Capitalism is based on the assumption that the goal is the maximization of profits. If a capitalist can increase his profits by lowering wages, then that’s what he should do. His wages have to be high enough to keep his workers alive, but if there is a surplus of workers, even that wage level isn’t necessary, since if one worker dies or gets too sick to work, there’s another worker to replace him. Of course this all sounds like a parody, but in the 1800s, that was pretty much the reality — read Thomas Mayhew, “London Labour and the London Poor”, or Dickens’ novel “Hard Times”, or Engels “The Condition of the Working Class in England”. Markets are wonderful, but they need to be regulated.
Capitalism is based on the assumption that the goal is the maximization of profits. If a capitalist can increase his profits by lowering wages, then that’s what he should do. His wages have to be high enough to keep his workers alive, but if there is a surplus of workers, even that wage level isn’t necessary, since if one worker dies or gets too sick to work, there’s another worker to replace him. Of course this all sounds like a parody, but in the 1800s, that was pretty much the reality — read Thomas Mayhew, “London Labour and the London Poor”, or Dickens’ novel “Hard Times”, or Engels “The Condition of the Working Class in England”. Markets are wonderful, but they need to be regulated.