if you ask a right winger why a job like, say, sanitation worker has such an abysmal wage even though their job is necessary they’ll tell you that it is an unskilled occupation. we could contest that but for the sake of argument let’s concede.
by this logic, value is derived by how much labor is required to accomplish something, in this case the labor of learning the skill in addition to the labor of completing the task at hand. a doctor would earn a much higher wage because of the labor required to earn the necessary degrees to practice. okay.
but then if you ask a right winger why the price of a pair of glasses, a mattress, or even a bottle of water is so expensive, despite these things being cheap and easy to make, they’ll tell you that value is not determined by the labor that goes into it, but by need and demand.
this inconsistency reveals how neoliberal economics functions: the value of something means whatever is most convenient to the ruling class.
The value of something means whatever is most convenient to the ruling class.
