Date: Sun, 17 Mar 96 0:06:07 EST
From: boddhisatva <kbevans-AT-panix.com>
To: marxism-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu
Subject: Re: Re: Minimum Wage







		Mr. Mage,



	Your point equating goods and wage prices is still wrong.  There
is - a priori - downwards pressure on wages that stops labor from selling
it's work as rational actors.  Labor becomes, in effect, a "perishable"
good, because laborers cannot afford to wait for a better wage.  


	Capital creates tiered markets through oppression.  To create this
oppression, the lowest possible bottom wage rate is necessary.  Even if
workers at the minimum wage do only marginally useful work, their presence
threatens other workers.  Tiered markets are inefficient.  This 
inefficiency disfavors the seller who must sell in a limited time, and 
favors the buyer with capital who can wait out the market.


	Capitalists could acknowledge a defined wage/labor-power curve,
except that they always feel that they are paying too much for labor.  They
always feel that if they waited a little longer, they could get the work done
for less, and they are right.  


	Furthermore, because minimum wage labor is at the margin of
(capitalist) usefulness, the marginal cost of mainstream labor is
relatively unaffected by the market for this work.  By this I mean that
the capitals involved in minimum wage labor are generally antiquated, or
on the verge of disappearing through mechanization.  In any case, they
have very fixed profit potential.  The owners of these capitals are more
petit bourgeoise and the relations of production are atavistic.  The
dominant relation of production is between speculator and an employee who
adds value to capitals that will increase in value going forwards.  The
speculator is much more strapped for time than the investor in capitals
with defined profitability.  He cannot afford to wait for the best labor
price, so he actually participates in a labor *market*, with a labor
provider who is likewise (although much more) strapped for time.  The
dominant relation of production does not require minimum wage people to
work at all, except insofar as they are "profitably unemployed" -
providing use-value and keeping wages (for labor useful to 
speculators) down, as unemployment does. 


	

	peace



		boddhisatva








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