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Notes -
You know that people invest in order profit later. And you know that the category “frozen assets” includes a lot of frivolous waste (large properties, private jets, art, watches, jewelry). And you know that, were these business owners compelled in their business career to pay workers more, the money they put into frozen assets would have went to these workers.
Because you have to pay workers more to retain them; they are more valuable; the owner cannot reduce the QoL and wages as much as possible. Workers can bargain for a greater share in the profit.
This is essentially saying, “Jeff Bezos would keep increasing the price for Amazon if he had to pay workers more so that he magically makes the same amount of profit as today.” This is incorrect and it should be obvious why it’s incorrect. Amazon cannot raise their prices so much that people stop using their services. At a certain point it becomes too high for the consumer to pay. There is a ceiling to the price of Amazon that cannot increase, and if you pay the low wage workers behind Amazon more, eventually most of his excess profit transfers to these workers. Because there’s a cap on the pricing of Amazon.
Again, this has been shown repeatedly in all real world scenarios. After the 1920s Immigration Quotas. Higher wages after the 1918–1919 Spanish Flu. After the Bracero Program ended. You realize that if your theory was right, you should be able to find a real world example where there was a significant artificial restriction in low-wage labor which reduced the wages of the lowest wage earners? Doesn’t it make you suspicious that this… doesn’t exist? And it has only ever been shown to increase their wages and bargaining power? And shouldn’t this be sort of obvious?
There are two things to this: (1) when low wage earnings are sufficiently high that a laborer can actually quit in between jobs when dissatisfied with his conditions, this is excellent for the bargaining power of their class, as it penalizes companions with a low QoL. Wages are not high enough for low wage earners to do this without risking financial catastrophe. (2) It’s not realistic for a low-wage earner today to pick up and move across the country to wherever they can make more, even if they know they can make more. They don’t have the wealth to do this. It’s expensive to do it, they risk immediate homelessness if it fails, employers will not help them relocate and they may not be able to find someone willing to lease to them.
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