Abolishing the minimum wage will not reduce unemployment

I have already explained that the supply of labour will increase if minimum wage workers have their salaries reduced. I have already explained how increased supply of labour will drive down its costs, effectively reducing wages in the close to minimum wage jobs. My opponent has yet to counter this. He makes the mistake of assuming that higher than minimum wage cannot be assigned in anything other than unskilled labour. But there's also dangerous jobs, or unwanted jobs or any other host of them who have higher than minimum wage with unskilled labour. As the supply of labour increases and more and more unskilled (or incorrectly skilled) people become desperate for work, so will the wages of all these jobs drop. My opponent tries to argue against the fact that positions are rewarded according to the job expectations other than the person by putting forth a perfect system of laissez-faire capitalism. Needless to say, this is not the system that exists, nor the system that we are discussing now. As such arguments which would make sense in such as system are irrelevant. Con is under the impression that surplus value cannot exist without exchange. This is false. The surplus value is created in production, not in exchange. The exchange value of it is certainly realized during exchange but that does not change the fact of how and why it is produced, nor does it prevent the division of labour. Certainly, I do not claim that no exchange should happen, but this does not change the fact that the distribution of wage positions is zero-sum. One must lose a positions for someone else to have it. My opponents argument thus seems to be "It is better to have more people working for less reward, because the capital commodities they produce, will allow even more people to work". But those extra people who work, will work more for less as well. Furthermore, the effect of capital production has hitherto been the requirement for *less* people to work on the same production, not more, something which will further increase the supply of labour. In short, my opponent's support for zero-sum based arguments will mean that we'll have a progress for people working more time, for less money. Not a favourable result in any sense of the word. Con makes the weird argument that the only voluntary act is market exchange. Apparently it is impossible for people to band together to create rules and laws. I believe I do not mean to point the weakness of this argument. He further makes the fallacious argument of equating minimum wage laws with preventing people from working. This is based on the argument that no law is voluntary. Taken to its logical conclusion of course, such an argument would mean that the laws protecting private property are preventing people from working (as they would use the now unowned capital themselves). Con thus is attempting to have his cake and eat it. He is picking and choosing which laws are "voluntary" according to his personal beliefs. Con further claims that the invisible hand is the worker's judgement. But the worker's judgement works whether we have minimum wage or not. In fact, it is precisely because the worker's judgement is formed on the circumstances the worker is in, that it is the existence or non-existence of labour-friendly laws that is the "weapons" I was talking about before. The "invisible hand" thus will work whichever the environment but we are expected to believe that a worker-unfriendly status quo is...better for the worker. My opponent insists on claiming that the wealth of the capitalist has nothing to do with the society. He seems to ignore concepts such as education, recreation, public transportation, security and all the other provisions of a societal system that capitalist does not have to pay for but requires in order to have productive workers to hire and wealthy consumers to sell to. To think that a capitalist/worker relationship is independent of the society around it is absurd. Con persists in claiming that the the capitalists are the "fount of the modern world" just because they could make profit. In fact, the capitalist system is indeed the reason for all the luxury available in the first world, as well as for the suffering on the third[1]. The only reason why so much more wealth managed to be produced, is not because of the ideas of the capitalists, most of which existed just fine before them, but because the workers at the onset of the capitalist mode of production had to work more, for less. Whereas before Artisans and Farmers had quite a prosperous production and development without the need for capitalism[2], they didn't achieve the kind of luxury and destruction we have now because there was no need for hyper-exploitation. People worked as much as they could, rather than as much as their boss wanted. It is not the ideas or the superhuman icons of Randian dreams but rather the increased and extended labour of humans who did not get to keep their full reward, Something which required extended violence and oppression to achieve in place of what was there before[3]. This (The hyper-exploitation, not the violence) is incidentally what Con is suggesting in his arguments on how good it is for people to work more for less. Con makes the weird argument that wealth does not automatically pass to progeny. True enough. It usually requires progeny that proves to be as greedy as their parents. I do not see how that counters the fact that wealth is normally not a result or "rugged individualism". He then argues that the wealthy had to do something worthwhile to earn his position. True, most often than not that something was state backed violence and misappropriation [3], Fraud [4], or simple inheritance and privilege [5]. It is unlikely though that one deserves more wealth just for having wealth now. I've already pointed out why Con's R1 source does not back up the claim that minimum wage is costing jobs to people as it could simply point out the increased desperation of low skilled, low experience workers which lead them to take the worse jobs. My opponent argument against the scientific methods seems to be that it's impossible for any empirical study on the economy to have any effect on one's current ideas about how economics works. Much like Ludwig Von Mises said that his a-priori assumptions (axioms) cannot be refuted by reality [6] so does Con's belief about how economics work withstand the test of experience. With sheer stubbornness. And finally for my opponent's argument that artificial inflations of the money supply are not sustainable - and this somehow countering my argument that having a minimum wage can bring increased wealth for workers and thus increased purchases - well it does not counter it in the least. My opponent assumes that the capitalist will simply borrow more or that the money supply will rise. However neither of which follows from having a minimum wage. It could just as well mean that the capitalist simply lives with decreased profits, especially if the position was already profitable. In short, my opponent simply assumes that current wages on unskilled labour are the workings of a free market, rather than the effects of bargaining differentials. But in fact, the later is far closer to the truth as we do not in fact have a free market and the workings of the "invisible hand" are already skewed far enough to the benefit of the employees, simply because of their increased wealth and by extension lobbying power. As such, labour-friendly laws serve to counter that and bring things closer to equality. 1. http://www.greenleft.org.au... 2. http://www.amazon.com... - p225 3. http://en.wikipedia.org... 4. http://en.wikipedia.org... 5. http://books.google.com... 6. http://www.amazon.com... pp. 39-40