Capitalists provide a service to workers: access to capital with no risk, and immediate payment for services. Meanwhile, starting your own business brings both risk and a long wait before the profits start rolling in.
In the conditions of a labor shortage, which necessarily materializes if wage rates go below the point corresponding to full employment, the payment of higher wages provides exactly the same benefit to employers.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is aghast that some people like to pick up a few bucks doing work which brings no prestige. This is part of a larger obsession among politicians with de-valuing and working against unglamorous jobs that involve "dirty" work.
Even if a machine were technically capable of providing the same service more cheaply, many consumers are likely to prefer human staff in many cases, including nurses and care providers, entertainers, chefs, and teachers.
Truckers are paid less now than in the 1970s because government regulators once tightly controlled competition, thus driving up the cost of living for everyone else.
Mandatory parental leave imposes costs on employees who don't qualify for leave, and on the employers themselves — driving down demand for workers, and raising unemployment.
Far from making women "wage slaves," Europe's move toward urban wage work liberated both women and men from the isolation and low productivity of rural farm work.
In a relatively unhampered market, a declining population is not necessarily an economic problem. But in a system where retirees can loot younger workers through government pension systems, there is a real problem, indeed.
Small businesses are essential in providing employment for workers who might otherwise be locked out of the mainstream economy. Small firms also drive large firms to compete for workers, thus driving up wages.
Reparations to heirs of slaves make sense so long as the actually guilty parties are the ones paying. Short of that, the policy being discussed has nothing to do with reparations. It's just a wealth redistribution scheme.
