People like Edwards who favor the use of coercion to “improve” the supposed unfairness of a free economy always ignore the detrimental aspects of their actions. Suppose that there was a law that required all employment in the nation to conform to what Edwards regards as a reasonably decent pay and benefits. There would be no more low-pay jobs at all. But without those low-pay (and usually hard-work) jobs that many people use as their entry point into the labor market, we would have far more unemployment, and the unemployment would be the European style of unemployment, with large numbers of young people who become idlers, soaking up government welfare payments while nursing their resentments against “society.”
Not an attractive picture.
