Workers and their relationship to the economy

[Stephen Colbert]

I was discussing "living wage" with a conservative and he was talking about how when you "increase the price of a commodity, people will buy it less".

Naturally, I responded: "Workers and their well-being are not, NOT a commodity to be bought and sold"

His: Labor is absolutely a commodity that's bought and sold.

What the fuck. I hate people like this :(

[JazzRemington]

One sells his or her capacity to perform labor, so it is a commodity.

[Stephen Colbert]

but should it be. Should the wellbeing of a worker be subject to the market?

[lukejr101]

The guy is wrong on 2 counts: 1) Morally (in that labour, life and time living it is viewed in monetary terms alone) and 2) Even within the capitalist framework and morality based on efficiency within which he justifies it.

The first claim doesn't need much explaining or arguing really, but the second is quite interesting. There are case studies I am vaguely aware of whereby workers were paid above the labour market dictated wage and a dramatic increase in efficiency and output was observed: Ford being the prime example. On the subject of car companies efficiency was also icreased when workers were shown what they were building and were no longer alienated fro the product of their labour....

So your friend implying or alluding to the simplistic assumption that a high minimum wage will reduce production as I assume he was requires a great deal of further qualification and elboration which if undergone will result in communist principles not capitalist ones coming out on top.

Things like this are interesting and effective in argument: internal contradictions are much more useful when arguing.

[which doctor]

JazzRemington is right. Capitalism is what gave labour power its commodity character. Hence, in capitalist society the proletariat has nothing to sell but its own labour power, which it must sell, on the commodity market, to the capitalist who applies the labour power to capital to produce value. The commodity character or labour power and the distance between the worker and his produced wares in the capitalist mode of production are what contributes to the alienation of workers.

Should labour power be a commodity? Communists would say no. Ideally, in communism, a free association of producers, laborers, and consumers, would allow for a community to live off the collective value produced without the necessity of labour assuming the commodity character it had under capitalism. People wold work as they please, and that would provide enough for everyone. Of course this is the ideal, but I think with the wonders robotics and automation have given us it's a possibility.

[Rjevan]

His: Labor is absolutely a commodity that's bought and sold
Speaking about our capitalist society he is sadly absolutely right. Labour indeed is a commodity which is bought and sold in capitalism.


should it be. Should the wellbeing of a worker be subject to the market?
Of course not, but sadly this is how it works in capitalist society.
Maybe you'd like to read Marx's "Wage Labour and Capital" which deals exactly with this topic: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/index.htm