Blake Deal: Minimum wage increase is just another governmental economic coercion

California businesses are going to face greater economic hardships in the years to come thanks to the state legislature. Now they will be required to pay their entry-level employees 50 percent higher hourly wages.

These future hardships stem from a new law Gov. Jerry Brown signed Monday that will increase the minimum wage in California from $10 to $15 by 2022.

Brown proudly describes the new law as “economic justice” for minimum wage workers. Kevin de León, state senator representing Los Angeles, agrees with Brown’s sentiment, saying the minimum wage law “is about fairness,” mentioning how proud the new legislation makes him to be a Californian.

Contrary to Brown and de León’s beliefs, this wage hike is anything but just and fair for reasons many have not considered. Most arguments against minimum wage hikes like these assert that hikes will increase inflation, harm small businesses or encourage companies to increasingly automate their production so they can fire employees. However, these practical considerations ignore the fact that minimum wage is itself immoral. We ought to examine the moral basis, or lack thereof, of minimum wage before we examine its results.

Imagine a small business owner, Frank, who is looking to hire entry-level workers. Frank offers jobs to a group of people willing to earn a modest, yet fair amount of hourly wages relative to the work required. Unfortunately for Frank, unless he offers more money to these workers, a local organization threatens to rob and imprison him. Not only does this organization threaten Frank with violence, but they also think their coercion is justified, even virtuous, viewing Frank’s actions as contemptible.

This analogy helps illustrate the government’s role in enforcing minimum wage hikes. Government is nothing more than a violent, coercive group of individuals who believe they have the right to interfere with voluntary economic transactions. Yet in spite of this barbarism, some politicians insist on portraying themselves as superior moral beings and represent their legislation as championing human rights.

These moral considerations entail California’s minimum wage hike should not be evaluated based on its practical outcomes. Because the minimum wage itself is illegitimate, it is useless to talk about the practical advantages or disadvantages of California’s wage hike to determine whether or not we ought to support it.

Any wage standard enforced by the government necessarily involves an illegitimate use of physical and economic coercion. We realize this when we apply the same standard to the government that we would to any other group of individuals. If any other group of individuals forced business owners to pay their workers higher wages, in addition to the money they already take from these business owners, it is called “extortion” or “theft.” But when this scenario is applied to government, it is called “minimum wage,” “taxes” and “economic justice.”

No amount of “economic justice” word games or pious leftist emotion changes the fact that the state cannot justify its interference with voluntary economic transactions. Brown, de León and almost all other state democrats desire to apply their perverse version of justice to minimum wage workers, but evidently not for anyone else. Politicians, particularly the Democrats, have a tendency to simultaneously tout their moral intentions while advocating an ever-increasing expansion of governmental violence.

California’s minimum wage hike is the latest illegitimate action undertaken by the state. If there is any proper role of government, it is to preserve political and economic liberty, not to implement the capricious policies of its members.