For clarification. I did not advocate our not maintaining minimum wage laws. They exist, so I am merely using the existance of those laws to illustrate and draw a comparison:

IF the failure to pay workers minimum hourly wage is a crime - and it is punishable as a crime in some lands - then it is reasonable to expect that men and women who work for a living as professional musicians should not agree to receive less than the equivalent of that same "minimum hourly wage" for their time and effort. (Or worse, agree to "pay to play," which sometimes happens in the very same lands where minimum wage laws exist.)