Re: Wrong!!!
This lies more along the lines of my opinion and philosophical/political views than a concrete example from Economic theory, but I'll attempt to explain in this way:
The slave-wage labor we speak of, may or may not, be worse than the "alternative," death. More importantly, death is not the only alternative, but simply one of two forced choices given the slave-laborer by the rest of society. The worker, therefore, has no choice or basis to make that value judgment. This means that he is unable to weight death, against 2 cents an hour, against fishing instead, or rebelling against society altogether.
If we want to go back to Econ. at this point, the post above did a good job of explaining why this interaction (between the worker, consumer, employer, and society) is in fact, in a sense, a zero sum game. (The + + that the consumer and employer gain is at the expense of the others.)
I'm not sure how else to explain the principle, let me know if you have further questions?
|