In the race to develop a cure and treat COVID-19, many consider the state and its subsidiaries as the only institutions capable of adapting our current system to suit the epidemic. On the other hand, phrases such as “the private sector has no interest in humanitarian goals! It only seeks profit!” are uttered as justification for more state action.

My posts on social media lately have focused on national and international issues related to COVID-19. I occasionally cruise through posts from my neighborhood’s Facebook page and Nextdoor.com and just throw up my hands. The local “Karens” are condemning people for traveling, looking for offending groups of more than three people to narc on to the local hotline, and calling for increased police patrols of the neighborhood, etc. The most fundamental of civil rights mean nothing to these people.

In the end, after all of the political posturing and all of the speeches and exhortations for Congress to “do something,” a $2 trillion “coronavirus stimulus” bill landed on the president’s desk for The Donald to sign. And sign he did, uttering all of the platitudes and everything else that comes with “historic” spending legislation that never should have seen the light of day.

Generally I think people who advocate for minimum wage laws mean well but likely have a fundamental misunderstanding of the topic. Pleas for a living wage are not new by any means. Saint Thomas Aquinas believed that commodities (farm products) should demand a fair price and that workers should be paid a sufficient income to support themselves. In his time period, however, this was unachievable, as the majority of people lived very minimally and often survived on their own food production.

It is clear that arbitrary minimum wage laws are not only ineffective, but actually detrimental to real wage growth. So what type of action results in increasing wages in the United States, or any country for that matter? The only way to raise real wages is to increase the per capita amount of capital invested by increasing capital accumulation. To accomplish this it is first important to understand what is meant by capital accumulation.