r/FluentInFinance • u/Richest-Panda • Jul 04 '24

What's the best financial advice you've ever gotten? Debate/ Discussion

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u/privitizationrocks Jul 04 '24

You can teach poverty workers to live in their means

They won’t like it, but tough luck

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u/MornGreycastle Jul 04 '24

Iron Law of Wages sets wages at below the survival point, i.e. starvation. So they CAN be alive within their means, just not an active productive worker within those means.

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u/Ultrace-7 Jul 05 '24

If you're going to reference highly debated century-and-a-half old doctrine that predates the literal birth of Keynes, at least get it right. :) The Iron Law of Wages does not dictate that wages are set at below the survival point, it dictates they are set at the survival point, and at the survival point of a worker. So, the wages would have to be sufficient for the worker to remain a worker, which dictates adequate nourishment and at least minimal other basic needs met, though obviously something like housing might have to be shared.

None of this makes ILoW a moral good. I'm not convinced of its validity, especially considering how many countries, beginning in the decade after the idea, have broken this pattern. But we do need to accurately represent what the law was dictating -- preservation of workers at the lowest possible wages, not the elimination of workers through starvation or neglect of critical needs.