Duly noted. Concept of a fair wage for different levels of work is not popular here. We must have a bunch of true laissez faire economic theorists.
I've grown weary (not wary or leery) of the use of "fair" in economics debates. For one, it's totally subjective and undergirded by emotion so what seems fair to you may seem unfair to me. So from the very start we've introduced a variable into the debate on which we can never agree.
Next, the desire to make things fair in economics if the market makes a decision on fairness with which you disagree implies two things that are dangerous. 1) The government must decide what is fair and correct the unfairness. 2) In order to make things "more fair" someone (often multiple people) end up getting dispossessed of what they acquired fairly, which seems inherently unfair to me.
The same people who argue for economic fairness argue against eminent domain (and they're right to do so), but at least when land is seized by ED the owner receives something in return. When economic "fairness" is pursued the one losing property gets nothing in return. Government at all levels is supposed to protect us and our private property from our negligent and criminal neighbors; it shouldn't become a negligent and/or criminal overlord.
Why is it any of our business (yours, mine, or the government's) to decide what is and isn't fair in a transaction between people other than us? And if it somehow is our business (it never should be unless a crime is committed) how can we possibly decide which benevolent arbiter of fairness to appoint for resolving such issues? Since fairness is so subjective we're always going to end up with people who feel unfairly treated by this arbiter. Why is it okay for some to be treated unfairly and not others?
Also, why is laizzes faire used by so many as a pejorative? Because it's unfair? Maybe we should try it before dismissing it. We've never really gotten close to it bc the largest corporations can collude with government to create barriers to entry and that activity is unfair both for the would-be entrepreneurs and the consumers who would benefit from transactions with them. Does that (un)fairness not matter?
So question then - what is the opinion of a minimum wage? It sounds as if this system works better with no wage floor.
That's correct. As mentioned above it also works better by restricting government from having any influence at all in picking/influencing winners and losers in economic transactions. If someone is willing to do a job for $5 an hour and the government won't let him that's potentially unfair to both parties. The one willing to pay $5 an hour may not be willing to pay $10 so the one guy loses the benefit of someone else's voluntary labor and the other loses the opportunity to earn a wage. And if fairness is our chief concern the guy losing the opportunity to work is likely the biggest loser here bc he's now lost his chief competitive advantage, which is his price in the labor market. If he's got to compete on quality at $10/hr he may never get work. If he could compete at that price he'd most likely have not accepted it in the first place. So now we've created a dependent on government by virtue of government pursuing "fairness," yet it doesn't seem very fair to me.