Unpaid internships exist for exploratory purposes (try people out, discard most) in industries that, while "cool", are effectively marginal (and headed toward obsolescence).
The unpaid internship phenomenon is not there to skirt minimum wage laws, but to avoid an uncanny valley. The actual economic worth of a publishing intern is nonzero (and probably above the minimum) but unsavory. No middle-class college-educated person will work for $9.50 an hour-- it's a pride thing-- so the wage is reduced to a flat zero and the job type is redefined as a "learning experience". To be fair, it's not totally dishonest bullshit. If the pay is zero, the power dynamic is different. So it is a different kind of experience (I'm just not sure how much of one it really is).
I actually think that a basic income is good insofar as it removes the need for the minimum wage. Minimum wage is essentially a clumsy minimum-income program where the bill is paid by low-end employers, who respond by cutting low-end jobs, creating unemployment. In theory, without a minimum wage, we'd have zero unemployment (except for the beneficial, intrinsic kind). Add that to basic income, and the (theoretical) result still holds: full employment. Most capable people would work, for economic reasons, but the option not to work would give employees more leverage and be better, on the whole, for society. As much or more work would be getting done, since it's unambiguously bad for people to be economically disenfranchised (1930s proved that fucker true).
>No middle-class college-educated person will work for $9.50 an hour-- it's a pride thing-- so the wage is reduced to a flat zero and the job type is redefined as a "learning experience".
Wow -- that's pretty far removed from reality, at least as I've seen it. I know plenty of people with undergraduate degrees who work for that or less, because they can't find jobs related to their field. They would definitely work paid internships that were minimum wage, if it was part of the career path.
In fact, that's about on par with what I get from teaching classes as an adjunct!
I think I was going along with the meme that unpaid internships are abusive, but only because it seems plausible. There are more memes and heated rhetoric than productive discussion, unfortunately.
It's probably one of those things that happens, but is more isolated than it seems.
The unpaid internship phenomenon is not there to skirt minimum wage laws, but to avoid an uncanny valley. The actual economic worth of a publishing intern is nonzero (and probably above the minimum) but unsavory. No middle-class college-educated person will work for $9.50 an hour-- it's a pride thing-- so the wage is reduced to a flat zero and the job type is redefined as a "learning experience". To be fair, it's not totally dishonest bullshit. If the pay is zero, the power dynamic is different. So it is a different kind of experience (I'm just not sure how much of one it really is).
I actually think that a basic income is good insofar as it removes the need for the minimum wage. Minimum wage is essentially a clumsy minimum-income program where the bill is paid by low-end employers, who respond by cutting low-end jobs, creating unemployment. In theory, without a minimum wage, we'd have zero unemployment (except for the beneficial, intrinsic kind). Add that to basic income, and the (theoretical) result still holds: full employment. Most capable people would work, for economic reasons, but the option not to work would give employees more leverage and be better, on the whole, for society. As much or more work would be getting done, since it's unambiguously bad for people to be economically disenfranchised (1930s proved that fucker true).