the costs born among the least productive workers.)

4. The tax falls not just on orphans.

(It’s not that I am arguing with you over the textbook models, but there is little reason to think – even on the textbook models – that the costs a company incurs when the minimum wage goes up are passed on entirely to the least productive employees in terms of less employment. Consider any other factor of production X. Suppose I currently use a per-period quantity q of X in production at a unit cost p. So my total cost for X per period is p*q. Now suppose the cost of X goes up to p*r, for some r greater than one. Then I might reduce my purchases of X from q to q/r, so that my total cost per-period for factor X remains at p*q. But there are a whole bunch of other things I might do, even if my sole aim is to maximize my profit. There might be enough price elasticity in the other production factors that I can demand a better price for them and keep my output constant. For example, I might be able to cancel or truncate planned increases in the salaries of higher-wage employees, without losing any of those employees or any significant amount of their work effort.

It also might be the case that the price of my own product is completely inelastic, so I have no option available that allows me to reduce my output (corresponding to decreased purchases of input X) while holding my profit margin. Whether it is rational for me to decrease the amount of X I purchase and decrease output depends on my per-unit margin and the sensitivity of my output levels to decreases in the input X.)

I do not think that symbolic politics is repugnant at all. Symbolic politics is a form of advocacy that allows people to create shared goals. It is part of the trust building process and trust building and the development of shared goals is absolutely necessary to taking effective collective action. To call trust building exercises morally repugnant is a sort of confusion. Often people think about ideal policy without thinking of the problems of politics, so they fail to recognize the value of actions that enable one to build political support for change. Perhaps unfortunately, you can’t just do the “right” policy without political support.

That said, I agree with Milton Friedman’s idea of a basic income guarantee. I also think that trading a minimum wage law away for a basic income guarantee funded at a reasonable level would be a good deal. However, I think that, at this point in the political process, a basic income guarantee is not politically feasible. Sometimes the best policy simply is not possible.

In a world where you can’t just dictate optimal first-best policies, you have to look at second-best alternatives, as is often emphasized by economists such as Dani Rodrik. The minimum wage, unlike a basic income guarantee, is politically possible.

Again, as it is, someone earning the minimum wage is not much above the poverty line and is barely in a position to support themselves. If someone cannot add enough value such that they cannot even command a minimum wage job, this is an indication that the person needs more skill development and/or education to that they are able to add more value.

Also, it should be kept in mind that people are only able to demand higher wages to the extent that they are not easily replaced. Otherwise, all of the negotiating power lies with the employer. Minimum wage helps unskilled workers as a group by putting a floor on how far employers can negotiate down their wages. As a result, it may be slightly harder to get a minimum wage job, but when one is obtained, at least you earn more. So arguably even those who are in the looking stage for a minimum wage job benefit, since when they later do land a job, it pays a little more. And in general, minimum wage jobs have not been terribly difficult to obtain.

So, I think comparing minimum wage to taxing orphans is definitely off. Taxing orphans would definitely have a negative effect on them, whereas the argument that minimum wage hurts unskilled workers, when the interests of both employed and unemployed workers is considered in the aggregate, is highly speculative.

So, while one can think of policies that would help unskilled workers much more than a minimum wage (such as a Milton Friedman’s idea of a basic income guarantee), those policies may not be politically feasible, at least in the near term. The minimum wage may be a second-best policy, and it has the advantage of actually being politically feasible.

Well, on “symbolic”, one thing we need to distinguish between are actions that are merely symbolic or expressive, and actions that achieve certain desired causal consequences through symbolic communication. If I do something that causes significant harms, and the only positive benefit is that it lets me show people how I feel, then that seems like a very lame justification for my action. But symbolic communication can be more than that, and produce important desired effects.

FWIW, Wasow claims that the symbolism of minimum wage increases produces certain benefits – “buy-in”. So he is not just justifying the policy on the basis of what it expresses, apart from any consequences the expression might have.

“Minimum wage helps unskilled workers as a group by putting a floor on how far employers can negotiate down their wages.”

