4 ms·
> why not low skill workers get paid $1million and the management get paid $1k instead, since workers are out numbers and they can easily win the bargaining fig
by SquishyPanda23 5y ago
> why not low skill workers get paid $1million and the management get paid $1k instead, since workers are out numbers and they can easily win the bargaining fight?
This is explained in the same paragraph. Adam's theory is that the wealthy business owners collude against the workers while at the same time lobbying for laws that make it illegal for workers to combine. He says that these conflicts frequently play out violently and rarely end well for the workers.
This is explained in in Wealth of Nations in Chapter 8, "On The Wages of Labour."
More generally, Smith seems not to have been read by many economists, or at least his theory is rather different from what is ascribed to him by textbooks.
- jollybean 5y agoThe economists have read Adam Smith and the Textbooks are likely correct, they just leave a lot of things out.
- SquishyPanda23 5y agoThat does not explain why they frequently mischaracterize his theories.
- jollybean 5y agoProvide some evidence that the textbook makers mischaracterise his theories. More likely you're conflating the issue with writers, ideologues, politicians, journalists, editorialists.
- temp8964 5y agoThis does not explain anything. What if "the wealthy business owners collude against the workers while at the same time lobbying for laws that make it illegal for workers to combine" did not happen, will the low skill workers get paid $1million and the management get paid $1k instead?
- SquishyPanda23 5y agoYour whole $1 million example was premised on your absurd claim that the workers have more bargaining power because there were more of them. My comment exactly addressed that claim. Now you seem to be asking if you eliminate bargaining power, would supply and demand dominate? I guess so? In the same sense that if you eliminate higher terms then sin(x) is just the identity function. But why even ask the question? It's not relevant to the discussion of whether the terms you eliminated are key.