Between consenting adults

So what, exactly, did the headline of this post make you think of?

Go on, admit it - sex.

Now, get your mind out of the gutter because that's not what I'm writing about. Nope, I am referring not to sex but to financial contracts between consenting adults. Namely, wages paid for work performed.

A long time ago, I wondered on my previous site (no longer online) whether the minimum waged actually established a ceiling for wages for entry-level or unskilled workers along with a floor. Since employers know that don't have to pay more than minwage, they don't, unless labor is so scarce that they have to.

ABC's John Stossel takes much the same tack in his piece, "A Minimum Wage Equals Minimum Jobs."

Actually, employers are stingy; they want to pay workers as little as possible, just as workers want to be paid as much as possible. But in a market—even a government-hampered market like ours—employers' wishes are tempered by the reality of competition. So even if an employer wants to pay workers who produce, say, $4 worth of value an hour only $2 an hour, he won't be able to. Someone else will hire them away for $3 or more. ...

If minimum-wage advocates really believe wages are set arbitrarily, why do they favor only a $7.50 or $14 minimum? Why not $100?

At those levels, even a diehard interventionist knows that workers would be hurt. But the principle is the same at lower levels. If wages are a function of productivity, not whim, then it follows that if the minimum wage is set above workers' productivity, those workers—the intended beneficiaries of the legislation—will be harmed.

Stossel's point is right on: if the government can mandate $7.50 per hour, it can mandate $100. We've already established the principle, all we're arguing about is the price. But here's Stossel's line that impelled this post:

Anyone who truly wants to help workers achieve higher living standards will work to remove all government barriers to peaceful, consensual economic activity.

Why is it that the Left insists - nay, demands - that sexual acts between two consenting adults, whatever those acts may be, are none of the government's business and have no justification for regulation, but demands that the government must set a minimum wage between two equally consenting adults?

Just wondering.