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Karl Marx On Minimum Wage

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On April 15th of this year, workers across the country mobilized and united to demand a 15$ minimum wage and a union to represent them. This was the national demand of the Fight for 15 campaign endorsed by SEIU (Service Employees International Union), one of the largest and more progressive labor unions in North America. About sixty thousand low wage workers, such as fast food workers and service employees, and supporters had taken matters into their own hands to fight for raising the federal minimum wage up to fifteen dollars an hour. Today, the demand for a fifteen dollar minimum wage has stirred up deliberation about one of the most pressing issues in America today- income inequality.
On January 20, 2015, President Barack Obama made the …show more content…

In this portion of the manuscript Marx describes labor as causing alienation from the human self. Species being is a term that defines the essential nature of a species, which in the case of humans is to be socially cooperative and creative producers. In Marx’s view, human beings are fundamentally creative and that we long to do more than just to survive. Creativity is not reduced to reproducing works of art, literature, or music but used in the broader sense of making things that use our imagination, judgment, and skills. Under the existing economic system that we have today, people in this country are working low wage jobs while prices of goods and services skyrocket. When wages are as low as $7.25, the work of a laborer become a means of survival; people “[produce] only under the dominion of immediate physical need” and take on the nature of animals instead of humans (Marx, Engels …show more content…

In popular narratives, it seems as though the fight for fifteen has scared Americans into thinking that raising the minimum wage would create job loss. The thing is that it just hasn’t happened. In major cities such Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Francisco this is proven not to be the case. In Seattle specifically, the Income Inequality Advisory Committee has been gathering data about increases of the minimum wage all across the country. It has been concluded that there is no evidence of job loss, but an increase in employment levels in some areas. Washington State has one of the highest employment level in this country and also has the highest minimum

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