/lit/ - Literature

>>22391276
>How is that true? There's a contractual agreement between the worker and capitalist, the worker can and has refused to work / decideded to do another job / worked for someone else who offered him/her a better pay whenever the capitalist's pay wasn't considered fair
How many times do we have to go over this?

>"What are the common wages of labour, depends everywhere upon the contract usually made between those two parties, whose interests are by no means the same. The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to lower the wages of labour."
>"Our merchants and masters complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price and lessening the sale of goods. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people."

The fact that wages follow declines of profits but generally don't follow increases in profits has been pointed out way before Marx. A worker and a capitalist are not in equal contractual agreement, since the capitalist inherently has more bargaining power - as the worker has only his labor, while the capitalist has his own labor plus the capital. American miners tried to unionize and demand higher wages - they got strikebreaker'd. American automotive industry workers made an effort to unionize and fight for their wages - and the local industry died through outsourcing. Right now American workers are getting replaced by illegal immigrants en masse. And that America - in the rest of the world, the capitalist and his government are even less accommodating. Should we go over the United Fruit Company or the cocoa slave farms?

>decided to do another job
Yeah, and when he decides to do that - he requires new education and subsistence while he pursues said education, both of which are... owned by the capitalist. What an arrangement. I wonder what the capitalist shall do about the costs of said education due to this arrangement.

And the big point of Marx is that this is not some sort of evil plot by vile man - it's a natural and logical effort by the ruling class to protect it's interests. But it just as naturally follows that the proletariat also strives to protect it's interests as well, and there can be no final contractual balance to resolve this conflict.