A Voluntaryist Bedtime Story On Minimum Wage

Person A: "Hey, person B! I run a business and I'm still looking to fill a vacancy. Wanna work for me for $X an hour?

Person B: "Hell yeah! Thank you! I was looking for a job, but with this economy, you know, it's hard."

Statist: "Hold it right there, you two. You can't do that. $X an hour is inhumane. If you work for $X an hour, I will put you in a cage for not obeying my orders, hell, I'll kill you if you resist. It's either a minimum of $Y an hour or nothing, because, you know, I'm a humanitarian, I care."

Person A & Person B: "But we both agree to $X an hour, it satisfies and benefits both of us."

Statist: "So? You do as I tell you, or else..."

And the statist felt very good about themselves.

The end.

"In truth, there is only one way to regard a minimum wage law: it is compulsory unemployment, period. The law says: it is illegal, and therefore criminal, for anyone to hire anyone else below the level of X dollars an hour. This means, plainly and simply, that a large number of free and voluntary wage contracts are now outlawed and hence that there will be a large amount of unemployment. Remember that the minimum wage law provides no jobs; it only outlaws them; and outlawed jobs are the inevitable result." - Murray Rothbard, Outlawing Jobs: The Minimum Wage