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: minimum wage that democracy

A both sides of the minimum wage issue has become particularly important. Both in America and Europe, the issue of job creation is a priority and has divided most notably the political scene. On the one hand the orthodox, more conservative, suggest that any text posits economy class: the minimum wage above the natural wage inevitably reduce employment. That is, the minimum wage far from being a sensible redistributive strategy has the opposite effect and contract employment opportunities for workers. Under this thesis, for better or worse, has operated the design of public policies on employment in much of the West. On the other hand we find a more heterodox view, do not know if I generate progressive-burning-term, suggesting that a minimum wage prevents arbitrariness in the labor market to bring the level of the lowest salaries of certain individuals at levels socially acceptable.

almost two centuries ago there was talk of a natural wage, the minimum with which ensured the survival and reproduction of the working class. School arrival Walrasian approach, the labor market became a market for capital, goods and services like any other and the concept of minimum wage, although not explicitly the imaginary disappeared, was closely linked to fluctuations of the economies themselves. Perhaps in the new salary could get to fix a price. Here's why. The neoclassical postulate that unemployment exists because wages are unreasonably high, without restrictions, government intervention, competition would force wages put on those levels where it is favorable to employ more labor. What is outlined is a simple relationship: with increasing real wages, lower occupancy levels and vice versa.

Here is a very interesting statement: "The State is, according to neoclassical intrusive and distorting force because, with its regulations and laws, always excessive, according to these authors, prevents forming on the labor market real free price ^] . To impose minimum wages, subsidies and other protections against unemployment, regular way interventional the labor market, the rights to strike and dismissal, collective bargaining, etc.., By acting, in short, as a State welfare (in the Keynesian favorite expression), and not simply a liberal state ^] actually what the State is contributing to artificially raise price labor market (ie, the wage rate) above the level that would correspond to the domestic fundamentals of the economy (ie, free and flexible functioning of the market). "(Guerrero and Guerrero, 1999)

Clearly this is not get the monopoly of good feelings - monopole du coeur- by the heterodox, as suggested by Chirac in the presidential debate in France two decades ago, when promulgated left heart failure in the policy prescriptions of right and denied this and said not to be moved by the good feelings. It is, yes, to contrast the problem of the minimum wage corresponds to a much broader economic context and if we obsess establish an amount to ensure a socially acceptable level of income for lower paid workers should obsess the behavior of the economy and economic agents: benefits , free education and health for those who clearly can not afford insurance or access to school for their children, better road infrastructure, clearing charges and fiscal-policy measures to increase worker productivity, openness to international markets , reduced the country's dependence on primary commodities, among others.

The wage increase announced by the Colombian government headed by President Santos, suggests a call to rethink the way in which Colombia took the remuneration of Colombians. On the one hand we must take steps to structure the labor market from a less rigid approach than the current obsession likely Walrasian heritage: if this guilt the State and the unions to be ultimately responsible for the high wage level - artificially high, do not forget, "and they fall on the high level of wage explanation of unemployment, they offer no solution may be more logical from their point of view. Avoid inappropriate increase the wage rate to avoid imbalances. So well is traded on intersectoral coordination table or the Government who set the annual change in salary, the guiding principle of the matter is the impact of wages on corporate earnings and unemployment.

Colombia has a perverse tax system, full of impertinence that make it complex, costly, since the same time it is played (plays recruit scholars who advise, which is expensive), plus that this is a perverse incentive together with other traps such as para-, which together work to raise costs higher relative levels (of course, if you look at the rest of the continent). Until such a strong evaluation system is not developed, to broaden and make more flexible the labor market, something that should be a national compact, it is likely that the minimum wage is workhorse of all against all, giving greater importance of merit. Meanwhile, a good sector of Colombians continue earning less than the minimum, and who by fortune it accrues, continue to struggle to survive, because, sadly it seems the economy, science master, became the less human social sciences.