Anti-Merit Laws
As I wrote in my previous blog, immigrant legality based on merit should extend to those illegals who demonstrate an admirable work ethic. I proposed that the qualification for that could be fulfilled if an immigrant consistently works 80 hours per week or more.
Unfortunately, the current state of U.S. work law makes the 80 hours per week unattainable for many immigrants. In this blog I analyze two of these "Anti-Merit Laws" and propose their repeal.
I'll start with "overtime". Overtime law requires an employer to pay employees extra if the worker puts in more than 40 hours of labor per week. No employer wants to pay extra for the same quality of work--so, if the laborer has already reached 40 hours per week, the employer will want to look around for new employees to bring into his company.
From the point of view of the employee, any attempt by someone who wants to work at 80 hours per week in the same job will find incredible friction from the employer which will result in an inability to achieve very many more work hours above 40.
Some will argue that the employee can simply work two "full-time" jobs; but these people don't understand how hard that is. Not only does a worker need to find two 40 hour per week jobs with compatible hours; one has to have time to commute, eat meals, change uniforms, and sleep enough to keep going.
The next Anti-Merit Law is the "minimum wage". Trump seems to hold the economic fallacy of believing that there are only so many low wage jobs--as if more jobs could not be created if low-income workers simply decided to work more. Trump may be right in the current system because of the "minimum wage". Imagine for a moment that the government were to change its law and declare that the minimum wage is $1,000 per hour. Companies would completely automatize their businesses with only a couple highly paid engineers on call to provide the stores with human labor. That shows what a minimum wage does, which is reduce the number of jobs.
On the flip side, look what abolishing the minimum wage would do. In a state of laissez-faire, economic freedom, all levels of economic value can find or create work. Whether that is a child who was orphaned working in a factory for $1.00 per hour, an immigrant who does not speak English mowing lawns for $2.00 per hour, or a 90-year-old woman manually putting together mailers on a desk for $.50 per hour.
As good as an idea is--such as my work ethic for legal immigrant status policy--if America is going to adopt it, the country needs the freedom to make those kind of work hours possible.
Paul Wharton
Objectivist Capitalist Medicine Promoter
