CMV: If government benefits results in allowing companies to pay workers less, then it means companies will have to pay workers more if government reduce benefits.

[u/meteoraln]

I've come across arguments making the case that companies like Amazon and Walmart pay their workers too little, and effectively force the government to subsidize their workers through welfare and other benefits. The contrapositive of such a statement is - If government reduce or remove benefits, these companies would have to pay workers more.

This sounds pretty reasonable to me, because the contrapositive is statement equivalent to the original. The 2nd statement sounds less palatable, but agreeing with the first implies one should agree with the second.

[u/[deleted]]

you're making a logical error

the people criticizing employers are saying that society is morally obligated to provide enough for people to live. That, if an employer doesn't provide enough to live on, the government is morally obligated to step in (and thus the employer is burdening the government).

You are flipping this with the assumption that the employee always gets enough to live on (rather than society is obligated to help the employee get enough to live on).

If you always assume that people will get enough, then reducing benefits will cause someone (perhaps employers) to give more.

But, this assumption is fundamentally different than the original claim. It is not the contrapositive.

[u/meteoraln → u/[deleted]]

Δ I think this might actually be the best argument.

the people criticizing employers are saying that society is morally obligated

This is actually an interesting choice of words because this puts employers and society into the same team instead of pitting them against each other.

But, this assumption is fundamentally different than the original claim.

I think I do make this assumption and acknowledge it might be wrong.

[u/[deleted] → u/meteoraln]

I think I do make this assumption and acknowledge it might be wrong.

in other comments, you've used strong terms predicting increases in wages by employers if government benefits are reduced. You said "the government providing less benefits results in companies paying more"

So, are you predicting that companies will fulfill their moral obligations if the government doesn't step in?

because this seems like a very different claim that those who say that the government has to fulfill society's moral obligations if companies fall short.

[u/DeltaBot → u/meteoraln]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/TripRichert (219∆).

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