Shorter Laurson and Pieler

Throw the peasants a bone every now and then, and they'll stop grumbling.

In a sense, though, they are right that the minimum wage (and other redistributive programs, I would add) is more about fairness than efficiency, but it's a worthwhile tradeoff. A sense that the system is fair, regardless of your own personal outcome, is absolutely necessary for a market economy, or any economy, actually. Thomas Geoghegan makes a similar argument, BTW, albeit from a much different perspective.