> I knew I've seen it pop up somewhere 🙂

Yes, which is why you shoehorned it in.

random digression: I hate the smiley being the laughing one, colon-closeparen shouldn't be equal to colon-D

People don't usually bring up classes of algorithmic complexity in the context of market economies.

so, the question on whether and how a govt should act about people ending up on the wrong side of the fence of life seems still unanswered at this point.

The how not I can propose.

One way not to do it is to mess with the market forces, which is what the minimum wage does.

It is like heating a thermometer to make it warmer outside.

Likely true, yes.

Neither do you gain an increase in employment numbers.

Black unemployment, for example, has been lower before introduction of the minimum wage in the US than after.

If you want to hand people money, at least do that, but do not misstate the value of a good or service. That is the function of the pricing mechanism.

It is simply a measure what a good or service is worth in relation to another and deluding yourself to it does not mean that the demand for coal miners (or journalists) has suddenly increased.

The reason why a coal miner might get paid half as much as some other job X is because there is half as much demand for coal miners at that price point.

The question what should be done with people who cannot make ends meet doesn't really enter into it.

If you artificially raise their wage, then you might as well just hand them the difference between what they would have been paid and what you think they ought to be paid. At least that way the market correctly reflects the price of coal miners.

But all you are doing is handing them welfare through the government then, so you are achieving the same thing with more side effects and extra steps.

That is why I posted that graph.

If a community wants to take care of some person who cannot find work, go ahead and do so. But should the solution be to force everyone to take care of that person?

If beggars can die in the street, I guess it's a responsibility everyone has (and wants) to change that, be it only that society is a multiplayer game where one can't always control the circumstances one ends up in.

If people feel that responsibility there should be no reason to force them.

And if they do not, they relinquish entitlement to demand the same of others.

But the addition of coercion adds nothing moral to it.

I doubt you should be allowed to likely kill somebody by taking their last valuable, but that's just me.

Who is taking it?

A refugee? A citizen? A real shitbag person you wouldn't want near your house? A white male? You know the problem with intersectionality is that this is suddenly supposed to matter - in a democracy.

Then again, I'm as lost as you in this discussion, yes.

No, I don't exactly understand the scenario you are trying to bring up.

You referred to killing someone.

Kill them through inaction?

I am not sure what you mean.

If there is no coercion, you are not killing anyone.

Well my point was more about "killing" someone through removing them from the little they had. Closing the mine, the asbestos factory, the sweatshop, the mental asylum. But I might make too big of a leap here, am I conflating two distinct issues here? In fact, I'm not sure I can tell why this seems so obvious to me.

Even if we accept all of that as true, I don't think that obfuscating the issue through a sort of price fixing is the right solution.

We settled that earlier, didn't we.

If we concluded that it was immoral and society at large should ensure their continued livelihood, then one can explore solutions such as a loan or financing social security, or Milton Friedman's negative income tax.

now we're talking!

But by mandating this social responsibility you are not proposing a solution much different from holding a gun to my head to enlist me to carry your spouse up a hill.

Let's address the moral mechanics of it:

Let us say your spouse needs to be brought to a hospital up a hill. You cannot carry her alone. I come by.

If you had a way to coerce me, such as a gun, would it be moral for you to force me to help you?

I don't know. I happily accept the responsibility the way things work where I grew up. But why? No clue, tbh.

Regardless of why, you do so willingly. But what if you didn't?

And if you had some responsibility, through some sort of debt, for example, how should it best be enforced?