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Topic: Iron law of wages

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	Subsistence theory of wages - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		The Subsistence Theory of Wages, also known as the "Iron Law of Wages," was an alleged law of economics that asserted that real wages in the long run would tend to the value needed to keep the workers' population constant.
		Socialist critics of Lasalle and of the alleged Iron Law of Wages, such as Karl Marx, argued that although there was a tendency for wages to fall to subsistence levels, there were also tendencies which worked in opposing directions.
		Marx criticized the Malthusian basis for the Iron Law of Wages.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Iron_law_of_wages (722 words)

	Untitled Document
		Ricardo's theory, which eventually became known as the 'Iron Law of Wages, maintained that the wages of labourers should be kept at the lowest possible level because their high rate of reproduction ensured a surplus supply of labour.
		In the natural advance of society, the wages of labour will have a tendency to fall, as far as they are regulated by supply and demand; for the supply of labourers will continue to increase at the same rate, while the demand for them will increase at a slower rate...
		Happily these laws have been in operation during a period of progressive prosperity, when the funds for the maintenance of labour have regularly increased, and when an increase of population would be naturally called for.
	www.class.uh.edu /history/cox/Doc1302IronLawofWages.htm (853 words)

	P2 I. Marx and the "iron law of wages" (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-04)
		The underlying thesis of the "iron law" was that any attempt by workers to increase wages by trade union or other forms of action would result in a general rise in the prices of commodities, thereby wiping out the effect of the increase in wages.
		Having presented the iron law of wages as "a doctrine that wages could not be permanently raised above a fixed level regardless of the actions -- economic and/or political -- taken by the working class", the Spartacists imply that Marx stated the opposite.
		The wage rates paid to workers in any section of industry, whether skilled or unskilled, are not determined by their output, but by the value of their labor power.
	www.wsws.org /exhibits/slreply/part2-1.shtml (5986 words)

	[No title]
		Wages: Ricardo used the Malthusian Iron Law of Wages, which argued that the wage would in the long run equal the subsistence wage, which is the bare minimum necessary for survival.
		Ricardo’s belief that total output will ultimately stop growing convinced him that the main issue in economics was not to figure out how economies grow richer but to figure out how the limited output in the economy’s stationary state is distributed or shared among the various sectors of the economy.
		In this way, there is an increase in both capital and labor and the wage returns to the subsistence level.
	www.phoenix.liu.edu /~uroy/eco54/histlist/hist07.htm (2891 words)

	The Iron Law of Wages (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-04)
		wages would fall if they were regulated only by the supply and demand of labourers; but we must not
		forget that wages are also regulated by the prices of the commodities on which they are expended.
		wages are regulated, and by which the happiness of far the greatest part of every community is
	lancefuhrer.com /iron_law_of_wages.htm (305 words)

	Modern History Sourcebook: David Ricardo: The Iron Law of Wages
		On the contrary, a rise of wages, from the circumstance of the labourer being more liberally rewarded, or from a difficulty of procuring the necessaries on which wages are expended, does not, except in some instances, produce the effect of raising price, but has a great effect in lowering profits.
		When, however, by the encouragement which high wages give to the increase of population, the number of labourers is increased, wages again fall to their natural price, and indeed from a reaction sometimes fall below it.
		If, then, the money wages of labour should fall, whilst every commodity on which the wages of labour were expended rose, the labourer would be doubly affected, and would be soon totally deprived of subsistence.
	www.fordham.edu /halsall/mod/ricardo-wages.html (930 words)

	Law of Rent - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		The Law of Rent states that the rent of a land site is equal to the economic advantage obtained by using the site in its most productive use, relative to the advantage obtained by using marginal (i.e., the best rent-free) land for the same purpose, given the same inputs of labor and capital.
		This is not the notorious iron law of wages, which predated Ricardo and is most commonly associated with the writings of Thomas Malthus.
		Indeed, the Law of Rent explains why the Iron Law of Wages consistently fails to predict actual wages: if there are highly productive land sites available for free, wages will tend to be high, cet.par.; if the only available free land yields little, wages will tend to be lower.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Ricardian_rent (374 words)

	Half Sigma: The "Iron Law of Wages" and Walmart
		I'm not sure why it was later named the "Iron Law of Wages." It is probably a double entendre, referring to the fact that it's a hard and fast rule, as well as to the basic point that labor is priced like a commodity, and iron was the most important commodity in the 1800s.
		The majority of Americans do earn more than the subsistence wage, and this is because America is a middle class economy in which most workers have some level of skills which differentiate them from unskilled labor.
		The subsistence wage also requires being able to support a family, so the subistence wage is going to be a higher than needed to support two people both working and sharing a place to live.
	www.halfsigma.com /2006/07/the_iron_law_of.html (3253 words)

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