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A business's profit is the excess value created by workers. Low-skill workers don't get the true value of their labor because they have no negotiating leverage
by batmanthehorse 9y ago
A business's profit is the excess value created by workers. Low-skill workers don't get the true value of their labor because they have no negotiating leverage in many cases (especially with the downturn in union strength in the US). It's not a symmetric negotiation, as it's easy for the big and powerful company to find other employees, because in many cases the workers' only alternative to being underpaid is being unemployed and homeless. Business owners exploit the basic human need for food and shelter to underpay low-skill workers.
- ancap 9y agoNo one who is employed is paid "the true value of their labor". Every exchange, whether it's dollars for a good or dollars for labor, happens because of the subjective value the exchange provides to the exchangers. >Business owners exploit the basic human need for food and shelter to underpay low-skill workers. You could equally (and wrongly) say that workers exploit businesses basic need for labor. It's economic nonsense.
- batmanthehorse 9y agoYou're equating a business's "needs" with the human need to eat.
- ancap 9y agoNo, I'm equating one statement of economic nonsense with another statement of economic nonsense. It was a reductio ad absurdum. Unless there are severe external market constraints pushing down the demand of labor, an employer would never be able to "exploit the basic human need for food and shelter".