Bernie Sanders Socialist Paradises Don't Have a Minimum Wage

Vox reports:

Specifically if you glance up at Northern Europe, you'll see that some of the most famously economically progressive countries in the world have no statutory minimum wage. That's not because they practice neoliberal-style infinitely flexible labor markets. It's because they have extremely strong cultures of collective bargaining.

In Denmark, about 80 percent of workers are covered by collective bargaining agreements. In Sweden and Finland, it's more like 90 percent. And the non-covered workers are generally managers and business owners for whom low wages aren't really an issue. The idea is that this kind of collaborative wage setting achieves the flexibility goals of a low minimum wage and the fairness goals of a high one. Meanwhile, minimum wages are a relatively new arrival in places like the United Kingdom and Germany, where once-mighty cultures of unionization and collective bargaining have eroded somewhat.

Just a reminder.