Government mints or prints the medium of exchange, government courts enforce contracts, armed government-employed police protect private property, armed government military forces serve as collection agents for multinational corporations…and on and on.

Also, government has in this country consistently intervened in “free” market affairs–and always takes the side of the corporation, never the side of the little guys who pay their taxes. The entire chain of national guard armories that dot this nation was established as a result of the general strike of 1877; police, militia, even the army have intervened in labor disputes virtually thousands of times–and every single time they have allied themselves with the corporate owners. Yes, every single time.

In particular, at those times in our history when the capitalist system was preceived to be in danger of being replaced by something else that might actually work, the government has “entered the discussion” in a very big way:

think of the post -WWI suppression of civil liberties during the first Red Scare, the token rights granted to labor in the 1930s (but which also effectively removed the strike as a weapon), the second Red Scare following WWII–and of course the vicious response to the Occupy movement just recently.

So, yes, if the government had ever pursued a hands-off policy, wages and working conditions in this country would in all likelihood be far better than they are today in what has historically been the most repressive of all of the modern industrialized nations…

Since the Powell Memo of forty-odd years ago, corporate owners have invested a lot of money in hopes of getting the relatively simple-minded among us to accept as an article of faith that “everyone does better if the government gets out of our lives and the free market system is allowed to reign.”

They want this because government is the only possible counterbalance to their immense power, and their PR is slick enough to get an awful lot of folks to mouth these “truths” in the simple belief that these are their own ideas–and to vote against their own interests.

Meanwhile, nobody seems to be in any hurry to end the massive subsidies government shovels into all the “free” enterprise corporations–even as these corporations all whine about the terrible government intervention in their businesses.

Sorry to hear that in at least one case, obviously, this propaganda effort has paid off!

Study a little 19th century labor history. You will discover unregulated capitalism drove impoverished workers to communism and fascism. It was the democratic left that made communism unnecessary–when you’ve got livable wages, health care and pensions, who needs communism?

What would those “ignorant people” to use Ralloh’s term, figure out that without the workers, you have no riches. They haven’t figured that out yet though. They think they can continue to use and abuse and the ‘labor’ will alway be there, after all, people DO have to support themselves, so if they have no OTHER choice but to accept completely inappropriate wages for what they do, they have to.

And if minimum wage is kept to that level, the richey riches think they win. But they don’t. Eventually they will all be homeless and not be able to even GET to your stinking job offer.

Other than potentially increasing them because happy employees mean they bring in more customers! Imagine a well run Wal Mart with clean isles and stocked shelves and employees smiling and helping you. Hard to imagine? Yes, but that is what a bit of a wage increase could do! Hopefully a similar change will happen in Seattle!