The idea of only paying an employee when they're "creating value", i.e. serving a customer, is nonsense & we need to take it out behind the tool shed & put it down. The employee creates value all day long, by keeping the doors open - if they don't there's no customers, because there's no place for them to go.
The employee pays for this with their time, which they can't use for anything else or get back.
Only a complete asshole thinks they don't deserve to be compensated for that.
#business
"Minimum wage" is one of those odd concepts that *seems* to have an intuitive definition, but the harder you think about it, the more complicated it gets. For example, if you want to work, but can't find a job, then the minimum wage you'll get is zero:
https://web.archive.org/web/20200625043843/https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2020-06-24/forget-ubi-says-an-economist-its-time-for-universal-basic-jobs
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/02/17/no-piecework/#no-justice
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