IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/wsi/wschap/9789812790798_0002.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Globalization and the Concept of Subsistence Wages

In: Labor Economics From A Free Market Perspective Employing the Unemployable

Author

Listed:
  • Walter Block

    (Loyola University New Orleans, USA)

  • Jerry Dauterive

    (Loyola University New Orleans, USA)

  • John Levendis

    (Loyola University New Orleans, USA)

Abstract

According to Malthus, there is an “Iron Law” for wages: they cannot stay above subsistence levels. When they do, increased population soon enough pushes them down to the previous level of immiseration. One might think that modern economics has long ago confined such views to the dustbin of history, however, belief in the “Iron Law” has made a comeback in this era of globalization. We argue that all versions of the Iron Law, new and old, are vulnerable to a knock-out critique. We argue that the Iron Law of Wages, and slavery for production and profit, are logically incompatible: if one ever existed, the other cannot.

Suggested Citation

  • Walter Block & Jerry Dauterive & John Levendis, 2008. "Globalization and the Concept of Subsistence Wages," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Labor Economics From A Free Market Perspective Employing the Unemployable, chapter 2, pages 9-23, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    • Handle: RePEc:wsi:wschap:9789812790798_0002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/9789812790798_0002
    Download Restriction: Ebook Access is available upon purchase.
    File URL: https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/9789812790798_0002
    Download Restriction: Ebook Access is available upon purchase.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wsi:wschap:9789812790798_0002. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Tai Tone Lim (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.worldscientific.com/page/worldscibooks .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.