Apparently, a Seattle-based credit card processor will set its internal minimum wage to 70K USD (nytimes). Most comments seem fixated on the compassionate-capitalist angle. This could be really devious, though.

Minumum wage 70K is another way of saying that you're going to fire all the low-value positions, and either outsource them or automate them internally. Forcing that choice today is one real way to welcome our robotic future.

Now to make it even more devious, that setup is just year one. Each subsequent year, we raise the mimumum wage by some exponential. People who want to make the cut have to use technology and capital to increase their productivity.

Eventually, this minimum wage escalation will have converted all laborers into capitalists. Well, except for those who didn't make the cut. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