If this was true, the process would always be at work in every field of work, and the downward pressure on wages would be huge. It just isnt so - the difference in wages between the US and Mozambique is astronomical, and this difference is solely caused by demands of labor, so I would say that there is a huge discrepancy between reality and what you claim.
Hang on, I don't follow. If it's true that employers pay the lowest wages that they can get away with, then all employers everywhere should pay poverty wages? Are you not assuming that conditions - labour and otherwise - in the USA and Mozambique are perfectly identical? Also, I think you need to consider price differences, though I will concede that
real wages are not equal everywhere, either. You've got questions of productivity, education, training, technology and so on to consider, to say nothing of potential markets - if an American worker can generate more money than one in Mozambique, he's probably going to be paid more. The lowest amount that he's willing to accept is higher.
If there is indeed unemployment, then the causes of it should be remedied rather than applying an artificial solution that only creates more unemployment.
I would challenge the idea that minimum wages create unemployment. The argument is that raising them will cause businesses to outsource or automate, and so put human beings out of work. That's a valid argument, I think, but it's totally outdated - it was true in the 19th century, and even into the fifties, but we're now in a situation where practically all of the jobs paying minimum wage - low-skilled manufacture, for example - that can be outsourced or automated already have been. So we're left with jobs that you can't outsource - you can pay somebody in India a pittance to provide tech support for a customer in Cleveland, for example, but you can never pay them to make him a Big Mac. Not coincidentally, these are also jobs with a large number of potential workers per position, because we've lost most of the jobs that you can start without any qualifications or experience, so they're paying below the breakeven rate. Bringing in a higher minimum wage here shouldn't affect employment, because each employee would remain profitable - it would, however, cut into the profits of the corporations hiring them, which is why so many of them oppose it. Alternatively, it would raise prices, effectively distributing money from those earning more than minimum wage to those earning it.
Noone actually wants to starve workers. Opponents of minimum wage oppose them because they cause more poverty than they prevent.
A fairly large marjority of economists actually oppose minimum wage laws. Hard to believe that they all evil starvation proponents... In general, they support some other measures to allieviate poverty.
No, opponents of minimum wage laws oppose them, by and large, because they directly benefit from them (and the lower prices/higher corporate profits that they entail) or are persuaded by those who do. Economists, too, will tell you that minimum wage laws are economically inefficient, so there would be more money around if we didn't have them. That may be true, but it's also beside the point. Minimum wages represent a limit on the amount that Peter can be robbed to pay Paul. I'd argue that a lot of the people who oppose minimum wages may not actively want Peter to starve, but they're not willing to take a cut in their paycheck or a hump in their food budget to stop him from doing so.
