reflected on this wage theft chart a bit and it seems to me that calling "not paying something the government says you must (min wage)" "theft" is kind of equivalent to saying that slaves are stealing from owners if they don't work. which probably some pre-emancipation laws said
Why calling minimum wage violations "theft" is a bad frame
8 tweets · April 2024 · 115 likes · 5 retweets · read on Twitter
a way less extreme take is that it's theft to not pay the government the taxes they insist you owe them like look that might be bad but it's not THEFT
to be clear the thing I am beefing at here is calling minimum wage violations "theft" taking tips is clearly thefty & requiring off the clock work weird but thefty no-extra-pay-for-overtime/no-breaks is fucked but "theft" is a bad word for it
"taxation is theft" is also noncentral fallacy but most taxation is weirdly divorced from the reasons you have to pay it
minimum wage laws are like laws requiring I give my kids and allowance and then calling it theft from the kids if I don't
I feel like some people replying are... presuming that what is legally required is base reality, then reason backwards to talk about actual observed reality as if it's a counterfactual feels like a variation of this error 👇
huh, confusion in normative vs causal reasoning... seems relevant
I think part of my issue here is related to the difference between legal entitlement and moral entitlement or like... who gets to decide who is entitled to what, such that not giving someone something they're entitled to can be called "theft"?