> The whole price stickiness thing is the free market not working. How can you say the market will sort it out and in the next post give the mechanism for why it doesn't do so?

I suppose it's "not working" if by "not working" you mean "behaves exactly like economics 101 models that assume rational actors". But as it relates to this context, business are reacting approximately in the way we would expect, albeit with some delay/hesitancy. Average pay has gone up in the past few months, for instance.

>What you're really arguing isn't that the market will sort things out to someone's satisfaction, you're just saying the market is a jungle and whatever survives survives.

I don't argue that because it's not clear what "satisfaction" entails. If you mean the optimal choice every time, I don't think you'll find any free market advocate who would make that claim. In the meantime, I'm pretty satisfied. I can still eat out, and I have the choice between "higher wages but more expensive" restaurants and "lower wages but worse service" restaurants. It's not really clear right now which is the best choice here (eg. maybe I'd rather accept reduced/worse service than pay more), so letting consumers as a whole decide seems like the best course of action.

The free market applies at every level, but it does take time to find it's level. Is the problem that people won't just raise the wages, like the other poster described? Absolutely not. The location that doesn't raise it wages will end up losing in the end if there truly is a labor supply problem. They may refuse to raise their wages, but they will get the lower quality applicants, lower quality workers, and maybe not any workers at all if they don't raise it enough. The fact is it takes time for market to adjust and those that don't follow the market get left behind. The businesses that aren't efficient enough to run on fewer employees will get left behind. Companies don't go bankrupt overnight but they do go bankrupt eventually if they aren't as efficient as other companies. Those that make bad decisions, that raise wages to much, will get hurt, and those that don't raise them enough will get hurt. The fact is wages are only one factor and in a free market it will always find the correct level over time.

> The whole price stickiness thing is the free market not working

Wouldn't the standard response to that be that it's not really a free market, and if it were made more free then such inefficiencies would be less likely to occur?

Lots of people might say this, but no one believes it.

I think you'll find that many do, and I also don't know why anyone persists with making absolutists statements that are clearly wrong or can be shown to be so with barely any effort.

What does it contribute?

OK then please provide an example of a market for labor (since that's what we're discussing ITT) that has been "made more free" and that has seen wages rise as a result.

Those of the former USSR. There are many other examples that are also such low hanging fruit that I wonder if you were trying to get at something else with that question?

The absolutism was in no one believes it, by the way.

I'm willing to imagine that there was some point in USSR history at which this would have been the case, but please let's not pretend that this describes the period after the fall of USSR during which life expectancy dropped by a decade. The incomes of billionaire "oligarchs" are not reflected in the median income level.

By the principle of charity, I don't expect anyone to believe nonsensical things.

If you wish to cherry pick those years, then yes, you would find some non-Soviet years that were bad, but it wouldn't be a persuasive case so be my guest.

> By the principle of charity, I don't expect anyone to believe nonsensical things.

You're not being charitable, if you were you wouldn't have begun with hyperbole, then moving the goalposts when challenged, and now cherry picking. You don't seem interested in any case but the one you already favour.

Either you meant that time, which in light of public health numbers is obviously not a good example for the argument, or you meant some other time. If you care to specify some other time, we'll be happy to consider it. If you want to forget about USSR and nominate some other time and place, we'll be happy to consider that.

I make "absolute" or even "hyperbolic" statements because I'd like to learn something. If I'm wrong, some example to that effect may easily be provided. In doing so, I'm letting someone else win all the internet points because I care more about learning than about internet points. As you observe upthread, a statement in such form can be shown to be wrong "with barely any effort". I invite you, if you please, to expend that small amount of effort. However, absolute statements can't simply be assumed to be wrong. Absolute statements exist that are absolutely true. "Any living human will die if deprived of oxygen."

I grant that you've already expended a smaller amount of effort, to somewhat imply that you yourself (or perhaps others not present in this thread?) believe that less regulation of labor markets leads to higher pay, but in the absence of any relevant example that implication is itself suspect. We know that some people believe silly things, and some other people claim to believe silly things that correspond to their particular psychological commitments (this seems common in the context of religion), but those beliefs and claims do not prove their silly objects.