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> Productivity is a canard. Either labour is paid its living costs or not. Care to elaborate? You don't think there are large variations in productive capacity
by dwaltrip 9y ago
> Productivity is a canard. Either labour is paid its living costs or not.
Care to elaborate? You don't think there are large variations in productive capacity among all of labour, and that higher productivity usually results in compensation far beyond living wages?
This may not apply to the majority of workers. I could see the Iron Law of Wages being true for them [1]. However, I don't think we should ignore the dynamics that we find as we move towards the edges of the spectrum.
[1] Still, I would argue that a "living wage" means different things at different times. A living wage at time period 1 could result in a significantly better quality of life than that from time period 2.
- dredmorbius 9y agoProductivity generates consumer surplus. "A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more; otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation." https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_I/Chapter_8 https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_...
- dwaltrip 9y agoThanks for the responses. I'll definitely add those materials to my list.
- dredmorbius 9y agoAlso: Baumol's Cost Disease. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_disease https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_disease