[lbo-talk] Colbert, Dafur, and Dems

Gar Lipow the.typo.boy at gmail.com
Wed May 3 13:09:56 PDT 2006


On 5/3/06, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> Michael Pollak wrote:
>
> >The most populist conceivable economic platform today would be
> >single payer health care. You don't think that could be a vote
> >winner?
>
> Oh yes. But that's not populism - that's social democracy! (Just
> joking.) It has to be sold as universal, though, and not just
> targeted at the poor and/or uninsured. Raising the min wage is also
> tremendously popular.
>
> Doug

I wonder why raising the minimum wage is so popular. I suppose part of it could be that costs to ordinary people earning above the minimum wage are mimimal. Raising the minimum wage to $8/hr does not cost the woman making $15/hour anything. And it might get the woman currently making $8/hour a raise. Don't know if it is a tinge of class solidarity, or just the same wish to support common decency and fairness that causes people to (misguidedly) vote against the "death tax" on grounds of fairness when they know their children won't have to pay it regardless.

[Because it is lbo talk -yes I know how it is a set of lies that persuaded people of this, and was basically paid for by 18 rich families. My point here is how these lies worked. I don't think most people actually believed their families would have to pay it; I think is an honest belief it was unfair that anyone had to pay it - based on some (false) anecdotes. I thought better to include this with the orginal post than in response to the lecture.]



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