This might be correct, provided that it comes with an important caveat–”…in the legal, regulated economy.” This caveat is important, for it might be the case that the minimum wage results in higher unemployment among unskilled workers. This, in turn, might drive some to work “under the table”, not only accepting less than minimum wage, but perhaps less than they were earning prior to its institution or increase.

I think one might level the same charge of narrow self interested behavior on the Left as is so often attributed to libertarians by the Left.

Is there any real interest in helping those in low paying jobs expressed? No, the goal is to get the poor to buy-into the Left agenda — basically it’s an attempt at buying votes. What’s the view regarding the low-wage earning class? “I’m only doing a little damage.” Displacing a person from crapy job into no job is hardly “caus[ing] little damage”.

David, Andrew, unless you’re making the argument that minimum wage laws do not exclude the marginal low paid workers from the labor market, then one has to ask “What real trust can you be building?”

According to Jason, we’re not supposed to be talking about whether the economic textbook models relating to the minimum wage are true or not. Trust is not always earned through demonstrating empirical results; it’s often highly subjective, rooted in our innate human sense of empathy, and I think all of us can think of symbolic shows of support in our own lives that have built trust between ourselves and others, in the service of joining together collectively to achieve goals.

For example, many loved ones of murderers feel guilt over not having done more to influence steer them away before it is too late. The standard psychologist’s response (i.e. the trust-building one, with the aim of helping the patients accept their reality and move on) is to let the loves ones know that they are not to blame for the crimes. Even in cases where it is empirically true that somewhere along the line the loved ones could have done something minor different to change the future course of events, this insight has to come from within; they will not trust psychologists who lay blame at their feet.

Please stop symbolically showing support for me through the minimum wage. Believe me when I say it doesn’t feel as good on this side.

I’m okay with being ‘left in the cold’ or whatever the idiom here is. I think I’d be richer with a sucky job than without. And while that is in the short-term debatable (I’d have to give up a lot of leisure to take a crap job, so it would probably make me poorer), it’s obvious in the long term (I’d be able to build a work history and basic skill set which would support me in further career advancement).

If you absolutely have to do something to symbolically show support for unskilled laborers, I’d really rather that ‘guaranteed minimum income’ be used. I’m not sure that it’s good policy, but at least on a personal level, it’d hurt less than minimum wage laws currently are. I mean, if nothing else, it’s much more than just a symbolic gesture. Rather than locking me out of future employment, it might legitimately help my finances.

I do not object when a poet writes love sonnets to his loved one using his own blood as ink. I do object when the poet decides to use his loved one’s blood instead.

I agree (and I’ve argued in writing) that symbolic behavior in politics is often (perhaps not always) morally objectionable. For consider: is someone who supports the MW for symbolic reasons prepared to concede that he doesn’t know if the MW helps the poor? Suppose he says: “I don’t know and really don’t care if the MW helps the poor, but I’m supporting it to create the shared goal of caring about the poor.” This sounds ridiculous. The speaker who defends the MW for symbolic reasons has to PRETEND that he thinks the MW causally helps the poor –that it has causal, not simply symbolic value. The ability of the symbolic value to create the shared goal is totally parasitic on the audience’s believing that the MW actually helps the poor.
Ergo, the speaker is dishonest.

The quoted statement is NOT “Bernard Wasow explain[ing] why he defends the minimum wage,” and describing it that way is not fair to Wasow and could unintentionally mislead some readers.

The statement is Wasow explaining why he agrees that raising the minimum wage “would generate net benefits for workers and the overall economy through its effects on broad socio-political mechanisms, such as those involving the character of the polity.”

The question Wasow was answering confined him to looking solely at broader socio-political mechanisms (and suggested a focus on polity). The question was not asking him why he supports the MW.

Earlier in the survey, Wasow indicated that he thinks the MW helps low-wage workers by “Inducing a transfer from employers to (generally less well off) workers, albeit with possible small disemployment effects.”

Taking his answers as a whole, apparently Wasow thinks that the MW’s effects are largely symbolic, but that the WM also does direct material good for workers. Supporting a policy because it does more good than harm, even if the good is slight, is not “morally repugnant.”