Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!cca!ima!ism780!jim
From: jim@ism780.UUCP (Jim Balter)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Equal Work
Message-ID: <44@ism780.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 22-Sep-83 12:20:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: ism780.44
Posted: Thu Sep 22 12:20:00 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 24-Sep-83 01:05:37 EDT
Lines: 54

If you want to understand the ways in which the marketplace can be wrong,
read the works of Thorstein Veblen and the later institutionalists, notably
Joan Robinson, and the works of John Maynard Keynes.  Most texts on the
history of economics will make it clear Robinson refuted the neo-classical
arguments that trade unions distort natural law, by using Veblen's
distinction of two types of capital, 1) relatively immobile resources used in
production and 2) mobile funds available for investment, which the
neo-classicists confuse.  The arguments fall apart, and it becomes clear
that neither trade unions nor "the marketplace" (i.e., employers,
in this case; you do see that is what the term really means, don't you?) have
any particular claim on the right of natural law; the workings of real
economic systems ("the markeplace" in a wider sense) are a result of complex
legal and social interactions between workers, employers, etc; the laws
regarding rights to property that ensure the employers their positions are
no more "natural" than laws which guarantee workers the right to form
unions or the right to a minimum wage.
Keynes sealed the book on the theoretical bases of neo-classicism by showing
essentially that reducing workers' wages could increase profits only if done
in a vacuum; a reduction of *other* workers' wages would simply reduce a
company's pool of customers and make it less likely to invest in new
business or increased production.
Economists like Milton Friedman and, more lafferbly, the supply-siders,
choose to ignore the formal refutations in favor of positions more in
consonance with their ideology, and most lay people have the most incredibly
simplistic attitudes toward complex economic issues.  Many people say
"anyone who has taken a freshman course in economics knows ..."; the problem
is that freshman economics texts are written by neo-classicists, and they are
chosen because their position strongly supports the status quo and they
reinforce the stereotypes which support it. Talk to most graduate students in
economics, however, who are familiar with the effect of inelasticity of
capital, lack of perfect information and rational business decisions,
and the coercive effect of propaganda which leads to the same, on the role
of simple supply-demand curves in modern complex economies, and you will
get a very different picture.  If you feel qualified to debate this, please
move the discussion to net.politics.

As far as the case you mention of yourself versus the president of your
company, if you really do essentially the same work, then I think you
do deserve the same wage.  But your characterization of the two of you
both spending time writing memos and going to meetings is transparently
inaccurate, since the president most likely has a greater level of
responsibility; the consequences of his judgements are more significant,
and so his skills must be greater.  However, it is likely that the
differential in your salaries is incommensurate with the differential
in your level of work.

The point is not so much who will make the determination of whether work
is essentially similar; the point is that those who strongly feel that
there is an unbalance will work to correct it and will work to make others
aware of it.

Jim Balter (decvax!yale-co!ima!jim), Interactive Systems Corp

--------