Progressives vs Radicals

Jack Trainer: Power to the people.
Tess McGill: The little people.
--Working Girl

Sheldon Richmond differentiates between American progressives and American radicals. Progressives lament the conditions of working people and propose to sustain those people by further empowering government. Radicals lament the conditions of working people and propose to empower those people by diminishing government power.

He demonstrates using minimum wage laws.

By proposing increases in the minimum wage, progressives reinforce the power of government while leaving low skilled people dependent on such 'benevolence.'

Radicals understand that that low wages can't be solved by mandating them higher because the Law of Demand intervenes.

Instead, wages increase by eliminating institutional barriers that impede low skilled people from working and advancing. In addition to repealing minimum wage laws, actions such as eliminating government run schools that can poison minds for life, and removing barriers to self-employment and neighborhood entrepreneurship (e.g., occupational licensing, land use rules and zoning, regulations and taxes, and intellectual property laws (penalize imitation)) encourage initiative and voluntary cooperation thru trade that form the basis for economic advancement.