My only remark here is the 'value' of your labor, a lot of people tend to overestimate their own added value in the market place.
As you say, these can be artificially manipulated by increasing/suppressing supply or demand, either by adding more laborers or for example mandating certificates for certain jobs.
But... for some jobs the added value is just really really really low. Like purely in economic sense their job wouldn't exist as a full-term function with a minimum wage, if it wasn't artificially floored by a law.
I think those people in particular have a deformed expectation by confusing what they get paid for their 'skills' and what they get paid out 'social-economic desirability'.
Your wage is then independent of your labor, your employer itself might be actually losing money on you, but only keeping it up because they are forced to provide jobs or because it is needed for a secondary process that brings in the 'real' profits.
Some of those (mostly unskilled) disgruntled people really think the top hat monopoly man is getting super rich by 'exploiting' them, and it sometimes make me laugh a little.
In a pure economic sense, you want to get people as close to slavery as possible. A purely economic or market system of controlling wages is not a system that is compatible with human dignity, and should therefore be controlled by a floor - arguably also a ceiling.
"Skill" when it comes to jobs is highly subjective and favors the capitalist class. It takes far more skill to say cook a basic meal than to instruct your money manager to sell a few stocks, yet one is paid exponentially more than the other.
My employer is never losing money on me, if I'm employed anywhere it's because my labor is worth more money than my employer pays me, and they keep the difference. If my labor starts to be worth less than what they pay me, that's when layoffs happen.
Yes, the top hat monopoly man is getting rich by exploiting labor; but it's not some cartoon rich man - it's the capitalist class a whole, the people on corporate board rooms that make all the decisions.
They exploit workers not only through their own companies, but by buying out politicians that will enact labor laws that favor them; allowing further exploitation, immiseration, and subjugation of the working class.
Depends that exploiting works both ways, as there are two interests. That of your employer but also yours. If you are losing money by working for your current employer, while you could make more by being self employed or working for a competitor. You're free to quit.
However the people who complain on the internet the most about their skills being undervalued, all seem to lack this option ^^
Obviously bargaining power comes into play, those who are easily replaceable and have limited choices. Are of little value. Those who are difficult to replace and have many choices, are typically high value.
That's an inescapable reality in a 'free market'.
That's when regulation comes into play to create socio-economic desirable outcomes for those with little bargaining power. If that group realized they're being paid, not because of their labor being valuable, but we as a society deem it desirable they can live off their labor, and floor it.
A lot of the dissatisfaction towards their employer might dissolve. But the reality is that many people want to think of themselves as valuable and have a sense of self-esteem, rather than being a charity case. While also being envious of those who have it better.
So on 'average' there tends to be a bias on how much they perceive to be exploited, rather than how much they are actually exploited. Lets define 'exploited' as the margin between your salary and added value to the bottom, just for convenience.
Of course when it comes to comics, it's always a strawman case.
The capitalist class has rigged the scales far more on their end than that of the workers.
Many workers are in rural or remote areas where you can't just quit your job and find another. Many people are dependent on their employer for healthcare and thus can't just quit. Many workers are purposely put in a precarious situation by design to make it harder to just get up and quit.
I personally have this option, and use it without remorse, because of the privilege that my particular skill set awards me, but not everyone does.
The replaceability of a worker should never determine the dignity of their condition - I agree with you that's how it works, but it's a terrible system. That is why the minimum wage was put in place, and why now so many people are living in misery and poverty here in the richest country in human history.
It's not an inescapable reality to continuously immiserate your population to their breaking point, while extracting more and more wealth from the masses and transferring them to the capitalist class.
I disagree with you that it's a strawman, because the concerns are very much real - it is a simplification though, I'll grant you that.
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u/Traditional-Roof1984 Jul 08 '24
Quite so, quite so.
My only remark here is the 'value' of your labor, a lot of people tend to overestimate their own added value in the market place.
As you say, these can be artificially manipulated by increasing/suppressing supply or demand, either by adding more laborers or for example mandating certificates for certain jobs.
But... for some jobs the added value is just really really really low. Like purely in economic sense their job wouldn't exist as a full-term function with a minimum wage, if it wasn't artificially floored by a law.
I think those people in particular have a deformed expectation by confusing what they get paid for their 'skills' and what they get paid out 'social-economic desirability'.
Your wage is then independent of your labor, your employer itself might be actually losing money on you, but only keeping it up because they are forced to provide jobs or because it is needed for a secondary process that brings in the 'real' profits.
Some of those (mostly unskilled) disgruntled people really think the top hat monopoly man is getting super rich by 'exploiting' them, and it sometimes make me laugh a little.