Abolishing the minimum wage will not reduce unemployment

Apparently my opponent has ignored that increasing the supply of labor without increasing the number of people BY DEFINITION counters unemployment, and likely to increase the number of wage recipients more than it will reduce wages. I never assumed wages above minimum are exclusive to skilled ("unskileld' is an obvious error in my opponent's sentence." My arguments do not rely on a laissez faire system. Any semblance of a market will do here. Exchange IS the basis on which division and specialization of labour occurs, it would be impossible without it-- and this is a force which increases the amount produced, contrary to zero-sum economics. If one HAD to lose a position for someone else to have it, it would either be true that all positions available had always existed, which is obviously false (There was no CEO of Microsoft 10000 years ago, or indeed 50), or it would be true that no positions could ever exist (Since no new positions could be created in a zero-sum world). That too is untrue. Therefore it is untrue that every obtaining of a position requires someone to lose it first. If 10 people work for 11 dollars an hour, this is more money in the system than 1 working for 12. And, more employment. "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." The effect of capital production? That wasn't coherent. Adding the possibility of hiring lower skilled people means that per unit of production more of them need to be employed. Of course, it's new production-- none need stop producing in other directions, so this is irrelevant. "Increasing the supply of labor," in the absence of bringing new people into existence, is synonymous with reducing unemployment. " 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." By definition, laws are made to restrict someone who didn't volunteer for them. Laws are not made unanimously. Dissenters are shot or imprisoned. "He further makes the fallacious argument of equating minimum wage laws with preventing people from working. Minimum wage laws: Thou shalt not work if no one offers you more than this amount. :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). Robbery, unlike production, is zero sum. And since production is a criteria positively correlated with property (considering how one acquires property by producing it), less work is prevented than is protected by protection of private property. In any case this is irrelevant. "He is picking and choosing which laws are "voluntary" according to his personal beliefs." Incorrect. No law is voluntary, including the laws protecting private property. The question is whether the use of force to protect property is justified-- not whether it is force. " 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." Incorrect. If the worker judges that he will gain from working for a wage offered to him of the amount: (insert amount less than the minimum wage), in the absence of a minimum wage law his judgment will stand. In the presence, it will not. " 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" All of those are things the employer could pay for if they were not provided by tax dollars. Thus, not "dependent." "Society" is just vagueness, not an entity, by the way. Government presently provides those. " 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]." This is incoherent. The suffering preceded the existence of anything remotely resembling capitalism. "but because the workers at the onset of the capitalist mode of production had to work more, for less." Then why did they rush toward the cities and away from their old, precapitalist careers? "Whereas before Artisans and Farmers had quite a prosperous production " no, they did not. They had a standard of living much less than those afterwards. Otherwise, no one would have quit those jobs in order to work in more modern ones. Sourcing a statement does not make it true. " 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" Increased-- by the deromanticized equivalents of those icons, entrepreneurs. By the ideas created in factories. Farmers worked all day for things nowhere near what a modern worker of much less skill and hours receives. "omething which required extended violence and oppression to achieve in place of what was there before[3]." It is not oppression to acquire property. It is violence to enforce it-- because it is violence to violate it, and violence must be met with violence. "Common land" is incoherent. "This (The hyper-exploitation, not the violence) " Exploitation-- the noticing of an opportunity to improve upon a bad situation. " 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"." Wealth is ALWAYS ultimately a result of an individual action. It can pass on to those unworthy of it-- this does not alter it's source. " 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]' Sourcing a thing does not make it true. Fraud and inheritance are both by definition dependent on someone else to do the creative act, as are appropriation, in any case, so the point stands about the nature of who makes the wealth, regardless of what happens afterward. My R1 source wasn't supposed to back any claim except the ages of those who accept minimum wage. Your link to 6 tells us nothing relevant. and there IS NO EXPERIENCE RELEVANT. That is the point. There is no test to withstand. Calling anything attempted so far in economics "scientific" is refuted by the reality of what science requires-- controlled experiments, which cannot occur with humans, and cannot morally even be attempted. Employers invest many of their profits. If my opponent's arguments require "employers living with decreased profits," this means that investment decreases-- which means jobs disappear--which means unemployment rises due to minimum wage-- which means removing it causes reduction in unemployment. My opponent simply assumes that "bargaining differentials" somehow override the laws of economics-- and HE is Pro, he has the burden of proof. We indeed do not have a free market, this does not mean that in the matters in which we are analogous to one, we do not operate by similar laws. Ultimately "bargaining power" is a bit of an absurdity anyway-- by definition, a bargain requires that neither party has the power to make anyone do anything.