I don't see how you in any way address what I said (in fact I mostly agree with you):
> I'd hardly call those "libertarian" societies.
I didn't claim that society has to be libertarian to not have minimum wage.
> If you have mobility of labor through your own free will, you are not a slave.
It's a different definition of the word "slave", and perhaps more precise, that you are using here. Technical word for what I mean, is, I believe, "precariat". It's not the same as slavery but there is often an overlap. And historically it's not obvious that one or the other is definitively worse condition.
For example, Czechoslovakia was communist. People were not free, yet they were economically quite well off. Today, people are politically free, but economically, some (although a small minority) are worse off. Because of that, I don't think it's obviously "disgracefully offensive" to compare the two situations. It's certainly not offensive to the poor people who make the comparison themselves.
> As was debated in prior threads, minimum wages are nonsensical from an economic (and welfare) standpoint.
It is only nonsensical if you subscribe to theories of "rational" decision-making, which do not hold for humans in practice. See for instance the ultimatum game, and how people respond to it.
> It is only nonsensical if you subscribe to theories of "rational" decision-making
Oh, dear lord, you have just fallen into a stereotype of a person that thinks they understand economics, but actually doesn't. So, we'll just leave it here. Not all economics assumes 100% rational decision making from an overall perspective, you make those assumptions so you can make a model to test. A basic game theory table can tell you that much; even with the simple example of the prisoner's dilemma.
You can make a "rational" decision without it being rational to an outside observer. For instance in the prisoner's dilemma it's in both people's interest to not cooperate, but since not all factors are known the "rational" decision is less apparent and both will betray one another. The field of economics, that generally is on the side of free trade (even from people like Krugman), is a much deeper field than the shallow picture you just painted. I basically already had your politics/understanding of economics picked from your previous post, but now I have a pretty clear picture.
Well, as far as I can tell, minimum wage has been tested, and, contrary to the claims of "rational" economic theory, according to which it should cause unemployment, it doesn't. I agree that many economists do not completely subscribe to the rational choice, and by the way, many of them do support minimal wages. So my understanding of economics is not an issue here.
> So my understanding of economics is not an issue here.
Actually it is, because most economists agree that you can raise the minimum wage and have -some- positive outcome. It depends on market elasticity. But, sure you can believe whatever you want. There's a reason why you can raise a minimum wage by $1 with some positive effects (you could still have negative effects,) and not $100 because it would have massive negative effects. It all depends on market elasticity, it's curve.
The argument above was basically, 'modern economics isn't a real because it assumes rational actors!,' which is absolute nonsense.
> I'd hardly call those "libertarian" societies.
I didn't claim that society has to be libertarian to not have minimum wage.
> If you have mobility of labor through your own free will, you are not a slave.
It's a different definition of the word "slave", and perhaps more precise, that you are using here. Technical word for what I mean, is, I believe, "precariat". It's not the same as slavery but there is often an overlap. And historically it's not obvious that one or the other is definitively worse condition.
For example, Czechoslovakia was communist. People were not free, yet they were economically quite well off. Today, people are politically free, but economically, some (although a small minority) are worse off. Because of that, I don't think it's obviously "disgracefully offensive" to compare the two situations. It's certainly not offensive to the poor people who make the comparison themselves.
> As was debated in prior threads, minimum wages are nonsensical from an economic (and welfare) standpoint.
It is only nonsensical if you subscribe to theories of "rational" decision-making, which do not hold for humans in practice. See for instance the ultimatum game, and how people respond to it.