What might George Orwell have said about scrapping the minimum wage
One of the oldest tricks in political life is to convince ordinary people that the small protections they possess are somehow shackles on the nation’s greatness. When a minister declares that a minimum wage “strangles the economy”, he is really saying that the economy must be liberated from the inconvenience of paying workers enough to live. It is the familiar language of those who speak of freedom while quietly eroding it.
The idea that abolishing the wage floor would unleash prosperity is the sort of fantasy that thrives only in boardrooms and newspaper columns. In the real world—the world of shop assistants, cleaners, carers, and labourers—it would mean longer hours, lower pay, and the steady erosion of dignity. A society that tells its poorest citizens they must take second jobs to survive is not a society advancing toward freedom; it is one drifting back toward servitude.
Inflation, too, is a convenient scapegoat. It is easier to blame the worker’s wage than to examine the structures that allow prices to rise while profits remain untouched. To say that fair pay “turbocharges inflation” is to imply that the problem lies not with the system, but with the people who keep it running.
The minimum wage is not a radical invention. It is a small barrier against exploitation, a reminder that the economy exists for human beings, not the other way around. When politicians and commentators call for its abolition, they are not proposing reform—they are proposing that the weakest shoulder the burden so that the strongest may walk unencumbered.
One of the oldest tricks in political life is to convince ordinary people that the small protections they possess are somehow shackles on the nation’s greatness. When a minister declares that a minimum wage “strangles the economy”, he is really saying that the economy must be liberated from the inconvenience of paying workers enough to live. It is the familiar language of those who speak of freedom while quietly eroding it.
The idea that abolishing the wage floor would unleash prosperity is the sort of fantasy that thrives only in boardrooms and newspaper columns. In the real world—the world of shop assistants, cleaners, carers, and labourers—it would mean longer hours, lower pay, and the steady erosion of dignity. A society that tells its poorest citizens they must take second jobs to survive is not a society advancing toward freedom; it is one drifting back toward servitude.
Inflation, too, is a convenient scapegoat. It is easier to blame the worker’s wage than to examine the structures that allow prices to rise while profits remain untouched. To say that fair pay “turbocharges inflation” is to imply that the problem lies not with the system, but with the people who keep it running.
The minimum wage is not a radical invention. It is a small barrier against exploitation, a reminder that the economy exists for human beings, not the other way around. When politicians and commentators call for its abolition, they are not proposing reform—they are proposing that the weakest shoulder the burden so that the strongest may walk unencumbered.
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