The Great Benefits Of Socialism

Usually, when I take a ride with a taxi I don’t talk much but two days ago I had a longer conversation with a driver.
He complained about the deterioration of his working conditions. It turned out that the cause for that is the imminent introduction of a minimum wage of 8.50 Euros here in Germany in 2015.
Under the pretense of caring for the little guy the Social Democratic Party pressured the senior partner of the governing coalition, Angela Merkel’s CDU, to introduce a minimum wage enforced by the state.
The argument for the minimum wage is usally that everyone deserves a wage which allows him to make a living.
Really? Your wage level is the price for your work. You sell your work for a certain price.
Using the same logic we could demand a miminum price for bread in order to guarantee a decent life for your local baker.
Anyway, here’s how it helped the driver who is definitely a little guy.
In anticipation of the growing labour costs his employer had to significantly increase prices and is now in the process of increasing efficiency by laying off drivers and by reorganizing work so that it can be done by fewer people.
This reorganization is greatly reducing flexibility. The driver explained that up to now he himself had much freedom in organizing his working hours but that is changing drastically. That’s why he has to make a hard choice whether he will continue working as a driver.
I know for a fact that many pensioners are working part time as taxi drivers precisely because of that flexibility in organzing their working hours. That gives many of them a nice extra income to increase their low pensions.
Yep, those little guys are helped a lot.
Due to the increased prices many people with low income (aka the little guy) can’t afford a taxi ride.
For the same reason the tips that drivers get have already dropped substantially.
If there is any increase in income left  it is in part eaten up by increase in taxes.
That’s how socialism helps the little guy.