3 ms·

This seems easy to disprove simply by the fact that a single labourer can produce far more than is needed to sustain a single life -- at least today. So as long

by kypro 6y ago

This seems easy to disprove simply by the fact that a single labourer can produce far more than is needed to sustain a single life -- at least today. So as long as that's true, people on average won't accept being paid the equivalent of a bag of rice a day if you could always go out and produce several on your own. Obviously this is an over simplification, but you get the idea. I think there could be some truth in this though. I wouldn't be surprised if wages do trend towards the average productivity of labours, but again, that would be far higher than barely surviving -- at least today in countries with access to productivity boosting technology.

ianleeclark 6y ago
> I wouldn't be surprised if wages do trend towards the average productivity of labours, but again, that would be far higher than barely surviving The cost of reproduction of labor is more than base subsistence, it's things like base subsistence, cleaning your house, child rearing, and so on. > at least today in countries with access to productivity boosting technology. Wages, in the US, largely don't track to productivity gains. For other countries, I wouldn't be too surprised to see similar statistics, but modified according to labor rights, culture around unions, etc etc. > So as long as that's true, people on average won't accept being paid the equivalent of a bag of rice a day if you could always go out and produce several on your own. You have to have land to grow rice. This, like yours, is a simplification, but it largely abstracts to the present situation. You can always drive for Uber, but you need a car to drive.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> This seems easy to disprove simply by the fact that a single labourer can produce far more than is needed to sustain a single life -- at least today. That doesn't disprove it, it disproves that mean income (capital returns + wages) falls to subsistence, not that wages fall to subsistence. To disprove it from that starting point, you need to also prove that capital does not tend over time to capture all value beyond the subsistence of labor. > So as long as that's true, people on average won't accept being paid the equivalent of a bag of rice a day if you could always go out and produce several on your own. But laborers cannot produce at their full capacity without access to capital. It's perfectly consistent for wages to tend to subsistence and capital rents to tend to marginal product of the labor applied to capital minus labor subsistence.

by kypro 6y ago

ianleeclark 6y ago

> I wouldn't be surprised if wages do trend towards the average productivity of labours, but again, that would be far higher than barely surviving The cost of reproduction of labor is more than base subsistence, it's things like base subsistence, cleaning your house, child rearing, and so on. > at least today in countries with access to productivity boosting technology. Wages, in the US, largely don't track to productivity gains. For other countries, I wouldn't be too surprised to see similar statistics, but modified according to labor rights, culture around unions, etc etc. > So as long as that's true, people on average won't accept being paid the equivalent of a bag of rice a day if you could always go out and produce several on your own. You have to have land to grow rice. This, like yours, is a simplification, but it largely abstracts to the present situation. You can always drive for Uber, but you need a car to drive.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> This seems easy to disprove simply by the fact that a single labourer can produce far more than is needed to sustain a single life -- at least today. That doesn't disprove it, it disproves that mean income (capital returns + wages) falls to subsistence, not that wages fall to subsistence. To disprove it from that starting point, you need to also prove that capital does not tend over time to capture all value beyond the subsistence of labor. > So as long as that's true, people on average won't accept being paid the equivalent of a bag of rice a day if you could always go out and produce several on your own. But laborers cannot produce at their full capacity without access to capital. It's perfectly consistent for wages to tend to subsistence and capital rents to tend to marginal product of the labor applied to capital minus labor subsistence.