What kind of legislation or realistic measures do you think would help resolve the income disparity/exploitation issues? Also, what is your critique (or support) of the following argument?
“Let’s say you paint houses on your own and you charge $15 an hour. A “capitalist” comes along and says, “Work for me and I’ll pay you $20 per hour to paint houses.” You sign on and he brings you to paint your first house in a rich neighborhood. You’re the only one working the job. You find out that he’s well known and has word of mouth recommendations in this rich neighborhood and is able to charge them $200 per hour. He doesn’t do any painting; all he does is shake hands with rich people who trust him and have them sign the dotted line.
Are you being exploited? You’re better off than you were before. You entered into an agreement on good faith and the employer has not deceived and defrauded you in any way. You could leave that agreement at any time and try to go back to painting houses independently but it’s unknown if the people in that rich neighborhood will pay you that much higher rate when you’re not operating under the company run by the guy they trust.”
Full article if you care to read the discussion. I like to write about topics related to people struggling to get into or maintain a comfortable middle class life at least and do what we can to help people get there.