According to Marx wage is money paid for Labor power. Wages pay us for our time and not the actual value we add to the product we produce with our time. The minimum wage is determined by calculating the cost of living and reproduction. The value that we add goes to someone else so we never have enough to better ourselves and our children; we become stuck living pay check to pay check. The companies underpay us to make a profit for themselves.
In the Onion an article titled “Cost Of Living Now Outweighs Benefits” it shows that the calcualtions for the cost of living is understated and therefore it is not worth living. “The fact is, the supply of Americans greatly outstrips demand," said Evan Alvi of the Portland-based Maynard Institute. "Americans seem to believe that minting more lives will increase the value of their own holdings. All they are doing, though, is inflating the supply and reducing the dividends paid by long-term familial bonds." This supports the theory that the further the labor is divided the less you have to pay the workers because the easier the job becomes. Dividing the labor and lowing wages lowers the cost of production and allows production to increase; the higher the production the lower the wage. The easier the job becomes the less people need to be hired and this creates joblessness. Joblessness gives the capitalist a large pool of unemployed people to choose from creating competition amongst the workers, depreciating the wages. This means less money even for those of us lucky enough to have a job.
Because of this miscalculation we are forced to live a lower standard of living. In Marx it says, “He works in order to live. He does not even reckon labor as part of his life, it is rather a sacrifice of his life.” Seeing this proof that the wages we are paid is lower than the cost of living definitely connects with Marx that we are just living to work. We are not satisfied by our job, it does not fulfill all our wants. We cannot escape the capitalist class. We need the capital so we have no choice but to accept the job and the wage just to live. The capitalist need us but having so many to choose from we suffer. So is it worth living?
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Good post. I have to agree with this article, the cost of living is not worth it for many people because it's simply not enough. This had me thinking of what our professor said when he was college minimum wage was $4. There is no way i can live on that today. I know that at library, the unions were fighting to finally give part-time workers a decent living wage and now we have that and that in itself was a struggle. And it's true people work just to live and not because they are satified by their jobs or enjoy their jobs. I myself just work because I need to in order to help with college and not because I enjoy it.
ReplyDeleteWow um you couldn't have touched based more on every aspect of what Marx argues about. I will have to agree that there is more Americans then the demand of products today. You see people everyday looking for a job now days, and seems like there all desperate. Companies don't have problem laying someone off and replacing them with someone willing to work for less. Which as you state further devides the labor force and causing wages to futher go down making the worker more of a commedy then actual person.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the cost of living exceeds the benefits (wages) that a worker receives and that the capitalist undervalues the labor power of workers by paying them only for their time and not the value that workers add to a product. However, the capitalist are not only to blame for people not having enough to live comfortably, to explain, many people have more dependents (children) than they can financially afford and often acquire things that are not essential for living, such as, expensive cars, homes etc. in which case makes it difficult for one to have enough for the basic necessities of life. On the whole, individuals should not only hold the capitalist responsible for the lack of sufficient resources but should also evaluate their wasteful living.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really good article and I have to say that I agree with it. The minimum wage for example is nowhere near what a person needs to live in this country. I have no idea how they derive that number, but it surely isn't the number we should be at. A lot of retail jobs make you work hard but you get 8-9 dollars an hour and that's close to minimum wage. What if both parents work jobs like that and have kids to support? How would that work? I think we have to reconsider the costs of living because obviously the numbers don't match with reality.
ReplyDeleteGood post, Mercedes. In real life, it is hard to determined the wage standard for worker class in diferent part of world. In the view of Marx, the minimum wage is simly calculated by the cost of living and reproduction. However, how much enough for workers to live is very flexible for the individual. In China, people are prone to accept wage as mini as possible to hold thier job and this behavior really hurts the labor market for they stimulate the competitions between workers.
ReplyDeleteThis post couldn't have come at a better time with the cost of living being so high now and so many people are unemployeed. I was just talking with my friends about this the other day, the minimum wage in chicago is $8.00 and a gallon of gas is $3 and some change people that earn minimum wage are paying half of their earnings just to work, which is ridiculous because they still need money for other necessities such as food, clothing, shelter, utilities, and a countless amount of other things. I think that this discussion of Marx could not have come at a better time. I hope this changes soon, if so many people recognize this is an issue why hasn't anything changed?
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