Counsel for Getting There - Economics and Ecology: United for a Sustainable World - page 169

the support of “hard-headed economic logic” in opposing a minimum-wage
hike. This is one of the best examples of how economics, one more time, ends
up a reactionary discipline, even when it is being used incorrectly by some
vested interest as it suits their needs.
Second, what can we say, simply on humanitarian grounds, about a meth-
odology that would support denying a struggling worker 25 or 50 cents more
per hour? The prospect of a lawyer/lobbyist, who makes $200 or $300 per
hour testifying before a congressional committee for their corporate client
to contend that their multinational boss cannot afford to pay a single mom
another portion of a dollar per hour is ludicrous. Rational Economic Man is
alive and well, but he has no business holding elected office.
Bottom-Up Approach and the Minimum Wage
Returning to the plight of our struggling worker, what action is appropriate
from the bottom-up viewpoint? Building on our Chapter 10 vision of a local
economy based on the necessities of life, one would be wise in seeking to be
part of a movement to create local businesses producing for their own com-
munity. Then, instead of a future of cookie-cutter, minimum-wage jobs for
an international company or fast-food chain, the community could begin
working toward a range of better-paying and meaningful jobs creating the
goods that you, your family, and neighbors all want and need.
Admittedly, this sounds utopian and slow and seems to do nothing for the
national minimum-wage problem. However, it is entirely consistent with the
vision, and the challenge to become active in your community. Further, if
one community manages to create a successful operation, it will (not just may
in these trying economic times, but will ) quickly prove a replicable model
for many other communities. And this will put upward pressure on the
national minimum wage in the healthiest possible manner. If such a move-
ment should sweep the nation, with a variety of different, widely used prod-
ucts, we can envision a day when a “minimum wage,” as we know it, would
cease to be a necessity. We can only hope.
Finally, such an action plan, albeit ambitious, would be looked upon favor-
ably by progressives who wish to wrest control away from large corporations,
and who have deep concern for the plight of common people. Conservatives
who promote jobs, local control, and individual initiative would also greet
it with the utmost enthusiasm. Both perspectives would favor the decreased
need for implied regulation, as well as many other of the stated advantages
as indicated by our vision. In short, bottom-up cooperation leads to the type
of political harmony that top-down control disrupts. An economic arrange-
ment would finally exist—for the first time in over two centuries—that once
again promotes ecological integrity, social equity, and economic stability as
opposed to alienation, inequality, and environmental degradation.