> If the laws pass that require servants to be paid more, some servants will be lucky enough to make more money as a result, others will starve to death because they will go from making $64/month to nothing at all.
Replace "servant" with any low-paying job. That's the old argument for ending the minimum wage. How many people starve to death in countries with a minimum wage? What actually happens is that wealth gets redistributed. The masses will revolt against the wealthy before they'd starve.
You can not compare low paid workers in US to the once in India. US has some social safety nets. Admittedly, not a lot, but US has food stamps, and assistive housing, and an economy that's working, maybe not well, but well enough. India has none of those. Many people in India lack basic things like drinking water. You can not compare the two.
Lets say tomorrow India passes a law that requires, under penalty of jail, for everyone to pay their servants at least $X per month, and as a result of this law 20% of the servants loose their job. If the government does nothing to support those people, what's going to happen to them?
It's impossible to create a social safety net? When they have dirty drinking water that's largely because they don't have a minimum wage. In computer terms this is called bootstrapping. You convert from a backwards country to a developed country via (in part by) a minimum wage. Many other countries have done it. So can India.
Income taxes, enforced. India has plenty of money and resources, and would have more of both after adopting a minimum wage because labor would be better utilized. It might be hard but don't tell me it can't happen or that people will starve to death.
You are right. Step 1, fix the woefully broken legal system in India. Step 2, streamline the crippling and impossible to navigate bureaucracy. Step 3, create a functional income tax collection apparatus in a mostly cash society. Step 4, solve the drinking water and sewage problems. Step 5, convince the majority of the country inhabitants that the cast system is bad (they do not think so). ... Step X, implement an Cross the board minimum wage.
There you go. I'd start with step 5. At the root level of India's problems is the widespread belief that not everyone deserves equal opportunity. The faster that belief is changed the faster the other steps will be achieved.
wow yet another westerner sitting on their high horse of "we know what's right for you" - the caste system has little or nothing to do with this. And these steps are far from as trivial as you make them sound. If the biggest economy of the world is totally failing at preventing homelessness and sky high medical costs - do you really think its that easy for India which for all means and purposes has only truly started developing over the last 30 odd years can just do that?
Germany - which is one of the most developed nations in the WORLD - didnt have a minimum wage until now (except for individually bargained ones in specific sectors by unions).. It is only after tremendous pressure that the newly formed government has agreed to have one starting next year.
I am not sure if you were responding to me. But I just wanted to clarify that I think those steps are very difficult indeed. I don't think it's trivial at all to implement the changes I listed, and would take time. And that minimum wage can only be properly implemented once you get a lot of the other problems resolved.
>and would have more of both after adopting a minimum wage because labor would be better utilized
How does that work? If someone has an especially productive task, that means that they can afford to pay more than current wages, there is nothing stopping them offering higher wages right now.
One of many ways to see it: Ultra low wage workers work long hours and spend all their money to barely survive, thus confront great difficulty in improving their skills. In the US a minimum wage worker can have the funds and time to become a software developer.
That certainly sounds plausible, but that doesn't sound like what a person would call "labor better utilized". But I do see the point: when people have low incomes, they are unable to invest in their own human capital. If possible it would make more sense to target poor people through welfare than through the minimum wage, but I'm don't know the practicalities of implementing either policy in India.
Workers using more of their potential is labor better utilized to improve the economy. When minimum wage workers become software developers a software company arises, and then a restaurant to serve them, and so on. A basic income (welfare for anyone) would work even better to improve the average standard of living, but not necessarily the economy.
Replace "servant" with any low-paying job. That's the old argument for ending the minimum wage. How many people starve to death in countries with a minimum wage? What actually happens is that wealth gets redistributed. The masses will revolt against the wealthy before they'd starve.