So I was thinking about two different views of how much money workers should make
The one view, is, like say we're all friends and say 10 of us start up a company that makes $10 million (in monies that could be paid out, other operating costs aside), so we might end up (plus or minus) then paying each person $1 million each.
On the other hand, say one person left and we needed to hire another person who wasn't our friend to do one of the roles - we might just let people compete to offer the market rate and maybe pay them $100,000 to do the job.
Do either of these reflect the real value of labor, or is there some mix that seems moral or appropriate, or is it going to be completely random?
On the one hand, if the market rate is $100,000 for a job and you're paying $1 million dollars out, aren't you in a sense "overpaying" for the value of labor?
On the other hand, should the common laborer really be paid just the market rate while monies in some businesses just go to managers or CEOs or leadership, and are they really producing that amount of value?
Is the key to distributing more value to laborers to create businesses then that pay out this value like the first case, or does that overpay for labor and is not efficient?
Anyone have any thoughts on calibrating how labor should be compensated?
A company should pay the minimum amount of wages that they can while retaining a complete work force and still provide the quality of service or product they wish to. I think it's as simple as that. Companies and employees owe each other nothing more or less than what they create a contract for.
Exactly this, the reason that the current system does not work for that competition between companies is that they all work together to set standards. In a normal free economy, the companies would have to actually make competitive offers rather than telling people to eat the bugs or get bent, and workers would have greater incentive to provide quality labor. Everything runs better for all parties.
well, morally speaking, I think that's been rejected by Christians in the past (there's been the idea of the "family wage" by male breadwinners for example, or the idea of "just price" or subjectively attempting to put an objective value on labor which may not be the market price)
I guess I am trying to make sense of the current labor environment - perhaps it's just the result of massive government regulations and really such a conversation isn't needed as much so much as how to get rid of such regulations, because with less regulations then "minimum" wages would probably be a lot more to the point where people may not be as bothered by them
I guess I should have added that what I presented is harmed by powerful corporations and lobbyists gaming the laws to their advantage and crushing competition. Those things need to be fixed.