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Re:What harm do minimum wages do? by throwaway894345 on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @03:25PM (#24215014)
> even though crucially that value was created by the worker

Crucially the value wasn't created by the worker, but rather the worker played a part in the creation of that value. In a capitalist society, that worker's wage is determined based on the value of their contribution and the supply of workers with the requisite skill. In a Marxist society, it is set by the state, and it seems to be very hard for states to determine a price that is sustainable.

In my humble opinion, Marxism seems like a denial of basic economic realities--namely that the state can set the price of anything to whichever value they prefer and it won't have disastrous economic ramifications ("price is just an arbitrary number"). Maybe I'm creating a straw man, but I do notice a lot of Marxists who make arguments about what is fair and not what is economically sustainable as though economic sustainability is an invented problem that we can disregard. Perhaps this view isn't uniformly shared among Marxists, in which case my criticism is "too many Marxists are making these kinds of unconvincing arguments, and more convincing arguments would be centered around economic feasibility--we all agree that we want poor people to have more money, the question is 'how?'".

Re:What harm do minimum wages do? by Sohcahtoa82 on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @04:26PM (#24215902)
> In a capitalist society, that worker's wage is determined based on the value of their contribution and the supply of workers with the requisite skill.

I think we need to define "value of their contribution".

If a friend of mine has an idea for an app, but he has zero programming knowledge and so he pays me $1,000 to develop it, and he ends up making $1,000,000 from selling it, what is the value of my contribution?

Is it only $1,000 because that was the agreed price for my labor? Or is it $1,000,000 because that's how much money he made from it? Or something in between?

Obviously, in this hypothetical, I should be negotiating a share of the revenue instead of just a flat fee, but generally most workers don't get to do this.

So...what was the value of my contribution?

Re:What harm do minimum wages do? by themacguffinman on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @07:31PM (#24218088)
Every worker gets to do this, and it happens a lot in startups and big companies alike. Stocks and stock options are (varyingly) anchored to whole-company valuation, and early / senior employees that produce more value will often get more stock because they comprise a greater share of the company's health.

If your friend insists on paying you a low flat fee for doing highly lucrative work, your rational choice is to turn down the offer and find another employer, or even go at it on your own. Your friend's rational choice is to negotiate because the lost profits from you (and others) declining the offer is worth more than the profits he loses by paying you more.

Regardless of that, a single transaction like this is often not sufficient to accurately determine the market value of your contribution. Market valuation happens in aggregate for this reason. A single irrational transaction like the one you described just represents a market inefficiency.

Re:What harm do minimum wages do? by cmrdporcupine on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @03:30PM (#24215102)
Marx never said anything about the state setting prices. Wasn't part of his analysis. He was only concerned with analyzing how prices came to be what they are under capitalism, and what the consequences of that are

He did feel that some other model of ownership & management could lead to some other form of remuneration, but he definitely left it unclear.

Read the other discussions on this thread, there's far more nuance here than I think you're understanding.

Re:What harm do minimum wages do? by throwaway894345 on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @04:31PM (#24215984)
You're making a motte/bailey argument, but either way it doesn't look good for the 'Marxist'.

If a Marxist is one who says "Capitalism is imperfect; I've got a gut feeling that there is a better system out there, but no idea what it looks like concretely", then that may be correct but it's close to worthless.

If a Marxist is someone who says "Capitalism is imperfect; the state needs to fix the price of $X (labor, etc)" with no mention of the economic feasibility of said price-fixing, then that's better but still far from persuasive.

My criticism was directed at the latter. There are perhaps many good Marxists who make convincing economic arguments; I'm asking for more of this.