Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

 "Do we get enough of a diagnosis of individual in poverty by comparing the individual's income with a socially given poverty-line income? What about the person with an income well above the poverty line who suffers from an expensive illness (requiring, say, kidney dialysis)? Is deprivation not ultimately a lack of opportunity to lead a minimally acceptable life, which can be influenced by a number of considerations, including of course personal income, but also physical and environmental characteristics and other variables...?" That is from Amartya Sen's New Introduction (2017) to the expanded edition of his classic COLLECTIVE CHOICE AND SOCIAL WELFARE. The original edition of this work is dated 1970.  The point Sen is making in that quote is in a sense a trivial one. OF COURSE, you might want to say, the mere numerical fact of an income level, contrasted with some arbitrary poverty-line number does not give us a full picture of the condition of any particular "...

Hmmmm.  Swiss voters, by referendum resoundingly rejected a minimum wage proposal. They rejected a proposal, specifically, that would have set the minimum wage at 22 Swiss francs per hour, which is roughly US$25. If I understand this rightly, that would have been the highest minimum wage anywhere. So some Swiss, at any rate, wanted to go from the back to the front of the pack in terms of the minimum wage, in one big bound. (They have no such minimum now, this would have created such an institution, not merely increased an existing number.) It was so soundly defeated that none of Switzerland's cantons voted in its favor. This raises a lot of questions. Unfortunately, I'm feeling too indolent these days to do my own research. Maybe one of my readers will oblige by addressing these questions. Such as: how easy or difficult is it to get such a proposal on the ballot in Switzerland? Also, who were the intended beneficiaries of the passage...