Maybe if we stopped thinking of employees/contractors as "labor" and thought of them as people it would be easier to empathize with their needs. Do you think that your friends, family, and loved ones deserve a wage that meets their basic needs? Why shouldn't all humans deserve the same?
The primary purpose of a business is to maximize profits for its stakeholders.
On average, educated people contribute more value to the functioning of society. I can drive myself around. I can't perform my own heart surgery.
The argument that all humans are inherently equally valuable is specious reasoning. I can come up with all sorts of trolly car conundrums that if you were forced to choose, you'd make a value judgement about which person to save because they have more value.
