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I spent two weeks delivering for Uber Eats and made $4.40 per hour

(www.breakit.se)
383 points imartin2k | 1 comments | 13 May 17 10:08 UTC | HN request time: 0.21s | source
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cousin_it ◴[13 May 17 11:42 UTC] No.14330454[source]▶
I don't understand the libertarian argument for allowing low wages. Let's say company X is paying low wages, which allows it to sell goods for cheap. If company Y tries to enter the market and pay higher wages, they won't get any market share, because their goods will be more expensive. So wages will stay low forever. Am I missing something?
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1. antome ◴[13 May 17 11:51 UTC] No.14330478[source]▶
The are two arguments I see: the first is that if the minimum wage is higher, the cost of living increases, leading to the same problem as before. Of course this assumes the two are perfectly correlated, which is a flawed assumption.

The second is that if local humans are too expensive, people will use local robots or outsourced humans instead. While technically true, this is inevitable. Lowering wages might slow down the incoming problem, but it will always eventually exist regardless of local wages.